The Housemate

by Sarah Bailey

  She stands up to go just as Bowman steps into her line of sight outside the cafe. The coffee cup rattles across the table as she pushes her chair back and bolts toward him. ‘Chief Inspector!’

  He freezes. Turns. Scans her up and down. He says something to the man in the suit next to him before ambling over, his expression impossible to read. His blue eyes are watery, his papery skin riddled with sunspots and broken veins.

  She musters some confidence. ‘I want to talk to you about the Housemate case.’

  ‘Tell me, Ms Groves, how are the twins?’

  ‘Oh.’ Oli is completely thrown, anxiety rolling across her body. ‘They’re fine, thank you.’

  He nods. Digs his hands into his pockets. ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  Still nervous, she says, ‘I want to include some quotes from you in a feature I’m writing.’

  Bowman says curtly, ‘You ran with the child story.’

  ‘I did.’ She lifts her chin, trying to convey a bravery she doesn’t feel.

  His expression doesn’t change, but a different energy runs through his eyes. ‘That didn’t impress me much. Nor did your paper’s coverage of the O’Brien saga today.’

  ‘Well, your press conference just now didn’t impress me much.’

  He surprises her by laughing. ‘I guess we’re even.’

  ‘I have some new information,’ she says, feeling emboldened. ‘And some questions for you.’

  Something skitters across his face: irritation, or grudging respect? ‘I’m happy to hear your theories, but as I said earlier at my underwhelming press conference, this might be a fairly straightforward case in the end. Not everything is a story.’

  She ignores the subtle dig. ‘Can we talk now? I want to know if you found a computer at the Paradise Street house. There might have been something relevant to the case on it.’

  He pulls at his nostrils. Clears his throat. ‘Like what?’

  ‘I’m hoping you will tell me.’

  He glances at his watch, an old-fashioned timepiece with a few clock faces sitting inside the larger one. ‘We found two computers at the house. But there wasn’t anything on them that I think would be of interest to you.’

  Undeterred, she ploughs on. ‘I just spoke to Mitchell Stanley, who had some interesting things to say about his daughter and her friends. Things I’m not sure your team ever looked into.’

  Bowman snorts softly and looks at his watch again. ‘I have an event to get to shortly, and I can’t be late as I’m the keynote speaker. Tomorrow night should be fine, assuming everyone behaves themselves. The Lion & Ox on Exhibition. I’ll be there by five-thirty.’

  ‘I can’t tomorrow night,’ she manages, cursing the twins’ end of term swimming carnival. ‘What about Friday?’

  He nods, looking amused. ‘Clearly this important conversation can wait until then.’

  ‘I’d rather speak with you now. I’ll keep it brief.’

  ‘Not possible, I’m afraid.’ He loops his thumbs into the belt holes of his trench coat, checks his phone and frowns. ‘Friday it is.’

  ‘Thank you, Chief Inspector,’ she breathes.

  But Bowman is already walking away, his broad shoulders hunched.

  Oli heads slowly in the opposite direction, her heartbeat dropping back to a normal rhythm. She isn’t sure how well that went, but a meeting’s a meeting. Her phone rings again: Cooper. ‘Any luck out there?’ she asks.

  ‘Oli.’ His voice is subdued, missing its usual perkiness.

  ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘I’ve spoken to heaps of people, but right now I’m with a bunch of cops up here, and they’ve just got a call about a Subaru turning up in Warrandyte.’

  ‘Has it been dumped?’

  ‘It’s at the bottom of the Yarra River.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  EVERYONE IS WELL ON THEIR WAY TO DRUNK WHEN OLI ARRIVES back at the office. TJ is sitting on top of Brent’s desk sans tie, looking extremely pleased with himself as he regales the small group with the ins and outs of his interview with O’Brien’s old neighbour, who revealed she frequently saw young prostitutes coming to the former premier’s house when his wife was away. Oli is offered a beer but turns it down, half-heartedly joining the chatter. She feels disconnected from her co-workers, skirting around the action and sticking to small talk. Once critical mass has been achieved, with more people drinking than working, someone suggests the pub, and everyone eagerly pulls on jackets and gathers their belongings. Oli politely declines a few invites and heads back to her desk.

