Craig Robertson - Snapshot

A few yards away from it, Narey stopped and explained a few dos and donts to Corrieri before they went in.

‘Let me do the talking, particularly at first, but feel free to chip in later. If any of the working girls are in then don’t stare at them, for God’s sake. They are bound to have heard about the girl on Wellington Lane and will probably be shaken up as it is without us blundering in. We don’t talk to them without the centre’s say-so. Just treat them with a bit of respect. They are all on the game but they are still women, remember that.’

Corrieri nodded earnestly and followed the DS inside.

A couple of young women who were drinking steaming cups of tea immediately turned their backs when the officers came through the door. Their movement caused a weary laugh from a middle-aged woman sitting behind a desk facing the door.

‘Jeezus, we aren’t getting many clients as it is without Cagney and Lacey coming in to scare them away. How are you, Rachel?’

Joanne Samuels was originally from Newcastle and had worked at Wish since it opened in 1992, working her way up from shoulder to cry on and chief tea maker to running the place. The centre itself had moved a good few times as leases ran out and rents rose when the red-light district became the international financial district. Samuels was a plump, pleasant woman in her mid-fifties who always had a kindly smile and a waspish sense of humour no matter what tales of horror were heard behind the door.

‘I’m doing okay, Joanne, how are you? Cagney and Lacey? Christ, you are showing your age.’

‘Hard to hide it, pet,’ the woman laughed, pulling a hand across the greying locks that were pulled back into a fat bun behind her head.

‘Away with you,’ Narey said. ‘Joanne, this is Julia Corrieri.’

Narey had instinctively not used Corrieri’s rank but there was no way that anyone would have taken them for anything other than police.

‘Nice to meet you, Julia. I take it you’re here about Melanie.’

Narey’s heart skipped a beat at the fact that Joanne knew the girl’s name.

‘You knew her then?’

Joanne shook her head sadly, a stray strand of hair flicking across her face.

‘No, I didn’t. But she is obviously the talk of the steamie around here. She didn’t come into Wish but a couple of the girls that do have put a name to her. It’ll be her working name, mind, I don’t have a real one for you.’

Narey’s heart sank again, even though she knew she ought to have expected it.

‘I was hoping you’d have something,’ she admitted.

‘Very little,’ the woman conceded. ‘She was a local girl but she didn’t appear to want any help from us. She seemed to think she was getting all the help she needed from somewhere else, if you get my drift.’

Narey thought that she did.

‘Okay, so have you heard the women talking about anyone particularly violent recently? Someone that might be capable of this?’

‘No, just the usual collection of bastards that want to use them as punch-bags and the ones who don’t think twice about giving them a kicking to get a refund. Not that they’re all like that. Some of them treat it the same way as going into a shop and buying a new pair of shoes. The thing is, Rachel, we don’t have the same handle on it as we used to simply because there are less of them working down here now. Between mobile phones and websites, sex isn’t bought the way it was before. More and more of it is taking place indoors after a quick finger shuffle through the internet.’

‘That’s a good thing though, surely?’ Narey asked. ‘If the girls aren’t on the streets.’

Joanne’s mouth became very small as she lowered her head and shook it.

‘Nope. I can see why you’d think so but no. When they all worked the old red-light district down here then we knew where they were and they knew where we were. Now they are all over the shop and we might only see a handful of girls in a night. These women are vulnerable. We want them out of sex work altogether, not just off the street.

‘The ones who are still working round here are usually the ones who don’t have whatever it takes to organize themselves with a phone or a bloody website. The addicts. Their lives are in complete disarray and arming themselves with a sim card or hitching up their skirts to Google is beyond them.’

‘That what Melanie was then? An addict?’ Narey asked the question, already sure of the answer.

Joanne gave a brisk nod.

‘From what I’m told, yes. Big time. I’d have been sure of it anyway but the few girls that knew her said she had a very heavy crack habit. It’s par for the course, whatever any woman’s reason for getting into prostitution – whether it’s to feed a habit or feed their child – drug use spirals once they are involved. That’s simply a fact.’

Narey looked towards Corrieri, encouraging her to get involved in the conversation. Willing as ever, Corrieri nervously took up the invitation.

‘Yes,’ she butted in. ‘I read a survey saying that there were a thousand women on the game in Glasgow and that 950 of them were drug users.’

Corrieri immediately saw Joanne’s eyebrows shoot up and a look of disapproval cross her face.

‘But,’ Corrieri continued hastily, ‘even if they are on the game, they are still women. We must remember that.’

‘Jeezus Christ, where do you get them, Rachel? Listen, young lady,’ she shouted at Corrieri. ‘That is a phrase that’s always got on my tits. The Game. It’s not a fucking game. Tiddlywinks is a game, croquet is a game, hide-and-seek is a game. These women face violent attacks, rapes and robberies at the hands of punters every day of their working lives. That’s why our efforts are all put into getting them the fuck out of this “game”.’

Julia turned a despairing glance towards Narey who gave her a supportive look to suggest that it was okay and that she would sort it.

‘We know that they face these dangers, Joanne. That’s why we’re here. The women that knew Melanie, can you give me their names?’ she asked.

‘What? Sorry, no. You know how it is, Rachel. They talk to me in confidence and they’re not going to keep doing that if I run off to the cops with whatever they tell me.’

The anger was clear in Samuels’s voice, years of hard work taking their toll on her good humour.

‘All I know is that the women who knew her were in here in tears,’ she continued testily. ‘From what I could make out they weren’t particularly friendly with Melanie but when there’s an attack then it scares the shit out of the lot of them. All I can tell you is that they say she was a proper looker before the crack got to her and that she had a room in a flat in Maryhill, although my guess is she is the kind who would be moving around on a regular basis. Oh, and there was talk of a heavy-handed boyfriend. That’s it.’

‘Joanne, I’m not trying to lay a guilt trip on you here but one girl has already been murdered and this guy could strike again. Surely that makes a difference. Let me talk to them?’

The woman massaged her temples in an attempt to keep her temper under control and emerged with a forced smile.

‘No guilt trip, really? My responsibility is to all the women working out there and I can’t put my relationship with them at risk over one incident. Their safety is everything to everyone that works in here so don’t lay emotional blackmail on me. They are in danger every bloody minute they spend on the street. I will speak to them and if they want to talk then I will get back to you. Best I can do.’

Narey nodded thoughtfully.

‘Okay, fair enough. I appreciate it, Joanne. It’s in all our interests that the bastard that did this is caught as soon as possible.’