The Housemate

by Sarah Bailey

  ‘Alex stormed off inside, leaving Evelyn in the backyard. I tried to talk to her, but she brushed me off. She was upset. Everyone went inside to listen to records and play a stupid charades game that Tanya made up. But I wanted to have a smoke. I was kind of pissed off.’

  Oli nods encouragingly. ‘So you stayed outside?’

  ‘Yeah. I got my cigarettes from inside, then I went around the side of the house. A bunch of old crates were stacked up there, and I sat on one and had a smoke. I think Evelyn went back inside. I don’t know if anyone knew where I was, but I could hear them all laughing and talking through the laundry window.’

  ‘Including Alex?’

  ‘I think she’d had some weed at some point. It always used to make her crazy, and she was acting like an idiot.’ He looks guilty. ‘I just figured we both needed some space.’

  ‘Okay, so you’re around the side of the house,’ prompts Oli.

  Miles swallows, panic returning to his eyes. ‘First I heard Nicole talking to someone in the laundry. I don’t know who it was. It was too noisy to hear properly, but I could hear Nicole’s voice. Then she came out the back.’

  ‘Nicole came outside?’ Oli clarifies.

  Miles nods. ‘She didn’t see me.’

  Oli’s lips part. This is new, as far as she knows. He never spoke about this at the trial.

  ‘I could tell she was angry. She was sort of pacing around near the back fence. She climbed onto the bottom of it and looked into the neighbours’ yard, the ones having the party. Then I think she texted someone.’ His eyes go back and forth between his hands and Oli. ‘That’s what it looked like from where I was sitting, but I was probably about ten metres away. And then she …’ His voice wobbles as he draws himself up and squares his shoulders. ‘God,’ he mutters before the words tumble out of his mouth. ‘She went over to the shed in the corner of the yard, and she got Billy out. I could see her standing there in the dark, holding him, and then she,’ Miles emits a soft bleat, his breath coming out in little huffs, ‘she got this weird look in her eyes, then she just threw him. She threw him against the fence.’

  Miles scratches at his wrist, his fingers pushing under the metal watchband until he tugs it off with a dramatic flourish and itches the dented skin for so long that Oli has to glance away.

  At the next table, the waitress flirts with an older man who looks delighted, his rich laugh reverberating around the room.

  Cooper is staring at Miles, stricken.

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ Miles says after a moment. ‘I just stayed hidden around the side of the house like a fucking pussy.’

  ‘Miles, who was Billy?’ Oli hears her voice waver slightly.

  ‘Evelyn’s rabbit. She bloody loved him. Let him free in her bedroom half the time.’

  ‘And it died?’ Oli swallows, picturing the scene Miles just described. ‘It died after Nicole threw it at the fence?’

  He nods vigorously. ‘The sound, I’d never heard anything like it. Even with the music playing …’ He puffs out his cheeks. ‘Yeah, it died.’

  The waitress sidles up to their table. ‘Anyone after anything else?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ whispers Cooper, and Miles shakes his head vigorously.

  ‘Righto.’ She clears the cups, walks away.

  ‘What happened after that?’ Oli asks.

  Miles is deflated after his big confession. ‘Nicole didn’t even look at Billy,’ he says flatly. ‘She just went back inside. I remember I started shaking all over. It’s hard to explain, but it was like seeing your mum snort drugs or hit someone. It seemed so out of character and just so totally bizarre. Plus, I was wasted.’ He laughs ruefully. ‘A part of me thought I’d made it up, but when I went back around the house I could see Billy on the ground.’

  ‘Did you say anything to the others?’

  ‘No. Ren and Matt went to their place to get more drugs, which they brought back to the girls’ place because McCrae had finally gone home. The girls were all dancing in the lounge room. Including Nicole.’ Miles hesitates. ‘They weren’t fighting anymore, but it all felt a bit off. There was still a lot of tension. The other girl, Evelyn’s friend, had gone by then, and I just sat on the couch with Tan and Roy pretending everything was fine. I tried to talk to Alex, but she told me to fuck off.’ Miles grips one hand in the other. ‘After a while, Tan and Roy left. Nicole and Evelyn were still dancing, and Alex was getting pretty messy, so I tried to get her to lie down on the couch with me.’

