So, here she was having confronted the woman who had made their lives misery for months. And what next? How could this person before her, who now seemed so vulnerable, so very ordinary, have caused all this. And what had happened to her own vulnerability - she felt an intense feeling of power, and it was in itself frightening.
2 years ago they had contacted the cleaning agency. Their joke was that Chloe suffered with 'housework dyslexia' - it wasn't that she didn't try, but she just seemed to always miss something - he would chide her for walking past the washing basket without taking it back upstairs, but she genuinely had not noticed it - it just didn't enter her consciousness. James was pretty good around the house, but they both worked full time and could afford a cleaner, so they decided their time was better spent with the kids, or just enjoying themselves rather than the domestic drudgery. Besides, she had argued, it might make her tidier knowing someone was coming to clean the following day.
So, someone had come round from the agency and explained how it all worked - the agency, for a cut of the fee and a retainer, would source a cleaner, they would check references and look after the insurance side of it. They would employ reputable, respectable, experienced cleaners only.
A few days later, Andi turned up. She seemed alright - inoffensive and fairly quiet - she got on with the job, and put a reasonable amount of effort into making sure the house was made to look pretty clean. And so, she would turn up on a weekly basis and get on with the job at hand. James was working at home a fair bit and would see her quite a lot. He'd always have a chat with her and ask her about her family - she had 2 young children and lived with her boyfriend, not the children's father. Chloe would see her occasionally, if she had a meeting in London and was leaving late, or on one of the rare occasions she was able to work from home. She generally didn't like to work from home on the days she knew Andi would be there as she found it difficult to concentrate while someone else was cleaning her house, and probably also a little embarrassing. And so things continued. The amount of effort Andi put in to the cleaning waned a little over time, but nothing unexpected, and the house was reasonably clean - it saved them having to do it.
James changed jobs, and this meant he was working from home even more. He would usually be in for at least some part of the day when Andi came. He was a warm, effusive person, and would ask her about herself, her life, and her family. It emerged that her father was a famous playwrite, and she would talk about some of the difficulties of growing up in a fairly turbulent household.
It was after a steady period of about 18 months that they started to notice some changes. Andi would be a little less reliable - changing her day at the last minute, or sometimes not even turning up, then ringing or texting the next day to apologise that she, or one of her children, had been taken ill. They didn't mind too much, as long as the place was cleaned, and Andi was reliable and trustworthy - they had no qualms about her honesty. Gradually she would appear a little more dishevelled - they just thought she had let herself go a bit.
Then, one day, James was at home and they were chatting - she started to tell him about her father - she said he had cancer and was dying. In addition, she told him she had been in contact with her first love through an internet site, and it had brought home to her how unhappy she was in her current relationship, and how low she really felt. James had some experience of working in psychiatry and thought she was probably depressed, so listened to her, and offered supportive words. A few days later, on a Saturday, James was in the supermarket when his mobile phone rang - he took it out of his pocket, expecting it to be Chloe asking him to pick up something she had forgotten, but was surprised to see it was Andi's number on the display. When he answered it, she sounded pretty desperate - she had been prescribed antidepressants by her doctor, and now, having taken them for a few days, felt suicidal. He was out of his depth on this one - he advised her that she shouldn't be calling him, but needed to call the doctor who had prescribed the medication, and that there wasn't anything he could do. He went home and couldn't quite shake off the feeling that maybe he could have done something more, but also the thought that this was a pretty inappropriate call from someone they employed, and that surely she should have called one of her friends and not him. He discussed it with Chloe, and they both agreed it was a bit odd, and that next time Andi came round he should make it clear that this was really inappropriate behaviour and she wasn't to call him again, unless it was to make an arrangement about the cleaning.
The following Wednesday, Andi turned up for cleaning, apologetic and saying she didn't know what had got into her. It was a bit awkward at first, but she got on with the cleaning and James got back to his work at the computer and decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. He did however make some pretence that they had misplaced one of their door keys and so asked Andi to return her copy of their key for now, otherwise they would be without a spare - fortunately she gave him the key there and then.
One Saturday evening a few weeks later, James was at a gig in London with his daughter, when he got a text message from Andi saying she wanted to talk to him - the message said she had a friend who was in love with a man who didn't deserver her, and that she wanted James's advice. Now he felt really uncomfortable. He rang Chloe and asked her to contact Andi to ask her to stop contacting him inappropriately.
Chloe tried to call, but Andi didn't answer her mobile, so she sent her a text message, making it clear in no uncertain terms, that Andi was to stop contacting James - the whole tone of the message Andi had sent James seemed odd, and she felt uneasy about the situation. About an hour later she received a message back from Andi, saying that was fine, and that she had just wanted to talk to James for some advice. This time, the tone of the message was pretty cold.
The following morning, James checked his phone to see that he had further text messages from Andi sent through the night and that she had tried to call him several times, the last being around 3am. On the Monday James called the agency and said they no longer required Andi's services - he warned them that her behaviour had been odd, and that they should be careful if placing her at other cleaning assignments.
That was really the start of it. From then on, initially every few days, and then even more frequently James would receive odd text messages from her. Often several messages a day, and usually in the form of a question, trying to elicit a response from him. They would range from 'Are you going out tonight?' to 'Sorry I texted last night, just wanted to talk'. It was all a bit unnerving, but they didn't take it too seriously - after all, what harm could she do by text message?
After around a month, James was at home one day and Chloe was at a meeting in London. He heard a knock at the door and went to the hallway to answer it. He could see through the glass pane in the door that it was Andi and gestured at her to go away and immediately turned to go to the kitchen to get the key to lock the door. In the time he did that, she had opened the door and was standing in the hallway. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" he shouted. "James, I just want to talk to you". "Get out of my house now". At that moment he saw their next door neighbour Phoebe was just arriving home, so he walked straight past Andi and out of the house, calling to Phoebe to witness the fact that he had asked Andi to leave his house and she was refusing to do so. At this, Andi left, looking a little embarrassed - she returned to her car, which she had parked around the corner.