‘She didn’t really answer the second part of that question, did she?’ he says.

‘No, she didn’t.’

Oli leaves Cooper in the studio transcribing the phone call with Alex. They’ve forged a hasty plan to divide and conquer. He gave her a set of keys to the studio, and she gave him the keys to the Audi so he can drive back to Crystalbrook and try to find out more about the woman calling herself Natalie Maslan. Oli is going to stay in the city and attempt to make contact with family and friends of Alex and Nicole before Bowman’s press conference.

She scrawled Rusty’s number in the front page of Cooper’s notebook. ‘Call him if you get yourself into a pickle,’ she said.

‘What kind of pickle?’ he asked nervously.

‘A journalistic pickle.’

Now Oli rushes down the corridor, the weight of the story sitting right on top of her chest. She presses her fingers in between her collarbones, trying to relieve the pressure. Thoughts roll around in her head. Why did Alex agree to speak to Cooper, and what exactly was she planning to reveal? His recording is by no means explosive, but there’s grit in Alex’s tone, a quiet power. Oli has done enough interviews to recognise someone on the brink of letting loose, sensing the freedom that will come with telling their truth. This momentum jars with Alex suiciding less than four days later. What happened to have her sink so quickly to such a desperate place?

Oli careens around the corner and heads to the lift. She pauses as she hears its doors open. Dawn steps out, followed by TJ. Oli ducks into an alcove, but they don’t even glance in her direction. They head up the hallway toward the empty offices, heads bent close, indecipherable murmurs bouncing off the bare walls. Oli reaches the empty lift just as the doors are shutting; she steps inside and jabs the button to close the doors, her eyes on their retreating figures. TJ was talking to Joosten about Dawn, and now Dawn and TJ are having secret meetings?

But Oli can’t think about that now—she needs to focus on the story. Her impatience flares. She wants all of the information immediately, for there to be a magic code allowing her total access, but the years have taught her that instead this will be a slog. Phone calls, emails. Chasing people down. Waiting. The heart and soul of journalism remain the same no matter how much technology you wrap around them.

An electronic beep announces her arrival on level one, and she steps out of the lift hoping to find Pia and Brent. All the TVs are playing news footage of Bowman in Crystalbrook yesterday, and Oli glimpses Rusty’s red hair in one of the shots.