by Sarah Bailey
And now the three of them are partners in a media company. It’s a subscription model that charges members a few dollars a week and offers comprehensive investigations, researched pieces and in-depth interviews, plus a daily news podcast that will drop at midday. They have no idea if it will work but have assembled a small team of freelancers and committed to a year: twelve months of praying they can make a living from doing things their way.
The bell on the door chimes, signalling new customers. Oli glances at the clock above the counter. She has a childish desire to pull the pin on the meeting she arranged, but she wants to get this done, and she wants it done before their first edition goes live. As she pushes back her chair it scrapes noisily on the polished concrete floor, jarring with the pop song that blares from the tiny speaker system on the counter. She looks around in apology, but the cafe owner grins and holds her hand up in a friendly wave. ‘See you soon!’
Oli smiles and waves back. Looping her scarf around her neck, she crosses the road to enter the Fitzroy Gardens.
Just over a week ago, she moved out of Lily’s and into her new place just around the corner. It’s small, with a private balcony and a communal garden. She has started swimming at the local pool again; she does fewer laps than she used to, but enjoys the meditative effect. It feels like a small part of her former self reclaimed, and she likes the numbing effect it has on her brain. Her mother and Max are coming to her place for dinner tomorrow night, along with Shaun and Lily, to celebrate the launch of the business. Oli has decided to make an effort with Sally—to try, anyway.
‘All you can do is try,’ Lily said, blinking back tears, when Oli spoke to her about it late one night after Shaun went to bed. ‘It was horrible for you, unforgiveable, Oli, but she’s a victim too. We all are.’
Oli doesn’t react to Lily’s well-meaning words. Her sister will never really understand what she went through but that’s not her fault and she’s just trying to help.
A trio of teenage girls walk past, giggling at something on a phone. One says, ‘I cannot believe you wrote that! You’re the worst.’ The tallest girl smacks her friend’s arm playfully then grabs her, pulling her into a hug. An electronic beep is followed by a shriek, hands clapped over mouths in exaggerated shock.
Oli glances at her watch, brushes invisible lint from her coat. Licks her finger and bends to wipe dirt from her boot. She knows she looks perfectly fine on the outside, but on the inside she’s a mess. She thinks about all the times she waited for Dean, tarted up like a doll, her face painted in the way she thought he would like. Perched in tiny wine bars she’d never heard of, hidden in dark corners of expensive restaurants. Instructed to wait in hotel bars, something she’d endlessly misread as an entrée to a main meal that never came. Or didn’t come for a long time, anyway.
She sits on the edge of the fountain. Moss is embedded in the concrete surface, giving it a marbled appearance. She dips her hand in the freezing water and plucks a few leaves out one by one, arranging them in a row.
‘Hey.’ Rusty sits next to her.
‘Hi.’
He squints into the sun. ‘Weather’s still a bit all over the place isn’t it.’
‘Rusty.’
‘It’s okay, Ol, I get it.’
She turns to look at him.
He smiles. ‘I sort of figured when you wanted to meet outside in the middle of the day that you were doing everything possible to avoid giving me the wrong impression.’
‘Well, I guess I just feel a bit confused right now.’
‘That’s understandable.’
She bats him with her fist. ‘Stop being so nice.’
‘Okay, fine. I don’t think you’re confused.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I think you’re just not that into me.’
‘Rusty, I—’
He holds up his hands. ‘It’s okay, I know you care about me. I care about you too, but I’m not sure I can go there again. Not unless we’re both sure, and we’re not.’
They sit in silence for a few moments.
‘You’re excited about tomorrow?’
‘I really am,’ she says.
‘It’s going to be great.’ He pauses, weighing something up.
‘What?’
‘I’ve just been at the prison.’
Her spine straightens. ‘Tell me.’
