Page 66 of The Happy Family

‘We miss you too,’ Ruby tells me sweetly, and I smile.

‘Here’s my idea. If you put this camera in your home, somewhere like your kitchen, I’ll be able to see you every day,’ I tell them. ‘I’ll see you in the mornings when you’re having your breakfast, and I’ll see you at night when you’re having your dinner. I’ll also see you when you have any snacks, as well as when you are sitting at the table doing your homework.’

‘We can wave and talk to you!’ Arthur cries, suddenly on board with this gift, but I shake my head.

‘No, you can’t do that,’ I say firmly.

‘Why not?’

‘Because this is our little secret. Your daddy and Luna won’t know about it. If they do, they might not like it and then we won’t be able to do it. But if we don’t tell them, it can be our fun little game, just between the three of us.’

Arthur and Ruby think about that before nodding their heads excitedly.

‘I will set it all up and make sure that it is working,’ I say. ‘I can test it on my phone. Once it is, I will need one of you to put it somewhere safe in your kitchen. Somewhere Daddy or Luna won’t see it. Do you think you can do that?’

‘Yes, I know a place!’ Arthur cries. ‘The shelves!’

‘I want to do it!’ Ruby tries.

‘You can both do it together,’ I tell them. ‘Just make sure you do it when nobody else is in the kitchen, so they don’t see it. This camera has to be hidden. Do you understand?’

Arthur and Ruby nod.

‘We have to be good because Mummy is going to be watching us,’ Ruby says to her brother, which makes me laugh.

‘And listening too,’ I remind her. Then I focus on getting the camera ready so it can be used when Arthur and Ruby go home. I realise that I’m putting my trust in two young children who don’t understand the importance of what I am really asking them to do. They just think this is a fun game with their mother. But I know it will work.

Arthur and Ruby are good.

Now that goodness is going to help me catch the bad.

Now, I watch and listen to the footage that my children’s perfectly positioned camera has recorded today. As I do, I smile at Jack because it has worked. I have everything I need here to show to the police. Everything that both says and demonstrates that Luna has been a menace to my family since she first found us.

From talking about what she has done to picking up a knife and telling me that she can’t let me go, the police are going to be very interested in everything that the camera has picked up. Of course, there is the issue that the camera was secretly put in the house and Luna had no idea it was there, but I can explain that by saying that my children came up with the idea for a Christmas present so we could see each other more and I just went along with it, not wanting to make the divorce more difficult on them than it already had been. Even if Luna tries to get this evidence discredited, it will do the job of at least getting the police to look at her seriously and they will then have a reason to conduct DNA tests around the sites and on the bodies of the people Luna has hurt along the way. There will be something that connects her to those she has hurt, whether it is Gemma at the hospital or that man whose flat she was seen leaving just before he died. I think the news said his name was Darragh. I’m sure the police will be interested to see why Luna was with him around that time, and why she never came forward to try and help any investigation after his death.

There is no doubt that what the camera has recorded today is damning. Luna looks like the woman I know her to be. Dangerous. Deadly. Deranged. Like she’ll do anything to keep her true self hidden. I have no doubt she would have done too, if Jack hadn’t been watching the camera footage and knew when to knock on the front door to interrupt us. He couldn’t do it too early in case Luna hadn’t said or done anything incriminating. But he couldn’t leave it too late either, in case Luna was successful in killing me. But he timed it just right, and I think it has worked.

‘I’ll call the police,’ Jack says to me, and as I allow him to do that, I get out of the car and tell him I want to go and get a closer look.

I walk back the way we just came, towards the house we left, and I stop when I’m a safe distance away, but the property is in view.

I’ll stay here and keep watch.

This spot offers me a good view.

I’m ready for the show to start.

FORTY-FOUR

LUNA

I’m looking all around me, but I cannot see a camera. But there must be one in here somewhere. Why else would Sadie have told me to smile for it?

My paranoia is in overdrive as I think about how everything we just said and did could have been captured on camera. If it has, I will have a very hard time explaining any of it to the police. Even if I protest and say that it was illegal for Sadie to plant a camera in my home, the police are hardly likely to disregard everything they see and hear. That’s because it’ll be impossible for me to portray myself as some poor victim of harassment from Sadie, not when I admitted to so much in our conversation and certainly not when I willingly picked up a knife and walked towards her while she backed away from me.

That bitch knew exactly what she was doing when she came here, and she led me right to where she wanted me to go. She also knew that man who knocked on my door, showing how this was all perfectly coordinated and I was merely the pawn in that pair’s game.

Where are they now though? And what are they going to do with the footage they got?