Chapter 22
Blackouts. I’ve had a few. Certainly not too few to mention.
It’s one of many things I don’t miss from my drinking days. Waking with the horrible feeling that something bad has happened but my brain has tried to spare me the humiliation and edited it out of my memory. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Fortunately, because I tended to drink at home, it was usually nothing catastrophic. A fridge door left open. Half-cooked food burnt in a saucepan. A strange stain on the sofa.
Then came the morning I came downstairs to find a cigarette had fallen out of the ashtray and burnt a hole in the carpet (but mercifully not ignited the whole house). That was it – the wake-up call, the horror of what could have been finally curtailed my nightly consumption.
This morning, I wake with a similar feeling of irrational dread. I don’t know where I am. Everything is unfamiliar. The sunlight bleeding through the blind. The faint call of birds. Then I realize. I’ve passed out on the sofa.
I sit up cautiously, half expecting a throbbing headache to kick in.
But no, I feel okay. My eyes are bit itchy, and my wrist is sore.
I glance down. The skin is a little red underneath the bracelet.
Perhaps an allergic reaction. I know I only drank a few beers, and I fell asleep by eleven.
I didn’t do anything wrong or stupid. And yet, the feeling remains.
Maybe I just need a fucking coffee.
I walk over to the machine, make a double espresso and decide I might as well take it outside and enjoy the day before it gets too hot.
I glance at my phone: 7.09 a.m. Then I stand and walk over to the window, pull the blind and wince at the brightness.
It’s a beautiful day outside. The sky is clear blue.
The pool glints in the sunshine. Palm trees sway, their glossy leaves glistening.
It should make me feel happy, relaxed, unbelievably lucky that Mum has given us this opportunity for a new life.
Yet all I feel is that same nagging uneasiness.
I pull open the sliding doors and sit down in one of the garden chairs.
I take another sip of coffee, and my mind wanders back to my conversation with Hailey yesterday.
I feel sorry for her, and her mum. I understand all too well what it’s like to be treated like a pariah for something you didn’t do.
How rumours take root and grow, like poison ivy.
How you’re not even allowed to nurse your own heartbreak because you’re too busy fighting lies and accusations.
No smoke without fire. All it takes is one match to burn down your whole damn world.
It’s true what I told Sadie, mostly. I could never tell her all of it.
How I was held in a police station for hours, questioned repeatedly.
What time did my wife leave? Didn’t I notice she hadn’t taken her phone or any cash?
Why didn’t I call the police earlier? Were we having any difficulties in our marriage?
Did we argue? Was it true that she had been seeing a doctor for depression? Was Sadie mine?
That one almost broke me. I knew what they were trying to do.
Provoke me. Frame me as the sort of man who might explode and lash out in a moment of anger.
I refused to give them that satisfaction.
In a way, the games were too obvious. I kept my cool, kept to the story and eventually, when no evidence of anything nefarious could be found, they started to search for my wife.
They never found her. And I set about the business of rebuilding my life as a single father to Sadie.
My phone vibrates on the table, and I jump. I pick it up. The doorbell. Motion detected at front door. I realize I’m starting to miss the old-fashioned knuckles-on-wood approach. I walk back inside, cross the hallway and pull open the front door.
A young man stands on the step outside. Blond crew cut, pleasant face, wearing pale blue overalls with SHS embroidered on the pocket.
‘Good morning, Mr Barker,’ he beams. ‘I’m Jed from Serenity Home Security Services. I understand you’re having a problem with your cameras?’
‘Oh. Right, yes,’ I say. ‘Sorry. I’d forgotten.’
‘No problem.’
‘Please, come in.’
Jed’s smile slips. ‘Sir, are you okay?’
‘Fine,’ I say brightly. Possibly too brightly. ‘Absolutely fine.’
‘It’s just, you have a little, erm—’ He gestures awkwardly towards my shirt.
I glance down. The front of my shirt is stained dark with blood.
It all comes rushing back. The migraine, my nose, blacking out on the sofa.
‘Oh, I had a nosebleed.’ I smile apologetically at Jed, hopefully indicating I am not a serial killer. ‘Can you just give me a moment while I change?’
Jed is polite and efficient. He places a heavy black bag on the dining table and takes out a sleek-looking laptop. ‘So, you say the app isn’t saving images?’
‘No. There was someone in our garden twice. I saw them on the camera, but the next morning the images were gone.’
He frowns. ‘That’s odd. I’ve never heard of that happening before.’ He pauses and smiles affably, just long enough to infer that I’m talking bullshit but he’s too polite to say so.
‘And you’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app?’
‘Of course.’
I haven’t, but I’m old school. I believe that shit should work, or you shouldn’t sell it or let someone use it.
‘Right.’ He scratches his head. ‘Well, that is a puzzler. Would you mind if I take a look at the app on your phone and try reinstalling it … again?’
‘No, that’s fine,’ I say, and pass it over.
He plugs my phone into the laptop and taps away at the keyboard.
‘This should show up any glitches or bugs. I’ll also connect to the Hub.’
‘The Hub? Isn’t that the building by the gates?’
‘Yes. It’s also the central security database. Everything in Serenity is controlled by the Hub.’
I cross my arms. ‘Isn’t that an issue with privacy and data protection?’
‘Oh, don’t worry. We take privacy very seriously in Serenity Falls.’
Which doesn’t really answer my question. Jed offers another of his sunny smiles and turns back to the laptop. I realize this is an indication I am surplus to requirements.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ I offer.
‘Iced water would be great, thanks.’
I grab a glass from the cupboard and fill it with ice and water from the refrigerator. Jed is staring intently at his laptop screen in between staring somewhat more accusingly at my ancient phone.
Sadie says I’m a Luddite. I just think I’m part of a generation who valued things lasting, rather than treating everything as disposable.
Something isn’t worthless just because it’s old and a bit battered around the edges.
Same goes for people. Of course, maybe I feel like that because I am now old and battered around the edges. Unlike perky young Jed here.
I place the glass on the table next to him.
‘Thanks,’ he says, but he looks distracted.
I linger. ‘Something wrong?’
Jed frowns at the screen. ‘Well, I’m not sure … but this is strange. When did you see the intruder in your yard?’
I think back. ‘About ten fifteen both nights. Why?’
‘There seems to be some kind of glitch in the recordings.’
‘What sort of glitch?’
‘According to the records, your cameras are missing about fifteen minutes of feed – from 10.05 p.m. to 10.20 p.m.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Our cameras are precise to a tenth of a second.’ He taps at the keyboard again. His face has lost some of its cheery bonhomie. ‘I don’t understand.’
I frown, trying to process the information. ‘So, fifteen minutes of footage has been cut from the camera feed?’
‘Well, there is certainly an error in the recording.’
‘Which means I did see an intruder, and someone removed the images.’
‘Or it could possibly just be a service outage or a technical blip.’
I stare at him. ‘You’re saying that a technical blip could remove precisely fifteen minutes of footage at the exact time I saw an intruder in my garden on two consecutive nights?’
He clears his throat and shifts uncomfortably. ‘I admit, it would be quite unlikely.’
‘Quite unlikely?’
‘Mr Barker—’
‘No.’ I cut him off. ‘I would like to know the most likely explanation for what has happened here … in your expert, technical opinion?’
He sighs. ‘Someone somehow entered the system and manipulated the feed.’