Free A Room Swept White by Sophie Hannah Page A

that’s the moment it picks to be full to bursting with an entire dinner service, gleaming and ponging of lemon.
    I pile the clean stuff randomly into cupboards and drawers, chipping a couple of plates that were already chipped, as most of my stuff is. Then I load the dirty things without botheringto rinse them as I normally would, and wipe the surfaces with a cloth that’s probably dirtier than the mess I’m using it to wipe up. I’m quite shallow when it comes to cleaning – tidy and bacteria-infested suits me fine, as long as it looks presentable to the untrained eye.
    I take out the rubbish, mop up the oil on the floor and stand back to survey the kitchen. It looks better than it has for some time. The thought pops into my head before I can stop it:
maybe I ought to have murderers round more often
. In the lounge, to a soundtrack of loud bangs from my pogo-jumping upstairs neighbours – their getting-ready-for-bed noises – I pick up about twenty DVDs from the floor and shove them in a cloth shopping bag, which I stuff behind the door.
    I don’t want Rachel Hines to know what DVDs I own, or anything else about me. I cast my eyes over the bookshelf that fills one whole alcove of my lounge, the one nearest the window. I don’t want her to know what books I read, but I haven’t got a bag big enough to house them all temporarily, or time to take them off the shelves. I toy with the idea of rigging up some kind of curtain to hide them, then decide I’m being paranoid. It doesn’t matter if she sees my books. It only matters if I make it matter.
    I plump up the sofa cushions and the one on the chair, then look again at my watch. Five past eleven. I pull open the curtains I closed when I got in, and, looking up to street level, see a man and woman walking past. They’re laughing. Her heels clip the pavement as she hurries along, and I have to restrain myself from pushing up my rattly sash window and shouting, ‘Come back!’
    I don’t want to be alone with Rachel Hines.
    In the hall, I scoop up all the letters, bills and bank statements that have piled up on the table and put them in the one drawer in my kitchen that opens properly, underneath the cutlery divider. I’m about to slam it shut when the corner of a thick cream-coloured envelope catches my eye, and I remember that I ran out of the flat this morning without opening the post.
    That card someone sent me at work, the one with the numbers on it – that arrived in a thick cream-coloured envelope with the same ribbed effect.
    So? It needn’t mean anything. A coincidence, that’s all
.
    This one’s also addressed to Fliss Benson. And the writing . . .
    I rip it open. Inside, there’s a card with only three numbers on it this time, in tiny handwriting at the bottom: 2 1 4. Or is it supposed to be two hundred and fourteen? The first three numbers on the other card, the one Laurie threw in the bin, were 2, 1 and 4.
    There’s no signature, no indication of who sent it. I turn the envelope upside down and shake it. Nothing. What do the numbers mean? Is it some kind of threat? Am I supposed to be scared? Whoever the sender is, he or she knows where I work, where I live . . .
    I tell myself I’m being ridiculous, and force the tension out of my body, letting my shoulders drop. I concentrate on breathing slowly and steadily for a few seconds. Of course it’s not a threat. If someone wants to threaten you, they use words you understand:
do x or I’ll kill you
. Threats are threats and numbers are numbers – there’s no overlap.
    I tear both the card and the envelope into small pieces and take them outside to the bin, resolving to waste no more timeon what must be some idiot’s idea of a joke. Back inside, I pour myself a large glass of white wine and walk up and down, looking at my watch every three seconds until I can’t bear it any longer. I pick up the phone and ring Tamsin’s home number. Joe answers on the second ring. ‘She’s puking her guts