Oli scrawls it down: Bulleen. About a half-hour drive in weekday traffic. ‘I won’t be able to get out there today, but hopefully I can make it first thing tomorrow.’

‘He doesn’t go out much,’ Marion says. ‘He doesn’t have a job at the moment. He likes playing all those online games. I’d say he’ll be home.’

They hang up, and Oli leans back in her chair. This is good: another angle from the night should help validate some of the things Miles told them, and if Ren’s willing to talk, maybe they can get him to be interviewed for the podcast.

She grabs her things and gets the lift to the fifth floor, makes her way down the silent corridor to the studio. Cooper is there, headphones on. He doesn’t look up when she walks in, but he tugs them off his ears.

‘I’ve tracked down Ren Neroli.’

‘Cool.’ Cooper moves the mouse to the left, presses some buttons on the keyboard.

‘I have to head off now, but I’m going to meet with him tomorrow morning, see if he wants to be on the podcast. We should start lining up interviews for the next few episodes. We need to present a range of perspectives from that night—people who knew the girls in different ways.’

‘Obviously.’ He finally looks at her. ‘Mitchell has agreed to an interview. I’m thinking I can go to him. He’s got a private hospital room, so it should be okay to record there.’

Oli cocks her head. ‘You contacted Mitchell Stanley after I spoke to him?’

‘Yep.’

She crosses her arms and curses in frustration. ‘We should talk about how we approach it. We need to think about how we want to tell this story. It can’t just be a series of interviews that we serve up. There needs to be a narrative.’

‘You didn’t ask him about the podcast yesterday, which seemed like a missed opportunity.’ Cooper shifts his arm and accidentally pulls the headphones’ cord out from the computer. A blast of haunting music fills the room before he cuts it off. ‘For now, I’m focused on getting this edit done,’ he says formally. ‘I’ll send it to you in the next few hours. Even though you’re out of the office, do you think you’ll be able to listen to it this afternoon and give me the green light to send it to Dawn?’

Oli’s chest feels tight. ‘Yes, of course, it’s a priority.’

He gives a curt nod and slips his headphones back on, his fingers flying across the keyboard.

She stands there watching him for a minute. ‘Right, well, see you later.’

He lifts his hand, his eyes fixed on the computer monitor.