  ‘Did she?’ Oli asks.

  ‘Sort of. She sat down for a bit, but she wouldn’t really talk to me. And then Matt said he wanted to go to the shops for more cigarettes, and I said I’d go with him. I just wanted to get out of the house. I didn’t want to think about Evelyn going outside and finding Billy.’ He coughs. ‘I know that makes me sound like a total prick, but I knew she would lose it, and I didn’t want to be there to see it.’

  Oli pictures a younger version of Miles on the stand, pulling on his tie as he told the court about the late-night hunt for cigarettes. ‘At the trial you said you went to the shops with Matt and Ren, and that you didn’t go back to number twenty-eight after that. Is that true?’

  ‘Yeah. We walked up to the 7-Eleven on Fitzroy Street and bought smokes and chips, then we dicked around outside for a bit. A guy was sitting on the street bench playing guitar, and Ren asked him if he could play. I texted Alex, but she never wrote back. Then we went to Matt and Ren’s place. We smoked more dope, and I passed out on the floor in front of the TV.’

  Oli purses her lips as she considers her next question.

  Miles rushes to add, ‘I think I blocked out what I saw in the yard. I didn’t want to have seen it.’ He runs his fingers through his hair like he’s still trying to comb the memory away. ‘And then the next morning, when we found out what happened, all I could think about was Alex and whether she really had killed Evelyn. I felt like I’d slipped into a parallel universe. My girlfriend was on trial for murder. It just,’ he looks between Oli and Cooper, ‘it was so surreal. I didn’t know what to do or what to think.’

  ‘Did you think Alex was guilty?’ Oli asks bluntly.

  He reels back, his weight against the chair. ‘I guess I did. It’s like you said before, the evidence was so damning. I couldn’t see another explanation, and all the girls were acting so oddly that I thought anything was possible. My parents definitely thought she did it—they were beside themselves. The shame almost killed my grandma.’ He chews his lip. ‘I think in the end it did.’

  ‘But now?’ Oli presses. ‘What do you think now?’

  Miles straightens. Speaks with a new urgency. ‘I’m not sure, but something was going on with the girls. Something wasn’t right.’

  ‘Explain what you mean.’

  ‘They were always close, but in those last few months it was like they joined a cult or something. They would stop talking when I came over. Alex had never been moody, but all of a sudden she started lashing out at me. She also got really needy, wanting constant reassurance that I cared about her. She had all these grand plans, things she had never mentioned before. They all did.’ Miles’s dark eyes flick to Oli’s. ‘And they started buying really nice things. One time, maybe two or three weeks before Evelyn died, Alex and I were going out for dinner when I saw her take money from the drawer in her bedside table. I checked the next morning when she was in the shower, and at least two thousand dollars were in there—a big pile of fifty-dollar notes.’

  Momentarily forgetting their feud, Oli and Cooper exchange a glance. This echoes what Mitchell Stanley said about his daughter.

  ‘Her savings?’ suggests Oli.

  Miles shrugs. ‘Maybe, but I don’t think so. She was on Centrelink and babysat on weekends. It didn’t really add up. Plus, all three of them were suddenly throwing money around. They bought new clothes and talked about going overseas. When I asked Alex about it, she got angry and brushed me off.’

  Oli thinks quickly. This is good stuff, t
he kind of detail that will keep the story in orbit for a few more days. ‘Are you willing to go on the record?’

  ‘I just want this to be done.’ Looking stricken, he grabs his phone and shoves it in his pocket without glancing at it, his dark eyes wild. ‘It’s been ten bloody years of wondering. My wife thinks I need closure, and I was hoping Alex would provide it. I’m happy to talk if you think it will help.’

  Oli gives him her business card and explains the likely next steps. It goes into his pocket with his phone.

  ‘You’ve already got my details,’ says Cooper.

  Oli ignores him. ‘Miles, one last thing. Did Alex have a laptop?’

  He nods. ‘And a shared computer at the house that they all used for uni. I think it was Nicole’s, brought with her from home. That was another weird thing, actually.’

