His tightly balled fist had connected so hard with her cheek that it had knocked her clean off her feet and given her a black eye that lasted for three weeks.
That was the first of many terrible beatings and Miri now lived in fear for her life, a prisoner in her own home.
She had realised far too late what a naive, gullible fool she had been and by the time she eventually woke up to the fact that she had married a monster there was very little she could do about it.
Her loving husband had warned her in no uncertain terms that should she ever leave him, or tell another living soul about what happened in the privacy of their flat, that he would have no hesitation in killing her.
No matter where she was, or where she went, he swore he would hunt her down and beat her to death.
And Miri believed him.
Indeed, she now knew why none of his previous girlfriends ever spoke about their time with the good Dr. Gillespie, because they were no doubt under similar threats of violence should they ever utter a word about his deviant nature.
It was a terrible, miserable existence filled with darkness and fear and as the months rolled by, she thought about ending it all many times, convinced that she had nothing left to live for.
But from somewhere she found a great well of resolve, even if the discovery of it was somewhat late. Yet she had felt hopelessness before and had weathered the storm. She had also known heartbreak and survived that, too.
Life would not beat her. She would not give up, not give into despair, because somewhere out there she was convinced there was still hope, someone who might yet save her.
As to whom that someone might be, she only dare pray.
Chapter Thirty-One
Roper Coyle was already on his fifth cigarette of the day and it was not yet 8am. A lukewarm cup of vending machine coffee sat next to the overflowing ashtray on his desk and immediately beside that was a huge stack of paperwork which demanded his attention.
Indeed, such was the sprawling scale of the investigation he had recently been assigned, the newly promoted Detective Inspector had been hard at it for the last two hours just trying to familiarise himself with all the facts before the day began in earnest.
Once everyone else arrived the office was likely to become pretty hectic so he thought it best to take advantage of this quieter time of day to get the details of the case properly ordered in his mind.
He had driven into work from his home in Islington where he and Emma now lived. It was actually his father’s old house, which Roper had inherited and although in dire need of some tender loving care it was comfortable enough. Furthermore, it was only a forty minute commute to New Scotland Yard on a good day, depending on traffic, so it was fairly convenient, too.
However, his wife believed they could do much better. Emma did not like Islington one little bit and had her eye on a new development in Dulwich which, in her opinion, was much more suited to their status. Roper could not care less about such things but he did know property in London was spectacularly expensive. Furthermore, even on an Inspector’s salary, buying a place in Dulwich would leave them extremely stretched and they would barely have enough to live on.
Maybe if they both worked and pooled their resources, perhaps then they could afford it, but Emma believed she had enough on her plate being a homemaker and thought it Roper’s responsibility to be the bread winner.
Roper did not subscribe to this view but saw little point in voicing it as he knew it would fall on deaf ears. However, the truth was, he was hard pressed to see what his wife did all day.
Gone were the days when she used to get up early and make him a packed lunch, in fact now she rarely surfaced before mid-morning. What is more, she never cooked dinner either and they tended to live entirely on takeaways and microwave meals. She ran the vacuum cleaner round once in a while and pulled the duvet up every day once she had crawled out from under it but that was basically it for housework. She even insisted that Roper did his own washing and as for the garden, well it was hardly bigger than a postage stamp so he tended to that too.
Indeed, it seemed to him that his wife filled her days shopping, socialising and generally swanning about but, in truth, he did not really care.
Their relationship had not been the same since leaving Cambridge. In fact, if Roper was honest, things had been going downhill almost since the day they got married.
They still loved each other, or so he believed, but Emma never seemed satisfied with what they had and always wanted more. It was all very well being ambitious, but she wanted everything to happen immediately, whether it be a new house, a nicer car or a bigger promotion for Roper and she was forever pushing to make it happen.
Yet he was happy in his work. He liked his job and was very good at it. He would even say it was his calling, but Emma paid no mind to this and would not be content until he was Chief Superintendent with all the benefits and prestige that came with that position - and even then Roper doubted she would be satisfied.
However, she did not put the same effort into their marriage, although anyone viewing it from the outside might well think otherwise.
Indeed, at social functions or whenever they were out together Emma was most affectionate and gave the impression of being the perfect wife. She made sure she was seen to be supportive, attentive and dutiful. Yet at those same events, Roper had watched her as she unashamedly worked those who might help raise her social standing; flirting with the men, flattering the women, doing anything she could to get them on side.
But behind closed doors she was a different person. She had grown distant from him and in the few short years that they had been married had become increasingly more calculating and cold. Their sex life, too, was now almost nonexistent and the time they actually spent together amounted to less than a few hours a day.
Nevertheless, she had been delighted when he received his promotion and had welcomed him home from work wearing nothing but a black satin basque and a pair of sheer black stockings as a little reward for all his hard work, thus instigating a rather passionate couple of hours in the bedroom shortly afterwards.
This was, indeed, a rare and welcome treat for Roper as, of late, his wife had become somewhat frosty where sex was concerned.
