‘Nah, I’m good.’ He squints at the house. He’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans, and goose bumps prickle Oli’s limbs. ‘I can’t believe Queen Jo isn’t here.’ Rob lights a cigarette. ‘She loves a dead body.’

‘She’s at a wedding in the country.’

‘How odd to think she has friends. But, hey, maybe you’ll finally get a by-line.’

‘Maybe.’ Oli tips her head backwards trying to focus. ‘I saw the body. It’s lying in the hallway.’

Rob looks impressed. ‘Excellent. I really hate getting out of bed this early just for grievous bodily harm.’

‘And there’s a girl on the porch behind the hedge, with blood all over her.’

Rob whistles. ‘Ten bucks says they’re prostitutes.’

‘I don’t have ten bucks. I’m broke till payday.’

‘You can owe me.’

She rolls her eyes. ‘Jo wants a hero shot of Bowman and whoever else ends up leading this thing.’

‘Her wish is my pain in the arse.’ Rob blows a smoke ring skyward.

Oli stares at a black stain on the sun visor, trying to work out what it could be.

Rob grins. ‘Late night?’

‘Not really.’ She shimmies in the seat as she attempts to retrieve a tube of lip balm from her back pocket.

He laughs. ‘That’s not what your party-girl eyes tell me.’

‘Whatever.’ She smears the balm on her lips and pushes the visor against the ceiling. A wave of anxiety crashes over her. ‘Jo should have sent TJ. No one’s going to tell me anything.’

‘Not with that attitude,’ Rob agrees, yanking open her car door and winding up the window. ‘Come on, we may as well get some mood pics while we wait for the gory details.’

A black Land Rover pulls up on the other side of the street. Melissa Warren from the Herald Sun is at the wheel, her dark bob hugging her sharp jawline. Rob pauses to photograph two people from the forensic unit coming out of the house, and Oli almost runs up the back of him.

The day seems reluctant to get started; the sky remains a murky grey, while the light rain has turned to a fine mist. Oli tucks her notebook inside her jacket, wedging it under her arm.

It’s 6.39 am. Less than an hour since Jo first called, barking orders as Oli paid the taxi driver and fumbled for her keys in the badly lit entrance to her apartment block. She didn’t even shower, just swapped her heels and dress for one of her sister’s clean shirts and a pair of suit pants on the clotheshorse, spritzed perfume on her wrists and brushed her teeth. Now her tongue stings from the boiling coffee she bought at the McDonald’s drive-through, and she can still taste the Bacon & Egg McMuffin she wolfed down. An alarming clamminess is creeping across her body, her hangover threatening to take hold.