CLEANER II: Prologue - Part Three

KATHERINE

Summertop, Dahlia’s white palatial home, overlooked Nockton Vale from near the top of the ridgeline, holding a promontory view of the long valley and its weaving river. Katherine pulled urgently up onto its wide triangular drive and cut the engine.

She had sped here, almost in a panic, but now she was past the gates, that exigency was instantly drained, replaced instead by a sour dread that fizzled on her tongue and on the tight skin behind her ears.

Dahlia’s car was parked out front where it always was; as though she might emerge and climb into it; but every window was blank. Despite the gloomy afternoon weather, there were no lights on; no signs of the life Katherine was hoping for.

She got out of the car, not wanting to approach because that meant a confirmation of what she was becoming increasingly sure might be something terrible.

She had known Dahlia was not right for some time, but her feeling now was of a far deeper hurt even than that – a deep festering that had gone unchecked, even by Dahlia herself.

Katherine had never thought her employer capable of... of suicide, but could anyone really be sure? How many people knew a victim of suicide who had known it was coming when it did? Was that what she was going to find inside there?

She reached the foot of the steps leading up to the front door and climbed them, knocking tentatively, over-quietly. She knocked again hard enough to hurt the knuckles of her crooked fingers. Waited.

She waited longer than she needed to and knocked again. Waited again. Took out her keys. Hesitated. Went to knock a third time. Didn’t. Then Katherine inserted the front door key into the lock and opened the door.

Inside she went to call out but the absolute sense of emptiness stayed the intention. There wasn’t a single sound, and though the size of the house meant that it was still possible somebody was in, she knew in her heart that there wasn’t.

Katherine walked the ground floor, hoping for signs, but all she saw were troubling indications of disarray. It was evident that the life swapping cleaning games had not been continuing for some time. There was mess everywhere. The kitchen in particular was in chaos. The house was stocked for grand parties. It was possible for someone to go for weeks without needing to wash a clean plate. The sink was piled high with unwashed pots. The sides nearby were covered with more. The waste bin was full and overflowing. Food delivery containers were stacked haphazardly around its base: pizza, Chinese, Indian. There were plenty of empty fizzy drink bottles lying on their sides on the floor and on various surfaces. Other food containers lay discarded near the fridge and on the other work surfaces.

Katherine shook her head grimly, her lips pressed tightly together.

The lounge was in a similar state. The pool room was a wreck. It was amazing how quickly it had got like this, though the house had always had a cleaner. Until now it never showed the slightest sign of even normal amounts of clutter. The contrast alone was making it seem worse than it was.

Katherine became increasingly despondent as she wandered round, slowing, then something occurred to her and she quickened her pace, moving through to the cleaning cupboard under the stairs.

She’s half expected... what? To find Dahlia hiding here, wearing her brown wig and glasses, her borrowed cleaner’s uniform? But it was empty. Untouched. No one had been in there to mess it up in the way that the rest of the house was.

Again Katherine got that shiver of suicide dread: that she’d find Dahlia hanging somewhere by the neck or in a bath full or cold scarlet water, her pallid skin stained above the evaporating water line. And there was fear too of an alternative that seemed equally bad.

She went up the wide staircase slowly and tentatively, gripping the banister.

The rooms upstairs were equally silent, but for the most part, untouched. The main bathroom door stood open. The bath itself was empty. No dreadful confirmation of worst fears there.

Katherine walked on.

She reached the master bedroom and pushed gently on the door.

No sign of life, or death, here, but far more disarray if anything.

The bedclothes were tangled and off the mattress. There were drawers hanging open. The closet was in turmoil: clothes and hangers all over the floor. In various clusters around the room there were numerous empty carrier bags. Katherine crouched and turned one over, straightening it to find its origin.

Barton Workwear.

Another said Trend for Ladies, a dingy quality seconds shop in the back of the Tower Gates Centre.

Katherine’s forehead became a deep frown, but it brightened when she saw that several more were from boutiques that Dahlia had frequented in Nockton Heights, places where only high quality and expensive items could be purchased. The frown deepened when she had a closer look at the receipt in one of the bags; at the sizes listed.

She straightened, thinking, rubbing her lip with the flank of her index finger, then she walked straight into the closet and went to the back where the suitcases were stored.

None of them were there.

“Oh no.”

She returned to the bedroom, checked the half open drawer where Dahlia kept important documents.

Even on the second check through, it was clear that Dahlia’s passport wasn’t there.

Katherine shook her head and sighed through pursed lips.

Then her eyes narrowed and she rooted through her handbag until she found her mobile phone; took it out and called up the contact list; found the name Melissa; hit the call button.

Waited.

She pictured the day she turned up to find the house full of handicapped children and Dahlia dressed as a cleaner, disguised to look like Melissa; Melissa herself in fancy clothes and a blond wig, wearing contact lenses instead of her glasses.

Eventually the voicemail kicked in and Katherine terminated the call.

She sighed heavily, closing her eyes, feeling helpless; feeling that she had let Dahlia down in all the worst ways by not insisting that she stay close and help, even though she was pushed away at every turn.

Then she raised the phone again and hit redial.

She waited until the voicemail cut in, her heart getting colder and colder by the second. Then when she heard the beep, Katherine started speaking, her voice brittle and hard and full of barely tempered menace.

“Melissa. This is Katherine,” she said. “I know that Dahlia has gone abroad and I think... I know you have gone with her. I know you don’t care about anyone but yourself, least of all Dahlia, but I am asking you to stop what you are doing; stop encouraging her to run away from her life; to play these stupid and unhealthy games of yours.

“I’m asking you to leave her alone; that’s all. I know you think you can get some reward from this – probably financial – but I am asking you to consider the cost of your selfishness on Dahlia’s already fragile psyche.

“Please persuade her to come home. Or to make contact with me at least. I am very worried about her. Very worried.

“Please, for God’s sake, get her to come home. Don’t make things worse than they already are.”

The phone beeped. The call ended.

Katherine looked down at it and considered calling again.

But she didn’t.

All she could do now was wait and hope. That Dahlia would see sense and come home. That Melissa would grow tired of her manipulations or Dahlia herself would see through them.

That things wouldn’t get as bad or go as far as Katherine was afraid of.