COVER PAGE

PRAISE

PRAISE FOR

THE HOUSEMATE

‘With The Housemate, Sarah Bailey expertly plays with memory, guilt and grief to build a tension-filled, vivid world, where there are many ways to be haunted by the ghosts of our past. You’ll be right there with the fascinating, flawed Oli Groves as her professional investigation of the Housemate Homicide increasingly veers toward personal obsession. Each new twist in the story skilfully balances bombshell revelations and believability, in a crime that feels achingly familiar, yet shocking at the same time. Much like Oli, I couldn’t stop until I knew the truth, too.’

Jacqueline Bublitz, author of Before You Knew My Name

‘The plot is brilliant, the pace is relentless … Oli Groves is a brilliant protagonist: brave and fragile, kick-arse and compassionate—and so very human. The Housemate is a book of great emotional power and depth—Bailey’s best yet.’

Chris Hammer, author of Scrublands, Silver and Trust

‘An enormously immersive story with Bailey’s trademark gordian knot plotting, true to life characters and twists galore. This is Australian crime at its best and The Housemate is destined to summit the bestseller charts.’

J.P. Pomare, author of Call Me Evie and The Last Guests

‘I’m as obsessed with Bailey’s protagonist, Oli Groves, as Groves is with the story she is chasing. Clever, ambitious, prickly: she’s the perfect journo to lead us through this clever and ambitious thriller. Loved the deep dive into the rotten underworld of secrets and corruption, and Bailey’s wry take on the changing face of journalism. The Housemate is addictive reading in the very best of ways. Sarah Bailey knows her stuff.’

Kate Mildenhall, author of The Mother Fault

‘An exceptional and powerful novel from an outstanding author … takes the reader on an intense and thrilling psychological journey. A highly recommended read.’

Canberra Weekly

‘A riveting page-turner.’

Good Reading

‘Bailey crafts a provocative and thought-provoking thriller, accurately portraying the dance between police and media, with plenty of red herrings to keep readers enthralled to the last page.’

Courier-Mail

‘A page-turning read … Sarah Bailey manages to weave all the elements in the story together to create this cohesive story about the lengths that people will go to keep their secrets.’

Noveltea Corner

‘The perfect balance of investigation, suspense and the unexpected … if you’ve never read Sarah Bailey before, The Housemate is an excellent place to start: with the best of the best.’

Theresa Smith Writes

‘With its cleverly plotted, absorbing mystery, The Housemate is compelling crime fiction.’

Book’d Out

‘Well written, surprising and engrossing, The Housemate establishes Sarah Bailey’s status as a seasoned Australian crime fiction writer.’

Mrs B’s Book Reviews

PRAISE FOR

WHERE THE DEAD GO

‘Sarah Bailey has excelled herself … a well-written and exciting crime novel that builds to a taut and bloody conclusion.’

Canberra Weekly

‘As riveting as the previous two, with a multilayered plot, compelling characters and vivid atmosphere … another addictive read from Bailey.’

Good Reading

‘A tense, gripping end to a highly praised trilogy.’

Who

‘Bailey always writes a killer thriller, and this is gritty and real.’

Readings

‘[Gemma] is a well-rounded character, relatable in her frustrations and insecurities at work and at home but also an exemplar of the type of kickass female detective that Australian crime fiction writers are adept at creating.’

The Age

‘A must-read for crime lovers.’

Better Homes and Gardens

‘Next level crime fiction … police procedural at its finest … Where the Dead Go is compelling reading. Gritty, realistic, atmospheric and chilling. An absolute cracker of a read that I can’t even begin to recommend highly enough.’

Theresa Smith Writes

PRAISE FOR

INTO THE NIGHT

‘Melbourne’s wintry streets come alive on the pages, keeping the dramatic tension high … Bailey’s writing has grown stronger and more assured in this novel.’

Good Reading

‘With its deft exploration of the intersection of public and private lives and a chance to peer more deeply into the mind and heart set of an engagingly flawed heroine, Into the Night seems set to be just as successful as The Dark Lake.’

Sydney Morning Herald

‘Into the Night is a solid procedural, full of constant twists and reveals that keep the investigation fresh … with this expansion of her world, it feels like Gemma Woodstock might be with us for a while.’