‘We are now sure it was Nicole who originally kidnapped Louise and took her to the McCraes. Someone in the network had offered over a hundred thousand dollars for her, and Nicole and the McCraes did a deal. Nicole took her, and the McCraes planned to keep her at their house for a few months before they offloaded her to the buyer. We think Evelyn found out, or that she suspected Nicole was involved somehow. When she threatened to go to the cops, the plan had to change. We think that’s why McCrae went to Paradise Street that night. He was trying to intimidate Evelyn and make it clear that if she spoke about any of it, they’d come after her.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Yeah, and that’s not all. Two inmates have made statements about killings they claim Bowman orchestrated—a priest who got wind of the paedophile ring in 2001 and was about to blow the whistle on his colleague, and a gang member who was causing Bowman grief.’
‘So he was paying people off all the way back then?’
‘Ol, it looks like this has been going on since the eighties. Yesterday, a retired cop came in who reckons Bowman planted drugs at the house of a constable he had an issue with. That was in 1989.’
‘Is he still refusing to say anything?’
‘He hasn’t said a word. But we have Bouris’s statement about Yardley’s death, and Nathan is talking, so we’ve got more than enough to make sure Bowman’s going to die in prison. We just might not ever know the full extent of what he’s done.’
‘He told me he was going to conceal Louise’s identity, that he could falsify test results.’
Rusty shakes his head in disgust. Oli knows how much he hates the police force being compromised in this way.
‘What about the fire at Crystalbrook?’
‘We’re sure he lit it, we’re just not sure why. We assume he realised there was something that would link Evie to Louise or implicate him in some way. Or maybe it was just another way to make Nicole seem unstable and dangerous.’
‘Thank god you weren’t injured,’ she says, shuddering. Then, ‘I still don’t get why Bouris humoured me the day I went to see him. Surely that was risky?’
‘Apparently his missus shacked up with a cop a few months ago. I think he decided the deal he made with Bowman to protect his family was expiring. Apparently, he’s been mouthing off to other inmates recently too. I suspect if all this hadn’t happened, Bouris may have had an unfortunate accident.’
‘It’s all so precarious,’ Oli murmurs. ‘I still can’t believe they thought they’d get away with it forever.’
‘I know.’ Rusty clears his throat. ‘A detective has confirmed Isabelle suspected something was off with Bowman, that she lodged a complaint with internal affairs that was squashed. We’re trying to connect the dots.’
‘Holy shit. So this goes further than Bowman in the force? Higher?’
Rusty winces. ‘You didn’t hear it from me.’
‘’Course not.’
He coughs. ‘Anyway, we’re not making a statement until tomorrow afternoon, so I guess there’s that.’
‘Thanks, Rusty. It means a lot.’ Birds dart past, and she watches them until they’re out of sight. ‘Is there still nothing to connect O’Brien to any of this?’
‘Not yet. We’re honestly not sure there’s a link. There’s still nothing concrete on Cooper’s attack either, but we’ll keep looking. We know Bowman was behind it, we just don’t know who he called on to do it.’ Rusty drops his head into his hands. His hair glints gold in the sun, and she stops herself from reaching out to run her fingers through it. She pats his back instead.
‘Alex Riboni didn’t kill herself, did she?’ Oli asks q
uietly.
‘I doubt it.’ Rusty clears his throat. ‘We think Bowman was in Crystalbrook the day before her body was discovered. We think he followed her there and warned Nicole away.’
Oli shakes her head. ‘Jesus.’
‘Nicole refuses to say a word about it. She will only talk about the night at Paradise Street and insists she ran away because Alex threatened to kill her too. She keeps saying both of the housemates had developed a serious drug problem and that both girls had become increasingly erratic and violent. She says she was scared.’
‘I don’t think Nicole Horrowitz is scared of anything,’ muses Oli.
‘I know.’
‘Maybe the little girl knows something.’ Oli still struggles to think of her as Louise.
‘I’m sure she does, but we’re being really careful in terms of interviewing her. She’s been through a lot.’ Rusty gulps a breath and lifts his head. ‘I’ve got to go. Good luck for tomorrow, Oli.’
