Cooper looks confused. ‘Maybe Nicole only meant to hide out for a little while and wait for things to settle down, but when they didn’t she decided to have her baby away from the spotlight and made a fresh start somewhere.’

Oli tries to picture it. ‘Alex always maintained that Nicole wasn’t there when Evelyn died. And the DNA supported that. If Nicole felt guilty about something I don’t think it was Evelyn’s murder.’

Cooper squirms, twisting his arms in front of his body.

‘What?’

‘Well, when we spoke on the phone the second time, Alex told me that part of what she could remember was waking up in the hallway after Evelyn was dead. She said she could hear someone in the house.’

‘Are you serious?’

He nods. ‘That’s what she said.’

‘We need to speak to Alex as soon as possible. We can’t wait until Sunday.’ She gestures at Cooper. ‘You need to call her now. Quickly.’

‘I can’t,’ he cries. ‘She wouldn’t give me her number.’

‘What?’ Oli is in danger of exploding. ‘What do you mean?’

‘She said she wasn’t comfortable giving me her phone number. The two times we spoke she called me, and her settings were on private.’

‘Well, how the fuck are you going to contact her?’

‘Twitter.’ He looks offended. ‘That’s the only way she said she was happy to communicate.’

Oli closes her eyes. Breathes. ‘Well, do it now.’

The slightest hint of smugness seizes his features. ‘I messaged her before we left the office. I asked her to call me.’

‘But she hasn’t,’ Oli says flatly.

‘No.’ His expression drops as he glances at his phone, looks nervously at Oli then back at the screen. ‘She hasn’t read my message yet.’

‘Okay.’ Oli sounds a lot less frantic than she feels. ‘The second you hear from her, you need to tell her the interview has to happen as soon as possible. Before Sunday. We can talk to her in the middle of the night if she wants, I don’t care. We need to get her on the record before she changes her mind or is dragged back into custody.’

Cooper blanches and steps away from Oli, squaring his bony shoulders. ‘Like I said, it’s been pretty hard to get her to agree to the whole thing. I don’t want to freak her out. She trusts me at the moment, and I want to keep it that way.’

‘Well, you’ll have to reconcile wanting to make a new friend with wanting to be a journalist.’

His nostrils flare, and he opens his mouth but then changes tack. Oli can hear him counting under his breath. ‘When she calls me,’ he says evenly, ‘I will ask if she wants to do the interview earlier, but it’s up to her.’