Thanks for checking in on me again. You really are all fabulous.
I say it all the time, I know, but I want you to understand how much I appreciate every single one of you and even though I cannot see you, I have felt your presence and you have all been a huge part of this journey with me. I will never, ever forget you.
Keep on cleaning.
Mrs C x
99,656 likes
hopeliveson Oh no, it sounds like she is having another episode.
rowandameansbiz Hope you’re okay, Mrs C. Keep on cleaning.
dennis89 Should we check on her?
pennyslife No one knows anything about her. She’s kept her identity a secret.
mechanicmaniac It sounds like a cry for help to me. Someone I know once wrote something similar right before she topped herself.
dennis89 I definitely think someone should call the police then. Anyone?
pennyslife You do it if you’re so terrified!
dennis89 I don’t want to cause a fuss? Or waste police time. I don’t even know the woman.
workwally But you follow her life on here? What’s the difference between seeing her in real life or through a box on a smartphone app?
dennis89 Is anyone else worried? Maybe we should wait to see if she replies to any of these messages first?
lucybest65 Or maybe she’ll be dead by then.
37
Now
I played the answerphone message over and over. But the only words that I could hear were his final words.
‘I know where you are. I’m coming to get you.’
I shuddered at the sound of his voice. It had been years since I had heard him speak to me directly. It still surprised me exactly how it all worked, but he had always been a clever man, my husband. Even though I could not love him in the end. Even when the very thought of him laying a finger on me made my whole body shudder. I went to turn my phone off, but it was no use; he had managed to track me on it. I thought I had been so careful. I thought I would have been able to hide myself away for longer than just a few months. I knew my time was up. It was time to face him.
But first I needed to get myself back up the stairs and into the main part of the house. At least I would have time to do that before he made his move.
I put my phone in my rucksack and put it on my back, then I took slow, painful steps until I reached the top of the stairs. I took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold and into the hallway.
There I found myself standing in front of what I had seen the first time I arrived up the stairs.
Three large monochrome prints: one volcano, one beach and one waterfall scene.
I pulled out my phone again. I went to Instagram and found my way to the account I was looking for. The account I had been following for so long. I navigated my way into a room that was just off the main hallway. I stood in the centre of it and then flicked to another image on the Instagram feed.
There was no doubt about it. I was standing inside the house I had been looking at online for weeks. I had followed a trail from lucybest65’s account. I had seen a photo of her in a room looking out over the rooftops at the very building I had just come from. I saw the purple flowers in the window box from there and that tallied up with the flowers on this window. On this building. I couldn’t possibly have gotten any of this wrong.
This wasn’t lucybest65’s house. This was Mrs Clean’s house.
I edged my way further into the hallway, all the while my mind was awash with disbelief. I half expected someone to jump out and tell me I had been part of some kind of social experiment. I felt as though I had just walked onto the set of a TV show. The hallway remained disconcertingly quiet. A house this size should have been filled with people coming and going, a loud raucous family like the one I had imagined having myself.
Before I knew I had done it, I had managed to walk to the room directly opposite and realised I was in standing in Mrs Clean’s lounge. There was the grey sofa in all its glory with the bright geometrical-abstract-printed cushions. I had looked at this sofa so many times on Instagram it felt incredibly surreal to be standing right in front of it. A bit like meeting a celebrity for the first time, having watched them in your favourite movies all your life.
I looked around the room and felt a shiver across my neck. The difference between seeing a celebrity on television and seeing them in real life was usually the immense sense of disappointment when you realised that they looked nothing like they did on the screens. In real life, you could see the cracks and the lines and the imperfections. I looked around the lounge, the lounge I had seen so many times before on Instagram. And it was as though I were looking at the same picture-perfect image. There wasn’t a sign of life. The living room was totally unlived in. I backed out of the room and headed past the stairway to what I could see was the kitchen at the end of the hallway. On my way there, I passed an open door. I pushed it so I could step inside and realised it was the downstairs bathroom I had seen on Mrs Clean’s feed. I had purchased the very same candle that was perched on the windowsill, which still hadn’t moved or been lit. Again, the room was spotless, like a hotel bathroom when you first arrive. I couldn’t believe anyone could live this tidily, exactly the way she played it out on screen. Absolute perfection.
But why had lucybest65’s photo brought me
