I delete them, closing and reopening the app to double-check they are all gone: Blue’s memorable blue-gray face alongside my contact details expunged from the neighborhood hive mind.
I can only hope that the couple didn’t see Blue. They didn’t look at the camera. I check the group chat for the street, searching the members’ profile photographs until I spot a photo of the woman, smiling, standing on a tropical beach, a pink flower tucked behind her ear. Her name is Marina.
My phone flashes in my hand with a call, making me jump. I answer, half expecting it to be the people from the video asking me what the hell I think I’m doing recording them, but it’s just the locksmith telling me that he’s finished and I should come back to take alook. I tell him I’m on my way, but when I hang up, I’m too shaken to burst back into a normal life.
That woman looked broken. I knew who she was as soon as I saw her, she was the younger of the two women arguing outside my house with the man the day I arrived. What were they talking about—was it the same issue that caused her husband or whoever that man was in the video to shout at her? What had she done, or seen, or attempted?
I think of the words:Help Me.
I could talk to the police, as a concerned neighbor, I could even send them this video. She might not be safe.
But I have no idea what I would I say:I’ve been filming my neighbors in their homesdoesn’t sound great. The woman’s scared expression flashes back into my mind, like a warning.
I quickly Google the legality of recording inside other people’s homes…and it doesnotlook good for me; filming without consent in a non-public area is considered a criminal offense. It breaches the Data Protection Act and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights Act. Such offenses can be charged as anything from stalking to harassment, extortion, blackmail, and criminal coercion.
I take a breath; I am a criminal. That happened fast.
Well, I definitely can’t report it, even if I want to. I’ve catch-22-ed myself. I’ve broken the law recording someone doing something that technically isn’t breaking the law in their own home.
Full of nervous energy, I rise, down the last of my coffee, as if I need its jolt, and head back home.
On the walk back, I wonder which house is theirs. It must be close; I could even run into them. Maybe he knows she wrote the message on Blue’s collar and he’s just waiting for Blue’s owner to show signs of knowing.
I should most definitely not let Blue out with the camera on again—and yet what if she does need help?
Back at the house, the locksmith hands me the new keys and waits patiently as I transfer the fee into his account.
As I lead him out, he motions to a white plastic panel on the hallway wall as we pass.
“That work, does it?” he asks.
I notice it for the first time: an alarm panel. I recall finding the instructions on the kitchen counter when I first arrived.
“I guess so—I haven’t tried it,” I admit.
He sighs, clearly at his wit’s end with me. “My advice is to give it a try tonight. And don’t leave the new keys in the lock overnight. Pretty sure you’ll work out what the problem is, one way or the other.”
It’s good advice. I decide I will take it.
When he is gone, I flop down onto the living room sofa and try to relax. Lying there, I listen to the sounds of the street beyond. The footage keeps playing in a loop in my head.
In the kitchen, I’m making a calming mug of tea when Blue appears at the back door. I let him in and he ambles over and jumps up onto my lap when I sit with my drink, his camera lens dangling to and fro. I realize he’s been out all morning, doing more recording.Shit. I can only hope no one’s seen him up close.
He patiently lets me slip the ID disc off the collar, while he purrs and pummels my chest with his soft paws.
My thoughts drift back to this morning, when I saw Matt two streets away, on Lockheath Road. I think of his second house, the one he and his baby and wife will all move into and how perfect it will all be. Then I realize that, for the life of me, I couldn’t tell you which house on Lockheath Road it was.
I gently lift Blue and place him on the floor. My body feels too wired to be still, like my cells are vibrating, so I set about making a dent in unpacking the final remaining boxes.
After dinner, I look out the glass of the back doors. I see only darkness and the glow of other lit back windows. Anyone could be watching from the darkened ones, and I would never know.
Spooked, I make sure the back door, with its new lock and key, is secured, and I remove the keys. I head to the hall and arm the house alarm before heading, Blue underarm, up to bed. Upstairs I lock my bedroom door and sink onto the edge of the bed, with a sigh, and yawn, a new sense of security enveloping me.
No one can get in. I am safe.
My intentions were good. I need to remember that. I put Blue’s camera on for a good reason.
I lean over and switch on the side light by my bed, then snuggle back into the pillows and pull my laptop onto my lap.
