The Cleaner
A cleaner discovers the weekly instructions she’s been following in a missing woman’s house weren’t cleaning tasks
Verdant 001 001
I want to make clear that I did not break into that house.
I was sent there.
I work through Verdant Solutions as a cleaner. Jobs appear through an app with an address, an access window and any instructions.
I have been attending the property at ██ ████████ Road roughly once a week since March.
I never met anybody there.
That isn't unusual with Verdant. You are given a time when the property is available and you're expected to attend within that window.
When I first accepted the assignment, Verdant issued me a key. It was tagged with the job reference only.
Today I received a notification at 09:16 saying the property was available between 11:00 and 15:00.
I arrived just after eleven and unlocked the rear door.
A police officer stopped me almost immediately.
I panicked because I didn't understand what was happening.
I told them I was the cleaner.
That was when I was told Mrs Caldwell had been reported missing.
Nobody had told me.
The house was always unusually clean. Most weeks it barely seemed to need cleaning at all.
I once messaged through the app to ask whether I was still required to attend.
The reply said:
CONTINUE AS INSTRUCTED.
I have been asked who arranged the service.
I don't know.
I assumed whoever lived at the property had booked it through Verdant.
Verdant 001 002
Dear Dr Lennox,
I am writing to refer the above patient for psychiatric assessment.
Mrs Caldwell presented on 9 August with increasing anxiety and poor sleep. She reports waking between 3am and 4am most nights and being unable to return to sleep.
She has become increasingly concerned that somebody may be entering her home while she is absent.
She describes returning from work to find minor signs of disturbance and household objects in positions different from where she believes she left them.
On several occasions she has also noticed an unfamiliar chemical smell in the property.
No items have been reported missing and she has found no visible signs of forced entry.
Mrs Caldwell is aware that she has no evidence of unauthorised access and is concerned that anxiety and lack of sleep may be affecting her judgement.
She describes herself as extremely particular about the arrangement of her home and says she would normally notice minor changes.
There is no recent history of psychiatric illness recorded in the notes available to me.
I have increased her sertraline from 50mg to 100mg as an interim measure.
I would be grateful for your assessment.
Yours sincerely,
Verdant 001 003
General Observations
The property is a two-storey mid-terrace.
The front door was secured with a deadbolt. No signs of forced entry were identified at any access point prior to police entry.
Post had accumulated behind the front door. Eight items, earliest dated 15 October.
A noticeable chemical smell was present on entry.
The property is exceptionally clean and ordered. Household items appear deliberately aligned.
Kitchen
All surfaces spotless.
Contents of cupboards arranged uniformly, with labels predominantly facing forwards.
Fridge contains limited food. Freezer contains prepared frozen meals.
Single glass containing water on counter, left side. Position photographed.
Unlabelled plastic bottle recovered beneath sink. Contents unknown. Sealed and logged as Exhibit 15.
Bathroom: First Floor
Strong smell of bleach on entering.
Bath contains approximately 2cm discoloured water. Sample taken.
Two toothbrushes present beside sink. Male and female toiletry products present.
Bedroom: Front
Bed made.
Men's and women's clothing present within wardrobes.
Bedside table: sertraline 100mg prescribed to Mrs S. Caldwell, dispensed 15 August 2024. Approximately half remaining.
Bedroom door handle broken on inside. Once door is closed it can only be opened again from upstairs hallway.
Property Inspection Notes
During inspection of the first-floor landing, PC R. Calloway, shoulder no. 4471, reported an intermittent high-frequency tone.
None of the other attending officers reported hearing it.
PC Calloway stated that the tone appeared strongest towards the staircase and entrance hallway.
Source not located.
At approximately 11:07, while officers remained at the property, a female later identified as Mara Reeve attempted to enter through the rear door using a key.
Reeve stated that she was attending the property as a cleaner through Verdant Solutions.
No cleaning service associated with the property had previously been identified during the investigation.
Reeve was escorted from the scene and subsequently interviewed.
Summary
No mobile telephone or passport belonging to Mrs Caldwell was located.
The property shows no obvious signs of unauthorised forced entry.
Verdant 001 004
Verdant 001 005
Hi Beth
I want to flag a concern about Sarah Caldwell, not a complaint against her.
Sarah has raised repeated concerns that files she's reviewed in the archive don't match what she remembers seeing.
I've checked a couple with her directly and I can't find any discrepancy myself.
She has become increasingly certain that records are being changed after she's reviewed them.
I don't believe that's what's happening, but I am concerned about how distressed she's becoming.
I'd like guidance on how to support her, and whether an Occupational Health referral might be appropriate at this stage.
Thanks
Verdant 001 006
Hi Daniel
Following our previous conversations about Sarah, I met with her on Friday.
She arrived carrying several folders containing handwritten notes, printed records and what must have been hundreds of photographs.
Maybe over a thousand.
Sarah explained that she has been photographing files and computer screens because she believes records are being changed after she views them.
She says nobody will believe her otherwise.
At the time, I thought this was evidence that she had become overly focused on the issue.
I asked IT to review a sample of the photographs so that we could finally establish whether there was anything behind her concerns.
I expected the exercise to put the matter to rest.
Instead, IT requested an urgent meeting this morning.
I attended that meeting twenty minutes ago.
Before we discuss Occupational Health again, I think somebody from HR needs to review what they found.
Verdant 001 007
Verdant 001 008
Reason for Attendance: Secondary scene examination following review of material recovered during the initial search and further enquiries with neighbouring occupants.
Two adjoining households reported persistent unexplained barking and agitation from dogs during the preceding months, apparently focused towards the Caldwell property.
