Chapter 43
TOM
I drive home with my heart doing that anxious tap-dance it does when the world has given me too much plot for one afternoon. By the time I pull up outside, I’m sweaty in the wrong places and rehearsing conversations I’m absolutely not ready to have.
How did Daniel know that I was even speaking to Emma? I’ve only met her twice, shared a few messages on Facebook, nothing more. We met in the street when she was tailing me, then we went back to mine. Then went for that coffee. Not many opportunities to “accidentally” see us together.
I knew he was watching me. Seeing him around so often over the last few weeks was no longer a coincidence. After I told him to leave me alone the other day, there was a small part of me which thought that maybe I was just imagining it.
But now. No way.
Daniel is following me, watching me. God knows how often.
How does he even know about Emma?
He said her full name like a charge sheet—liar, fraud—like he was reading out ingredients on the back of a toxic cereal box.
But how does he know her? They move in totally different circles.
Emma is expensively feral, a hurricane in decent boots.
Daniel is… Daniel. Polished, precise, the human equivalent of a cease-and-desist. The Venn diagram of those two should be two lonely circles drinking alone at opposite ends of a bar.
How they even know each other aside, what was Daniel playing at? Was he genuinely trying to warn me, look out for me?
No, of course not. This is a game, a tactic he’s using to get to me, get under my skin, control me.
Classic Daniel.
Whatever he thinks he knows or doesn’t about Emma, he’s just using this as an opportunity to get to me.
And I won’t let him do that.
I lock the car, unlock the house, lock the house again because paranoia is cardio, and Buster materialises in the hallway like I owe him rent.
“Big day,” I tell him.
He blinks the ancestral blink of a creature who has never once paid a bill and pads away to a sun patch.
In the kitchen, I put the kettle on out of deeply British instinct, then realise my hands are shaking. I sit at the table and let my brain melt for a full thirty seconds.
Daniel and Emma are one question.
Phil and James are the other.
How do they know each other?
I can’t get the image out of my head. The two of them on the edge of the Downs, the suspension bridge floating behind like a postcard, and them… arguing. Not a friendly “what shall we have for tea” bicker; the rigid kind, the kind you hold in your shoulders the next day.
Why are they meeting? Does Craig know? Surely, he’d have said something. But they share everything, open about everything, right? That’s what Craig said. They have no secrets.
But Craig isn’t stupid; he’s a detective. He’d never let that go un-catalogued.
How do I even bring this up? “Hi Craig, speaking of domestic abuse, I saw your husband having a secret row with a man you told me to avoid.” Yes. Great. Super. I can absolutely drop that into dinner conversation between lasagne and moral panic.
And just as my brain is trying to process this too, another nugget of drama pops into my head.
The memory stick. Still stuffed in my pocket, following my light spot of illegal tourism this morning.
What have I become where a casual breaking and entering isn’t the most dramatic thing that has happened to me since breakfast.
I head to the study. My laptop sits on the desk like a lifeguard. I fish the memory stick from my pocket. It feels too light for the amount of hope I’ve invested in it.
After a frantic search for a USB-C to USB adapter, I slot it in.
The computer makes the cheerful “I recognise this” noise, which feels jarringly upbeat given the content.
I open the drive. The filenames are not helpful: CAM-KITCHEN-DATE-TIME, CAM-DINING-DATE-TIME, CAM-BEDROOM-DATE-TIME.
Cold, tidy. Of course, James’s surveillance system would be clinically labelled.
I select all, drag to my desktop, and the little progress bar appears — cool, indifferent. “About 6 minutes remaining.” Great. Plenty of time to overthink myself into a faint.
I pace. I open the fridge and stare at it like answers live behind the hummus. I close the fridge. I check the front window to make sure the street looks like a street.
And that there’s no sign of Daniel outside.
My hands still shake.
I should message Emma and say I have something, but I don’t know what I have yet. Better to look first. Better not to give the hurricane a reason to make landfall.
A collection of videos have been copied, with 3 minutes of copying time remaining.
I stare at the video files that have copied over so far, like it’s a moral test I’m about to fail. A collection of tiny windows into someone else’s life — into Pete’s life — and every one of them is a trespass with timestamps.
My finger hovers over the first file and all I can think is: this is wrong.
It’s an invasion. The digital equivalent of rifling through someone’s underwear drawer while they’re out buying milk.
