Snapshot

by Craig Robertson

  Twenty minutes before the estimated time of death and something, someone she hadn’t quite noticed before.

  ‘Hang on, Imelda. Back up a bit,’ she said quietly, trying not to get ahead of herself.

  ‘What is it, Sarge?’ said the WPC. ‘You see something?’

  ‘Maybe . . . back a bit further.’

  She saw the shadowy figure that had caught her eye.

  ‘There. Freeze it.’

  ‘The guy in the dark jacket?’

  ‘Yes, that’s him.’

  Narey didn’t speak for a bit, but studied the man on the screen. About five foot five, lanky fair hair and upturned collar. The glint from a pair of steel spectacles causing an orange tinge under the streetlight. Was it him? She couldn’t be sure but it looked promising.

  ‘Do you know him, Sarge?’

  ‘Yeah. I think I might, Imelda. Can you close in on him?’

  The operator picked out an area around the man and a larger image appeared in front of them.

  Narey laughed out loud.

  ‘Rubber Johnny,’ she sniggered. ‘And here was me thinking he had retired and got out of the pervert business.’

  Couper turned and looked at her in confusion.

  ‘His name is John Petrie,’ explained Narey. ‘A long–time customer of Her Majesty’s Constabulary. God knows how many times he’s been collared over the years. He’s a freak-out creep of the first order. Hadn’t heard of him in ages. Thought he had lost the taste for it.’

  ‘The taste for what?’ the WPC asked warily.

  ‘He likes to frequent the work space of the ladies of the night,’ Narey told her. ‘Rarely approaches them, never lays a finger on them, but likes to spy on them when they get down to business. Sometimes he gets charged, sometimes he just gets chased and that’s the end of it.’

  ‘What a weirdo,’ remarked Couper.

  ‘It gets worse,’ Narey said. ‘Rubber Johnny got his nickname for one very good reason. He watches the girls getting it on with the punters, waits for them to leave then ducks back down the alley, picks up the discarded condoms and makes off with them.’

  ‘That is fu— That is gross, Sarge.’

  ‘You were right the first time, Imelda,’ Narey agreed. ‘He’s the grossest of the gross. Takes the used rubbers home with him and keeps them as some kind of freaky souvenir. You have to wonder what he does with them.’

  ‘I’d rather not know,’ the WPC replied.

  ‘Ah well, that’s where we differ. Because I really do want to know what he does with them.’

  Narey swung over to the computer that sat behind her and punched Petrie’s name into the PNC database where she found his current address. She pulled her mobile from her pocket and found Corrieri’s number in her address book.

  ‘Hi, Julia. Where are you? Okay, good. Meet me in Summerston, say twenty minutes. Islay Street. I don’t want to count any chickens because this could be nothing but on the other hand it might be just what we need.’

  Corrieri asked what the lead was but Narey wasn’t for telling. Partly because she wanted to get straight in her own head how to play this. And partly because she was quietly pleased with herself and wanted to savour it.

  Rubber Johnny lived in a block of flats deep in Summerston. It was a first-floor hellhole with broken bikes and bags of rubbish on the landing and junkies for neighbours.

  There were people hanging out of windows shouting to those sitting smoking on the front steps, kids running around half naked and everyone yelling when speaking would have done.

  Narey briefed Corrieri quickly on the street outside Petrie’s flat, enjoying the look of confusion on Corrieri’s face when she mentioned Petrie’s name.

  ‘The condom guy?’ she’d asked doubtfully.

  ‘The one and only,’ Narey replied.

  ‘You think he’s our man?’

  ‘I doubt it. He’s a watcher, not a lover or a fighter. He’s never so much as touched one of them so it doesn’t seem likely he’d start bumping them off now. No, I’m interested in Rubber Johnny for his collection rather than for the murders.’

  ‘Fucking gross.’

  ‘Funny, that’s exactly what Imelda Couper said. Come on, let’s go in.’

  They climbed the steps to the first floor where Narey knocked sharply three times on Johnny’s door. They soon heard soft footsteps coming towards the door and the shadow under it gave away that someone was standing there. The footsteps didn’t retreat but the door didn’t open.

  ‘Open the door, Johnny,’ Narey said gently.

  There was a pause before the sound of a chain being pulled back and the snib turning on the door. It swung back and revealed a sandy-haired man in his early fifties with steel specs and a few days’ growth on his face. On someone other than Rubber Johnny it might have qualified as designer stubble. He was wearing a dark, baggy T-shirt and there were slippers sticking out from beneath his faded jeans. It was obvious that he recognized Narey but was weighing up Corrieri with suspicion.

  He didn’t say anything, just turned and walked back into the flat with the two cops following behind him. Johnny knew the routine and couldn’t be bothered arguing the toss on his doorstep.

  With a wave of his arm he directed them to a settee before falling back into a well-worn armchair.

  ‘Well? What do you want?’

  ‘Nice to see you too, Johnny,’ said Narey.

  ‘I remember you,’ he muttered, looking at her. ‘Detective Sergeant.’