They hug. Oli thinks how easy life would be if she liked him more.
He smiles at her ruefully. ‘I’ll call you.’
For a few minutes, she watches people walk past. She traces the soft scar in her hairline as she turns the story over in her mind.
Two little boys and their mother sit next to her. Their father moves to take a photo.
Oli asks, ‘Would you like me to take one of all of you?’
The man hands her the camera and slots in next to his wife. Hoists one of the boys onto his lap. Oli takes several shots.
‘Thank you!’ the man beams as he flicks through the images. ‘These are great.’
‘No problem,’ she murmurs, before setting off toward her apartment. She plugs her earbuds into her phone, then FaceTimes TJ and Chelsea. ‘I hope you’re both ready for a long night. We’ve got a new launch story.’
MONDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER 2015
Nicole is living less than an hour away. With a child. It makes Alex sick to think about it. She always used to assume she would have kids herself one day, in that faraway adult life that she occasionally thought about. She and Miles even talked about it a few times, but after Evelyn died she could never picture it. Monsters don’t have children.
At work she is Allie. A few months ago, a guy from marketing asked her out for a drink, but she just stuttered an excuse and pretended to answer her phone. She’s avoided him ever since, waiting for him to finish in the kitchen before she gets her lunch from the fridge. He tried to talk to her again about two weeks later, but that was the day Laney, her co-worker, emailed her the photo of Nicole. Alex almost vomited all over her keyboard. It was Nicole, but she was going by the name Natalie. And there was a little girl in another picture, a girl called Evie with the same last name: Maslan. Alex remembered Nicole talking about an author she liked with that surname.
In the office bathroom a few hours later, Alex vomited for real. After wiping her face with a wet paper towel she returned to her desk, head exploding with the past. She reopened the email attachment and read an article about the environmental program in Crystalbrook. Alex’s workplace is connecting the Crystalbrook community with an inner-city workplace and arranging for a group of staff to go to the Dandenongs for a sustainability excursion. Alex will be the project lead.
Nicole looks different in the photo, but Alex has no doubt it’s her. Her eyes are the giveaway.
Alex copied the photos to her desktop, printed them out after hours and took them home to her tiny apartment. She stuck them on the bedroom wall next to the photo of herself with Evelyn and Nicole at the Paradise Street house. In the weeks since, she has spent hours lying on her bed, staring at them.
Knowing where Nicole is has done something to her mind. A crack has appeared in its darkest corner, and it’s slowly splitting open. Memories are fluttering out like bats. They invade her dreams and have started to appear everywhere—on the bus, at work. She is remembering. Finally, the black hole is being filled with colour: she was pulled out of bed, the knife pressed into her hand. Heavy footsteps on the floorboards. The man’s whispers. The threats.
And once she started to remember, it unlocked something in the universe. A reporter found her on Twitter and asked her to do an interview for a newspaper radio show. For the first time, the urge to talk is stronger than the urge to stay silent.
The following day Miles crossed the road in front of her in the city last week, just walked right past talking into his phone. His voice sounded exactly the same. She tracked him down at work. Called him and told him she’s finally going to speak. That she wants to speak to him first.
Then the death threats came: one to her work, two to her Twitter account. Alex is used to being hated, but this isn’t crazed vitriol. It isn’t preachy or accusatory. Someone wants her to stay silent; someone knows she’s planning to talk.
They are coming after her. She doesn’t have long. But this time she’s not scared. She has nothing to lose.
In the end, it’s easy to track down Nicole. A few phone calls, some pretending to be Natalie Maslan, and she has Nicole’s address: the cottage house on Laker Drive, Crystalbrook.
Alex gets on the bus in the city and sits near the driver, clutching her handbag. Her mouth is dry, but there’s heat under her arms. Nicole’s old ID is in there; it was in Alex’s purse the night of the murder, and it was still there along with her belongings when she got out of gaol. She brought the death threats too, tucked inside her bag.
