29 Seconds Page 7

  One of the boys managed to kick the ball clear of the pack and the mass of mud-spattered five-year-olds surged towards the other team’s goal. The goalmouth, for some reason, was empty. Sarah quickly saw why – the other team’s green-shirted goalkeeper had wandered off the pitch and was heading towards the catering table laid out with chocolate bars and drinks at the edge of the pitch.

  The coach of the Typhoons, a blond, bearded man in a tracksuit, threw his hands in the air.

  ‘Will! Will! What the bloody hell are you doing?’ He pointed desperately at the vacant goalmouth. ‘Get back in goal!’

  The absent keeper turned and looked blankly at him, his mouth open. The biggest boy in the gaggle of charging players, bearing down on the empty net, miskicked the ball and fell over into the mud, another boy falling on top of him. The ball trickled wide of the empty goal and out of play.

  The other coach covered his face with his hands. There was a smattering of applause and more shouts of encouragement for both teams.

  ‘Hard luck,’ shouted one of the dads next to Sarah.

  ‘What’s the score?’ Sarah asked him.

  ‘Not sure. 12–8? 12–7? Actually, it could be 11–8. I’ve lost count.’

  ‘When they get an even dozen goals each can we call it a day?’

  He grinned, shaking his head. He wasn’t wearing a hood and his greying hair was plastered to his head with rain.

  ‘No such luck, Sarah. It’s not even half-time yet.’

  She indicated the Typhoons’ wandering goalkeeper, who was now standing on the touchline with tears pouring down his face.

  ‘I think their coach has his work cut out for the half-time team talk. Looks like the goalie’s dad is not very pleased either.’

  The boy’s father, hands on his hips, was speaking to the coach. Sarah was too far away to hear what was being said but could tell from their body language that it was not a polite conversation. The boy was left on his own, still crying, as the two red-faced men argued and jabbed their fingers at each other. Their voices got louder.

  Sarah felt sorry for the boy, willing his father to comfort him, to at least –

  There was a gap in the crowd. She felt her whole body tense.

  He was there. The man with the scar.

  Standing behind the mums and dads of the opposition team, wearing a black puffa jacket and dark blue jeans. His black hair was cropped close to his head and was short enough to show off the deep white scar that ran all the way from his crown, above his ear and down to his jaw.

  It was him. She was sure of it.

  18

  As she watched him, the scarred man turned his head slightly to look in the direction of the car park next to the clubhouse, where Sarah’s Fiesta was parked. He nodded, once, then turned back to look at Sarah again. A very slight movement, but the meaning was clear.

  The breath caught in Sarah’s throat.

  Grace was in the car. Alone.

  She turned towards her car, forty or fifty yards away, the fear surging so hard that her legs almost buckled. The little blue Fiesta was still there. But was Grace still inside?

  She began to hurry to the car park, dropping her umbrella and digging in her coat pocket for her phone. Then stopped dead.

  Harry. She ran back to the pitch. Harry was still there, trotting gamely after the ball with his teammates.

  The man was still there too, his square-jawed face impassive. He had his hands in his pockets, his black jacket glistening with rain.

  Sarah was torn with indecision. Stay or go? Was Grace still there? Would he take Harry if she turned her back? Surely not in front of all these people?

  She grabbed the arm of the touchline dad she’d just spoken to.

  ‘I have to check on my daughter,’ she said, her voice rising. ‘Can you watch Harry? Keep an eye on him?’

  The grey-haired man gave her a concerned look.

  ‘No problem. You OK?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sarah said, hurrying off across an empty pitch towards the car park. She broke into an unsteady run, her shoes slipping on the muddy grass, groping in her pocket for her mobile. She knew she had to be ready to ring the police if Grace was gone from the car. No delays. No wasted time.

  Please be there. Please don’t say they’ve taken her.

  ‘Grace!’ she shouted, panic rising. ‘Grace!’

  She hit the tarmac of the car park, sprinting strides taking her straight into the path of a car pulling out. The driver honked angrily and braked hard, stopping just short of her. Sarah waved an apology at him and kept on running, desperately trying to see into her car, to see the back of Grace’s head in the front passenger seat.

  The windows of her car were steamed up.

  She slid to a stop by the passenger side door of the Fiesta and pulled hard on the handle of the driver’s side door. Locked. Of course. She had given Grace the keys.

  ‘Grace!’ she shouted, the flat of her hand slapping on the opaque window. She hit it a second time, putting her eyes right up to the glass in a vain attempt to see in. Was her daughter inside? It looked like there was something there, a shape, or maybe a –

  The passenger side door opened with a metallic click and Grace leaned her head out.

  ‘Is the game finished?’ she said.

  Sarah almost laughed with relief, but it caught in her throat.

  She’s OK. It’s OK.

  ‘Not yet, Grace. Are you all right?’

  ‘I finished my book. Where’s Harry?’

  Another thought, like a punch in the stomach: This might just be a distraction to take him.

  ‘He’s still there. You need to come with me now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You just need to come. Quickly, now.’

  Grace began to climb out of the car.

  ‘S’boring, though.’

