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'I just wanted to say how sorry I am.' A hanky appeared from somewhere and I tactfully looked into my beer while she tidied herself up. After a minute I risked a glance over and saw her gathering her bag and bits and pieces.

'It's ok, Kate, really it's ok. I feel guilty too. If I hadn't been at that conference, if I'd heard my phone...' I took a breath. 'It's not anybody's fault.
It's not your fault.
'

She looked over at me, tears still leaking out of her eyes. She briskly knocked them away with the handkerchief and then nodded. 'I know, I do know, really. But I wanted to tell you. I hope that, well, I hope that we can still be friends, anyway, after all this. People often drift away when – there's been a bereavement, and I didn't want us to drift away too. Sarah meant a huge amount to me, and, well, she was your wife, and I'd like to think that perhaps we could meet up once in a while just to remember her.' She stood up, then I saw something flash across her face.

'What is it?'

She hovered, looking uncomfortable. 'It's nothing, well, you might get someone from the charity contacting you.' Seeing my blank expression, she went on: 'A client, I mean, Susie Roper. She's been telling me all week that she knows that Sarah was, well,
murdered
, and she knows why.'

My body seemed to go cold all over. 'Murdered? What? What does she mean?'

Kate half smiled. 'Oh, it's really nothing, Adam, I wouldn't have mentioned it at all except that she's becoming quite fixated and she might try to come to see you.' She smiled, then, rather patronisingly, 'Susie's had a lot of problems, substance misuse, mental health, all the rest of it, so I wouldn't put any store in anything she says.' She hoisted her bag again, moving away and not giving me a chance to reply, thankfully. 'Take care, Adam.'

As she walked out of the pub I sat back and wondered whether this Susie really could – or should – be discounted as easily as that, just because she'd had some difficulties. Wasn't that how people overlooked terrible crimes and abuses, because the witnesses all 'had problems'? I ran my hand through my hair. But on the other hand, what
could
she know? Sarah's death was an accident. The coroner and the engines of the state had pronounced it thus, I thought, with a bitter smile.

I walked slowly back up the road to the lab, birthday bag in hand. I couldn't face taking Sarah's things home, so dropped them into my office, and then returned to the car park. I unlocked my old Ford, and then leaned against the car and tried to calm down. Sarah had been upset, then, when she'd left her parents' house. For all they'd tried to play it down, I had always suspected as much, and now Kate had confirmed it. And she'd felt guilty at letting Sarah drive! It was fucking Richard and Maggie who
were to blame, not –

'Ah! Adam!' I was snapped out of this angry reverie by the voice of Freddy Wright, calling with his usual arrogance across the quiet of the empty car park. It was fully dark now, and it took a few seconds before he moved into the circle of light from one of the streetlamps and his wide, soft face caught up with his public school boy voice. 'Wool gathering?'

I had very little time generally for Freddy, and even less at the moment. He'd ridden into his plum position on the back of the PhD he'd completed at the lab where some excellent work had been done on General Relativity... just none of it by him. Oh, and by shamelessly exploiting his links to his Uncle, the head of department. Posh, entitled and lazy, he got under my skin just by existing.

'Just thinking, Frederick,' I said, opening the driver's side door, 'you might want to try it sometime.' I sat down and turned the engine over. To my amazement, the moron came right up to the car and banged his knuckles on the window. Shaking my head, I wound it down a bit. 'What is it? Fuck off, will you? I'm going home.'

'Why don't you take some more time off?' he suggested, in a facsimile of kindness, almost leaning through the window, 'you're not really yourself, are you? Everyone knows you should give that unbibium sample to a more – qualified researcher.'

'Everyone knows this, do they?' I wanted to press the window button and squash his long nose in the gap. 'Goodness, how I tremble.'

He must have seen my finger twitch towards the button because he straightened up suddenly, taking his nose out of the danger zone.

'Think about it, Adam!' he called, irritatingly unflustered. 'We can help you!'

