‘It’s important to remain aware of our unacknowledged biases.’
Em nods, slightly wearily. ‘… Yeah. So what do we do next?’
The thought I can’t grasp is still itching away at me. Something, somewhere has gone badly wrong. Not just in the obvious way – that much is clear – but there’s another aspect too. Something personal to me. What is it?
Elle says, brightly, ‘Well, we’re clear of the house. We’ve got our gear. We can just get out. Nobody saw us go, nobody followed us. Feels to me like that’s all fine.’
‘The police will definitely turn up,’ I say. ‘They’ll fingerprint the place.’
‘So?’
‘So has anyone here ever been fingerprinted?’
Em and Elle say no in unison.
‘Good. Me neither.’
There’s a little gap. Then Jonny says, ‘I might have been fingerprinted once.’
‘Mighthave, Jonny?’
‘I went to a protest and did a bit of property damage. Got arrested, then released. But they got my fingerprints on file. It was eight years ago. Is there a chance they’ve deleted them?’ He’s speaking quietly, as if embarrassed by the trouble he’s realised he might cause us.
‘We can’t guarantee it. You know what the Met are like. So this is a problem.’
‘What was the protest?’ Elle asks, encouragingly.
‘It was something called the Campaign to Stop Urban 4x4s.’
‘Oh, well, brilliant,’ Em says. ‘Glad it wasn’t a lost cause or anything. Definitely worth sacrificing our liberty for a decade ago. You tit, Jonny.’
‘Sorry.’
‘What did you touch?’
‘Not much. Almost nothing, actually.’ Then his eyes widen. ‘Oh, shit.’
‘What?’
‘The keypad. I touched that lots on the way in. And the gateposts. And the back door.’
‘OK. Maybe we can deal with that. Any other evidence?’
We all think for a minute. Then Jonny pipes up. ‘Pub.’
‘What?’
‘The pub had CCTV. At least one camera, overlooking the car park. It’ll have picked us up as we arrived and left. Thelighting levels weren’t ideal for it, though, and they might have been using an old system. I didn’t pay it much attention.’
‘Surely the police won’t bother looking at the CCTV of a random nearby pub?’ I say.
‘They might,’ says Em. ‘I mean, this is a murder, not a bike theft. Even the police out here will probably pull their heads out ofHedge Weeklyor whatever they read and do a bit of scouring.’
‘OK. Let’s think about that in the morning.’
And then I remember the really bad thought. But I don’t want to just say it outright, and there’s a slim chance that it might be me overreacting, so I ask, ‘Er. Did anyone go back into the study after we left it?’
‘No.’