  ‘What was?’ Oli asks.

  ‘They got the internet disconnected at the house, maybe a year before this all happened.’

  ‘Disconnected?’ Oli says. ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. I remember thinking it was weird. I mean, it was obviously different back then—a lot of people didn’t have internet at home, especially in a rental. People were only really using email.’

  Oli feels wired as her brain races ahead. ‘Did they say anything about it?’

  ‘Nicole just said it was always cutting out, and when I asked Alex she said they wanted to save money by using the uni internet. But she definitely had enough money to pay for it, so there must have been some other reason.’

  DAY THREE OF THE TRIAL, 2006

  Alex flips an imaginary coin and bets on what Miles is going to do. Heads he’ll talk; tails he won’t. But even in her mind’s eye, she can’t quite see which side of the coin is facing up. Decisiveness feels out of reach these days.

  She knows Miles had been suspicious of her behaviour. Always asking questions about money, why she was spending so much and where it was coming from. He’d asked about her relationship with Nicole and Evelyn too. She’s not exactly sure what she told him that night, she has a vague memory of arguing with him. Of admitting she was in over her head with something. She’s seen him twice since the night of the party. The next morning, briefly, when she was sitting in the detective’s car out the front of the house, wrapped in a blanket, Miles emerged from Ren and Matt’s place dressed in his clothes from the night before. He looked at her with the strangest expression. He didn’t try to talk to her, just stood on the street watching as Evelyn’s body was carried away.

  Alex saw him again the next day when she was charged. Or, she thinks she did. His face in the crowd, among the other faces. His mouth completely still. All the other mouths were twisted into ugly cries, screaming her name, but he just stared as she was pulled and picked over like a piece of meat.

  Actually, she saw him a third time: on the news just over a week later. He went to Evelyn’s funeral and stood up the front with her family.

  Even though they’re survivors of the same tragedy, the others gone or lost, it hasn’t brought them together.

  Miles has an alibi. Alex is a killer.

  Miles is innocent. Alex is guilty.

  He is free to go on and have a normal life. Her future is ruined no matter what happens.

  And all Miles ever wanted was a normal life. He craves average, yearns for contentment. Not like Alex, who got greedy and dared to dream for more. Dared to seize an opportunity.

  He never understood her restlessness. Didn’t understand how she could be so dissatisfied, want so much more than she had. But that’s because he doesn’t know what it’s like to have so little.

  When they started going out, she marvelled at the way he always put people at ease. How thoughtful he was. But even his kindness ran thin. The further the house had slipped into darkness, the more it jarred with his goodness. Alex worried that he could see what she had become, that he was judging her. She pushed him away. Better he be mad with her than disappointed, shocked. She imagined trying to explain it to him, just how far she had fallen, but that was impossible. What they had done was impossible.

  Miles has principles. He probably won’t lie outright, but he might feel he can’t explain it either, the strangeness that settled over the house. The quiet evil that took hold of his girlfriend. He might give her the benefit of the doubt. Alex can hardly blame him—she doesn’t know how to explain it either.

  Funny how everyone just wants her to remember. All she wants is to forget.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  OLI SQUINTS INTO THE ENDLESS STREAM OF CARS AS SHE WAITS to turn onto the main road. She wants to discuss what Miles told them, unpack what he claims Nicole did to Evelyn’s pet rabbit, but there’s no way she’s letting Cooper think the way he acted is acceptable. Her rage is back, and she wants him to speak first, to acknowledge his audacity. Instead he sits in sulky, defiant silence. Oli guns the car and jerks through a gap in the traffic. After a few minutes of driving, she relents. ‘Want to tell me what the fuck that was about?’

  He doesn’t reply, just stares stubbornly out the window.

  She flicks off the heater, which is about ten times more effective than the one in her old Mazda. She’s sweaty, her shirt sticking to her back. How dare Cooper be so insolent? Jo would have killed her if she’d behaved like this. ‘I told you I would talk to Miles. You should have stayed at the office and worked on the podcast. Even parking the fact you completely ignored me, it made us look unprofessional.’