'Oh, just piss off, Freddy,' was as much as I could find to reply, and stamped on the accelerator, making him jump back. I looked in the mirror, and he was just standing in the middle of the car park, smiling to himself. After a second I turned onto the main road and he was lost to view.

chapter three

Saturday, 4 April 2015. 11:11

In the morning I overslept, the first proper sleep I'd had in ages. It was such a beautiful Spring morning that I decided to skip the lab for once, and go out for a run instead. I rummaged out some jogging bottoms and my old trainers and took off down the lanes around the cottage.

I was on my way back up to the house, ninety fairly agonising minutes later, when I was spotted by my elderly neighbour, Max. He waved from his front garden so I felt obliged to stop for a second.

'Hello, Max. How are you?'

'Oh, Adam, I'm fine. Are you bearing up?' I nodded, concentrating on getting some air back into my lungs. 'I saw you out on your motorbike the other day and I thought, I'm so glad he's doing something different, breaking the routine.'

I looked at the old boy in surprise. I hadn't been on my Yamaha for weeks – not since before the conference, and before the accident. Max chattered on happily. 'And it was very kind of you to walk it back to the house, as it was quite late, and it does make rather a noise.'

'Hmm,' was all I could find to say. He didn't look like he was suffering from dementia – I surreptitiously looked him over for signs of confusion, like forgotten shoes or a badly buttoned cardigan, but he was as immaculately turned out as ever, gardening in a sharply pressed shirt, carefully knotted tie and suit trousers. Fortunately a distraction arrived in the shape of his one-eyed cat, Nelson, who stepped out of the hedge with the air of one making an entrance, and the conversation turned onto a happily feline track until I could make my excuses and leave my neighbour to his weeding.

I'd cooled down by now and so walked the few yards back to the house. On impulse, I stepped towards the workshop door to take a look at the bike.

'Adam!' I jumped, and turning round saw Sarah's friend Judith standing on the doorstep, waving at me. I stepped across and despite my sweat she flung her arms around me and squeezed me hard.

‘Adam,’ she said into my ear, ‘are you ok?’

I firmly put her back on her feet and stepped back.  I had always felt Judith was a little too emotional for my liking.  ‘I’m fine,’ I said, ‘just a bit hot from my run.’

She smiled a watery smile and suddenly burst into tears. ‘Poor Sarah,’ she wept. Despite my dislike for the woman she almost set me off crying again, so I took her by the arm and pushed her through the front door and into the kitchen.

‘Get yourself a cup of coffee while I get changed,’ I said, ‘and I’ll be right back.’

After a quick shower and a change of clothes I was back in the kitchen, and accepted another cup of coffee from a pink-faced but calmer Judith.

‘You look like you’re keeping on top of things,’ she said, gesturing round the tidy room. I shrugged, not wanting to say that obsessive cleaning had become one outlet for my rage and frustration. ‘Anyway, Don and I were wondering whether you’d like to come to dinner sometime soon?’

God, no! Weeping Judith and dour Donald, an emotional pincher movement over a vegan meal, what a nightmare. ‘Yes, that would be lovely,’ I actually said.

‘Um, do you want a hand with any of Sarah’s clothes, or anything?’ Judith’s lips wavered and then she burst into a new wave of tears.  ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘it’s just that I opened my diary this morning and found a note that Sarah and I were going to go into Oxford shopping.’ She drew a ragged breath, and made an effort to calm down. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it?  Six weeks ago we made that date, never imagining…’ She smiled a wan smile. ‘You can’t turn the clock back, can you?’

My phone rang suddenly, making us both jump.

'Adam?'

'Dave? What's up?' He sounded very agitated, which was unlike him.

'Mate, Gilbert and Fuckwit Freddy are on the war-path and are demanding that you hand over your 122 sample to them.'

Those bastards! 'Why?'

'They're saying that you're getting kicked off the research team and that
Fartbrain
is taking over.'

The shock ripped through me, jolting me in my seat and making me spill the remains of my coffee.  Across the kitchen table I could see Judith staring.

