Meg looked at the phone and her face darkened. ‘It was just supposed to be a birthday drink to celebrate turning eighteen …’ Her voice trailed off and she reached for a tissue. ‘I remember a couple of guys buying us drinks, then Nathan turned up.’ Meg picked up a plastic cup with a straw in it. She took a sip. The rain outside began tapping louder on Meg’s window and water dripped down it like tears. ‘Nathan wanted to talk to me outside and I went.’

‘How many drinks had you had when you went outside?’ I asked.

‘Maybe two,’ said Meg, ‘but I hadn’t finished them. We bought a round when we got to the pub, then some guys bought us all a beer, but I don’t like beer, so I pretended to take a sip to be polite, but then left it on a table. Then that guy called Jack bought us all wine, but I’d barely had any when I went outside with Nathan.’

Again, the name jarred. What were the odds of there being two sex offenders called Jack operating in a small country town with the same MO?

‘Did Jack have any marks on his face? Bruises?’ I asked.

Meg thought for a moment. ‘Not that I remember. He looked pretty normal to me.’

So it wasn’t him. My heart sank a little. Jack was a good suspect, but there was no hiding panda eyes.

‘The guy who bought you the drink—do you remember seeing him before?’ asked Wozza.

Meg rubbed at the bandage on her head, then shrugged. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. He just looked like a regular guy.’

‘Have you been drunk before?’ asked Wozza.

Meg looked embarrassed. ‘A couple of times,’ she said. ‘You know what it’s like.’

Wozza nodded sheepishly. ‘Yep.’

‘Meg, I want you to think carefully about this,’ I said. ‘Do you think the level of alcohol you drank matched the level of intoxication you felt?’

Meg’s eyes widened, then she shook her head. ‘No, it didn’t match. Do you think someone put something in my drink?’

‘It might explain why you can’t remember anything,’ I said.

‘They did tests when we brought you in,’ said Wozza. ‘We’ll know for sure when the results come back.’

Meg picked at the corner of the surgical tape that held her cannula in place.

‘What did you talk to Nathan about?’ I asked, adjusting the phone position slightly.

‘He wanted to get back together, but I couldn’t talk to him properly because the cold air literally made my head spin. He got really angry and I remember him leaving …’

‘Can you tell us why you broke up with Nathan?’ I watched Meg’s expression for clues.

Her face crumpled for a second, then righted itself. Steeled itself. ‘I just … I decided I didn’t want to go out with him anymore.’