It was a good night for surveillance. Well, Scott thought so, anyway. He’d never done it before but if he had to pick the perfect conditions for which to do it in, he wouldn’t have changed a thing. The rain had kept off throughout the day, and the cloud cover had gradually dispersed, leaving a beautiful starlit sky. The moon was full and glowing, bathing the Sandford’s home in a clear, crisp light. The cameras he had got Preston to set up were showing a clean image as a result. It made the whole operation easier, seeing as they were sat in the Range Rover two blocks away, watching the feeds on a laptop.

The cameras were positioned to allow an unobstructed view of both the front door and the back door, and a couple more showing the back garden and the street in front of the house. If anyone tried to get close to the building, the numerous windows open on the laptop’s screen would show them clearly.

In the middle of setting up, Mirah had requested another camera be pointed at a door opposite the master bedroom on the upstairs landing. Despite being told that only the external doors would be covered, she insisted until Preston had no choice but to oblige. And then, seeing as he didn’t mind, she had then demanded another camera in the master bedroom itself. Preston had returned to the Range Rover in a grump, sharing Mrs Sandford’s stories of repetitive slamming and midnight annoyances with Scott.

After setting up, they’d gone to grab some food and then went back to the tent for a few hours. They returned to begin their surveillance in the early hours of the morning. Scott had parked Clarence two blocks from the Sandford’s home, and the same number of houses from the end of the street.

He sat behind the wheel, looking out at the building that he had parked in front of: one of the many Colonials that seemed to surround the American Gothic Revival house they were investigating. He wondered why the Sandford’s house was so out of place, and almost regretted that the investigation wouldn’t go as far as to involve background checks and historical research.

Preston sat in the passenger seat glumly. He’d just slung his coat onto the back seat and already regretted it, the temperature of the car not quite high enough to just be wearing his shirt. “Still nothing,” he noted through a deep sigh. The poorly exaggerated boredom in his voice was difficult to miss. He pushed the glasses up his nose as he glanced down the street behind the monitors, hoping that maybe this one would be more lively. It wasn’t. He fought to keep a yawn from escaping, but promptly gave up. “Have you seen enough yet?”

“We’ve not even been here an hour.”

“Nothing has happened.”

“I know. Your constant updates have been very helpful.” Scott leaned closer to the laptop on Clarence’s dashboard, focusing on the window that showed the feed of the back garden. The row of bushes and assorted plants in front of the fence at the back of the property began to move. Just the wind. “We’re going to be here until morning, Preston, we’ve already been over this.”

“Do we both have to be here, though?” Preston watched the Sandfords as they lay motionless; asleep. The unnecessary camera pointed at their bed only made Preston tireder. “It’s their house we’re investigating and they get to sleep.”

Scott stretched as much as he could in the confined space, puffing his chest out; feeling the pull in his spine. “We are investigators. It’s our job. And yes, we both have to be here.” He folded his arms across his chest, watching the feed of the silent street in front of the house.

“It really doesn’t take two of us to watch the—”

“Shh, look …” Scott perked up, his eyes darting back to the garden, focusing on the fence just visible through a row of hydrangeas. The fence was cedar, and made up of seven-foot-long panels slotted into heavy cedar posts.

One of the panels was moving.

“Do you see that?” asked Scott, not really looking for an answer. It was barely noticeable at first, but it was definitely moving now.

“What is it?”

“I … don’t know.” Scott leaned closer to the laptop, craning his head forward; manually zooming in on the fence. “There’s definitely something there.” A small, light-coloured blob appeared on the top of the fence. The panel continued to jostle in between its posts as a long, dark shape rose up from behind it. The shape moved and wobbled, before dropping to the ground behind the cover of the hydrangeas.

“I can’t believe—” started Preston, staring in astonishment at the screen as a young man peered out from between the bushes. “What shall we do? Go bust him?”

“Calm down, Serpico. We wait and see what happens, we don’t know what he’s up to yet, do we?” Crouching, the figure cautiously emerged from the greenery, moving slowly towards the house, peering out from under a dark hood.