  Pia bounces over, colour in her cheeks, and hands her a sticky note. ‘I couldn’t find Julian McCrae’s mobile number, but this might be his landline. His wife listed it on a website she used to run selling pottery. It’s in East Melbourne, and I matched it to the ABN registered under her name. I rang earlier—the voicemail message doesn’t mention their names, but it sounds like an older woman. Worst-case scenario, you can go to the uni campus and track him down, though I get that probably isn’t your preference.’

  ‘No. I’d much rather harass him on the phone,’ Oli jokes.

  ‘Your specialty,’ Pia says, smiling.

  ‘Thanks, Pia,’ Oli says gratefully. ‘You’re a legend.’

  ‘No worries,’ she replies. ‘I’m off to be a drunk legend.’

  ‘Have fun.’

  ‘You’re not coming?’

  ‘No, I have a few things to tie up here.’

  Pia shrugs; she knows Oli isn’t a big drinker. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  Oli buys a packet of chips from the vending machine and munches away, going over her notes. Almost two hours later, Cooper walks in and gives her an update from the car crash scene in Warrandyte just as it starts to hit the TV reports. No one was inside the submerged Subaru, but divers are still searching the area, unwilling to rule out that there are bodies in the lake. Oli watches the dark footage of the Channel Nine reporter who gestures to the river behind her.

  Cooper looks drawn, uncertain. ‘I heard one of the divers say that the doors were open. I’m not sure what that means.’

  Oli offers him a chip, and he takes a small handful. The machinery in the office hums, the bank of TVs flickering as they jump from story to story. She can tell he’s rattled.

  ‘Jeepers, it was intense out there,’ says Cooper. ‘I kept thinking I didn’t know what I would do if they pulled a kid out of the water.’

  ‘You would have done your job,’ Oli says.

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘You would have,’ she insists. ‘Like yesterday. You just kicked into gear and kept going.’

  He nods but seems unconvinced.

  ‘Do you think it’s worth you going back to Warrandyte tomorrow?’

  He is clearly surprised to be asked. ‘Maybe. But I don’t get the feeling Nicole’s connected to the area. And it’s a lot of time in the car that I could be putting to better use.’

  He looks to Oli for confirmation and she nods and then tells him about her conversation with Mitchell Stanley.

  ‘Evelyn was selling drugs?’ he says when she’s done.

  ‘I’d say that’s most likely.’

  ‘Do you think they were all dealing?’

  Oli imagines the rhythm of the share house, the girls living on top of each other, borrowing each other’s clothes, doing each other’s make-up. ‘We know they were all taking drugs. It’s not much of a stretch.’

  He doesn’t comment. His usual perkiness has definitely been tested by the events of the day.

  ‘Why don’t you sort out your photos?’ Oli says authoritatively. ‘I’ll write up some copy to go with them. If we get everything through by 8 pm, we’ll make the morning print edition.’

  They work in silence. ‘This is the best one,’ Cooper says finally.

  She looks at the image: the Subaru being winched out of the river, a group of emergency workers in high-vis gathered on the banks. She nods. ‘Send it to me.’

  After filing the piece along wi
th the photo, she stretches her hands above her head and breaks into a yawn. Wonders where the fuck Nicole Horrowitz is.

  ‘I’m wiped too,’ says Cooper, catching her yawn. ‘So, what now? Home time?’

  She thinks about going home to Dean’s empty house, and the temptation to trawl through Isabelle’s things surges in her core. ‘Do you have plans?’ she blurts.

  ‘What, right now?’ Cooper looks startled. ‘Ah, no. Mum’s got dinner for me, she always cooks a curry on Wednesday, but I guess I could—’

  Oli stands and pulls on her coat. ‘Let’s go to Paradise Street.’

  They creep along St Kilda Road. Clouds clog the sky, hiding the stars and blocking the glow of the moon, which is trying to show off its full orb. Cooper’s bike is strapped to the back of the car, secured with a fluorescent-green cord. Oli can see the silhouette of the handlebars through the rear window.

  ‘Did you always want to be a journalist?’ asks Cooper. He’s texting someone, his messages filled with gifs, and Oli wonders if he has a partner. They must have the patience of a saint.

