I slowly turned round to see my little brother’s big brown eyes staring up at me. “Niall?” I whispered, breathless, “What are you doing here? You're supposed to be at home, asleep.”

The big, puppy dog eyes stared back at me. “Um, well, I kind of heard what you said to dad when we went away, about, like, being detectives and solving w-what happened to Grandad.”

I moved closer to him and held him in a hug. Then something hit me and I pulled back. “Mum didn't hear, did she?” The whole future of solving this case rested on my brother's next words. “No,” he said, “She went to discuss his sentence while I hung back to listen to you and dad. And I didn't tell her either, I know you want to keep it a secret.” He gave me a small, hopeful and ever so slightly cheeky smile and I smiled back and hugged him hard. My little brother. Of course he hung back to listen, and of course he would keep my secret, and of course he would somehow get here.

“How’d you get here, Ni?” Ellie asked, coming over to where we were standing. He gave a cheeky grin with just a hint of guilt. “Well, I heard you creeping out of your rooms (you really weren't very quiet you know) so I followed you down to the pool and hid behind the bushes for ages until you got out from under the sun loungers. Then I followed you all the way here and copied the way you dodged the cameras. And now, I’m here.” We all looked at him, trying to look annoyed but failing and instead looking really quite impressed. Renuka had come forward during his explanation and now ruffled his hair. He giggled at his own intelligence. “So, what are you doing?” he questioned, walking towards the computers.

“Well, um,” Conrad began, looking over to me to see if he could tell him, I nodded, he knew what we were doing in general, so he might as well know the specifics, “We’re getting you and Luke alibis by checking the cameras to see when you were here.”

“Okay then, well we left the villa at like ten to go to the pitch behind the house and play football, and then at like, twenty past we left to go here, so we got here at around half ten.”

“Okay, great,” Renuka said, “Conrad, show us both cameras at that time.” Conrad speedily began, muttering something underneath his breath. Soon, both screens were set up. We stood back and watched teenagers and families with excitable kids walk through the entrance and then appear on the next screen to shove coins into machines for a minute or two before two familiar faces appeared.

“That's us!” Niall said.

“10:30.” Conrad confirmed. We saw them walk through and go straight to a generally violence and death themed game, by the looks of it. “So, what happened next?” Conrad said.

“Luke got a phone call at-” Our faces froze. We all knew what that could mean. The phone call. The unknown number. Was it Luke? Renuka looked terrified. “What? What is it? What's wrong? Why do you all look so- spooked?” my little brother said, agitated. He stared at us, his eyes wide and scared. “Oh, no, it's nothing,” I said, trying desperately to seem calm, “W-we were just wondering who it was from.” I couldn't tell Niall what we were really thinking. He knew that we were solving the murder, that we’d snuck out of the house late at night, that we’d even (technically) broken the law, but he couldn't know that what he had just told us put Luke right in the centre of our suspicions as the prime suspect. Not when he idolised him as much as he did. His face brightened and the frown upon it vanished. I silently breathed sigh of relief. “Okay,” he carried on, “he didn't say who,” ‘No, no, no,’I thought, this wasn't looking good for Luke, “he just went to the corner to take it and then came back a couple minutes later to tell me he’d be back in a while and that I should wait for him, but if he didn't come back soon, I shouldn't worry and I should just go meet you guys on the beach.” This was looking even worse. “Er, Ni, around what time did he come back to tell you this?”Conrad asked, looking majorly concerned and hiding it badly.

“I think it was just after 10:50?” Uh, oh, that was around the time my dad had assumed the call had probably ended. “And, um, did he seem happy, excited, concerned, sad?” Renuka tuned in.

“Sort of, um, energised? I’m not sure, it was hard to tell.”

That didn't sound good at all. This was just getting worse. Silence descended again, before we realised this would probably freak Niall out again. “Lets have a look at it on the cameras then, this’ll be cool.”Ellie said, her smile fake and forced. Conrad tapped a few more things into the right hand computer nervously. A scene began to play. Luke and Niall were animatedly playing on the same violent game before Luke stopped, reached a hand into his pocket, took out his phone and walked to the corner, eerily near where we stood now. He was on the phone for around 3 minutes, looking very serious, before ending the call and walking back to Niall. He told him something before walking out again. And Niall had been right. He did look energised. Yet somehow it didn't feel like it was in a positive way. Not at all.