Day 2,492

In my younger days I'd spent the summer picking up odd jobs, we all did back then. It was always something off a flyer or noticeboard, always cash in hand and always far more hassle than it paid to be. For the most part I found myself mowing lawns and looking after pets for a few days so when I saw that notice for a pool cleaner I jumped at the chance for something new.

I wasn't expecting to walk through a beautifully kept garden and nearly walk into a pool that was so disgustingly green it blended in perfectly with the grass. The owners had been an elderly couple who stopped taking care of the pool when their daughter went missing - their friend made sure to enforce just how much she loved that pool so I had to clean it to perfection.

They provided me with everything I'd need so it wasn't the end of the world, just an mild nightmare and a hell of a lot of hard work for the day. I followed the guidebook that was tucked into the pool vacuum, starting with skimming everything off the top and working my way down.

I remember hearing people whispering a lot inside the house, almost like stage whispering but I couldn't quite make out what they said. All I knew was that something in the pool was starting to come to the surface and it stank worse than anything I'd ever smelled before.

It started as a vague dark shape that billowed about so I figured that maybe a deer had gotten caught in a tarp and the elderly owners didn't notice somehow or maybe they used to dump trash here but neither made sense with how desperately their friend kept saying they loved the pool like their daughter.

When my brush nudged the edge of it I could sort of see how it had been caught on some rope so I angled the brush and twisted to bring enough of the rope up to cut the object free. If it wasn't for the unmistakable patterned dress she was wearing I never would have known what I'd pulled up.

Understandably I freaked out and ran up to the house to use their phone but I'd barely made it ten steps before a couple of officers came barging into me, tackled me to the ground and told me I was under arrest fur suspected murder. As they were taking me away I saw even more cars appear and officers flood the place, the owners were still nowhere in sight.

They accepted my explanation when I gave them the flyer, back in those days it was very much a 'take me at my word and with whatever proof is in my pockets' kind of deal. They let me go and I never took a summer job again, never found out who killed her either or where her parents went.

The papers were strangely silent on the whole thing...