She looks at the other people on the bus. Teenagers, the elderly. A young mother with two little kids. Probably on their way to friends’ houses, appointments. Going on adventures. Alex looks out the window as the bus groans slowly up the mountain. Admires all the green. It’s so pretty out here, unlike the grey shades of her life in the city. Maybe one day she’ll move to a place like this. Live among the trees.
Alex hesitates. Maybe Nicole has found peace in the hills. Maybe she doesn’t want what Alex wants. She might be happy to let the past be, for justice to remain out of reach.
For the first time in years, Alex marvels at how it all happened. How fast things got out of control. Coaxing the kids into the bath, stripping them to their underwear, hands shaking as she took the photos. Heading into the library, eyes down as she logged on to the network using the fake account. Staring at the door while the files uploaded. Deleting the images. Doing it all over again. The money, though, the money had come, and that had felt good.
They had some rules. Never the same house twice. Never talk about it. They would stop as soon as uni finished.
But once Louise Carter went missing, it all fell apart. Evelyn was convinced the photos she’d taken of the toddler had led to her kidnapping. She wanted out, but she didn’t want to go quietly; she wanted to scream it from the rooftops, burn it all to the ground.
Alex gets off the bus. She slides on her cheap sunglasses and looks both ways up the street. A short row of shops on either side, like in a country town. She gets out her phone, orientates herself. Walks toward Laker Drive. She barely notices the older man a few metres behind her, his white hair stuffed into a baseball cap.
She needs her old friend now more than ever. They were far from innocent, but they were still victims. They were threatened and Nicole was driven into hiding. They had their voices taken away. But Alex has found hers. It’s time to admit what they did. It’s time to expose everyone involved in the dark, twisted mess. With Nicole’s help she is going to blow it all up.
She reaches the end of the dirt driveway. The trees whisper.
Alex hopes her friend is ready to be brave.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ONCE AGAIN, HUGE THANKS GO TO MY AGENT LYN TRANTER, PUBLISHER Jane Palfreyman and editor Kate Goldsworthy. I know I am very fortunate to partner with such a formidable trio of writerly women.
Thanks also to Deanne Sheldon-Collins for her helpful advice on the draft and the wonderful team of editors, proofreaders and book-birthing experts at Allen & Unwin. I am eternally grateful to have so many talented p
eople cheering for my books.
David Hurley deserves a shout out for letting me tag along with him to court and answering questions about being a journo, as do several experts who provided invaluable insight into their professional worlds. The maddening reality checks and attention to detail is much appreciated.
My ‘non-professional team’ continue to provide endless support, distraction and encouragement throughout the writing process. Firstly, to my amazing children, Oxford and Linus, who I am so glad are genuinely interested in ideas and stories, and love asking how many words I’m up to. It’s like living with two mini personal trainers. Thanks also to my parents, who once again were early readers of this manuscript, and provided positive and useful feedback, and to my sister, my family and my brilliant group of friends. I get so much from all of you.
Much of this book was written during a strict COVID-induced lock-down, and while it undoubtedly helped me meet my deadline, it also made me appreciate all the wonderful people in my life and the oxygen I get from them. I hope we will always lift each other up and do life together.
The idea for The Housemate lodged in my brain several years before I put pen to paper. It rattled around for a while, taking various forms, until eventually becoming clearer. Oli appeared and with her came Dean, Cooper, the housemates, and of course Isabelle. I liked the idea of Oli navigating the ghostly force of Isabelle while trying to build a life with Dean, and simultaneously cracking one of the biggest stories of her career. I was excited to write it but found attempting a standalone story nerve-racking after focusing on another leading lady for so long. But Oli proved herself to have as much determination as Gemma. After several months and a few false starts, I found Oli’s (husky) voice and set about bringing her world to life. Cooper in particular was a joy to write.