Little did he know, however, that Emma had been banging the Chief Inspector almost daily for the last six months to ensure her husband got the promotion she so badly wanted for him and was often too spent to satisfy Roper’s needs, too.
Nor was he aware that just a few hours before, Emma had been kneeling on all fours and being vigorously pounded from behind by that same Chief Inspector whilst gleefully screaming her thanks. She had even been wearing the exact same basque and stockings.
However, what Emma Coyle had failed to grasp in all her illicit scheming was that Roper would have achieved every single promotion on his own merits had she given him the credit to do so. It may have taken him slightly longer, but not much as he was widely respected amongst his peers and considered to be a natural detective; dogged, thorough and intuitive - his only blindspot being his own wife who, for all her faults, he did not believe treacherous enough to cheat on him.
Yet, a Detective Inspector Roper now was, with all the added work and responsibility that came with it. But he did not mind, in fact he relished it, although he could have quite happily done without the longer hours.
Nevertheless, after draining the last vestiges of cold coffee from the white polystyrene cup, he lit up yet another cigarette and puffed quietly away on it as the day shift steadily began to arrive.
By the time he had stubbed it out, most of the team were seated at their desks, all except his new D.C., Dave Eckhart, who, as usual, was running late. Roper did not mind so much, the young constable was keen and eager to learn and would often be at his desk long after everyone else had gone home, so he could be forgiven for not wanting to get out of bed in the morn
ing. But it would not do to tell him so.
Roper smiled as he slid open his desk drawer and pulled out an electric razor. He then yawned wearily before wandering off to the Gents to have a shave and think about the case some more.
The investigation surrounded a rather violent group of mercenaries who were suspected of being involved in the illegal diamonds trade. The group were led by two notorious brothers, Arthur and Charles Khan, who, amongst other things, were thought to be connected to the murders of several people associated with these so called ‘blood diamonds’. Yet, for one reason or another, the brothers kept slipping through the authorities fingers.
It was a difficult case that could possibly take years to crack, not least because the brothers were rarely in the country and therefore tricky to monitor.
Nonetheless, Roper had been tasked with tracing their various associates in the hope of finding something which might finally bring them to justice.
Upon being handed the task, Roper’s immediate instinct was to check if any of the men who had been killed in Cambridge three years earlier had been known associates of the Khan’s, as Merton, McCullough and Finch had all worked as mercenaries at some point in their lives. However, no link could be found which was somewhat disappointing as Roper had never forgotten the macabre sight of that poor girl on his first day as a Detective Sergeant and had always hoped to see the remaining perpetrators brought to justice - preferably before they, too, ended up dead.
Yet he knew his focus must remain on the case in hand and, as such, there were other men he needed to look at as possible associates of the Khan brothers.
One man of particular interest was Brendan Williams.
Even though Williams had been killed six months earlier at a prison camp in Siberia, D.N.A. taken from his remains could tie him to several murders in England which might, in turn, link him to the Khan’s.
However, the repatriation of his body had been subject to much legal and political wrangling on the parts of the British and Russian governments, thus delaying the investigation into the Khan brothers even further.
Fortunately, much of this wrangling had happened before Roper caught the case and the legal arguments surrounding the repatriation of the body had now thankfully been resolved.
Indeed, the body had arrived back on U.K. soil just a few days ago and Roper had ordered an immediate D.N.A analysis, hoping it might lead to something concrete from which to build a case.
The file from the Siberian prison, concerning the details of Williams’ death had arrived with the body and was presently being translated into English. Again Roper had asked for these to be rushed through and was expecting them to be added to the pile of documents on his desk shortly.
As he entered the washroom, he thought of that ever growing pile of paperwork and sighed. Yet he knew the answers he sought might well be buried in there somewhere, it was just a matter of searching them out - and he was hoping Williams’ file might give him some clue as to where to look first.
He turned on the electric razor and studied his reflection in the mirror. He looked tired, with a dark shadow of stubble covering the lower half of his face, there were also bags under his eyes and his brown hair looked like he had just climbed out of bed. He thought he looked dreadful, although the women in the office would beg to differ.
Nevertheless, he did his best to smooth down his untidy mop then set to work on his bristly chin with the razor.
He had no sooner finished shaving when the door opened and Dave Eckhart poked his head around it. “Morning, Guv,” he said with a boyish grin. He was tall, blonde and lanky, six foot two of youthful enthusiasm - indeed, he looked much younger than his twenty-two years, but he was a nice guy and a good policeman.
“Oh, decided to join us have you, Dave?” Coyle replied sarcastically, remarking on the detective constable’s late arrival.
“Yes Guv. Sorry Guv - the traffic was a killer,“ spluttered Eckhart.
Roper smiled, unconcerned. He had only been teasing. “Yeah, I’m sure it was. Did you want me?”
