“So, when did Luke get back, Ni?” I asked.

“Um, at about 12 o’ clock.” This wasn't good for Luke at all. Everything he had done that day seemed to be lining up with what we believed the murderer had done. We waited with baited breath for a minute as we kept our eyes fixed on the screens. And there he was. 12 o’clock. Walking in looking very… pleased? Yet also sort of nervous. He went over to Luke and said hi, smiling from ear, and they immediately began playing on a game again. I felt like, behind that grin, he was hiding something. I just knew, and I think the others, except Ni, did too.

Minutes later, Conrad had the footage on a USB, we had dodged the camera once again, passed the second one and were on the road back to the villa. We got back and were about to unlocked the front gate when my brother tripped up. As I lifted him back to his feet,we heard something behind us. We spun around to see Detective Figueroa. He looked slightly eerie in the pale torch light, lighting up his face from beneath. But then he stepped out into the light and his face changed. It now looked softer, friendlier, yet still stern.

“What are you five doing out of bed?”he asked, creases appearing in his forehead. We all just froze, mouths hanging open and eyes wide, like deer in headlights. For what felt like an age he just looked at us, hoping for an answer, as we racked our brains for one. Suddenly the silence was broken. “Oh, don't tell our parents, but we went out for a late night walk and we’re about to go for a swim.” Conrad explained, cool, collected and effortlessly polite. The creases on the Detective’s forehead disappeared and his face lightened with a smile. “Okay then, our little secret,” he said, tapping his nose, “Now you go and get some sleep.”We smiled, said goodnight and hurried off upstairs. Once we were out of earshot, Conrad murmured, out of breath, “Of course, I should have remembered, the detective does late night patrols of the area tonight. I saw it on his weekly schedule when I had an interview at the station the day we arrived. I’m doing some light police work. I knew I’d miss my day job back at home, so when I saw the posters I thought it was perfect.”

“Oh, did you get the job?”

“Of course, it wasn't hard. Besides, where do you think I’ve been going every day?” I looked down at my feet, guiltily. How had I not realised he had been going out and working every day? We walled back up to the villa in a quiet fits of giggles, hysterical that we had actually managed to pull our ambitious plan off, despite a few close calls. We unlocked the door with a key we had stolen, placed it back exactly where we had taken it from and went back up the stairs, carefully stepping on only the non-creaky steps. We parted ways as we reached the last couple of floors, Renuka, Niall and Conrad leaving to separate room on the fourth floor and Ellie and I heading off to our cool little attic room. Once we were there, we got back into our pajamas and sat on our beds facing each other. We had to discuss what we had found out that night, now that my brother wasn't there. It was just too groundbreaking to go to sleep and forget about it until the meeting tomorrow morning.