Of course, Roper had revisited Arthur Khan and asked him that exact question but naturally he denied it. Khan also denied any knowledge of Angie Sawyer or her husband Jake, but Roper didn’t quite buy it. And so the suspicion remained.
Coyle was still furious with Northamptonshire Police for allowing this terrible crime to happen. No one needed to have died if they had only acted on his warning. But that was all in the past now. The woman he had spoken to had been reprimanded but that would not bring the Sawyers back.
He had tried to trace the call from the anonymous tip-off he had received about a possible threat to the Sawyer/Maddox family, but again, it turned up nothing. In fact Roper’s list of unanswered questions almost filled a file all by them self. The whereabouts of Jake Sawyer, the .357, the incredibly expensive diamond, whether Arthur Khan and possibly Peter Bearing were somehow involved. These mysteries all needed solving. As did the murders that took place a little over a month ago in that sleepy Northamptonshire village.
However, the murders were largely a case for the Northamptonshire Police and not for The Met. Roper had already spent far too much time on it and he was now receiving pressure from his superiors to let it go. He had a backlog of other cases that required his urgent attention and they needed to be cleared quickly.
Reluctantly, Coyle closed the file and placed it in the drawer of his desk. He would still monitor the case from afar and continue to revisit it once in a while in his spare time or in quieter moments - not that he had much of each. But for now, his full time involvement was at an end. His bosses had spoken and if he wanted to remain in his job he had to listen.
The murderer was out there somewhere and so, too, was Jake Sawyer and one day, Roper sincerely hoped to find both.
PART TWO
Chapter 25
Two years later. Nassau, The Bahamas.
Jake woke early, the silk sheets cool against his naked skin. The room was bright and airy and another beautiful day shone in through the open french windows. A large ceiling fan was whirring silently above the enormous bed, distributing the fresh morning air to all corners of the spacious bedroom. An easel was set up by the window, looking out to sea and a stack of various sized canvases leant against the white painted wattle and daub wall.
Jake sat up and stretched, glancing at the Barhamian beauty lying next to him still sleeping like a baby.
The latest in a long line.
At first there hadn’t been any women. Not for a long time. But then, in an effort to feel something other than empty for even the briefest time, none soon became many. But they never stayed for long. Jake was too closed up, too withdrawn for that. Most wanted something deeper and he did not. But he did want to feel something.
The girl in the bed stirred. He would end it today and she would not mind. They had only been dating for a couple of weeks but already it was clear that it was not going anywhere. She wanted more than he was ready to give. Perhaps ever.
Jake was slim now and physically fit, more so than at any other time in his life. He had taken up boxing again and karate and worked out hard with his trainer every day at both. His body was firm and muscular with a six-pack that Brad Pitt would envy. He was quick, agile and sharp and as ready as he could be for whatever or whoever might be coming.
His looks had also changed dramatically with the long hair and bushy beard having been replaced by the neat buzz cut and a cleanly shaven face. The glasses had now gone too and his eyes had been lasered which, with his new slim physique made him look late twenties rather than mid-thirties. For the first time in years he looked as handsome as he used to be, before his life went to hell.
Jake got out of bed and pulled on a pair of linen beach pants with a drawstring waist, then strolled out onto the wide veranda, the sun warming his tanned, muscular torso as he admired the enormous expanse of deep blue ocean that greeted him every day.
His bungalow was just one of many dotted around the exclusive resort, traditionally built from mud and stone with an immaculately maintained thatched roof. Inside, however, they had all the luxuries that the upscale clientele would rightfully expect; fifty inch plasma, four-poster bed, hot-tub, wet room and a private veranda, complete with its own infinity pool and magnificent sea view. And it was this that Jake appreciated the most. He found it relaxing and sometimes, just for the shortest time, whilst he watched the waves rolling in and out, the horrendous events of his past faded briefly from memory.
Since the murder of Angie and the kids Jake had moved around quite a bit, sometimes staying in a place for several months and at other times just a few days. But the emptiness within him was a constant. As was the guilt.
