I give him a quick tour of the lounge, the other reception room still full of boxes, the den, the playroom, and the utility room. In the dining room, he stops.
“You see those?” He points up into the corner, where the wall meets the ceiling. Mounted just below the coving is a small off-white cube of plastic, a red light flashing on its front edge as he waves a hand toward it. “You’ve still got all these old motion detectors in your downstairs rooms. Looks like a legacy system, but still wired into the mains.”
“Linked to the old alarm,” I say. “Like you said, none of it works properly anymore.”
“I know.” He narrows his eyes. “Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”
“But?”
He goes to stand directly underneath the detector, its red light flashing obligingly at him.
“I was just thinking… You found one camera. What if there are more?”
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 In each unit, the clunky old circuit boards and wires inside have been replaced by a small self-contained digital camera peering through the smoked glass—an ultra-modern parasite living inside the shell of its last-century host.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 takingallof 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. “Seriouslyweird.”
“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 theyknowme?”
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 silentlywatching 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.