Australian Crime Fiction

‘Bailey’s writing is stronger than ever, and the prickliness of her characters is a natural fit for the jarring confines of Melbourne’s central business district … a bristling police procedural for fans of Emma Viskic and J.M. Green.’

Books + Publishing

‘Every bit as addictive and suspenseful as The Dark Lake … Sarah Bailey’s writing is both keenly insightful and wholly engrossing, weaving intriguing and multi-layered plots combined with complicated and compelling characters.’

The Booktopian

‘Bailey’s writing is sharp, her sense of place harrowing, and her mystery intriguing. A great read for anyone who likes complex characters and gritty crime.’

Glam Adelaide

PRAISE FOR

THE DARK LAKE

‘The Dark Lake is a thrilling psychological police procedural as well as a leap into the mind of a woman engulfed with guilt.’

New York Journal of Books

‘The Dark Lake hooked me from page one! Sarah Bailey combines the very best elements in this stunning debut thriller—a troubled detective still trying to find her way as a female investigator, a small town haunted by secrets both past and present, and a beautiful victim whose unsettling allure appears to be her biggest asset and largest downfall. With clever twists and all-too-human characters, this book will keep you racing toward the end.’

Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Right Behind You and Find Her

‘This polished debut is a winner from the first page.’

Daily Telegraph

‘I read The Dark Lake in one sitting, it’s that good. A crime thriller that seizes you from the first page and slowly draws you into a web of deception and long buried secrets. Beautifully written, compulsively readable, and highly recommended.’

Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God and co-author of the bestselling Pendergast series

‘Debut author Sarah Bailey depicts both the landscape and Gemma’s state of mind vividly, bringing into focus the intensity of Gemma’s physical and emotional pain and her increasing discontent. The Dark Lake adds to the trend of haunting, rural Australian crime fiction, and provides a welcome addition to the genre for those left bereft after finishing Jane Harper’s The Dry.’

Books + Publishing

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Bailey is a Melbourne-based writer with a background in advertising and communications. She has two children and is currently the Managing Director of advertising agency VMLY&R in Melbourne. Her internationally award-winning Gemma Woodstock trilogy includes The Dark Lake, published in 2017 and winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction and the Davitt Award for Best Debut, followed by Into the Night in 2018, and Where the Dead Go in 2019, and The Housemate in 2021.

DEDICATION

FOR MY FRIENDS

(LUCKY ME)

SATURDAY, 3 OCTOBER 2005, EARLY

SATURDAY, 3 OCTOBER 2005, EARLY

Through the dust and faded bird shit on the windscreen of her Mazda, Oli Groves watches the cops huddled next to the letterbox of 28 Paradise Street, St Kilda. The cop who just yelled at her, the bow-legged beanpole with the constellation of freckles and the permanent smirk, is talking animatedly and pointing a finger aggressively toward the house. His hot breath forms comical white clouds, but the faces of his colleagues remain solemn.

‘Piss off!’ he snapped when he encountered Oli standing on the bottom step of the porch, peering into the front door of the house.

Oli’s pulse is racing, though she’s not sure whether that’s from his reprimand or the MDMA still coursing through her system. Before Beanpole blocked her view, she saw into the dark hallway: furniture on its side, the glint of glass on the worn floorboards. The curve of a female body lying there naked, a gaping wound in her abdomen. Half-open eyes staring blankly at the wall.

Oli squeezes her own eyes shut, then blinks a few times. Shakes her head and sniffs, adjusting the rear-view mirror to check her hastily applied make-up. With her fingers, she combs her long blonde hair, knotty with stale hairspray. The image of the dead body is fixed in her mind. C’mon, c’mon. Keep it together, Oli. Clearly Jo was desperate, or she wouldn’t have called you. She must know this is going to be big. What if it’s a proper story, and you get to file it?

