Kara looked into my eyes. I saw the pain this memory brought up.

‘It was when most people had gone home. Until it happened, I didn’t realise we were the only girls left. You know how it is. You just sit around talking into the night. We were outside and they lit a fire in the fire pit next to the house when the cool change came. There was music from the boom box and the guys were all mellow. And then it all gets a bit fuzzy. You know, the more I think about it, the more I reckon they put something in our drinks, cos the next thing I knew, we were somewhere else, on this filthy old mattress, and there were guys on top of us …’ Kara’s lip quivered.

‘Raping you both?’ I asked softly.

She nodded. ‘I remember the pain … and the humiliation. And I remember trying to scream and someone put their hand over my mouth. I know I vomited at some point, because the next day I had it in my hair …’

‘What happened next?’ I asked.

‘I tried to struggle but I couldn’t …’ She looked down at her arms. Raised them off the table. ‘My arms didn’t work. All I remember was looking sideways and seeing DeeDee next to me on the floor. She was being jolted like someone was raping her, but she wasn’t reacting at all. Her eyes were closed. After that, I remember waking up sometime later, on the couch back at my place, not knowing how I got there. DeeDee was asleep in the armchair. My keys were on the coffee table.’

Kara stood up and walked to the kitchen sink. She picked up a glass from the draining rack and filled it with water. She took a long drink before facing us again. ‘I reported it that morning. To the police.’ She shook her head at the memory. ‘That detective took our statements and said he’d look into it, then he rang a couple of days later to tell us they’d talked to the guys, and they said we’d agreed to group sex. It was our word against theirs. There was nothing they could do.’ Tears came but didn’t spill. Her eyes flashed with defiance.

‘So that was that?’ said Wozza in a quiet voice.

‘Yep. The guys said we probably dobbed them in because we had boyfriends.’

‘Kara, did the detective order a rape kit examination?’ asked Wozza.

She shook her head.

Wozza glanced at me. His look said everything. The detective had stuffed up, drawn conclusions. Evidence had been lost as a result.

‘Do you know who the men were?’ I asked.

She nodded but said nothing.