“Anyone else got a key?” he says, studying the door.
“Just us. I think.”
“Looks like someone paid you a visit overnight.”
The thought was already settling on me like the throb of a headache: astrangerhad been in here, on my property, while we slept upstairs. They had come up the drive, gone aroundon the path, and found their way into the garage. It might not be attached to the house but it was only a few meters from the kitchen—with only the back door between them and my family. The coffee turns bitter in my mouth.
“This is crazy,” I say. “We’ve only been here two days.”
“Anything else stolen?”
I look around at the unsorted mess of garden furniture, bikes, tents, tools, and boxes piled up by the removals team two days ago.
“Don’t know. It’s hard to say. Can’t see anything else missing.”
“Either way,” he says, grim-faced, “probably best to lock it now. And look at getting a new padlock to replace this one.”
Five minutes later, with Dom’s coffee mug refilled, I sit with him at the kitchen table as he swipes through the pictures of the bird-box camera that Jess had sent to him on WhatsApp.
“It’s a nice piece of kit,” he says, zooming in on the screen of his phone. “Decent build quality, infrared for low light conditions. Probably either piggybacking on poorly secured Wi-Fi or uploading to a particular phone every time it’s within Bluetooth range—like, that person parks up on the street outside, the camera connects to his phone and uploads all the latest footage. It would only take a few seconds.”
“Any idea how long it might have been up there?” I say. “We never even noticed the bird box until the cat went up there.”
My brother-in-law gives a shrug of his big shoulders, studying the unit like an entomologist examining the carcass of some rare tropical insect. It’s not too dissimilar, he tells me, from the cameras incorporated into the newer labs and lecture theaters on campus. Except for the fact that it was obviously meant to stay undetected.
“Solar-powered with a battery backup,” he adds, “this sort of thing could capture content for weeks. Months, depending on the weather conditions and ambient light.”
“Content,” I say, a pulse of nausea low down in my stomach. “You mean us, me and Jess, the kids, our comings and goings? On our own littleTruman Show?”
He nods slowly. “Assuming it had a full view of the frontage. Twenty-four-seven surveillance on your movements, who’s in the house, who’s not. What time you left, how long you were out. Potentially capturing your daily routines, patterns, visitors. Everything.”
“There was an old security system; the keypad’s by the front door. Maybe the camera was part of that, CCTV for the property?”
My brother-in-law goes out to the hall to check it out, returns with a shake of his head.
“That system is ancient,” he says. “Twenty years plus—and it doesn’t seem to be connected to anything. The camera, on the other hand, is a much more recent piece of tech. Latest generation.”
“Maybe it was part of a general upgrading of the security?”
He gives me a skeptical frown. “Wasn’t the previous owner like ninety years old?”
“Eighty-seven,” I say. “But he has a son—perhaps he installed it to keep an eye on his dad. I’ve sent him a text.”
“Is there anything you’re not telling me, Adam?” He lowers his voice. “About this place?”
“What do you mean?”
“That camera is not part of a standard home CCTV system. It’s high-end surveillance kit, presumably put in by the previous owner. Unless you think someone would want to spy on my sister, my nieces and nephew? On you?”
For a second I wonder if I should lay it all out for him, the hidden room, the watch, the old flip phone, and the text message. But pride pinches at me, stopping the words in my throat. I don’t want him thinking I can’t look after my family; I would tell him when I had worked it out for myself.
“I can’t imagine it would be to do with us,” I say. “But I’m going to find out, either way.”
“You’re going all cryptic on me, Adam.”
“I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”
“Hmm.” He drains the last of his coffee in one large gulp. “So, you going to give me the grand tour then? Ground floor at least.”
