‘Suicide doesn’t discriminate, especially when you lot get involved. It’s the shame that does it—shame can eat away at a person even years later. Hard to move on from something like that once it’s been splashed across the front pages. Just look at Julie O’Brien.’

A loud posse of older men file into the pub, red-faced and jeering, football scarfs hooked around their thick necks. Oli raises her voice to be heard over the din. ‘I hardly think you can blame the media for Julie O’Brien’s death.’

‘We can debate that another time, but all I’m saying is no one is immune. An individual dealing with remorse and mental health issues is hardly a surprise suicide statistic.’

‘Okay, what about Nicole Horrowitz, then? Did you know she was still alive?’

‘Your voice really is something, isn’t it? Very unusual.’ Bowman’s eyes glitter, but there’s no malice. He sighs, nods to himself. ‘Look, what I think is that those girls got in over their heads. Both back then and probably now as well.’

‘In what way?’ Oli says.

He sniffs loudly, an old-man sound. ‘Drugs. And we’re almost certain they were dabbling in prostitution.’

‘But that angle never went anywhere. We were all running around for days trying to validate the rumours about Evelyn working at Calamity Jane’s, but only one woman claimed to remember her. No paper trail, nothing.’

He shrugs. ‘Doesn’t mean she wasn’t there. I know for a fact she was at the brothel more than once. And you have to remember, by that stage the sex industry was on edge. There’d been the two murders a few months before, which we never solved, and multiple assaults on working girls. I think everyone had decided to keep their mouths shut.’

Oli considers this; maybe the calendar Ren saw was mapping appointments the girls had with clients. ‘Do you think the housemates were all involved in prostitution?’

‘It’s likely. After they moved out of home they worked up quite the debt. We had some solid leads—they were mixing with some pretty unpleasant characters. They were young and foolish, and it’s a shame they didn’t have the chance to grow out of it.’

‘Young and foolish doesn’t often lead to murder.’

‘No, not often. But sometimes.’

‘I still don’t get why Alex would kill Evelyn?’