‘And if I help you, you’ll only look at the sample you need and leave me the rest?’
‘Just the one that we need, John. No interest in anything else.’
The man nodded, satisfied.
He swung back the upper door to the fridge and proudly stepped back to let them see what was inside. It was unbelievable.
There were four white, evenly spaced, moulded plastic shelves. On the top one sat two supermarket ready meals, a jar of jam and a tub of margarine. The other three were neatly packed with sealed, transparent sandwich bags, each labelled and ordered, maybe a dozen bags to a shelf. Each containing what was very obviously a used condom.
There seemed an obsessive precision about the way they were laid out, all overlapping each other by the same amount. The numbered sticky labels were placed in exactly the same position in the top left-hand corner of each bag and the painstakingly neat, handwritten numbers were colour-coded.
In the fridge door were two cans of lager and the remains of a pint of milk.
Narey suppressed a laugh at the look on Corrieri’s face. She looked like she would have taken a pair of rusty shears to Johnny’s bollocks there and then before locking him up and throwing away the key without handing him a sticking plaster.
She was now at the fridge door and was beginning to reach out towards the sandwich bags.
‘No, no, no. No! Don’t touch them,’ shrieked Johnny, pushing himself between Corrieri and the fridge. ‘They’re in order. Don’t mess them.’
Corrieri couldn’t help but snigger and that got her a black look from both of them. Narey tried to make up for it.
‘Johnny is very particular about order. Aren’t you, John?’
‘It’s important,’ Petrie said. ‘Need to be in the right place.’
‘Well how are we supposed to…’
Narey cut off Corrieri’s objection by holding a photograph up in front of Rubber Johnny’s face. It was the photograph of Oonagh McCullough that they’d got from her parents.
‘You know her, Johnny?’
He looked confused for a few moments but then he nodded.
‘It’s an old picture. But that’s Melanie.’
‘Okay. And would you have any… samples in there of her?’ asked Narey.
Petrie nodded again. Didn’t have to give the matter any thought. ‘Three,’ he said.
‘When was the most recent, John?’
Johnny looked briefly to the ceiling as if seeking confirmation of the day that flashed up in his mind.
‘Sunday.’
‘You sure?’ asked Corrieri.
Petrie glared at her.
‘Of course I’m sure. Got a very good memory. Anyway, it’s in my log.’
‘Can you get the log for us, John? It’s important.’
Rubber Johnny nodded at them and opened a chipped, wooden kitchen drawer and carefully produced a ring-bound black folder which he placed open on the kitchen table.
They saw columns of meticulously tidy script, all in the same hand as the numbers on the condom-filled sandwich bags, each column under the headings of sample number, date, time, place, girl and customer.
Petrie ran his index finger down a column and stopped with a point. ‘Melanie.’
They ran their eyes across the line he indicated.
Number 476. Sunday 11 September. 11.42 p.m. Wellington Lane. Melanie. Black anorak man.
‘You didn’t know the punter then, Johnny?’
‘I’d seen him a couple of times but he wasn’t really what you would call a regular.’
‘Do you remember what he looked like?’ Narey knew that he would but wanted to fluff Johnny’s ego a bit.
‘Course. He was tallish. Maybe about five foot ten with short hair. Wore a dark anorak and trousers. Medium build. It was very dark, though, and he kept out of the lights.’
‘So tell us what you actually saw, John,’ prompted Narey. ‘Don’t be shy about it.’
‘Well, I didn’t actually see them… at it. The guy was glancing over his shoulder all the time as they walked down the lane, like he was nervous. I just stayed round the corner and…’ Petrie’s voice trailed away.
‘You listened to them, John?’
The man had the cheek to look a bit sheepish, dropping his eyes away from them.
‘Aye. ’
‘So tell us what you heard,’ Narey demanded.
‘Well, they were talking a bit. Couldn’t really hear what they were saying. Prices, I suppose. Then there was a bit of heavier breathing…’
Neither of the cops really wanted to hear this.
‘And I guess he was getting going. Melanie was moaning a bit but I’m sure she was just putting it on for his sake.’
Petrie was excited now and Corrieri felt the urge to punch his head.
‘I heard him gasp and then it sounded like Melanie was getting it good and hard because she got loud. Muffled like, but much louder.’
Narey and Corrieri swapped glances but said nothing.
‘Loud like what, Johnny?’
‘Like…’ he cleared his throat and mimicked the prostitute. ‘Ahhh, AHHHH, then higher pitched and louder, AHHHHH then hnnnuuuh, muffled. Then I thought he had finished off, cum real quick, like, ’cos it got quiet and that was sort of it.’
‘Nothing more? Narey asked.
‘Well, there was the noise of clothes again. Them sorting themselves. And a metal bang like one of them had hit the metal door that’s there. Oh aye, and there was a noise like someone falling against one of those big bins they got out there. Thought maybe he was just drunk and had walked into it.’
‘Johnny, did you hear Melanie say anything after you heard her get loud?’ the DS asked.
‘Naw. She never said a word. Why, what’s happened?’
‘And you didn’t hear him speak either after they were finished?’
‘No. What happened? Tell me. Did that guy do something to Melanie?’
‘Thing is, John, Melanie’s dead. We think the punter killed her.’
Petrie opened his mouth and closed it again. He was struggling to take it all in.
‘So when…’ the penny had dropped. ‘When I picked up the condom, Melanie was already dead? But where was she?’
‘She was behind one of the bins.’
Petrie’s face turned to fury.
‘That fucking bastard. Bastard.’
‘Did you see him leave, John? Did he go past you again?’
‘No, he must have gone down Wellington Street towards Bothwell Street.’
‘Did you see the guy’s face, Johnny?’
‘No.’
‘But you’ll testify in court about what you did see and what you heard?’
‘Too fucking right I will. Too fucking right. I can’t believe I. .. and she was dead when I went in there. Fuck’s sake. I’ll testify, don’t worry about that.’
‘Okay, Johnny, here’s what I want to do,’ Narey said. ‘I’m going to call forensics and get them over here to take the sample from your fridge. They won’t move anything else while they’re at it, I promise, and then take the bag down the lab to run some tests. Okay?’
‘And can I get it back after that?’ Petrie asked hopefully.
‘No, John. Sorry. We need to keep it.’
‘Aye, okay.’
