The Magpies A Psychological Thriller - By Mark Edwards Page 0,113

hand corner of the screen. Jamie realised he was looking at a CCTV monitor which was displaying a live picture of somebody’s living room.

His living room.

He stepped back. ‘Fuck,’ he said aloud. That was his sofa, his bookcase, his armchair. There was the picture Kirsty had brought with her from the house she shared with the other nurses: the picture of the mermaid on a rock.

He bent double. He felt as if someone had punched him in the kidneys. Lucy and Chris had not only been listening to them. They been watching them. There had to be a tiny camera hidden somewhere in the flat, somewhere opposite the sofa. He tried to picture it, but couldn’t work out where it could be hidden. But he would look for it later. He would find the fucking thing and tear it out of the wall and stamp on it, grind it into the floorboards.

Jesus Christ. How long had this been going on for?

He noticed something else. The CCTV monitor was resting on top of a hard drive. It wasn’t recording now, but…

Oh fuck.

He looked around, frenziedly scouring the shelves of the bookcase which housed mostly DVDs with handwritten titles on the spines: J&K 1: PARTY; J&K 2: DECORATING; all the way up to 12: J ALONE.

He pulled the DVD labelled J&K 11 from the shelf and inserted it into the player attached to the ordinary TV. He pressed ‘play’ and after a few seconds an image appeared. It was him and Kirsty standing in the living room. Kirsty doing the ironing. The video was silent, but Jamie could remember what they had been talking about. He watched their lips move. He watched them move over onto the sofa. They were talking about the baby; the miscarriage. Kirsty started to cry and Jamie held her, crying too.

He pressed stop. Hatred and anger flowed through him, replacing the sadness. He clenched his fists and stood up. He wanted to smash everything in the room; he wanted to destroy this place, the home of the those fuckers, those…

He told himself to calm down. He took more deep breaths.

Then he noticed a DVD labelled J&K 8: AWAY. He slotted it into the DVD player and pressed play. Again, it was the interior of their living room, empty. Nothing happened for the first couple of minutes and Jamie almost switched it off, but something told him to wait – and at the two minute mark someone entered the room. Chris. Jamie’s mouth went dry. He watched Chris walk over to the hidden camera and peer into it.

Staring straight at the lens, Chris smiled coldly, then licked his lips.

Lucy followed Chris into the room, looking around, before settling down on the sofa. Chris was out of shot now – this must have been when he installed the virus on Jamie’s PC – and all Jamie could see was Lucy sitting immobile on the sofa, staring impassively at the camera. Then, still looking into the lens, she leaned back and pulled her skirt up around her hips. She had no underwear on and Jamie watched stunned as she began to touch herself, her head thrown back as she masturbated for a couple of minutes until she came, her mouth opening wide for a moment before closing, her expression one of release rather than ecstasy. Then she pulled her skirt back down over her knees and sat still again, her hands crossed modestly in her lap.

Jamie pressed stop, terrified of what he might see next.

He tried to think straight. How had they got in to the flat? They must have a key.

He needed to find it. He was sure he had enough evidence now to go to the police with, but if he could find the key he would feel safer. He wouldn’t be afraid they would come in and murder him in his bed while he slept. Because surely that was next? They had killed his unborn daughter, driven out Kirsty. He knew Chris had killed before. Jamie was certain he was next on the list, and his experiences with the police so far told him they wouldn’t be quick to act.

He dropped the DVD on the floor and moved over to the desk. He pulled open the top drawer and began to rifle through it. Electricity bills, bank statements, Council Tax bills. Nothing useful. He opened another drawer. There were photos of Chris, standing on a sandy beach, pointing out to sea and smiling. There was a newspaper