'Bugger that! I'm coming in now. Don't let them get in my lab, Dave, I don't care what you do, swallow the key if you have to, but don't let them in!'

I jumped to my feet and began ushering Judith to the door.

‘Sorry, Judith, I absolutely have to go into work, it's an emergency.’

Judith’s face sagged unhappily. ‘Oh, right,’ she stood up, trying to look busy and unconcerned but failing badly, ‘I’ve got to go anyway.’  She gathered up her bag and moved towards the door with agonising slowness.  Tense with impatience, I managed to give a little wave as she smiled wanly and walked away down the drive.

‘I’ll give you a ring about dinner,’ she called back.

‘Great!’ I said, and slammed the door closed behind me as I ran to the car. Bloody Gilbert! As if I didn't have enough on my mind without him pulling a stunt like this. As I raced out onto the road I did vaguely think there was something I'd been about to do but had forgotten, but by the time I turned in the direction of Oxford it had slipped my mind entirely.

I got into Oxford in record time,
Fire Starter
by The Prodigy providing a suitable soundtrack. I parked across three bays in the car park and took the front steps at a leap. As I galloped into the foyer, Norman was hovering at the main desk with a small padded envelope in his hands. On seeing me he took a step forward.

'Dr Kitchener!' he called, neatly stepping into my path, 'this was dropped off for you. The courier said it was an urgent delivery.' I took the parcel, and looked at my name written in block capitals on the front. The handwriting seemed familiar but I couldn't place it.

'I don't care what it is, I'm in a hurry, Norman.' I tried to push past him but he held up his hands to make me stop.

'You've got to open it right away, the courier was very clear. Life and death, he said it was, life and death!'

'Oh fuck it,' I said, stopping and ripping open the package. Gilbert could wait another 30 seconds. Inside the envelope was just a folded piece of paper saying: YOU'VE LENT IT TO TONY HITCHENS AT READING UNIVERSITY

Leant what? What the hell? Some pointless fucking practical joke.

Shaking my head at the porter, I shoved the envelope and contents into my pocket and ran up the stairs. As I emerged into the corridor I met the eye of a very relieved Dave, who had been standing in front of my office door whilst the head of the department had been shouting and raving at him to open it up. His nephew was lazing against the wall nearby, happy to watch the mayhem. The moment I appeared they both swung round and started haranguing me instead.

'Open this fucking door!'

'Oh, here he is, at long last.'

I looked at Dave. 'Alright?'

He nodded, and then asked bravely, 'Do you need me or...'

I waved him off and he began backing towards his own domain immediately. 'I've got this.' I was furious, but knew that nothing would rile my boss and his little friend more completely than appearing calm and content. So I smiled at Gilbert's red face and Wright's mocking one, unlocked the door and flung it wide with a welcoming gesture. 'Gents.'

They burst in like the bloody Sweeney. God knows what they were expecting – everything looked completely ordinary. I pushed past my boss whilst he was taking a breath prior to shouting again, and sat on my creaky chair. Over Gilbert's shoulder I could see Freddy wandering insolently around, looking for something to complain about, flicking at the equipment on the workbench and then moving on to rattle Terry's cage.

'Stop doing that!' I said, worried the hamster would be scared. I got a self-satisfied smirk in reply and he bashed the cage again just to make a point. Terry scuttled into his fluffy bedding and stayed there.

'Ok, Adam, I'm not wasting another fucking second on you,' said Gilbert, mopping his balding head with
a hanky.

'What's the hurry, Bill?' I asked, smiling at his beetroot face. 'Why the urgency?'

'I'm flying to Florida tonight and if you make me late for my bloody plane...' Aha! No wonder he was in a vile mood. I was opening my mouth to make a smart reply when he leant in to jab a finger in my chest, 'Harvard are complaining that you're not moving quickly enough with the unbibium sample.'