“Yes, it could just be a plain old robbery …”

A flashing light pulsed from one of the figure’s hands, making him jump. He looked down at it: a mobile phone. His head sprung up, alert, spinning from side to side. His eyes found the camera, staring out of the laptop’s screen at Scott and Preston.

And he took off back towards the fence.

“Damn it, he’s been spooked!” Scott dove from the Range Rover, sprinting down the driveway of the house they had been parked by. He shoved through the wooden gate—the hinges creaking as it flew open— and made for the fence between the two properties that stood back-to-back.

Scott cleared it almost effortlessly, fuelled by adrenaline and Red Bull. Without missing a beat, he touched down in the backyard and hurled himself down a narrow walkway that ran beside the house, hurdling a small pink bicycle with a little white basket on the handlebars, and emerged onto the street directly in front of the Sandford’s sinister abode.

He cleared the width of the street in two long strides, barrelling towards the side of the house, and burst into the garden, narrowly avoiding the wide variety of plants as he vaulted his second fence of the day.

The area directly behind the fence was sparsely dotted with trees, pushing back into a wooded area. Scott stopped, unsure of which direction to head. He listened for movement, a twig snapping, the rustling of leaves. Nothing. He moved forwards, beyond the first line of trees, looking for any sign of movement; any clue at all as to which direction the intruder had vanished into.

Slowly, he looked up into the branches hanging over him. A pair of young eyes peered out of the shadow. Scott raised an eyebrow. “You wanna come down from there?”

Preston watched as Scott bolted from the Range Rover. He took a lingering look at the laptop as the figure struggled to hoist himself back over the fence, before resigning to the fact that he’d probably have to join the pursuit.

Exhaling deeply, he pushed himself out into the street and briskly strode up to the house, peering around the corner and then back to the street to scan for any onlookers, before moving down past the house, through the wide-open gate and into the backyard.

The only way from here was over the fence, which Preston quickly determined was a height too great for him to clear unassisted. Taking a moment to assess the task at hand, he observed a garden table and chair set, and a dog house.

Summarising that the sloped roof of the dog house would prove problematic, he quietly lifted one of the chairs—which was heavier than it looked—and placed it by the fence. He checked the stability of the chair on the uneven, muddy surface, and using the fence to steady himself, stepped up onto it.

He struggled to pull himself the remaining distance onto the top of the fence, but managed to spring up high enough to swing a leg over. Carefully, he slid himself slowly over the top, reaching, stretching with one foot, groping for the safety of the floor on the other side.

He was doing well until the German Shepherd that had been peacefully sleeping in the dog house was awoken by the creaking, and excelled in attempting to eat Preston’s face.

The snapping, drooling jaws fell mere inches from his glasses, his hands relinquishing their death-grip on the fence to instinctively recoil in self-defence.

His feet missed the floor entirely, landing flat on his back in a thick layer of mud that he sank further into as he struggled to right himself. He dug his elbow into the ground, using it to lever himself up out of the dirt, and stiffening from head to toe, ambled across the street like a constipated zombie.

When Preston arrived at the Sandford’s backyard, Scott was stood in the centre of the well-groomed lawn clutching hold of the young man’s black hoodie. Worried, the boy stood with his head down, his shoulders slumped.

“What the bloody hell happened to you?” said Scott, staring at Preston as he stood, his arms out from his sides; caked with mud and soaked to the bone.

“I had an accident.”

“Could someone tell me what’s going on here?” interrupted Kevin Sandford. He was freshly awoken and had barely slung a dressing gown around himself before storming outside. He stood by the open sliding door, staring daggers at Scott.

“We saw this fellow in your garden, Mr Sandford.” Scott almost held the young man up for inspection by the back of his hoodie. He pulled the hood back, enabling Kevin to get a good look at the boy’s face. The young man gave a nervous glance to Scott before returning his attention to the floor.

“What?” Stunned, Kevin stepped out of the house, slowly moving towards Scott and the intruder.