“Yes Guv,” nodded Eckhart, relieved that his boss did not seem unduly bothered by his lateness whilst silently resolving to be less tardy in future. Indeed, he liked Coyle and did not want to let him down. The two of them were not too dissimilar in age, with Roper only having a few years on him but he was the kind of copper Eckhart aspired to be; fair, sharp-minded and instinctive - in fact an excellent role model whom Dave would do well to learn from. “Just thought you might like to know, Brendan Williams’ file is back from the translators - I’ve put it on your desk. Oh, and the D.N.A. report has just come in, too, so I’ve tucked that inside.”
Coyle turned on the tap and splashed his face with water, feeling immediately invigorated. “Good,” he said, drying himself off with a handful of paper towels. “Right then, let’s go find out what they can tell us, shall we?”
Eckhart grinned. “Yes, Guv,” he replied.
***
Roper tossed Eckhart a couple of tokens for the vending machine and asked him to fetch them two coffees. He then selected a fresh cigarette from his half empty pack of Embassy and lit it up with the silver-plated Zippo Emma had bought for him on their honeymoon. ‘For you, anything’, read the inscription.
If only he knew how pertinent that was.
However, even though Emma had convinced herself that the things she did were for the good of her and Roper’s future, the truth was, deep down, she liked being a slut. All of her life she had been a ‘good girl’ but since being married she had discovered a side to her personality that was distinctly bad - and it was a trait she was embracing more and more, with much less caution than was probably wise. But she could not help herself as the thrill of it was utterly intoxicating.
The very fact that she was getting regularly fucked by Roper’s boss made it all so exciting that she barely even considered his feelings should he ever find out, preferring instead to focus on what she had helped him to achieve through her many sexual transgressions. Indeed, he was still only twenty-eight and already a detective inspector, so surely her actions had been entirely justifiable - at least that is what she liked to tell herself. The truth was however, she just enjoyed being bad.
Yet for all his intuitiveness and natural detective smarts, Roper could not see was happening right under his nose - or maybe it was just that he was so tired of his wife’s scheming and relentless social climbing that he simply did not care enough to notice.
Either way, his attention was now on the file he held in his hands and as he slipped the lighter back into his pocket, he was anxious to see what the contents of the thick buff coloured folder might yet reveal.
He took a long drag on his cigarette then flipped open the file, immediately seeing the D.N.A. report that Eckhart had mentioned. He picked it up, blowing out a thick plume of smoke, and began to scrutinise its findings.
It seemed Brendan Williams’ D.N.A. had been identified as that found at several crime scenes but sadly none which would help Roper build a case against the Khan’s. The report made disappointing reading and meant that he and his team would have to do an awful lot more digging to find anything that might help them with their investigation, which would ultimately result in a lot more man hours.
As Roper suspected, building a cast iron case against the Khan brothers looked set to take years. They were as guilty as sin, it was just a matter of proving it. Yet without the evidence of Williams’ D.N.A. to positively link him to the various murders the brothers were suspected of orchestrating, it was going to be even more difficult to substantiate.
However, the investigation into the Khan’s aside, there was one piece of information on the report that came as a complete surprise to Roper.
A direct match for Williams’ D.N.A. had been clearly identified as one of the six different samples found on the body of Claudette Sekibo. Indeed, it was conclusive proof tha
t he had been one of the men who had raped and killed her.
And now he, too, was dead.
The Khan case temporarily forgotten, Roper placed the D.N.A. report aside and madly started scanning the file sent by the Russian authorities, searching for the manner in which Williams had died.
Soon he discovered that the Welshman was suspected to have been killed by a fellow inmate, although it had never been conclusively proven. What is more, that inmate was the only other Westerner in the whole prison; an American by the name of Samuel Ryder.
Immediately the name sounded alarm bells in Roper’s head. Instinct told him that Samuel Ryder and Sam Beresford were one and the same person. Furthermore, it backed up his theory that Sam Beresford had killed the three other men who had so far been linked to the murder of Claudette.
Quickly, he instructed Eckhart to trawl through the airline passenger logs from the time of Claudette’s murder, which were still held on the police database, telling him to search from the time he knew Sam Beresford to have been in America to the time just before the bodies of Merton and McCullough were found, looking specifically for the name of Samuel Ryder on the manifest.
Sure enough, by mid-afternoon, Eckhart had found the name on a British Airways flight entering the U.K. in the April of ‘94.
If Roper’s theory was correct and Samuel Ryder was, in fact, Sam Beresford, then it was a discovery of immense importance. However, it seemed almost inconceivable that the wealthy young man Roper knew would be capable of surviving in a Siberian prison camp - it also begged the question, how did he get in there in the first place?
Nonetheless, Roper immediately picked up the phone and called the Cambridge Constabulary.
After being placed on hold for some considerable time, Chief Superintendent Graham Smart eventually came on the line, his manner extremely frosty. It seemed his attitude had not thawed in the three years since they had last spoken to each other, which was still something of a mystery to Roper, but he related all he knew nonetheless.
Perfect Day Page 31