Tiny wrens dance in the nearby branches, and a pair of rosellas fly low, almost skimming the roof of Oli’s car.

The three girls had been close from the moment they met, that was the one thing everyone agreed on. Close in a way that some of their peers described as unusual. Beneath the anger and grief, it was clear their loved ones were scared, aware the girls’ formerly innocent friendship had somehow turned dangerous.

Nicole’s dead body appears in Oli’s thoughts. Maybe it still is.

Cooper runs to catch up with her. ‘Where are we going?’

‘I need food.’ She gets in the car and pulls the door shut.

‘Food,’ he repeats, clambering into the passenger seat. He looks at the media pack. ‘Like lunch, you mean?’

‘Nothing else is going to happen here.’ She inches the Audi backwards, nudging the car behind her. She narrowly misses the tail-light of the one in front as she executes a tight three-point turn and leaves the makeshift car park in a cloud of dust. ‘And as I said, we need to talk to people who might actually know something about Nicole living here. Not cops.’

Oli considers telling Cooper about Rusty’s text but decides against it. It’s not like she’s obliged to share anything with him, and he’ll just drive her crazy with bogus theories.

He digs around in his backpack, pulling out various cords and connecting the camera to his laptop while sporadically hitting buttons on his phone screen.

‘Happy with what you got?’

‘Yeah.’ He flicks through the images. ‘I mean, I’m not the best photographer in the world but I’m okay. I’ve done a few courses.’ He keeps scrolling. ‘Bowman looks about a hundred years old.’

‘He must be close to retirement.’ She turns off the dirt road and back onto the uneven bitumen. ‘I remember thinking he was ancient when I first started out.’

Cooper zooms in on one of the images. ‘Yeah, he’s retiring in March.’

She frowns. ‘Where did you hear that?’

‘Um, I’m not sure.’ Cooper’s eyes are fixed to his screen. ‘I think Joosten mentioned it.’

‘You’re in regular contact, are you?’ she asks, bristling.

Cooper finally turns to face her. ‘I was up in Sydney last month meeting with the exec team. It’s like I said, Joosten’s been heavily involved in getting the podcast off the ground. He’s keen to make sure it has national appeal. I think the Bowman thing came up then.’

‘Well, it certainly sounds like your project is getting a lot of support from the business.’