Chapter 16
We find another hidden camera in the hall and a third in the kitchen.
Each of them is concealed inside one of the old motion detectors in the corners of the rooms, the bulky off-white plastic cubes fixed high off the ground.
In each unit, the clunky old circuit boards and wires inside have been replaced by a small self-contained digital camera peering through the smoked glass—an ultra-modern parasite living inside the shell of its last-century host.
Dom and I end up taking all of the old motion detectors off the walls, dismantling each of them to check for anything hidden inside, anything that might have been added to spy on my family.
A couple have been painted in place so I end up levering them off the wall with a long screwdriver, snapping them open in the process.
The dangling plastic devices are not pretty but I prefer to have them out of action completely rather than seeing the red lights winking at me every time I walk across a room, certain that no one is observing every move we make.
“This is weird,” Dom says quietly as he studies the tiny digital innards of the disconnected cameras. “Seriously weird.”
“Jess called the police about the one outside, but they didn’t seem interested. I’ll try them again today.”
Dom looks skeptical. “Good luck with that.”
“You don’t think it’s worth it?”
“It’s worth reporting, sure. But the cops are stretched tighter now than I’ve ever known before.
We deal with them on a weekly basis, or daily on a weekend, and they’ve never been as short-staffed as they are now.
” He looks up from the camera. “In fact, why don’t you let me have a word with a sergeant I know in Beeston? See what he makes of it.”
“Thanks, Dom.”
He returns his attention to the camera unit, turning it on its back.
“These two are the same make and type as the camera outside, by the looks of it. Hard to say how long they’ve been there, could be months—or years.
And forgive me for stating the obvious, but all three of them are covert.
All disguised, hidden. Which is…” He pauses, choosing his words more carefully. “… out of the ordinary.”
“Do you think they can pick up audio as well?”
“Doesn’t look like it. But it might explain why your night-time visitor knew to look in the garage.”
“The camera in the kitchen saw me take it out the back door yesterday.”
Dom nods. “Suggesting you were either taking it to the wheelie bin, or the garage. If they know you at all, they’ll know you’re a hoarder, that you wouldn’t be able to just throw it out with the rubbish.”
I look up in surprise.
“You think they know me?”
He shrugs. “They know you a bit better now than they did two days ago, that’s for sure.”
The thought of someone spying on my family lodges like jagged glass under my skin. Someone might have been silently watching us, observing us, ever since we moved in. Our first-night meal on Sunday. The kids coming home from school and playing in the front garden.
Even though I still can’t believe the cameras are anything to do with us.
The house begins to wake up around us as we discuss it further.
Steve and Coco both appear, looking expectantly at me for breakfast. The big ginger cat, as ever, demands to be fed first. Then Jess emerges with a sleepy Callum in his pajamas, his younger sister following close behind and hugging a purple-haired doll to her chest.
They all greet Dom with great surprise and enthusiasm, Callum climbing up onto his uncle’s back and Daisy insisting that he sit next to her while she eats her Rice Krispies.
I make Jess toast and tea as she busies herself with the kids’ breakfasts, waiting until she has a spare moment to take her to one side.
Quietly, so the kids won’t hear, I tell her about the other cameras we’ve found. Her eyes widen in alarm as I indicate the top of the freezer, where I’ve put them for the time being.
“What the hell?” She puts her half-eaten slice of toast onto her plate. “This is absolutely mad. I’m calling the police again.”
“Dom’s doing it,” I say. “A sergeant he knows through work. Listen, are you around to meet in town for lunch today? I can get out for an hour, and we could go to that place near your office, talk about all this properly.”
I hate lying to her. I hate that I’ve gotten better at it over the last two weeks, that it’s started to become almost routine. We’ve always tried to be honest with each other, no matter what. But maintaining the fiction of stability and security seems more important than ever this morning.
She shakes her head. “I can’t. Morning meeting plus lunch with some colleagues from the Zurich office and then I’m straight into back-to-back catch-ups with my team leads this afternoon.”
“Then we’ll talk about this tonight, OK?” I bring her into a quick hug. “It’ll be all right. I reckon the cameras were just left over by the previous owner’s son, wanting to keep an eye on his dad. But we’ve found them, we’ve switched them off, it’s dealt with.”
“Have you heard anything back from the person who texted me?”
“Nothing yet.” I kiss her on the forehead. “We’ll probably never hear from them again.”
I herd Daisy and Callum upstairs to get them dressed, shoes on and faces washed, while Jess showers and gets ready in the en suite. While the kids are brushing their teeth, I put on a clean shirt and grab my work bag from the bedroom.
As I’m gathering shoes and bookbags in the hall, Leah finally thunders downstairs, grabs a banana from the fruit bowl, and throws us a wave before dashing out the front door, saying she’s late for her bus.
Dom emerges through the back door.
“I’ve had a quick scan of your back garden but it’s a needle in a haystack out there, mate. Big plot, overgrown the way it is—there are a million places you could hide another camera if you really wanted to.”
Pointing upward with an index finger, he says to me: “Priority next is to check the upstairs. The bathrooms. And the bedrooms.”
I nod. “When they’ve gone to school.”
He gives me a quizzical look. “Aren’t you going to be late for work?”
I make a show of looking at my watch. Deceiving Dom feels almost as bad as lying to my wife, but for a different reason: because he is very good at sniffing out lies.
He deals with people lying to him on a daily basis—mostly students who are drunk, drugged, or otherwise misbehaving—and it has turned his bullshit detector into a finely tuned instrument.
“Yeah,” I say. “Should probably head into the office, actually. I’ll give the upstairs rooms a thorough check later.”
He pulls his car keys from a pocket. “I can give you a lift to work, if you like?”
“You’ve done enough for one day, Dom.” I grab my own car keys from the hook by the door. “You should get home and get your head down for a few hours. I’ll drive myself.”
I lock up the house behind us, making sure I wait until he’s walked out to his Skoda and driven off before I start the engine of my own car.
I wait another minute, idling on the drive, to make sure he’s gone.
Two minutes later, I pull up to the junction with Derby Road. A right turn here will take me uphill toward the city, toward the job I no longer have, the place where I no longer work.
I swing the car left instead and accelerate away down the hill.