The room beyond was dark, some kind of office, but she could see through an open door, into the hallway where the lights were on.
Keeping herself flat against the wall of the house, Pip sidled up behind the unsuspecting camera. She glanced up, positioned almost underneath it. Reaching into her pocket, she removed the duct tape and found its ragged end. She pulled a length of tape from the roll and ripped it free. Pip stretched to full height, on her toes, arm snaking up beneath the camera, the tape ready and poised against her fingers. She pressed it over and around the glass, fully covering the lens. Another piece of tape to be sure it was all blocked.
One down, one to go. But she couldn’t walk over to it, right into its view. She left the same way she’d come, back along the house and the hedgerow, vaulting the fence where it hid beneath the tree. Walked along the pavement with her head down, hood up, to the other side of the house. An opening in the fence between two shrubs. Pip climbed over and in, creeping up the outer edge of the other side of the house. Sidled in across the front. Ripped more tape free, leaned up and covered the camera.
She exhaled. OK, the cameras were disabled, and they wouldn’t have caught a trace of the one disabling them. Because it was Max, not her. Max was the one who covered the cameras.
Pip returned to the outer corner of the house, and carried on around its side, walking carefully up to a glowing window near the back. She ducked and peered inside.
The room was bright, lit up by yellow spotlights on the ceiling. But there was another light, flickering blue, clashing against the yellow. Pip’s eyes found the source: the huge TV mounted against the back wall. And in front of the TV, his messy blonde hair visible over the arm of the sofa, was Max Hastings. A controller in his raised hands as he thumbed one button over and over, a gun firing on-screen. Feet up on the oak coffee table, beside the obnoxious blue water bottle he took with him everywhere.
Max shuffled and Pip dropped to the grass, her head below the window. She took two deep breaths, leaning against the bricks, crushing her bag between them. This was the part Ravi had been most worried about, that any number of small factors could send the plan spinning off course, out of her control, that he should be there to help.
But Max was here, and so was his blue water bottle. And if Pip could get inside, that’s all she needed. He’d never even know.
Pip wouldn’t have long to work out how to break in. Minutes, if that. She’d told Nat to buy her as much time as she could, but even two minutes was optimistic. Jamie had volunteered for the distraction at first, said he’d be able to keep Max at the door long enough. They’d been at school together, Jamie could find something to say, but Nat had shaken her head at them both, stepped forward.
‘Put him away forever, you said?’ Nat had asked her.
‘Thirty-to-life,’ Pip replied.
‘Well, then, this is my last chance to say goodbye. I’ll do the distraction,’ she’d said, teeth gritted and determined.
The same look was on Pip’s face now, as she reached into her pocket, fingers closing around the slippery latex gloves. She pulled them out and pulled them on, stretching her fingers down to the very ends. The burner phone next, with a new number saved. The number of the other burner phone she’d just given to Jamie and Connor.
Ready, she typed, slowly, the gloves tripping up her fingers. It was only a few seconds until she heard the sound of a car door slamming in the distance.
Nat was on her way.
Any second that doorbell would ring. And everything, the entire plan, Pip’s life, depended on the next ninety seconds.
The shrill sound of a doorbell, a scream by the time it reached Pip’s ears.
Go.
Breath-fogged glass and a getaway heart, escaping her chest.
Pip’s eyes at the bottom of the window, watching as Max paused the video game.
He stood up, dropped the controller on the sofa. Stretched his arms over his head, then wiped his hands on his running shorts.
He turned away.
Headed towards the hallway.
Now.
Pip was numb and she was flying.
Feet carrying her round the back of the house.
She heard the doorbell, pressed twice again.
A muffled shout from inside, Max’s voice. ‘I’m coming, I’m coming!’
More windows at the back. They were closed. Of course they were closed; it was a cold night in September. Pip would break one, if she had to; undo the catch and climb through. Pray he wouldn’t hear, that he wouldn’t go into that room until it was too late. But a broken window didn’t fit the narrative as well.