The drink is on her table when she returns from the bathroom. She sips it slowly, the rosy glow of the restaurant washing over her. Her theory from earlier resurfaces, and she fumbles for her phone and calls Miles Wu. ‘Miles? It’s Oli Groves from Melbourne Today.’

‘Oh, hi,’ he stutters nervously.

‘We’re still piecing together our story, and I just wanted to ask whether you ever saw anything that made you think the girls might have been involved in creating or selling any kind of explicit content.’ She’s talking too quickly and tries to force herself to slow down.

‘No,’ stammers Miles. ‘I never saw anything like that. And honestly I just can’t see Alex doing that kind of stuff. She was quite a private person.’

‘And McCrae never did or said anything that made you think he was trying to coerce the girls into doing something?’

‘Like porn?’

‘Sure, porn or anything, really.’

‘I don’t think so. Nicole was the one closest to him, but it didn’t seem sexual. It was just weird.’

‘I’m also wondering if perhaps they had the internet disconnected because they were concerned about explicit content being traced back to the house.’

‘I think that’s a bit of a leap,’ Miles says doubtfully. ‘I really don’t think Alex could have been doing that without my knowledge. But Evelyn was really outgoing, and she was trying to crack into the acting scene, so maybe she would have been tempted.’

‘But you said it was Nicole and Alex who justified cancelling their home internet,’ Oli presses. ‘Not Evelyn.’

Miles doesn’t say anything for a few moments. ‘Yeah, I think it was. Honestly, it’s hard to remember, I just thought it was odd that they didn’t want it at home. Once you’ve had internet it’s not common to go backwards, right? But like I said, there were computers at the uni, and they had phones so it wasn’t like they cut themselves off from the world or anything.’ He pauses. ‘Is this for the same article your workmate called me about earlier?’

‘Cooper called you today?’

‘Yes.’ Miles sounds wary.

‘When?’

‘Around three, I think.’

‘Why?’

‘He was asking questions about that little kid who went missing around the time Evelyn died. He wanted to know whether the girls ever said anything about it.’

‘Right, of course,’ Oli says. ‘Cooper and I keep missing each other today.’

‘Okay.’ Miles sounds downright uncomfortable now.

He doesn’t say anything else, so Oli fills the silence. ‘And did the housemates ever say anything about the Carter girl?’

‘Not specifically,’ Miles says slowly. ‘Although Evelyn seemed quite upset about it. She was watching the news after it happened, and Nicole turned it off saying it was pointless seeing the same updates over and over, which seemed to really piss Evelyn off. I told Cooper this already.’