Oli briefly ponders what Julie O’Brien was doing back in 2005. Probably watching the news with her husband, quietly judging the trio of housemates and reassuring herself that her perfect family would never be embroiled in a scandal like that.

In the car park, Oli smokes a cigarette while she speedreads Twitter. The armchair detectives have rallied and are firing opinions into cyberspace, using hashtags to formalise their uninformed views.

She crushes her smoke against a concrete pillar before it burns halfway. Finds a mint and shakes out her damp hair into what she hopes will pass as a stylish tousled look rather than an ungroomed mess.

The office is chaos. Almost everyone is talking into a phone. As Oli rounds the corner to her desk, a camera crew hustles past, threatening to bowl her over. She enters Dawn’s office tentatively and pulls her scarf off, almost choking herself in the process. Sits.

Dawn’s tall frame is clad in a blue dress dotted with daisies. ‘I don’t care, I don’t give a fuck. Get me the shots now.’ She drops her mobile onto her desk and gulps back an entire glass of water, her eyes darting around manically. A droplet trails from the left side of her mouth. ‘Good, you’re here. Get into the boardroom. Bronwyn’s in there already. I’ll find Pia, and we’ll work out what we’re going to run pre-lunch. The Sun’s got an O’Brien exclusive, apparently.’

‘Why did you remove the reference to the child in my article?’ Oli asks.

‘The exec team advised that we pull it.’

‘Joosten?’

‘Yes, him and others.’

‘Well, I’m not okay with it,’ Oli says. ‘It was an exclusive, and now other sites are running with it.’

‘Yes, well, apparently the Sun also got their mitts on O’Brien’s sister-in-law this morning, so you and TJ can commiserate together.’

Pia stumbles into Dawn’s office, shoves a bunch of papers at Dawn and starts talking into her phone.

Oli says, ‘I still think—’

‘Not now, Oli. For the love of god, let’s get moving.’

Gwen and Brent appear in the doorway, wide-eyed. They trip over each other comically as they push inside.

Dawn rakes a freckled hand through her hair and looks up at the ceiling. ‘Fine, let’s meet in here.’ She starts to pace the rug that runs along the side of her desk. ‘O’Brien’s presser is on in five, so we’ll have that copy live in less than an hour along with the video and a montage of the dead wife. Oli, what’s going on with the cops? Why are they keeping so quiet on Horrowitz? I’m hearing nothing.’

‘Me neither,’ Oli admits. ‘I’m guessing they’ll do a media call this morning. Maybe there’s a problem locating the parents.’