  ‘DS Narey,’ she reminded him. ‘This is DC Corrieri.’

  Petrie managed a barely perceptible nod in Corrieri’s direction.

  ‘What do you want?’ Johnny repeated. ‘I’ve not done anything wrong,’ he continued. ‘Done nothing. We’ve been through this a hundred times and the judge said that as long as I didn’t go near the girls then there was “no state of fear and alarm”. Anyway the samples were in a public place.’

  Narey knew she and Corrieri were thinking the same thing, smiling inwardly at his legalese and self-delusion and their skin crawling at the thought of his little hobby. Whatever some twat of a judge said, Rubber Johnny was a gold-plated weirdo.

  ‘Nobody’s arguing about that, John,’ soothed Narey. ‘We’re not here to do you for that. Truth is we could do with some help. We’d just like to take a look at one or two of your samples.’

  ‘No, no. No way. No. Judge says there’s nothing wrong with it. Nothing you can do. No.’

  He was getting hysterical.

  ‘Calm down, John. It’s okay. We don’t want to take them all away,’ said Narey. ‘There’s one we think can help us with a case and I can take it if it is evidence.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake. Fuck’s sake. Show me a warrant. I want to see a warrant. No, no, no way.’

  ‘Johnny, you know the routine by now,’ said Narey, her voice firmer. ‘I can go away and come back with the paperwork and a really bad temper or you can just help us out seeing as we’re already here.’

  Petrie looked doubtful. He looked between the two of them trying to suss out if there was another agenda than the one they were laying before him.

  ‘You’re not in any bother, John. We’re just looking for your help,’ Corrieri chipped in. ‘Someone has been messing with the girls,’ she continued. ‘Some not very nice stuff. We want your help to catch the guy.’

  ‘And I’m not in trouble?’

  ‘Absolutely none,’ Narey confirmed.

  Rubber Johnny stood up, scratched his head and sat back down. He got to his feet again and nodded towards the door off the living room and for them to follow him.

  Petrie held the door open behind him and the three of them traipsed into what turned out to be the kitchen of the tiny flat.

  He paced across the worn lino to where an upright fridge freezer sat in the corner, stopping with a hand on the fridge door before he turned and stared at Narey again.

  ‘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.’

  Half an hour later Cat Fitzpatrick was standing in Rubber Johnny’s kitchen, the look of utter professionalism on the forensic’s face hiding the disgust that burned behind her eyes.

  Fifteen minutes after she arrived, they were all making their way down the stairs and back to their cars.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Cat was saying, ‘Sometimes . . .’

  ‘Is this going to be a sentence that involves the word men?’ guessed Corrieri.

  ‘I can see why you’re a detective, Julia,’ the forensic answered with a rueful smile. ‘This has been a day of strange job requests. Just when you think it can’t get any weirder, you get dragged away from EastEnders to pick up bags of days-old spunk from an autistic pervert’s fridge.’

  ‘Autistic?’ Corrieri aske
d.

  Cat shrugged.

  ‘Petrie. Autistic. The precise labelling. The obsessively ordered bags. The extraordinary memory for detail. The near-hysteria when his perceived reality is challenged. Almost certainly autistic. I’m dropping this off at the lab then I’m going home to have a long shower.’

  Narey wasn’t sure why but she was annoyed by their chummy chat. She wanted to get this done and not piss about. She knew the condom was easily the best lead she was going to get.

  ‘What are the chances of getting a positive DNA result out of that?’ she asked Cat.

  ‘Very good, I’d say. Disgusting as it is, the fridge is the best place he could have kept it from our point of view. I’d say the seed in this condom will be nearly as fresh as the day it was sown. If this is your killer then I’ll have his DNA on a plate within a day or two.’

  CHAPTER 36

  Wednesday 22 September

  Winter and Narey’s mobiles went off within seconds of each other, although neither realized it. He was in Charing Cross and she in Highburgh Road. His was the call that they were both hoping it would be. Cat Fitzpatrick. Hers was the last call that she needed.

  ‘Morning, Cat. You got news for me?’ Winter asked as soon as he picked up the phone.

  ‘What happened to, “How are you?”. I’m fine, thanks for asking.’

  “Sorry, I’m just a bit anxious to hear what you’ve got.’

  ‘It’s okay, I’m kidding. Although maybe you’re right to be anxious.’

  ‘What is it? Have you got the results?’

  ‘What I have got is only one pair of hands. You and DS Narey need to learn some patience.’ The reference to Rachel threw him completely.

  ‘Ra— DS Narey?’

  ‘Yes. She wants everything yesterday as well. I can’t say what it’s about but it’s Weirdsville. Even stranger than what you wanted.’

  Winter’s mind was in a whirl, thoughts of mobile phones and snipers scaring the shit out of him. Whatever it was, it probably made it all the more urgent that he got what he needed to know.

  ‘So do you have the results?’ he tried again.

  ‘I don’t have anything that I’m going to discuss over the phone. Meet me in an hour.’