‘Hard to tell,’ said Ralph. ‘Every so often, they’d huddle together. Now that I come to think about it, I reckon Jack slipped him a few bucks now and again.’

‘What?’ My voice came out sharper than I intended. ‘How do you know?’

Ralph’s eyes narrowed. He was clearly observant in his role as publican. ‘Couple of weeks ago, Merv came up to buy a round for his mates. He opened his wallet—old moth-eaten thing it was—and pulled out his last twenty-dollar note. Then Jack comes in, takes him aside, and the next time he comes up to buy a round, Merv’s wallet’s not empty anymore. He had a bunch of twenties.’

Ralph looked over at a table of old men in the corner. Hard old guys with betting slips on the table in front of them, half-drunk beers in smudged glasses. One of them coughing into a dirty hanky, sounding like he had swallowed a frog. I followed his gaze. We thanked him and walked over to the old blokes in the corner.

On the way, I whispered to Wozza, ‘Do you think Jack might have been paying Merv to harass women?’

‘Maybe,’ Wozza replied in a low voice.

Wozza seemed to know the old guys, as he greeted them by name. He asked if they remembered Merv being in the pub on Thursday night.

The old bloke frog-coughed before replying with a laugh. ‘Pissed as a newt, he was. Fucken legless. Don’t know how he made it home. Lucky he just lives up the road.’

‘Did he drink more than usual?’ asked Wozza. ‘It’d take a gutful to get any of you blokes legless.’

Another old fellow, eyes yellow and rheumy, nodded thoughtfully. ‘Didn’t seem to,’ he said, ‘now that you mention it.’

A thought occurred to me. If someone drugged the beer Meg discarded, then Merv wandered past, picked it up and drank it, that would account for his inebriated state. Maybe he staggered home, then collapsed. I shared this theory with Wozza once we were outside again in the brisk air.

‘Problem is,’ said Wozza, ‘the amount of drugs in all the drinks so far is only enough to incapacitate the girls, not kill them. How come Merv died?’

I shrugged. ‘Maybe he passed out and banged his head on the kitchen floor. Maybe he had an allergic reaction. Maybe his system couldn’t tolerate the drug. Or maybe they accidentally put too much in that particular drink. Who knows?’

‘If that’s the case,’ said Wozza, suddenly serious, ‘then it’s only a matter of time before a girl dies. These guys are persistent. They’re hanging around unnoticed, but they saw Meg put the beer down and they’ve come in for a second go when she got a drink she liked.’

At that moment, a huge grey cloud drifted across the weak sunlight and cast a pall across Deception Bay. I shivered.