‘Yeah. I’d got myself into a bit of a mess, gambling and the like. Pissing away our savings. Anyway, in the autumn I told Evelyn how bad things were, asked her not to mention it to her mother. I wondered if she could loan me some money, just until I got sorted. It’s not like I expected her to say yes, but she said she could.’

Oli flips to a new page. ‘How much money are we talking?’

‘She gave me five thousand dollars.’

Oli’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘Five thousand dollars.’ She writes the figure down with a flourish.

‘Cash.’

‘That’s a lot of money for a student living out of home.’

‘Exactly,’ he says triumphantly. ‘She wasn’t earning that kind of dough babysitting, that’s for sure.’

Drugs, Oli thinks. Or perhaps prostitution. But all she says to Mitchell is, ‘You didn’t ask about it?’

‘No. I should’ve, obviously, but I needed the cash. I promised to pay her back, and that was that. Look, I knew it was suss, but I didn’t want to get into all that.’

‘Where did you think she was getting the money from?’

He sniffs and mutters, ‘Drugs.’

‘What made you think that?’

‘Evelyn was different that year. She pulled back from me a fair bit. From Gerry too. It broke her heart, even though she was too proud to admit it. But something was up. A few times when I saw Evelyn, I knew she was coming down from drugs but I didn’t say anything. Not my place.’ He sighs. ‘I only saw her two more times after she gave me the money. I was trying to get the dollars together to pay her back, but things just weren’t going right for me.’

In his voice Oli detects a sense of his struggle with himself, a desire to be a better person only to be continually thwarted by his own poor decisions.

‘We had dinner the night before she died, but I’m sure you know that. For some reason, everyone always thought that was a big deal. Anyway, when I saw her that night she wasn’t doing so well.’

‘Physically?’

‘She wasn’t looking her best, but that’s not what I mean. She was always so pretty—well, you’ve seen photos, obviously—but she was run-down. Gotten herself really skinny too.’

‘Did she mention money that night?’ Oli presses. ‘Or say anything about Alex and Nicole?’