  Cooper’s chest rises and falls in quick succession. ‘It was my interview. Miles called me.’

  Oli hits her fist on the steering wheel. ‘You’re the one who orchestrated us working together! It wasn’t my idea, but if you want to work with me I need to be able to trust you—and that childish performance didn’t help.’

  His lips bulge into a pout. ‘I can’t trust you if you steal my leads.’

  ‘Look,’ she says, pressing her fingers into her temples at the lights, ‘I get you’re new to all this, so maybe you don’t understand how it works, but I’ve been doing it for a long time. If we’re going to work on this story and make this bloody podcast happen, we need to act like a team.’

  Cooper turns to stare at her, his gaze burning into the side of her face. ‘No shit.’ He puts on his headphones and looks the other way.

  Brent’s water bottle collapses noisily as he sucks liquid out of it, his eyes never leaving the TV screen on the wall of the newsroom. The bottle crackles as the plastic reverts to its former shape.

  On screen, John O’Brien wears dark sunglasses and holds a newspaper like a shield. The disgraced premier weaves his way through a throng of people, escorted into a dark car outside his Albert Park home. ‘No comment,’ he says.

  ‘You bloody pervert!’ someone screams off camera.

  O’Brien pauses. His suited handler also stops. ‘I reject all of the claims made against me and will be fighting them through our justice system, which I respect wholeheartedly. Unfortunately, this is a case of “He said, she said”, or in this instance “He said, he said”, and I have complete faith that the truth will win out. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to continue grieving for my wife.’

  A wad of paper hits the screen amid a series of groans.

  Oli hasn’t seen Cooper since they arrived back at the office. He got out of the car without a word and disappeared into the stairwell. ‘I’m still meeting with Bowman tomorrow,’ she called after him, her voice bouncing off the concrete walls. ‘By myself,’ she added unnecessarily, annoyed that he was bringing out her pettiness.

  No doubt he’s in the studio finishing off the podcast. In spite of everything, Oli feels a rush of excitement. Her distinctive voice has always made her wary of doing any kind of radio—she even hates leaving voicemail messages—but she enjoyed the recording a lot more than she expected and has a feeling it will sound pretty compelling. Hopefully Cooper’s irritation won’t affect the finished product.

  She looks down at her notes. Roy hasn’t
responded to her at all, and Tanya wrote back explaining she has nothing further to add to the statement she made after Evelyn’s death. It’s frustrating, although admittedly Oli doesn’t hold out much hope that either of them know anything that will move the story along—their appearances in court were vague and unhelpful, and indicated a superficial friendship with the housemates. There’s still no news on Nicole or the child, nor any suggestion of a widespread search. The cops issued a release that suggests they’re worried for the welfare of the missing duo, but there are no specific details.

  For almost an hour Oli steadily works on the podcast launch piece, easing the words into shape, deftly connecting the ten-year-old murder of Evelyn Stanley with the fresh death of Alex Riboni, and explaining what the podcast will explore. It’s bizarre to write in the first person, but there’s something cathartic about it. She’s in the zone, her fingers flying across the keyboard, when her phone rings. ‘Oli Groves.’

  ‘You called looking for my son.’ A brash voice, unmodulated.

  Oli holds the phone slightly away from her head, looks at the number. ‘Mrs Neroli?’

  ‘That’s right. Name’s Marion.’ Despite the volume, she sounds pleasant. Friendly. ‘You’re from the paper, is that right?’

  ‘Yes, I’m a journalist. I’m working on a story about the Paradise Street murder. I really want to speak with Ren. Is he there?’

  Marion makes an excited screech, forcing Oli to hold the phone away from her ear again. ‘I’m always telling my friends that Ren knew the Housemate Homicide girls. He used to be at their place all the time. And now the other one’s dead! I met the one who’s still missing, you know. Just briefly, but we spoke. Going back ten years ago now, of course. She seemed like a nice girl. And they were all so pretty, weren’t they? I gave Ren grief about them, but he always said nothing was going on.’

  Oli thinks about what Miles said, about Nicole throwing the rabbit against the fence, and decides that Nicole probably wasn’t actually very nice at all.