  Sarah craned her neck to look back at the pitch and, as she watched, there was a whistle and all the players slowed to a stop. She slammed the door and hit the remote to lock the car.

  ‘There’s not long left of this half – come on.’ She took her daughter’s hand. ‘I’ll race you.’

  She started running back towards her son, back towards the game, knowing nothing except that she had to get back to him. Had to be there to protect him. The heavy mud sucked at her shoes, threatening to tear them off. Grace ran alongside her, telling her to slow down until they both reached the edge of the pitch, breathless and mud-spattered. The grey-haired dad was nowhere to be seen and the players were in a huddle surrounding the coach for the half-time team talk.

  Sarah strained to see Harry, moving towards the group, looking for his blond hair in among the scrum of small, blue-shirted boys.

  Felt the raw fear filling her head, pushing rational thought away.

  He’s gone he’s gone he’s gone –

  She looked around wildly, searching the park, the trees, the road, for any sign of the scarred man.

  Harry appeared in front of her, looking pleased with himself.

  ‘I nearly scored a goal, Mummy. Did you see?’

  She knelt down and hugged him tight, holding him close, not caring that he was drenched with rain and splashed with mud. Breathing in his smell, feeling his little arms around her neck, his hot breath in her ear as he described the goal he had almost scored.

  She brushed the hair off his forehead.

  ‘Well done, Harry!’

  Her children were safe: that was all that mattered. She scanned the far side of the pitch again.

  The man was gone.

  She dug into her handbag for the detective’s card and dialled his number, not sure whether he’d pick up after working hours. But the call was answered after two rings, and Sarah launched into a hurried explanation of the man she feared was following her.

  ‘He looks . . . dangerous,’ she said.

  ‘Do you know this man – do you recognise him from the traffic incident you reported?’

  ‘No, but as I told you: one of th
e men took a picture of me and my car that day, including my number plate.’

  ‘Has this man approached you, spoken to you?’

  ‘He’s never there for long enough.’

  ‘Have you received any unusual or threatening mail, email or phone calls recently?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Any males at work, or in other areas of your life, who might have taken a particular interest in you?’

  None that I can tell you about, she thought.

  ‘No, but I’ve seen this man twice in three days now: once on campus and just now while my son was playing football, he was there on the other side of the pitch.’

  The detective sounded unconvinced.

  ‘And you’re sure it’s the same man?’

  ‘Pretty sure. He’s quite distinctive, he has a long white scar down the side of his head. Isn’t there anything you can do?’

  ‘The problem, Dr Haywood, is that he’s not committed an offence at this stage. It still seems to be possible that it could be a coincidence, and –’

  ‘It’s not a coincidence! He turned up at my five-year-old’s football match, for God’s sake!’ She turned away from the rest of the parents and lowered her voice, aware of the curious stares she was attracting. ‘What am I supposed to do? I’m a woman on my own and, frankly, I’m scared of what might happen next.’

  The young detective ran through some basic measures: Sarah should always carry a mobile phone and an attack alarm, alter her daily routine if possible, avoid being alone, start making a record of incidents, avoid engaging or talking to the man. He gave Sarah the name and number of a colleague, a Detective Sergeant Jane Irons, who had many years of experience of stalking cases. Sarah made a mental note to give her a call.

  It was only when she was back at her car, clipping on Harry’s seat belt across his booster seat, that she turned the question over in her mind: this man had tracked her down, he had found her at work and at home – and he’d done nothing. Yet.

  But who was he?

  19

  It was exactly a week since Lovelock had told her she would not be getting a permanent contract. Sarah felt like she’d entered a parallel reality, where everything had been turned on its head and nothing made sense anymore. For months she had been waiting for good news about her job, struggling towards it like a drowning sailor flailing towards the last life raft, the one thing that was keeping her going. Ignoring any fears that the life raft would drift away and leave her behind. Leave her to drown.

  But the life raft had turned out to be a mirage. It had never been there in the first place.

  She had upped her dose of sleeping tablets since the bombshell about her job, to try and get more than three or four hours of sleep a night, but it was no good. She just lay there in the small hours, alone in the big double bed, listening to the tiny tick of her watch on the bedside cabinet, the sheets pulled tight to her chin. In idle moments she increasingly found herself thinking Could I do it? Could I sleep with him to save my job? For my kids? To keep up the mortgage payments? She would dismiss it, discard the idea, but then it would come creeping back again when she was least expecting it. Sitting at her desk with a stack of essays. Waiting in traffic at a red light. Pushing a meal around her plate as she wondered where her appetite had gone.

  The question came creeping back now as she flipped off the lights of the arts faculty lecture theatre, plunging the auditorium into darkness, the last of her students sloping off down the corridor towards the union building. As an undergraduate and then a postgraduate, she had slept with a grand total of six people before meeting Nick and had been faithful to him since then, despite his betrayals. But were there any among those six that she actually didn’t like? Any of them that she didn’t enjoy sleeping with?

