Chapter 9: Six A.M.

"I was in my kitchen at six on the fourteenth," I said.

I said it loud enough for the queue to hear.

Arkady paused with the custard tart halfway to his mouth.

"Then you must have met him," he said.

"Nobody came in. Nobody ever comes in at six. I'd have thrown them out."

"My surveyor has a signed report that says otherwise."

"Then your surveyor's a liar."

A woman in the queue laughed out loud and turned it into a cough.

Arkady looked at her. Then he looked at me, and finished the tart, and folded the paper bag into a neat square.

"Prove it," he said pleasantly, and put the square on my table, and walked away down Ropery Parade under our lights.

His man in the dark jacket followed him.

The crowd closed behind them.

Lev hadn't moved.

"He means it," he said. "If he says he's got a report, he's got a report."

"He's got a report about a kitchen he's never seen."

"Which won't matter," Lev said, "unless you can show nobody was there."

I stared at him.

Then I laughed. I couldn't help it.

"Dad's camera," I said.

At half past midnight, with the gazebos down and my feet on fire, we sat at the kitchen table with Mum's old laptop.

Dad had fitted the camera over the back door after the break-in, the year before he died.

It recorded every time the door opened, and saved it all to an account Mum had never once looked at.

The password was on a sticky note under the laptop. It said "HADDOWS1961".

Mum stood behind us in her dressing gown with a mug of tea, reading over our shoulders.

Tuesday, 14 July.

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