She unzipped the bag and took out one of the cameras. It looked innocuous, which was kind of the point. She explained how they worked to Jacob, talked about the best place to set them up. An hour ago she hadn’t known any of this shit, had just Googled it before they came round. She talked about image resolution, battery power. How often they’d have to replace batteries and SD cards depended on how much activity there was during the day.

He smiled. ‘You’re talking to me like an adult.’

‘You are an adult.’ Hannah stood up. ‘So we have five cameras, where shall I put them? Is it just downstairs, or do you want some of upstairs covered too?’

He thought about it for a moment. ‘Mostly downstairs. One in here somewhere, one in the kitchen and one in the study through there.’ He waved a hand behind him.

Dorothy held her hands out. ‘Of course, the more cameras we use, the longer it will take us to go through the footage from them all.’

‘I want her caught,’ Jacob said, with a firmness that surprised Hannah.

‘Of course,’ Dorothy said.

‘So, the other two cameras?’ Hannah said.

Jacob nodded to himself. ‘I have some things in my bedroom that I think she’s been going through, so one in there. It’s straight ahead of you at the top of the stairs. But there’s nothing much in the other bedrooms now, so maybe just put the last one in the upstairs hall? Susan shouldn’t really be up there at all, so if it picks up anything, I can speak to her.’99

Hannah began looking around the living room for a place to hide the camera. It had a 150-degree angle spread, so anywhere would do, really, the main thing was to keep it hidden.

Dorothy spoke to Jacob about Susan’s schedule, and he wrote down with a shaky hand when she was due over the next few days. This would help them to decide when to come and replace the SD cards and batteries, and also give them a better idea of which time stamps to look at on the footage. That way they could eliminate the footage of Jacob on his own moving around the house, although looking at him, he probably wasn’t doing handsprings across the Persian rug.

The décor in the living room hadn’t been updated in decades, a lot of orange and browns, swirling patterns on the heavy curtains and rugs. But it was dust-free, which made Hannah think.

‘Does Susan clean the place too?’

‘No, I have a cleaner,’ Jacob said. ‘A young girl, very efficient.’

‘What makes you think Susan is behind the missing stuff and not her?’ Dorothy said.

‘Because Monika is lovely, and Susan isn’t.’

Hannah frowned at that piece of impeccable logic.