‘Oh my God. They switched off the cameras and got in at the dining room window?’
Charles nodded. ‘And in doing so, accidentally moved the flower arrangement.’
Brian sighed. ‘According to Eden Security, someone logged into the system at 9:52 a.m. and switched these two cameras off. Talk about negligence. Some PC Plod’s had the footage from eight cameras to go through, right, and he’s looking for an intruder, he’s not looking at the time, he’s fast-forwarding and he goes for a bite of Mars Bar and he’s missed it. He’s missed the outages from 9:52 to 10:22 on these two cameras.’
‘But how could the Johnsons have switched the cameras off?’
‘That is the problem. Your system’s state of the art, right? Sure it’s communicating over the net, but the data’s encrypted like something out the bloody Pentagon.’
Charles shrugged. ‘They must have hacked into it somehow. The lad Connor works at PC World. He’ll be IT savvy.’
Brian looked mournful. ‘A wee laddie from PC World up against programmers this good?’
‘How else could they have done it?’
‘Haven’t got a bloody clue.’
‘But however they switched off the cameras,’ Flora said, ‘we kept all the windows locked. And the police checked them all, and they were all still locked. Apart from the one I broke, obviously.’
Brian nodded. ‘I’m thinking one of them must have got into the house at some point previously to unlock the dining room window. They could have remotely switched off the camera covering one of the doors, snuck in, unlocked the window, snuck back out again, and switched the camera back on. I’ve been checking through the footage for another outage and haven’t found anything as yet, but I’ll keep looking.’
‘But how would they have got in? I was always careful to keep the front door locked, and the patio doors at the back.’
‘What if you were in the garden? Very few people lock the door behind them if they’re in the garden.’
‘Oh. No, of course. If I was in the garden, I’d leave the patio doors unlocked.’ She frowned. ‘Okay, if they managed to sneak into the house at some point while I was in the garden, that would explain how they unlocked the window, but on the day that… after they’d… after they’d killed Neil, and got back out through the window… How did they lock it after them?’
‘No idea.’ Brian snapped shut the laptop. ‘It’s sometimes possible with the locks on these old windows to manipulate the mechanism through the gap between the sashes… Magician’s trick kind of thing.’
‘But however they did it, the important thing is that there’s evidence of tampering with the cameras to create an opportunity of entry,’ said Charles. ‘And there’s more. Jasmine Young has made a statement to the police to the effect that she saw a man in a boiler suit going in at your gate at approximately ten to ten that morning. Which dovetails nicely with the camera evidence.’
Flora blinked. ‘Jasmine?’
‘Yes.’ Brian sighed. ‘I had a word with the neighbours, badgered them a bit maybe, went back to the Youngs a few times because I thought there was something there, you know?’ He rolled his eyes as if to say The people I have to deal with. ‘Last time, the daughter’s saying “Mum, we should –” but the mum, Ailish, shuts her down. So I stake the place out and a couple of days later, Jasmine’s coming out the door with her earbuds in, oblivious, and I follow her into town. Make like it’s a coincidence when I bump into her in French Connection, buying a present for the wife. And I tell her straight: “Jasmine, if you know something that could get an innocent woman out of prison and back with her child, you have to go to the police.”’
‘Oh my God. So…’
‘Seems that when the shit hit the fan and it came out Neil had been murdered et cetera, Jasmine told her mum she’d seen this guy at your gate on the morning of the murder, and the mother tells her to keep quiet and not get involved. Said it was probably your lover, your accomplice. But I put the girl straight. And she’s done the right thing at last, been and made a statement and even picked Ryan Johnson out of a photo line-up, although he was wearing a disguise when she saw him – long curly blond wig in a ponytail and sideburns. Teenage girls might be the most bloody annoying sector of the population, but at least they can be counted on to notice every detail about a good-looking guy. In particular, in this case, thick black eyelashes and a tiny scar at the side of his right eye. She got a good close look – was walking past him on the pavement when he was opening your gate. Oh yes, she’s going to be our star witness, no doubt about it.’
‘What with the CCTV evidence and Jasmine’s statement, the procurator fiscal considers there are grounds for a warrant to search the Johnsons’ house again,’ said Charles. ‘Hopefully they might find physical evidence connecting them to the crime scene. Something stolen from your house, for example.’ He was practically bouncing on his chair. ‘But even without anything like that… Flora, you’re getting out of here. The evidence we’ve already got is strong, and now the police are seriously focused on the Johnsons, they’re likely to uncover more… You’re getting out of here.’
I’m raging so I am. ‘Disguise, is it? Fucking disguise?’
Ryan takes a swally Coke. We’re in the KFC round from the scheme. ‘Dinnae have a cow, Maw. Fucking photy line-up? Brief’ll pick that to pieces in three fucking seconds. And alibi’s fucking solid.’
‘Aye son, but the bitch was that confident. Her brief and that fucking PI have telt her her conviction’s unsafe and she’s getting out.’
‘Aye, that’s briefs. Fucking warrant, is it? Aye, be my guest, gents. They’re no gonnae find nothing in the house.’
‘You sure of that, son? It’s your Da and Travis and Connor we’re talking about here. Who’s to say one of they fuckwits hasnae stashed away something incriminating?’
‘Like what?’
I take a bite of my Big Mac. ‘Who the fuck knows? We’re lighting it, son. Petrol through the letterbox. There’s no shortage of candidates will be in the frame for an arson attack, eh? And then yous are outta here. Me and Bekki’ll have to wait till the adoption’s through, but the rest of yous is on that fucking boat and off to Sunny Fucking Spain, right?’
Ryan’s set us all up with new identities and that. And a bastard with a boat so we willnae have to present our new passports at customs.
But he’s no a happy bunny. He doesnae like it when we’ve to switch to Plan B. He’s a Plan A kind of guy.
‘Right, son?’
‘Aye, Maw, right.’
36
Flora couldn’t help it. Before Caroline had even sat down, she was asking her: ‘You told her? You told Beckie?’
Caroline shrugged out of her coat. ‘Yeah, sorry Flora, she’s… She’ll come round, I’m sure she will, she probably just needs time to digest it all, you know?’
‘She won’t know what to make of it all. If I could only talk to her…’
‘I know. I’m working on it, trust me.’
‘Sorry, it’s just – everything suddenly happening, and I just need to see her, I need to reassure her that everything’s going to be fine. Because it really is. Caroline – you’re not going to believe this, I can hardly believe it myself, but the appeal’s been accelerated, in view of the new forensic evidence, and Charles says it’s just a formality, I’ll be out of here in a week, two weeks at the most. It –’