How to Kill Your Family(73)

I asked him if it was possible to speak to Janine through the system and he mocked me for my terrible grasp of it all. Lol at ‘through the system’, you sound like my mom. But yeah, you can shit her up a little when she’s locked in the shower room – did you see that mural by the way. Sum sexy nymphs for sure. Will your stepmom be naked in our plan?

I ignored this, and we messaged some more about how I’d be able to access the system from my phone too. He sent me a link to a file, and told me to download it. The little icon turned green and I clicked it and it opened up a webpage showing me a live image of the hallway in Janine’s house. Pete walked me through what I could see, and how I could access the cameras in different rooms.

I’ll control the other stuff from here and you can speak through the phone and I’ll link it up with the house whenever you like.

Is she in the house now? I asked, clicking around the apartment in wonder.

Nah she left about ten minutes ago. You didn’t tell me just how fucking rich your dad was. This place is insane.

It’s her money, I wrote back, keen to disabuse him of the idea that I was some kind of heiress.

Well lucky Dad then. Wanna see some cool tricks while the house is empty?

I watched as the blinds started zooming up and down in the lounge, while loud house music blared out from an unseen speaker. He really could do this, it wasn’t some teenage brag. I told him to stop, not wanting neighbours to notice and alert Janine when she got home. I suspected Janine rarely played house music at full blast in the mornings. Really nobody should play house music full stop.

I told Pete to keep exploring and to message me the moment Janine came back to the flat. I showered and dressed in under five minutes, and grabbed my phone, a charging pack and some headphones and went down to the beach, where I chose the nicest looking café and sat outside under an umbrella, watching the waves lap the shore. I turned my attention back to the footage of Janine’s flat, and looked through the rooms to see if there was any sign of her again. Still nothing. Pete hadn’t messaged either, so I ordered a coffee and a croissant and sat gazing out at the beach, forcing myself not to check my phone every ten seconds. I didn’t have to hold this discipline for too long. My phone pinged just as I finished the last few flakes of the croissant, and I hurriedly wiped my buttery hands on a napkin before opening the message.

She’s baaackkk, Pete wrote.

*

I click back to the camera view, and see Janine walking into her bedroom. She puts her large orange Hermès bag down on the bed, alongside a small paper shopping bag, and takes out a gold-rimmed candle which she places on the table next to her bed. She walks around the room for a few minutes, plumping up a throw pillow with gold tassels, inspecting her finger for dust after running it along the windowsill. She’s bored, I think. Not the boredom of a rare free day when you feel like you’re wasting time. This is years of built-up ennui, a life filled with lunches and organising staff and too much time spent on physical maintenance. Buy a candle, have a blow-dry, take a yoga class, fly to your other house and repeat the routine again and again. She filled her hours with activities, but none of them really amounted to anything. It was just a carousel of banality. So here she is on a day with no staff and no friends around, wandering through her apartment and trying to find things to complain about to Lacey later on. If she’d had any insight into the depressing reality of her life, she might have jumped off her yoga balcony.

Pete pings me a message, Incoming: woman holding bag – can see on door camera.

Janine walks down the hallway, Henry suddenly appearing behind her, yapping ferociously. She bats the dog away and opens the door. A young woman in a black T-shirt and jeans comes in and follows her to the lounge in silence. As she unpacks her bag, I see it it’s the manicurist, come to fill up an hour of Janine’s day.

Pete and I chat while she has her nails done, mocking the decor in the sitting room and exchanging opinions on what was the worst thing there. I plump for the small neon sign on the wall which says ‘Love’ in italics, a knock-off of a Tracey Emin design from a few years ago and the only concession to modernity in the space. Come to think of it, it might well have been an Emin. Doesn’t make it any less hideous. Pete is adamant that the glass coffee table is the winner, telling me to zoom in on the legs, which show tiny cherubs working hard to hold up the load. I order another coffee, and we wait and watch, two strangers breaking into a house without having to move a muscle.

Eventually, the manicurist finishes her job and leaves, but not before Henry lunges at her, knocking over a bottle of red varnish which leaves a few drops of polish on the woman’s top. Janine scolds the girl for flinching when Henry jumped up, and tells her not to come again if she’s scared of dogs. ‘You really should be more professional, that could’ve gone on the rug,’ she says as she leads the girl out.

As she shuts the door on the chastened manicurist, Janine lets out a sigh and heads for the bathroom. She begins to run the bath, and carefully pins up her hair in the mirror.

Can you turn on the sauna now, without alerting her with lights?

I message Pete. I switch back to the camera. Janine is applying a gloopy cream to her face.

Done and done, Pete replies.

Good. When she’s finished in the bath, make the lights go on in the sauna – she should go in to turn them off and then we’ll shut the door.He messages straight back with a thumbs up.