Oli’s gaze shifts to the police tape that Beanpole tied firmly to the wooden fence post after their exchange, before looking along the path, up the short flight of brick stairs to the concrete porch and open front door. The house itself appears innocent enough, though perhaps a tad neglected. The white weatherboards have a skirt of dirt, and the tiled roof is covered in lichen. The patchy lawn has been recently mowed, but the garden beds are thick with weeds. To the left of the front door sits a pair of terracotta pots with brightly coloured flowers spilling out in cheery puddles. A rainbow dreamcatcher dangles behind the glass of what Oli assumes is a bedroom window.

Movement draws her eyes back to the front door. Chief Inspector Gregory Bowman emerges from the house dressed in full scrubs, a young woman next to him. Oli gasps. The woman is covered in blood. A police-issue blanket hangs across her shoulders, her light brown hair is limp and her feet are encased in crime-scene booties. She’s crying, tears smearing the blood on her cheeks. Bowman gestures for her to move along the porch where she is shielded by a hedge wall.

He speaks briefly to a woman who covers the speaker of her mobile phone to listen, their heads bent close. Bowman looks much older in real life than he does on TV; deep lines tunnel across his forehead, and his unusually thick hair has almost finished its transformation from dirty silver to crisp snow.

A trio of plain-clothes detectives arrive, all men. They duck under the police tape and march purposefully up the path, ignoring the cops—including, Oli notes with satisfaction, an eager-faced Beanpole. There’s no sign of Isabelle Yardley, and Oli’s skin crawls with relief and a strange desire to sate her curiosity, to tug at a loose thread. To tempt fate.

It’s bloody freezing. Her heart thumps as she rubs her hands together and cranks up both the heater and the radio. She begins to make notes in her book as the blood-soaked body flashes back into her mind. The ABC news bulletin reports that police have been called to a residence in St Kilda regarding the discovery of a body, but relays nothing more than Oli already knows.

More cops turn up and congregate on the lawn. It starts to drizzle and the muck on her windscreen morphs into ugly brown streaks. Oli’s vision begins to blur just as a large hand raps sharply on the driver’s window. She jerks in fright, throwing her weight against the car seat.

Then she winds down the window and thrusts her middle finger into Rob’s laughing face.

‘Want to get in?’ Her deep voice is even huskier than usual.

‘Nah, I’m good.’ He squints at the house. He’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans, and goose bumps prickle Oli’s limbs. ‘I can’t believe Queen Jo isn’t here.’ Rob lights a cigarette. ‘She loves a dead body.’

‘She’s at a wedding in the country.’

‘How odd to think she has friends. But, hey, maybe you’ll finally get a by-line.’

‘Maybe.’ Oli tips her head backwards trying to focus. ‘I saw the body. It’s lying in the hallway.’

Rob looks impressed. ‘Excellent. I really hate getting out of bed this early just for grievous bodily harm.’

‘And there’s a girl on the porch behind the hedge, with blood all over her.’

Rob whistles. ‘Ten bucks says they’re prostitutes.’

‘I don’t have ten bucks. I’m broke till payday.’

‘You can owe me.’

She rolls her eyes. ‘Jo wants a hero shot of Bowman and whoever else ends up leading this thing.’

‘Her wish is my pain in the arse.’ Rob blows a smoke ring skyward.

Oli stares at a black stain on the sun visor, trying to work out what it could be.

Rob grins. ‘Late night?’

‘Not really.’ She shimmies in the seat as she attempts to retrieve a tube of lip balm from her back pocket.

He laughs. ‘That’s not what your party-girl eyes tell me.’

‘Whatever.’ She smears the balm on her lips and pushes the visor against the ceiling. A wave of anxiety crashes over her. ‘Jo should have sent TJ. No one’s going to tell me anything.’

‘Not with that attitude,’ Rob agrees, yanking open her car door and winding up the window. ‘Come on, we may as well get some mood pics while we wait for the gory details.’

A black Land Rover pulls up on the other side of the street. Melissa Warren from the Herald Sun is at the wheel, her dark bob hugging her sharp jawline. Rob pauses to photograph two people from the forensic unit coming out of the house, and Oli almost runs up the back of him.

The day seems reluctant to get started; the sky remains a murky grey, while the light rain has turned to a fine mist. Oli tucks her notebook inside her jacket, wedging it under her arm.

