A text from Pia appears on her phone, followed by a steady flow of calls and messages. The public have listened to the podcast and have opinions. Oli senses the tweets and comments loading. A swirling mass of feedback.

She wishes Cooper was with her. Rain lashes the windows. She breathes in, then out, forcing her mind to count the beats. Grips the steering wheel. Drives.

Ren’s house looks like it’s about to be demolished. A faded yellow building permit is strung across the front fence, which is missing several pickets. Weeds have grown through the gaps, twisting around the rotted beam at the base and embedding themselves in the cracked concrete. The house rises up from the scant lawn like a toilet block made of bright-orange bricks. Dark blinds hang in every window.

Oli twists the key out of the ignition, grabs her bag. Walks through the drizzle and unlatches the gate, pushes it open. It groans in response. Shoes, bags, sports equipment and cans of food line the porch, as if the insides of the house are on the outside. Oli’s considering whether to text a photo to Cooper, but the front door swings open before she has a chance.

‘Hello!’ A man with greasy shoulder-length hair bounces on the spot and holds out his hand. ‘Welcome, and good morning!’

She reaches out her hand to shake his. ‘Ren?’

‘Yes!’ He beams. He’s tall and he wears a faded blue T-shirt and baggy grey tracksuit pants that have split at the seams so the cuffs flap over his bare feet. ‘Mum said she would give you my address. Olivia, right?’

‘Oli.’

‘Cool, yep, cool. Wow, it’s freezing out here, hey?’ Ren looks at the sky, confused. ‘Come in, come in.’ Old cigarette smoke stirs as she enters the house. He pulls the door shut. ‘This way,’ he calls cheerfully, bounding down the hallway like a golden retriever.

The house seems to consist of six rooms, three on either side of the dim corridor. She and Ren walk past an unfamiliar movie poster—two angry-looking men in a stand-off—that’s stuck over the wallpaper, blobs of Blu-Tack obvious in the corners. An empty picture frame is propped on the floor further down. Oli peers into one of the dark rooms: a bed with a rumpled sheet and not much else.

‘In here.’ Ren gestures to the last doorway on the right. An old-fashioned gas heater glows like lava in the far-right corner. It looks dangerously close to an armchair, the foamy guts of which are escaping from a large hole near one of the buttons. A lamp with an exposed bulb sits on a narrow side table. The wooden grain is cloudy with the remnants of something—milk, maybe?—that’s been half wiped off.