During closer examination, transparent household adhesive tape was identified on floors and adjacent surfaces throughout multiple rooms.
The tape forms close outlines around furniture and household objects, including dining chairs, side tables, kitchen appliances and decorative ornaments.
Similar markings are present inside cupboards around crockery and food containers.
The markings appear intended to indicate the precise position of individual objects.
The tape was not recorded during the initial scene examination on 22 October.
Review of photographs taken during the initial examination confirms that the markings were already present on 22 October but were not identified or recorded at the time.
A small unidentified electronic device was also recovered from within the ceiling void above the entrance hallway.
The device was connected to the property's electrical supply and positioned adjacent to an existing ventilation opening.
Removed and submitted to Digital Forensics for technical examination.
Verdant 001 009
Verdant 001 010
Verdant 001 011
Scope of Review
Photographs supplied by S. Caldwell were cross-referenced against historical case files she had reviewed over the previous six months.
Findings
In each case examined, the version currently held in the system differs from the version photographed by S. Caldwell at the point of review.
Differences include altered dates, changed reference numbers and specific details removed from documents.
In every instance examined, the alteration occurred within hours of S. Caldwell closing the file.
No record exists of these changes being made by S. Caldwell, her colleagues or any authorised system process.
System Access
System access logs show remote sessions occurring shortly after S. Caldwell's reviews.
The timing indicates that the remote access may have been triggered by her review activity.
The access does not correspond to any known TriCare vendor or contractor.
Recommendation
Urgent escalation recommended.
All files reviewed by S. Caldwell over the previous six months should be independently re-verified.
Verdant 001 012
Following our conversation earlier this week, I tried Sarah's sister again but haven't been able to reach her.
Something about my call with Thomas on Tuesday had been bothering me, so I looked at his employer's LinkedIn page.
There is a post from Tuesday showing members of their overseas project team in Singapore.
Thomas is in the photograph.
I contacted the company this afternoon. They would not provide any detailed personal information, but they did confirm that Thomas has been based full-time in Singapore since February and attended a project meeting there on Tuesday afternoon.
When I spoke to him later that day, I asked whether Sarah's house could be checked.
From the conversation, I was left with the impression that this could be arranged.
He never mentioned that he was in Singapore, or that he had been living there for most of the year.
I don't know whether this is significant, but I thought you should know.
Verdant 001 013
This statement relates to my previous attendance at the property at ██ ████████ Road.
I have been asked to provide more detail about the instructions I received through the Verdant app.
I've had time to think about it since I was stopped at the house.
There were things I was asked to do that didn't really have anything to do with cleaning.
I was instructed to adjust electrical equipment.
Unplug something and reconnect it.
Reset a socket.
Things like that.
Sometimes I was told to move household objects.
A blue mug from one shelf to another.
A photograph turned towards the wall.
A glass moved from one side of the kitchen to the other.
Once I was told to leave the bathroom window open by about three inches.
The instructions were always very specific.
They were also always small things.
At the time, I assumed they had come from the people who lived there.
When I returned the following week, I sometimes noticed that something I had moved had been put back where it was before.
I never saw anybody while I was there.
I didn't think that was strange because the whole point of the access window was that the property was meant to be empty.
I have also been asked about the glass I mentioned in my previous statement.
I had moved a glass before as part of one of the instructions.
On my final visit before Mrs Caldwell disappeared, there was a full glass of water sitting on the kitchen floor.
That was different.
Nothing was ever left like that in the house.
I photographed it through the app.
Within about two minutes I received an instruction telling me to empty it, clean it and put it away.
I did.
I didn't question any of these things at the time.
I've been thinking about them since.
I have now been told that Mrs Caldwell was living at the property alone.
I didn't know that.
I thought her husband lived there with her.
There were men's clothes in the wardrobes. Men's shoes. Two toothbrushes. Men's toiletries in the bathroom.
I thought one person in the house was asking me to move things and the other person was putting them back.
That's what I thought was happening.
If I'd known Mrs Caldwell was living there on her own I would NOT have done those things.
Verdant 001 014
A small electronic device recovered from the entrance hallway during the secondary scene examination on 2 November 2024 was submitted for technical examination.
The device had no visible manufacturer markings.
It contained:
- miniature camera module
- motion sensor
- wireless transmission hardware
- no internal storage media
A lens aperture had been positioned with a clear field of view towards the front door and lower staircase.
The device was connected to the property's electrical supply and capable of continuous operation.
Examination indicates that the unit was configured to transmit externally rather than store recordings locally.
Motion activation would have enabled the device to detect and record persons entering or leaving the property.
No accessible record of the destination server was retained on the device.
The device does not appear on the inventory of electronic equipment supplied by Mrs Caldwell's broadband, security or utilities providers.
Installation date cannot presently be established.
Additional Observation
The unit produces a brief high-frequency acoustic tone during network polling.
The frequency is consistent with the tone reported by PC R. Calloway during the initial scene examination on 22 October.
Further network analysis requested.
Verdant 001 015
WHOEVER KEEPS COMING INTO MY HOUSE
I know someone is coming in when I'm at work.
I know things are being moved.
Nothing has been taken.
I don't understand what you want.
Please stop.
You are frightening me.
Sarah
Verdant 001 016
Patient presented following the breakdown of a long-term relationship.
Patient reports that the relationship had become increasingly controlling during the final year, including monitoring of her communications and repeated demands by her former partner to account for her movements and whereabouts.
Reports increased anxiety, poor sleep and heightened vigilance following the separation.
No psychotic symptoms reported or elicited during consultation.
Symptoms understood in the context of a prolonged controlling relationship and subsequent separation.
No formal psychiatric diagnosis made.
Patient declined further follow-up.