In Nassau, however, on the paradise island of New Providence, he had at last made a home of sorts. Albeit in a rented bungalow at the Crystal Waters Resort. But he had been there for four months and, at present, had no immediate plans to move on. It was comfortable and peaceful and the service was excellent. Furthermore, the management left him alone and were happy for him to rent on a month to month basis. It also had an exclusive clientele who liked to keep themselves to themselves and that suited him just fine.
On the veranda, Jake went through his morning ritual, beginning with a few stretching exercises then a hundred sit-ups and a hundred push-ups to get his blood pumping, forcing himself to feel alive. It was a tough task though as since New York, Jake had felt dead inside.
Normally he would go for a run around the resort then down onto the sand for a brisk five miles. Fitness was important to him now, keeping his body in peak physical condition by taking regular exercise and eating a healthy diet. But the run would have to wait today, until the girl had gone.
When he had finished the push-ups, he stood up and again stared out at the ocean, taking some deep cleansing breaths of fresh morning air. Standing there, he noticed a small white sail boat drift into view, a fair distance out on the quiet, turquoise sea and Jake thought how beautiful it must be to be out there this morning, bobbing carefree on the calm Caribbean. He watched it for a little while before going back into the bungalow to take a shower.
The girl had awoken when he had finished and he sat down beside her and gently ended it. She was saddened but not sorry. As Jake had suspected, she was not happy either and knew the relationship was going nowhere. She was fond of Jake but said that he kept his emotions too tightly bottled and wondered, quite kindly, if he might be as well to see a therapist to help him release them. Jake nodded but suspected he had no more emotions to release. His ability to feel, to love, to even care about much at all had all but turned to dust along with the remains of his murdered family. Just getting through each day was all he could focus on and it was slowly getting easier but that just made the guilt worse.
A short time later, Jake came back from his run glistening with a light sheen of sweat. His breathing was only slightly laboured as he jogged up the short, narrow track that led from the beach to his veranda. Quickly he stripped out of his T-shirt and shorts and kicked off his Nikes then dived naked into the cool aquamarine water of the infinity pool. He completed a couple of lengths fully underwater before bursting through the surface and completing four more with an impressive front crawl. For the fifth and final length he broke into a leisurely breaststroke before climbing out onto the warm deck, dripping wet but feeling nicely refreshed. He patted himself down lightly with a towel, then slung it over his shoulder and headed inside. The maid had already been and the bungalow was once again immaculate. The bed was made, the wine bottle and glasses from last night had disappeared and there were fresh flowers everywhere. Jake walked over to the sleek open plan kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator. He found an open carton of juice and glugged down several mouthfuls of it straight from the carton. He shut the fridge and kept the juice with him as he switched on the coffee machine and headed off for his second shower of the morning.
Jake wandered barefoot back out onto the veranda a sho
rt time later dressed in a light pair of combat shorts and a fresh cotton shirt, untucked with the sleeves casually rolled up to the elbows and at least three of the top buttons undone. A pair of Ray-Ban Aviators were hooked in the opening. Carrying a gloriously aromatic ground coffee and a newly delivered newspaper he sat down in one of the big, wicker armchairs that made-up part of the luxurious deck furniture. He sipped the coffee and looked out again at the ocean, noticing that the sail boat was still there. It seemed not to have moved but Jake thought little of it as he opened the paper and began reading the stories of the day, unaware that from out at sea, he was being watched.
Chapter 26
Arthur Khan put Aaron Sumpter’s investigation back months when he killed the Sawyer family. Sumpter had called the police anonymously to try to prevent the murders but for some reason they had failed to act and the Sawyers had all died anyway.
Aaron could not believe what Khan had done or the manner in which he had killed that poor family. Nor could he believe Arthur’s utter lack of remorse or the blasé way in which he openly discussed the murders with Bearing.
Peter Bearing, however, had been absolutely furious with Khan and Sumpter had never seen him show so much unchecked emotion. But he realised it was not emotion for the deaths of four innocent people but for the delay their deaths would inevitably put on the hunt for the diamonds. Sumpter knew Bearing to be cold but even he was surprised by the complete lack of conscience and the callous way in which he dismissed the murders, finding them nothing more than an inconvenience in his pursuit of the stones. However, it was not Sumpter’s job to judge, he was employed to find the diamonds and find the diamonds he most definitely would. Nevertheless, for a while after the murders things were far too hot for Aaron to go poking around asking lots of questions. He did not wish to raise suspicions so he had to wait, bide his time until things cooled down a bit.
