CLEANER II: Chapter Four - Part Eight

KATHERINE

As Katherine walked down the street in Hillfort where Melissa and her husband lived she cast her mind back to the earliest days of her relationship with Dahlia, thinking about the promise that the beautiful young woman had; the optimism; the passion to make a name for herself that would be known the length and breadth of the nation.

Then she pictured the expression Dahlia had worn in the hospital after her brother died; pictured her putting those glasses on, knowing that it would ruin her eyes; how lost she had been; how crushed.

And what had she done to save her? What had she done to stop that topple off the precipice?

Not enough certainly. Not nearly enough.

She stopped at the foot of the path leading up to Melissa’s front door.

The house was in decline. The building next door was in a deplorable state. Melissa’s house had been neglected to the point now that serious work would need to be done to restore it. It wasn’t a case of repainting the window sills. They would need to be torn off an new ones attached. The brickwork was showing signs of deterioration. The paint on the front door was cracked and flaking, the door furniture tarnished and broken. Like many of the houses in Barton, it showed signs of a deep and deadly rot. There was a sense in much of the town that at some point in the near future the whole place might just collapse in on itself and be sucked down into Hell.

But that was just fantasy. Katherine had no time for that. There were many urban legends about Barton, most notably relating to the dubious “fact” that once you entered you would never leave. That was bunkum for a start. She had been in and out hundreds of times in her life. There was nothing magical about the place. It just attracted more than its fair share of scumbags.

She walked up to the front door and knocked.

After the second knock she heard movement inside and stood back to wait politely, hands clasped at her waist.

The door swung in sharply and a man; Melissa’s husband; stood there looking belligerent. He was extremely tall and broad with thick hair on his bare arms, chest and stomach. He had an overgrown moustache but the stubble was almost beard-thick on his fat cheeks and hanging double chin. His hair had receded much of the way back across his head but the rest of it was a straggly mess. “What?” he said, his voice a hostile growl inappropriate for a grown man.

Katherine was taken aback but she put on a civil smile and said, “Hello. I’m sorry to bother you. May I enquire if this is the residence of Melissa Chapman?”

“She ain’t in.” He started to close the door.

“Wait.” Katherine reached forward sharply and put her fingers on the door. She had no physical presence or ability to slow it, but the caveman stopped all the same. “I’m not here to sell you anything’ nothing like that. I’m a… friend of her employer’s; Dahlia Western?”

The man’s suspicion wavered, neither ramping far up or dropping down. He had no interest in the conversation, clearly, but Katherine held him in place with a practiced glare not far from that utilised by school teachers the world over.

“As far as I am aware, Melissa is… travelling with Miss Western at the moment. Is that right?”

His eyes weren’t like human eyes. They picked at her, giving away nothing. His forehead was still etched with distrust.

“Have you heard from Melissa since she left? Do you know where they are at the moment?”

The man in the doorway shifted, leaning against the frame, taking on a more relaxed, cocky aspect. He sneered with one side of his face. “I thought you said you was her friend.”

“I am,” replied Katherine. “Well, her assistant essentially. And I’m trying to locate her.”

“You’re her assistant and you don’t know where she is? And you don’t have her contact details?”

“Nothing, uh… Nothing that she’s responding to.”

The sneer crept further up the side of his face. “What kind of assistant doesn’t know that stuff?” He chuckled. “It sounds to me like she don’t want you to know where she is.”

Katherine gave a little smile to play along a little, knowing how hostile he was being but hoping to maintain some level of communication despite it. “And are you in contact with your wife?”

He sneer faltered on his ugly face.

“You haven’t had any contact since they left?”

“What business is it of yours?”

Katherine gave off a terse sigh, frustrated and rapidly tiring off this man. This had been a waste of time; as had all her other investigations to date. “No matter,” she said. “I can see she hasn’t been in touch with you. And you don’t know where she went.”

The nasty mirth dropped completely off his face. He clearly had no idea.

“So you’re her husband and you don’t know where she is?” said Katherine. “What kind of husband doesn’t know that stuff?”

She turned her back on him and walked away as he flapped his gums, trying to concoct a comeback.

But gratifying though that moment had been it left her no further on in her quest. She still didn’t know where Dahlia, or Melissa were. Though she had a better idea of why Melissa might not want to come back.