‘Cooper, you do realise there’s a possibility Alex has something to do with what happened to Nicole, right? They might have been in touch.’

‘I’m keeping an open mind until we do the interview.’

‘You’ll need to keep an open mind way beyond that, my friend.’ She’s aware of how patronising she sounds, but someone needs to teach him how real journalism works. ‘It’s not your job to judge. It doesn’t matter what you think. We deliver a point of view and make sure we balance anything Alex tells us with the known facts. You’re not her lawyer.’

‘Surely I can have an opinion.’

‘Of course you can. You just have to keep it to your goddamn self. Either that, or you go and work at the Sun.’

She frees the straw on her Big M and breaks the silver seal, gulping down the sweet milk. She notices that his fists are clenched again, and she hides a smirk. Good, let him get worked up, he’s obviously had an easy run so far, what with jaunts to Sydney and the exec team falling all over itself to get his podcast off the ground. Time for him to have a taste of the real deal, the ninety-nine per cent of the job where things don’t go the way you want them to. She pulls open the chips and munches them noisily.

‘Don’t you think there’s a chance it was Nicole all along? That she killed Evelyn?’ Cooper speaks with an urgency that tells Oli this is his theory; this is what he’s secretly hoping Alex’s interview will prove.

Oli sighs. Sating her appetite has made her tired. ‘The DNA says no. Alex was there, covered in blood. Alex’s prints were on the knife and on Evelyn. Alex admitted to doing it. She even said Nicole wasn’t there.’

Cooper pouts. ‘You said in the car that it was probably jealousy. And maybe you’re right, but maybe it wasn’t jealousy over a guy.’

‘Sure,’ Oli says diplomatically. ‘The green-eyed monster comes in many forms.’

‘The day before she died, Evelyn auditioned for a role in a movie. Did you know that?’

Oli is momentarily floored. Had she known that? She crosses her arms and looks at him expectantly. ‘So?’

‘So, she got the part. She was going to move to Sydney in the new year.’ He lowers his voice as if someone might overhear. ‘I bet she told the girls that night. Nicole always wanted to be an actress. Maybe she was jealous.’

‘That hardly means she killed her friend.’

‘I’m just trying to keep an open mind,’ he says sarcastically. ‘It could have been anything—revenge, a psychotic episode.’

‘Drugs, or shame. Shame is big with young women. Maybe Evelyn was about to reveal some big dark secret about Alex to the world, and she lashed out.’

‘Maybe they had ties to the Mafia.’