  ‘Pretty much. I always liked to write, but I didn’t get into it straight away. I went overseas for three years after high school. I didn’t go to uni until my early twenties.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I wanted to get away.’

  ‘From what?’ He looks at her with interest.

  ‘I just … It’s hard to explain.’

  Even Cooper seems to understand that it’s not up for discussion. ‘Fair enough. What did you do when you were over there? I’ve only ever been to Asia, and only for a couple of weeks. Mum took me to meet all my relatives in Singapore. I can’t imagine being away from Australia for three years—I’m a real homebody.’

  ‘I thought all millennials want to take off overseas?’

  ‘Not this one,’ he says cheerfully. ‘I want to make my career in Melbourne. I mean, it’s a great city, why not?’

  Oli casts her mind back to that time, when she was working in bars and pubs. Waitressing. Writing snippets here and there, documenting the people she met, the things she saw. It was a dreamy, wonderful few years of anonymity, the perfect antithesis to everything she’d left behind and the drama yet to come. She kept to herself, alone in crowds of people. She started dabbling in drugs, weed, pills, and enjoyed dancing for hours with strangers then going home on her own.

  ‘You should think about it,’ she says. ‘Take a gap year or something. I loved it. I worked in bars mainly, but I wrote as well, travel pieces and articles about being an Aussie in Europe. A lot of them got picked up here and in the UK. It helped me get a job when I finished my degree.’

  ‘You studied journalism?’

  ‘Arts. I started doing law, but I switched out after a year. I wanted to write. But journalism has changed a lot since then. Maybe these days I would make a different choice.’

  ‘Half my uni subjects covered the impact of social media on journalism.’

  ‘Yeah, there’s that, and just the overall sense you’re always just scraping the surface now. The news cycle is a lot faster than it used to be.’ She laughs, self-conscious. ‘That probably makes me sound really old.’

  With a nod, he looks out the window.

  She rolls her eyes. ‘Anyway,’ she says lightly, ‘that’s why a story like this is interesting. It’s not just about the reporting—there’s the chance to dig a bit, push people to talk. It’s not over in a day. It has some depth.’

  They stop for a red light. Nearby, a young woman, her thin legs pale and bare under a fluffy tan coat, leans back against an old Telstra phone box, her heavily made-up eyes half closed. A white ute pulls up next to her, and she stands to attention, smiling and leaning into the passenger window.

  ‘I thought street prostitutes were illegal?’

  Cooper’s tone is so naive that Oli has to stifle a laugh. ‘I think the cops pick their battles. Like the rest of us.’

  He nods wordlessly, watching as the girl swings herself into the ute.

  The pub on the corner of Grey Street is lit up like a Christmas tree. A trio of backpackers sit smoking cigarettes in the gutter out the front, and the line to get in snakes around the corner. Oli takes a right into Barkly Street, passing wine bars and restaurants, beautiful old houses nestled between run-down apartment buildings.

  ‘Where do you live?’ she asks him, navigating the backstreets.

  He interprets her question as an invitation to narrate his entire family history. ‘We live in Box Hill. Dad’s brother is there too, just a few streets over from us.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘I’m an only child.’

  ‘You mentioned that.’

  ‘Heaps of cousins, though.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I always wanted a cat, but my mum’s allergic.’

  Oli doesn’t reply.

  The street reaches a dogleg, marking the start of Paradise Street.

  ‘This is it,’ Oli says, interrupting Cooper as he describes his mother’s allergies.

  He angles his body forward, the seatbelt straining against his scrawny chest. ‘Number twenty-eight, right?’

  Oli nods. The streetlights create dull yellow circles every few metres, and while some of the houses have their porches lit, most are dark. ‘It’s further down.’ She keeps the car at a low hum. ‘There.’ Bringing it to a stop, she flicks off the headlights. A For Lease sign is nailed to the front fence, black graffiti scrawled across it.

  A jolt of déjà vu charges through her. Aside from a new garden bed on the left side of the lawn and a row of rosebushes along the front fence, it looks almost exactly the same.

