The New Girl: A gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist perfect for fans of Friend Request
as I open the fridge, take out a bottle and slosh the remains of last night’s Pinot Grigio into a wine glass. There’s plenty more in the bar fridge in the laundry room, I’m sure. Leftovers from the party.
The wine is cool and crisp as it passes my lips and, after a couple more sips, the familiar warmth curls in my stomach like a cat settling in for the night. Humming a catchy tune I heard on the radio, I flip through the mail. An estate agent advertisement, the electricity bill and a letter, the one with the brown stain on it, addressed to someone named Sophia Gates. It’s the second time this person’s mail has arrived here; Sophia Gates must have been the previous tenant.
I toss the letter into the recycling, take a long pull of wine and then pause, rubbing a finger along my lips. I knew someone named Sophia once. Or Sophie, maybe. I think for a moment but my mind’s cloudy, and I can’t remember anyone specific. It’s probably no one important, yet I have that feeling I get at times, like I’m supposed to remember something but there’s a brick wall in my mind and my thoughts stop there. A blank space, as I’ve come to call it.
My wine’s nearly gone and no one’s home yet, so I top up my glass with a bottle from the laundry. I go to my room, sit at my desk and flip open my laptop. I check my email, trawl through my newsfeed. Without planning to, I google the name Sophia Gates. Images, Facebook pages and LinkedIn accounts pop up, but I don’t recognise anyone. I’m being stupid, paranoid as usual. It must just be a coincidence.
‘Any mail?’ Cat’s voice calls from the kitchen, startling me. I hadn’t heard the door.
‘On the coffee table!’ I tell her, gulping a mouthful before hiding the glass under the desk.
A moment later, Cat pops her head around the door frame, sleek black ponytail snaking over her shoulder. Her eyes are unusually bright, probably a result of her afternoon Pilates session. ‘Is this all?’ she asks, holding up the electricity bill.
‘Yes. Uh, and there was one for the previous tenant.’
Cat looks at me sharply. ‘Oh, where is it? Do you still have it?’
I shrug. Why is she so worried? ‘I just tossed it.’
Cat’s shoulders relax. ‘Okay. Good. I mean, I just couldn’t be bothered collecting them all and taking them down to the estate agent’s.’
I frown. ‘Cat, did we know anyone called Sophie? At school or something?’
She stares at me for a moment. Then, slowly, she shakes her head. ‘No. Not that I can remember.’
‘Are you sure?’
Cat shrugs. ‘I don’t remember everyone we went to school with, Mary. Look, I’ve been meaning to ask. Have you got around to making that appointment yet?’
‘Appointment?’
Cat gives me a meaningful look. ‘With the psychiatrist. The one Doctor Sarah referred you to. What’s his name … Doctor Chen? Doctor Chang?’
I worry my lower lip with my teeth, shake my head.
‘Mary.’ Cat clicks her tongue, glancing around the room as if looking for something. I imagine her eyes burning holes in the desk, spotting the wine glass hidden underneath.
‘It’s on my list, I swear.’
Cat eyeballs me with pursed lips, then releases a sigh that tells me she gives up. ‘Pizza for dinner?’
That coaxes a smile from me. ‘Obviously.’
As I sit, stealing sips of wine, drumming my fingers on the desk, I do the thing I always promise myself I won’t do, but then always do. It’s as though some invisible force is steering my hand. I type one letter and, as it does every time, the search engine remembers the sequence of words in an instant.
The articles pop up in the same order they’re always in.
Leads in murder investigation go cold.
Investigation meets dead end.
Murderer never found.
The same grainy black and white picture of his smiling, unsuspecting face stares out at me. And I wonder, for the hundredth time, if he ever saw it coming.
A breeze creeps in from the balcony door, fragrant with brine. Goosebumps rise on my arms; I shiver and close the browser window.
24th November 2016
See? I’m keeping it up. I’ve promised myself I would. It seems, more often than not, I manage to break my promises to myself. But not this time.
I made it out on my walk today, so that’s something. And I’m writing – that’s another. But today was warm – too warm, thirty-four degrees – and in this kind of heat, I can’t escape that it’s officially ‘that time of year’ again. Decorations are up, songs are playing, adverts are plastered everywhere declaring joyfully that Christmas is coming! But, for me, they may as well be sounding doomsday signals.
When the weather starts to warm up, regular people get excited; they smile more, they go outdoors, they picnic on the beach. They dine al fresco – Mark loved that because it meant he could smoke. And, when it’s too hot, they chatter and browse and brunch in shopping malls, escaping the heat in air-conditioned comfort as they prepare for another family Christmas.
Seeing them reminds me of everything I’ve lost. As soon as I feel that change in the air, the crispness of spring sinking into the muggy heat of summer, the anxiety creeps in. Because Christmas is when it all happened.
So that’s where the benchmark has been set. Today I got out of bed, I took a walk, and now I’m writing in my journal. That’s my measure of success. I even left my phone on last night. It’s been an anxiety trigger lately, so I’ve kept it off during the night, holding my breath as I switch it on each morning, but there hasn’t been any news. No further updates about him from Aunty Anne, which is good. But I can’t help but feel it’s the calm before the storm.
I suppose I should write it all out here, although I’m not sure I have the strength or the energy to go over it all again. Thinking about those days – still so recent, but a lifetime ago as well – makes me break out in a cold sweat. Melbourne feels haunted; the streets, the apartment, the bars and cafés – I can’t picture any of them without remembering him. That’s why, when I left him, I had to leave the city, too.
Mark and I lived in Fitzroy North in a bright, spacious two-bedroom apartment a few blocks from busy Brunswick Street. I can still hear the raucous laughter from the streets below, feel the dizzying warmth of the sun slanting through the bedroom skylight in the morning, stirring me from groggy slumber, the pair of us waking to the inevitable hangover. The smell of Mark beside me in bed: tobacco, aftershave and sweat-slicked skin.
In the beginning, I loved it there; the noise, the excitement, the constant feeling that something was happening and that I had to be a part of it. And yet I was never fully part of anything, as I was tethered to my past, and to Mark.
A country girl at heart, I spent many summers on my parents’ prosperous vineyard estate, but, after they disappeared, the city became my adopted home. I had to escape somewhere, and those endless city nights, the frenzied crusade for pleasure, drowned out my dark thoughts. As I got caught up in my new world, the memory of those long, hot days in the vineyards picking grapes, my hair in golden braids, Mum and Dad drinking wine in the tasting parlour, grew fuzzy around the edges.
Mark never could have afforded the place we lived in, but I had my inheritance and my government disability payments, so I paid for both of us. I was only sixteen at the time, so everything had to