But then another thought muscles in — louder, angrier, righteous — if I don’t look, who will?
If this footage holds proof of what I think it does, it’s not voyeurism, it’s evidence.
Pete’s not going to save himself; he’s too deep inside the story to see the fire.
I tell myself that what I’m doing isn’t spying, it’s safeguarding. The kind of moral gymnastics that would make a priest sweat, but it’s enough to make me double-click.
“Right,” I say to nobody, and click the first video.
The screen jumps to a view of the kitchen island, the steel fridge, the expensively useless herb garden on the windowsill.
No sound, just that CCTV hush that makes everything feel like it’s happening underwater.
James strides into frame like a storm in a pressed shirt.
Pete is by the sink, shoulders rounded, hands fidgeting with a tea towel.
James is shouting—his mouth is open, the lines of his face sharp—and Pete shakes his head, small, the way you do when you’re trying not to cry.
James slams his palm on the counter. Pete flinches, tries to placate, hands up.
James points, leans in, crowding him. It’s all mime and yet I can hear it somehow. I can hear the posture of it.
I feel sick. I scrub forward. Pete backs out of frame. James pursues him like gravity. My knee bounces so hard the table shivers.
I click on another file.
Same room. Different day. Morning light.
Another argument. James is screaming. Pete across the kitchen.
James grabs a plate from the rack, and—without warning—hurls it across the room.
It explodes against the wall, white shards spraying across the floor like confetti from a bad wedding.
Pete flinches so hard he almost falls. It ends there.
I have to stand up. I do the tight little lap of someone trying to outrun their own heartbeat, then sit again because I need to see. I need to know I’m not inventing monsters.
My phone rings, and I jump like I’ve been tasered. Pete.
I answer. “Hey.”
“Tom,” he says. He sounds small and careful — the voice you use in a library where the books bite. “Are you… free? Could we talk? Coffee?”
“Yes,” I say so fast I worry I’ve exposed a rib. “Yes, absolutely. Where?”
He suggests a café not far from the house. “Twenty minutes?”
“Yes,” I say, because hope makes me competitive. We hang up.
I should go. Sensible me says close the laptop and leave. But there are files copied, and one more won’t kill me. Famous last words.
I click another.
Night. The room is low-lit, shadowy. James and Sam stumble into frame, and the energy is not dinner.
It’s charged, sharp, the kind of kinetic that makes your mouth dry.
There’s nothing wrong with sex in kitchens when everyone is consenting, but this…
this looks like the opposite of tenderness.
James grips the back of Sam’s neck, hard, pushes him against the counter.
I wince because a face-plant like that has to hurt.
James’s hand closes at Sam’s throat. He’s saying something—lips thin—and thrusts with a fury that reads as punishment.
My stomach knots. I scrub forward because I know how this will play out.
I witnessed it myself when I watched them that night.
It ends with Sam sliding to the floor, eyes screwed shut, and James walking out without looking back.
I close the window, breathing too fast.
I look at my watch. I’m going to be late for Pete.
But I can’t help myself, I need to watch one more.
Front hall. James steps in, coat on, movements clipped.
Pete follows, carrying a bag, speaking animatedly.
James turns, says something sharp. Pete stops.
James takes a step forward. Another. It’s like watching weather roll in.
Pete lifts a hand—a small, fragile stop—and James swats it away and launches.
There’s no wobble in the movement. A punch.
Another. Pete’s head snaps to the side, to the other side.
He goes down to a knee. James hits him again.
The absence of sound makes it worse; it feels like I’m watching a silent film of a body being edited out of itself.
My mouth fills with that hot, metallic taste you get before you cry or before you say something you can’t take back. I slam the spacebar. The image freezes with Pete mid-fall, eyes shut, mouth open. I sit very still because if I move too quickly, I’ll throw up.
There it is. Proof. No interpretation needed. No “maybe it was an accident” or “maybe we’re reading this wrong.”
A fist hitting a face is a sentence nobody can misread.
All the files have copied over now on my desktop. Still at least another twenty to watch.
I stand. I need to move. I pull the memory stick out of my laptop and into my pocket and grab my keys, phone, courage. I give Buster a panicked kiss on the head — he endures this with the stoicism of a soldier — and head for the door.
How do I broach this with Pete?