  Of course there were. Probably two or three. She had done it for the wrong reasons – for stupid reasons – and regretted it afterwards. With Marco, she’d allowed herself to be convinced by his colossal self-belief in his abilities between the sheets (which turned out to be sadly inaccurate). Adam because she was worried he would split up with her (which he then did anyway). A guy in her final year – she couldn’t remember his name – because she was pissed off with Adam and thought in some abstract way that sleeping with someone else would ease the hurt and betrayal he’d left her with.

  Is that so different to what Lovelock wants? You slept with them and didn’t enjoy it, so why would this be different? And more to the point, could you do it? If it was sink or swim?

  No. Just no. This was not how the world was, not anymore. Or at least not how it was supposed to be. There was a world of difference between a few bad decisions and the degrading, horrifying prospect of sleeping with Professor Alan Lovelock, CBE.

  She rebuked herself, again, for even thinking it. She would never sink that low.

  No. Not that. Not ever.

  She dug in her bag for her car keys. Trying to locate them in among the lucky dip of biros, mobile, tissues, chewing gum, lipsticks, purse, keys, half-finished packets of Polos, and a palm-sized aerosol that her cousin had brought back from America. Her fingers located the keys and she looked up, trying to remember which end of the row she’d parked. It was dark. Sometimes the days just blended into each other, she forgot from one day to the next where she’d found a space – and as usual, she had been late onto campus after dropping the kids at school, all the spaces near her office having been taken. She’d had to circle back, further away, to a little row tucked away at the back of the engineering building. It was her fallback option when the main car park was full because not many people even knew it was –

  She stopped walking.

  The scarred man was waiting for her.

  But this time he wasn’t skulking at the back of the lecture theatre, or watching her from a distance. This time he was leaning back onto the bonnet of her Fiesta, arms crossed. And he’d brought another man, younger, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, but with the same blank-eyed stare. Both men regarded her with expressionless faces.

  She stared back, an icy sensation at the back of her neck. Think. Stay calm.

  The engineering building in front of her was in darkness. It formed a natural cul-de-sac against the long boundary fence – the only way out was back the way she’d come. She checked over her shoulder, back towards the main road through campus. A couple of students, heading the other way perhaps thirty or forty yards distant. No one approaching. Could she shout to them for help, attract their attention? No. Stay calm. No shouting. Not yet. Don’t let yourself be intimidated by these thugs.

  Her hand was still in her bag, holding her keys. She released them and reached for her phone instead. Campus security or the police? The campus security team knew every inch of the university and would be here faster. And she needed someone, anyone, to intervene. Fast. Their office was a three minute walk back down the hill and she had the twenty-four hour control room number stored in her phone. She would just head in that direction, call them, and get them to meet her. Then call the police for good measure.

  She put the phone to her ear and turned to walk quickly away.

  Straight into another man. Barrel-chested and heavily built, he had come up behind her silently and now placed a big hand on her shoulder, freezing her in place. His aftershave was sharp and pungent. With his other hand he prised her phone roughly away and terminated the call, shaking his head. Sarah reached back into her handbag, fear and anger flowing through her in equal measure, and her fingers closed around the little aerosol can. She brought her hand back out of the bag, the little canister in her palm, and fired red dye spray straight into his face.

  He recoiled instantly and took a step back, swearing in a language she didn’t understand, but his other hand still gripped her. She sprayed him in the face again and this time he staggered back. She turned to run.

  But it was too late. There were already footsteps behind her.

  The man with the scar grabbed her arm and pulled her back, roughly. He took
the little can of self-defence spray from her and put it in his pocket.

  None of them had said a word to her yet and somehow this made the situation even more terrifying. But now he spoke, in heavily accented English.

  ‘Don’t do this again.’

  She opened her mouth to scream but the ponytailed man clasped his hand over her mouth before she could get the noise out. A ripple of pure panic went through her, like an electric shock.

  The scarred man shook his head.

  ‘And no screaming.’ He opened his jacket to reveal a black pistol in his belt. ‘Understand?’

  She nodded quickly, eyes wide. Her mind was racing.

  A gun. He has a gun. What the hell is going on?

  But deep down she already knew the answer: the man she had driven her car into a week ago. His friends had found her. Her legs felt weak, as if they might buckle at any moment.

  The ponytailed man propelled her towards a black BMW 4 x 4 with heavily tinted windows. He opened the passenger door and she struggled against his grip. She wouldn’t let them put her in the car. Some primal instinct told her that it was better to stay out here in the open for as long as possible. But it was an uneven struggle that was over before it had even begun, and in seconds she was manhandled into the BMW as the door slammed behind her. Ponytail climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

  ‘Please!’ Sarah gasped. ‘Please, I have to get my children. I have to pick them up. They’ll be expecting me to be there. Please, they’re waiting for me.’

  She was on the back seat, the scarred man beside her. Calmly, he took her phone from her bag and held it out with a single word.

  ‘Unlock.’

  She reached out a shaking hand and unlocked the phone with her thumbprint. The scarred man navigated quickly to text messages, selected ‘Dad Mob’ and scrolled down before selecting one from a previous week. He knows what he’s looking for, Sarah thought. He copied the text and pasted it into a new message.

  Running late, can you pick kids up from after-school club and take back to mine? See you in a bit. Thanks. S x