‘It’s cheaper than downstairs, and the paper is losing money. We were going to sublet the lower floors to another business.’ He stops in front of a closed door, swings off his backpack and sticks a hand inside, feeling around for a few moments before pulling out a set of keys. ‘You know there’s going to be a sale?’

‘There’ve been rumours of a sale for as long as I’ve been here,’ Oli says dismissively as he unlocks the door. ‘They’ve always amounted to nothing.’

The room is small, and every surface is covered in black carpet. An Apple Mac sits on the desk against the wall alongside several speakers and other sleek devices. A scratched round table with two chairs sits in the centre of the room, two microphones positioned in the middle. Cooper pulls out his laptop and plugs cords into its side.

‘Wow,’ she says, ‘this is quite the production.’

‘Yep.’ He straightens, hands on hips as he surveys the room. ‘It’s not bad considering we threw it together so quickly. The sound quality is surprisingly good.’ With the door shut, his black hair and clothing blend into the walls. His pale face floats in the darkness. ‘I’ll pull the files up. It will take a few minutes to download.’

Oli sits at the table and opens her laptop. The clack of her typing is dulled by the padded room, and there’s something comforting about being sealed off from the mayhem of the newsdesk.

‘I come up here a lot to work,’ Cooper says, after a few minutes. ‘One of the IT guys helped me set up this spare computer, but I had to organise a different wi-fi network. It’s not exactly kosher, but it works. The password’s CoopsScoops100, capital letters at the start of each word, with a hashtag at the end.’

‘Of course it is,’ Oli says wryly, reading back over her draft. It’s good enough for holding copy, so she connects to the wi-fi and sends it to Dawn.

‘Okay, you ready?’ Cooper asks, straightening as he looks at Oli.

She closes her laptop. ‘Sure.’

He guides the mouse to a file on the giant screen, double-clicks then hits the space bar. The low hum of white noise fills the room. A series of muffled sounds is followed by Cooper’s voice, more serious and stilted than in real life: ‘Today is just a warm-up, so we both feel comfortable when we do the real interview. Okay?’

Oli can only hear soft breathing.