'Really?' Despite my efforts to stay calm I found myself fighting the impulse to shove my department head out of my office with extreme prejudice. 'Funny, I just heard back from Levi Goldbaum yesterday who told me that they are also finding problems in their analysis, and it's taking longer than expected. I sent you his results, did you bother to read them?'

Gilbert's face twitched into a scowl. 'Well, that's not what I hear,' he bluffed,  'in fact they've instructed me to relieve you of this research project. I'm giving it to Fred.' He nodded back at his nephew, who smirked broadly, delighted that he was going to able to pass off all my research as his own.

At that point I admit that I lost my cool. I felt my face flush with anger. 'Oh really? And what about the funding which, let me see, is in my name. How are you going to re-allocate that?'

He smiled, and I realised he'd out-smarted me somehow. 'That's simple, you need some more time off to deal with your... loss.' He made the word sound like a weakness, as if I should be embarrassed that I was grieving for my wife. He moved his weight off the table, suddenly looming over me with his hand on my shoulder. I could smell the garlic he'd eaten for his lunch on his breath. 'You came back too soon, old chap. Best fuck off now and come back when you're feeling better. Or not at all.' And one final twist of the knife: 'I've already put all the paperwork through.'

For a second I imagined smashing Gilbert's smug face off the sharp corner of my desk. White flashes flicked across my vision as I tried to remember to breathe. Then my temper and my energy just drained away: what was the point, after all? Sarah was dead, and nothing really mattered now anyway. I think Freddy would have been delighted if I'd thrown a punch, or screamed the office down, but I just couldn't be bothered. Let him have the fucking sample and may its completely baffling properties bring him joy.

'Whatever,' I said wearily, and moved across to the safe, twirling the combination on autopilot. The door swung open, and revealed that the sample of unbibium was not inside.

I stared at the safe for a few seconds. It had been there last night, the office had been locked and only I knew the combination to this safe. Where the hell had it gone?

'Well?' snapped Gilbert, breaking me out of my fugue. 'Where is it?'

The note in my pocket flashed into my mind.

'Sorry,' I found myself saying as if I was suddenly reading a part, 'I forgot to mention that I'd lent the sample to Tony Hitchens at Reading. He's got that superconducting magnet system, after all. He's running some tests for me and will get the sample back once they're done.'

Gilbert's face boiled with fury. It was an established truth in the physics world that he and Tony Hitchens were engaged in a blood feud, snatching projects and research funding from each other - just like the funding for the cryomagnetics suite which our own department had lost to the university down the road.

'I'm sure he'll let you have it back if he knows it's for you, or Frederick.' I continued sweetly.

Gilbert stepped right up to my face, his own livid with fury. 'Get that fucking sample back, NOW!' He whispered.

Filled with a bizarre confidence, I took a half step until my face was just millimetres from his. 'Sorry, Gilbert, no can do. You've signed me off on compassionate leave, haven't you? You'll have to put in an official request to Reading, and God knows how long it'll be before they get back to you.' Knowing Tony, it would probably be the day after Hell
froze over.

He flinched back. I could see the cogs of his mind working. 'You've got a week!' he finally shrieked, and then slammed out of his office with Freddy trailing after him, scowling. Oh diddums, he couldn't get the bad boy's toy after all.

'And fuck you.' I said, to the empty room.

Feeling the adrenaline fading away I sank onto my chair and took a deep breath. My hands were shaking so I stepped out of the office for a minute to have a piss and wash my face in the sink. What the hell was going on? I hadn't leant the sample to Reading, and who had sent me that note? I shook my head in the cold water to wake me up a bit, and then remembering that I hadn't eaten yet today I stopped at the vending machine on the way back to buy a bar of chocolate.

I was still munching when I walked back into my office and saw that the door to the safe was now shut. I stood there stupidly. I was sure I'd left it open - with the sample missing there hadn't been a reason to secure it. But now the door was closed and the dial had been spun so it was no longer sitting on the final number of the combination.

I reached out and twisted the dial, opening the safe. And there inside, sitting innocently in its little plastic box, was the sample of 122 as if it had never been away.