“This kid jumped over your fence. He was heading to the door before he got a message on his phone that alerted him to the cameras.”

“What do you mean ‘he got a message’? Who would—”

Scott shuck his head, his patience was running out. “Mr Sandford. It’s time for you to stop playing games with us.”

Kevin’s eyes opened with surprise. “Excuse me? You think I—”

“Grandad, it was me.” Suzie, the granddaughter stood by the sliding door, hugging herself worryingly. Mirah stood beside her, an arm around her shoulders. Suzie was tall for her age; thin. She had tied back her long brown hair into a loose ponytail, exposing her freckled face. Those freckles ensured her parents and grandparents alike would struggle to view her as the adult she was so quickly turning into.

Kevin turned to them in the doorway, his palms turned upwards in confusion. “What do you mean, Suzie? What did you do? Do you know this boy?”

“Yes.” She paused, hoping someone would stop her and she could leave the worms in the can and just go back to bed. “He’s my boyfriend.”

“He’s your what?” Kevin strode back towards the house.

Scott released the boy. “How old are you, squire?”

“Fourteen,” he said, unsure about raising his head. He settled for turning it sideways.

“Fourteen? When I was your age, I was too busy watching Power Rangers and Art Attack.” Scott watched as Suzie stormed off upstairs, followed by her grandparents. They’d been forgotten about. “Maybe you should come back during more sociable hours.”

The kid stalled, not entirely sure what to do next. Was he free to go? He decided he was and slowly turned, moving back towards the back fence.

“Maybe use the front exit this time, champ.”

“Right, yeah.”

Preston stepped out into the garden, towards Scott. They watched as the boy made his way towards the side of the house. “They grow up so quickly nowadays.”

Mirah returned to the garden a few minutes later. Upon seeing the state of Preston, she had insisted on bringing him some dry clothes and returned with some of Kevin’s old gardening clothes. After quickly drying off and changing into the khaki cargo shorts that were four sizes too big and the plain black t-shirt that draped over him like a sheet, making him look like a small child, the investigators returned to the Range Rover. This time they took the long way round, following the street.

“Looks like our night has been cut short then—nothing going on here,” said Preston as he returned to the comfort of the passenger seat.

“You might not think so, but I want to keep an eye on the feeds for a bit longer just to make sure.” Scott slid into the drivers seat, pulling the door shut behind him. He pressed a couple of keys on the laptop, bringing the screen back to life.

“Well I’ve had enough excitement for one night if you don’t mind,” huffed Preston. It was way past his bed time.

“Okay. I doubt anything will happen now anyway after all that commotion.” Scott leaned in towards the screen, checking the open windows for signs of movement. Kevin Sandford stormed across the landing, heading back to bed. Mirah stood with Suzie, giving her a hug goodnight.

Preston awkwardly shoved himself between the two front seats into the back of the Range Rover. He stretched out, covering himself with his coat, and removed his glasses, placing them in the footwell behind Scott. He was out in seconds.

Everything looked quiet on the external cameras, and Mirah had rolled into bed with a few choice words for her husband. He shrugged her off and it wasn’t long before she settled down.

It was forty eight minutes before anything else happened.

During those dull forty eight minutes, there was barely any movement at all. No wind animating the garden, no one getting up or even stirring. It gave Scott some time to think, but it only took the better part of five minutes for it to dawn on him that it couldn’t have been Kevin who sent the boy a message, because he had been on camera the entire time. Not that it mattered now anyway, with Suzie coming clean and thankfully shifting Mr Sandford’s attention away from his accusation …

It was Mr Sandford who broke the forty eight minute drought. He began to fidget, repositioning himself in bed. Had the two windows on the laptop’s screen been any further apart he would have missed it. It was only minor, and it was only for a fraction of a second, and when it stopped Scott had doubted that it had moved at all. But he was convinced that the door on the landing that Mrs Sandford had insisted Preston point a camera at … had moved.

All of his doubts were forgotten when it slammed shut.

Thanks for reading,

Chris