  ‘I totally remember the moment the news broke,’ Cooper whispers. ‘I was in the den watching cartoons, eating Weet-Bix—or maybe it was Coco Pops—anyway, I could hear the radio from the kitchen, that news music they used to have, and a newsreader said a woman had been killed in St Kilda, and we’d been to Luna Park the weekend before. And so I just completely freaked out. I snuck into the lounge that night to watch the news from behind the couch. My mum and dad were talking about it—you know, like playing detective. Mum said the girls sounded like trouble, but she’s pretty conservative.’

  ‘I was right here,’ Oli says. ‘In a much less expensive car than this one.’ She feels a stab of affection for her old Mazda; she loved that car.

  Cooper bounces back against his chair. ‘It’s such a spin out!’

  Oli is starting to regret bringing him here. Now that she has seen the house again, coming here feels kind of foolish. What did she expect, a lightning strike of inspiration? A clue?

  ‘Seriously,’ he says, ‘it’s like you’re retracing your steps, uncovering new leads.’

  She notices fresh flowers piled up beside the front gate: some roses and a sheaf of daisies. Alex’s death has stirred up the old grief. People don’t know where to put their symbols of sadness, so they return to the scene of the original crime.

  ‘Imagine living in a place where someone died like that.’ Cooper makes a face. ‘Gross.’

  ‘Well, maybe that’s why it’s for lease. Murder isn’t exactly a selling point.’

  He grabs his phone and starts prodding at the screen. ‘Wow, I don’t think it’s sold since Evelyn died. I guess the owners just figured it was easiest to keep renting it out.’

  ‘We should go,’ Oli says. Pressure is building in her chest. ‘I’ll drop you home.’

  ‘It’s kind of out of your way.’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘Well, sure, that would be great.’ He stretches his legs. ‘The longer I can spend in this car the better. I got a BMW one of the few times I’ve ordered an Uber. That was cool. It’s maybe the best car I’ve ever been in, but it was only a ten-minute trip.’

  Oli pulls away from the kerb. They pass the block of land where a prostitute was found beaten to death a few weeks before Evelyn died. Jo didn’t invite Oli to the scene that morning; she took TJ instead. Those weeks were frenzied:
the second prostitute murder, the Carter child snatched from her bedroom, Oli’s secret dates with Dean. She was deliciously exhausted, running on empty but high from the constant stimulation, the anticipation of Dean, the rollercoaster of the news cycle.

  Cooper seems intent on getting his inner monologue out. ‘Another big day tomorrow, huh? I really hope I can sleep tonight—sometimes I have trouble going to sleep, but once I’m out, I’m out. So the trick is getting relaxed enough to trick myself into just nodding off. I told you about that app I’m using, didn’t I?’

  Circling her fingers around the volume knob on the stereo, Oli turns it to the right, unsubtly drowning him out. As she drives, the Paradise Street house looms fresh in her mind, and Mitchell Stanley’s accusation echoes through her thoughts. Those lazy fuckers only got half a killer.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  OLI ALL BUT BOOTS COOPER OUT OF THE CAR, THEN WATCHES HIM in the rear-view mirror as he wrestles the bike off the tow bar. She can’t quite make out his house in the dark but sees a large lemon tree in the front yard. A soft light is angled from one of the eaves into the garden, revealing a statue next to the bottom step.

  Once Cooper disappears through the front gate, she drives. Smokes a cigarette while completing aimless laps of suburban streets. Winds the windows down, drawing cold air into her lungs, happy to be lost. She pulls over at a 7-Eleven and buys a Cherry Ripe. She’s aware that she is avoiding going home but chooses not to analyse it. Plus, she reasons, swallowing the last of the chocolate bar, she thinks better when she drives.

  Just as she decides to head home, Lily rings. ‘Are you working?’

  ‘Hi, Lily,’ replies Oli, turning back onto the highway. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Shaun’s stuck in Sydney, and I’m bored.’

  Oli hesitates. ‘Well, as fate would have it, I’m actually about five minutes from your place.’

  ‘That’s weird.’

  ‘Very. Do you want me to come over?’

  ‘Are you spying on me or something?’

  ‘Do you want me to come or not, Lily?’