It’s 6.39 am. Less than an hour since Jo first called, barking orders as Oli paid the taxi driver and fumbled for her keys in the badly lit entrance to her apartment block. She didn’t even shower, just swapped her heels and dress for one of her sister’s clean shirts and a pair of suit pants on the clotheshorse, spritzed perfume on her wrists and brushed her teeth. Now her tongue stings from the boiling coffee she bought at the McDonald’s drive-through, and she can still taste the Bacon & Egg McMuffin she wolfed down. An alarming clamminess is creeping across her body, her hangover threatening to take hold.

Melissa Warren sidles up next to them, looking at Oli with undisguised contempt before casting her eyes skyward as if the gloomy weather is a personal insult. She brushes invisible lint from her tailored jacket and asks, ‘Where’s Jo?’

Oli squares her shoulders. ‘Out of town.’

‘Shame.’ Melissa looks pleased. ‘This is a juicy one.’

‘How so?’ Rob cracks his gum and appears bored.

‘Well … Bowman was first on the scene, so it must be meaty, though of course the cops can hardly afford to dillydally at the moment.’ Melissa lists the recent unsolved homicides, ticking them off on her manicured fingers. She clearly delights in holding court, and Oli finds her overt confidence both grotesque and magnetic.

Oli’s entire cadetship has been a parade of people like Melissa, who sashay through life with an easy smile and answers at the ready. Oli hopes this characteristic will magically bestow itself upon her at some point—or that at the very least, she will get better at faking it.

‘And,’ Melissa adds, ‘a female killer always has the public gagging.’ She walks ahead, heels tapping assertively on the cracked path. ‘Good luck, kids!’ she calls over her shoulder.

‘Reckons she’s a bloody TV anchor,’ Rob mutters, flaring his nostrils. ‘Pity about her face.’

Oli gives him a look, even though she’s certainly not about to defend Melissa.

More journalists arrive, their faces alive with the prospect of murder, walking briskly down the wide street flanked by scruffy cameramen. In stark contrast, neighbours emerge from nearby houses looking bewildered. A young couple watch the detectives on the lawn from the front yard of the house next door. Their toddler son, clad in a woollen jumper, nappy and gumboots, smacks a plastic spade against an upturned bucket. Four elderly ladies, one in a peach dressing-gown, stand in a huddle on their front porch, whispering to each other. A bald man with a neck tattoo rocks back and forth on his heels while holding a bored-looking tabby, and a middle-aged couple in gym gear are trying to wrangle three fluffy white dogs.

Words start to arrange themselves in Oli’s mind. Last night a house on Paradise Street, St Kilda, was the scene of a terrible tragedy. Neighbours were shocked to discover that a young woman had been killed, her body found in the early hours of Saturday morning …

The noise punch of a backfiring car jerks Oli’s thoughts to the present.

‘Bowman’s up.’ Rob gestures to the house.

Her nerves skyrocket again. ‘Right.’

‘Hold this.’ He hands her his camera and reties his straggly hair into a loose knot at the nape of his neck. ‘What time do you need to file?’

‘Jo said she wants something to review by nine.’

He takes the camera back. ‘You’ll be fine. And, bonus, it’s stopped raining so I’ll get some decent pics.’

Oli smiles at him gratefully and joins the throng of journos clambering to get to Bowman. Familiar faces jostle around her, sickly sweet perfume mixing with warm coffee breath. Phones ping with texts. The sun breaks through the clouds, and Oli squints, pen poised as questions rumble around her. ‘Who lives at the property?’ she calls out, adding to the chorus.

‘Quiet, please.’ Bowman’s rich baritone demands attention. He pauses and looks slowly from left to right, a tired old cattle dog ready to round up the sheep. ‘I’m going to make a brief statement about the circumstances we are dealing with here this morning, but there is minimal information at present, so I expect we’ll hold a formal press conference at a later time. I won’t be answering any questions this morning, understood?’

The mob nods, disappointed.

‘A young woman is deceased, and we are treating her death as suspicious.’ Bowman’s tar-thick voice catches pleasantly on the tails of certain words.

Through the hedge, Oli glimpses the blood-stained woman wrapped in the police blanket.

