‘Hang on, wait. What do you mean?’

‘We’ll talk about it next week,’ Dawn says firmly. ‘File your piece if you want, then have a rest. Take the time.’

She hangs up, and Oli cries out in frustration. She’s past tired now, somewhere in between furious and hopeless.

Outside Breakers there’s a one-hour park that she eases the Toyota into. She orders a coffee, barely acknowledging Col, and stares moodily out the window while she waits. If the little girl isn’t Louise and isn’t Nicole’s, then who is she? And why did Nicole offer the McCraes the chance to have a baby if she knew she was infertile? Why did she seduce Julian that night? Was it just to have the upper hand, a reason to blackmail him?

Oli’s focus blurs as she stares at Col frothing the milk. She jumps when he calls her name.

‘Looks like you need this today,’ he says with a wink.

Back in the studio, Oli dumps her bag on the desk and looks at Cooper’s timeline on the wall. His things on the desk. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says to the empty room.

She sits and opens her laptop. She tries to edit the piece, massage it into a different shape, but without the Louise Carter revelation it loses its structure. And Nicole is still missing.

Giving up, Oli finishes her cold coffee and throws the cup in the bin. Amid the maddening churn of theories about Nicole, the conversation she needs to have with Dean is like a vice around her brain. Restless, she scrolls through her emails until she comes across several Cooper sent on Sunday morning. Her heart jolts as she remembers what Pia said about him chasing down something at the university after he received a tip-off.

All the emails were forwarded from the podcast address he set up. Two are from people spruiking theories about the housemates, claiming to have known the girls. Another Cooper has forwarded with a note: I’m going to call her and see if she’s legit. Oli reads quickly: a woman who went to Melbourne uni at the same time as the girls believes they might have been involved in selling child pornography. She was approached to do the same thing.

Oli almost falls off her chair as she reaches across the table to grab her phone. She calls the number at the end of the email.

‘Hello?’ A woman’s voice.

‘Hello …’ Oli frantically checks the name. ‘Zoe? This is Oli Groves, I work at Melbourne Today. I’ve read your email. The one you sent in after we published the podcast.’

Her voice turns solemn. ‘I saw the news about Cooper. I’m not sure I want to talk to you.’

Oli swallows. ‘Why not?’