A shiny blue Ford pulls up behind Oli’s Mazda, blocking the end of a driveway. Detective Sergeant Isabelle Yardley emerges. Oli immediately finds it close to impossible to focus on what Bowman is saying. Her eyes are glued to Isabelle.

‘We understand that the victim lived at the property with two other people.’ Bowman pauses, acknowledging Yardley with a nod. ‘They will both be questioned, but we believe a number of people were at the property last night, and we will be speaking to those individuals as soon as possible.’

Yardley ducks under the chequered tape and sails up the driveway. Her charcoal suit clings to her petite frame, and the fat curl at the end of her ponytail swings like a pendulum. She steps onto the front porch and turns, her laser-like stare landing on Oli.

Bowman’s voice fades into a hum as Oli’s legs wobble. Her heartbeat echoes in her head. Yardley refuses to break the stare, her face devoid of emotion. The emerging sunshine does nothing to quell the chattering of Oli’s teeth. Does she know? She must know. No, you’re being paranoid. He would have told you.

Oli’s senses go into overdrive. Memories flood her system, and she feels both intense dread and the heady bliss of last night. She’s acutely aware that Isabelle Yardley has the power to ruin it all, and that the loss would cripple her. For a horrible second, she thinks she’ll be sick. She shudders through a deep anchoring breath.

‘I’m not yet prepared to discuss how the young woman died,’ Bowman says, ‘but I can confirm that the scene in the house is quite confronting and we’ll be allocating significant resources to get to the bottom of what happened as soon as possible.’

Bowman folds his arms, indicating he is finished. The media mob stirs and shouts questions again.

Yardley pauses briefly to speak to the other detectives on the front porch before stepping into a set of scrubs and disappearing into the house. Oli exhales.

A desperate screech cuts through the frenetic buzz. ‘Get your hands off me!’

Heads whip around and cameras home in on an overweight, crying woman who is stumbling up the street. She tries to pull away from a man who’s running after her and tugging on her handbag. Finally she breaks free and runs into the crime-scene tape, which slingshots her backwards. She crumples into a messy heap, hands pressed to the concrete path. ‘My baby,’ she cries, sobbing. ‘Evelyn, no.’

The man shuffles over and squats next to the woman, placing his hands awkwardly on her shoulders.

‘This is your fault,’ she screams at him. ‘Your fault!’ Still sobbing, she claws at his fingers and dislodges his grip.

Yardley reappears on the porch, where she zips open her scrubs and steps elegantly out of the white material. Her face is firm but her gaze sympathetic as she surveys the screaming woman and makes her way across the lawn.

Looking stricken, the young woman in the blanket emerges from behind the hedge. Several journalists gasp at the blood covering her face and hands.

Yardley pauses, glancing back and forth from the porch to the street.

‘Alex!’ The older woman scrambles to her feet, her eyes blazing. ‘What happened? Where’s Evelyn?’

Alex sinks to her knees, sobbing. ‘I’m so sorry.’ The blanket slips off her shoulders to reveal a pale-blue jumper stained with blood. ‘I’m just so sorry.’

MYSTERY SURROUNDS HOUSEMATE HOMICIDE

MYSTERY SURROUNDS HOUSEMATE HOMICIDE

Sunday, 4 October 2005

By Joanne Cardellini with Oli Groves

Mystery surrounds the death of a young Melbourne woman whose body was discovered in her St Kilda rental property in the early hours of Saturday morning. Homicide detectives say Evelyn Stanley, 21, was murdered in the house on Paradise Street. The cause of her death has not been confirmed.

Stanley, a University of Melbourne undergraduate arts student and aspiring actress, rented the property with two other women. Nicole Horrowitz, also 21, has not been seen since Friday evening. Police are appealing for anyone with information about the missing woman to come forward. It is believed a third housemate, 20-year-old Alexandra Riboni, called for an ambulance at around 3.30 am, though it’s unknown if Ms Stanley was alive at the time. Ms Riboni was taken into custody yesterday morning, following a dramatic confrontation with Ms Stanley’s parents, and continues to be questioned by police. Ms Riboni’s partner, Melbourne University honours student Miles Wu, was a frequent visitor to the house and is also believed to be assisting police with their inquiries.

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