Once they had, he set to work again, his remit unchanged.
However, it now seemed to Sumpter that he had been searching for Jake Sawyer forever. For a long time the man appeared to have vanished from the face of the earth and Aaron could find absolutely no trace of him. He had put out feelers all across Europe to all of the known diamond buyers trying to find some evidence of Sawyer’s existence but they turned up nothing.
Eventually, in order to placate Bearing and Khan and to show he was actually doing something, he flew to Antwerp himself, the most logical place someone wishing to sell diamonds would head for, and sniffed around there for several weeks. Sumpter even went to see Hugo van Elst but he said he knew nothing of the man Aaron was looking for.
It was only on his last day in the city that a diamond broker told him of a man in Amsterdam called Gerhardt who bought and sold small quantities of stones - a strictly small time dealer but a lead worth following up nonetheless.
Aaron arrived in Amsterdam and visited the seedy little office in the back of the brothel, finding Gerhardt there, looking much like a down-on-his-luck professor. But Gerhardt apologised and said that he had not seen anyone matching Jake’s description.
It was only after that, when Sumpter began asking around some of the backstreet jewellers in Amsterdam, purely out of desperation, that he found out that Gerhardt had been lying to him. One of these jewellers clearly remembered Jake and even recalled writing down Gerhardt’s address for him.
When Sumpter revisited Gerhardt, the diamond buyer still denied all knowledge of Jake and it was not until Aaron threatened him with a visit from Arthur Khan that he finally, very reluctantly, admitted to knowing him. With a little more persuasion, Gerhardt gave Aaron the details of the forger who had made up Jake’s fake passports.
Sumpter called on the forger next and for a relatively small amount of cash was given the names and the numbers on the four passports he had made up for Jake.
From that moment on Sumpter’s task was slightly less challenging. Knowing the names and passport numbers Jake was travelling under made him much easier to track although he had covered his trail well and frequently varied the names and passports he used. Often he would use more than one identity in whatever place he happened to be and would vanish for weeks on end. He criss-crossed the globe staying in some places for just days and others for weeks and always Sumpter was just too late to find him.
But then, after a considerable amount of time and patience and one hell of a lot of detective work, he eventually tracked Jake to The Bahamas where he had been staying for several months at the Crystal
Waters Resort in a rented bungalow.
He was watching him now, from a sail boat, out on the calm Caribbean ocean, taking photographs and spying on the bungalow through the long telephoto lens of his expensive Leica camera. He smiled as he watched Jake reading the newspaper and drinking his coffee, impressed by his new muscular physique and strikingly different appearance but in absolutely no doubt about who he actually was. “Hello, Mister Sawyer,” he said.
After two and half years of searching, Aaron Sumpter had finally found his man.
Chapter 27
Her legs were aching now, her calf muscles tightening as she pounded along the sand. The music on her iPod, which was strapped to her arm in a little velcro pouch, was pumping its way into her brain, the rhythm spurring her onward for the last punishing mile of her usual six mile morning run.
Lizzie Barnes loved this time of day, when Malibu was at its quietest and the beach was as near to deserted as it ever got in the daytime. Just joggers, dog walkers, the odd early morning swimmers and her. Everyone else was either still in bed or heading out early to get a head start on what was sure to be another sweltering hot day in California.
She enjoyed the run and even with the loud music hammering her ears it gave her a little quiet time before her day began in earnest. A run and a swim, then breakfast with the papers before a shower and work.
Lizzie saw the house up ahead and she picked up the pace a little. She was panting hard as she ran up the wide wooden steps and onto her pretty terrace at the back of the property - the best side of the house, which gave her uninterrupted views of the ocean. It was her own prime piece of Californian real estate and every day she was thankful that she had snapped it up when she had - bought with some of the money her mother had left her and somehow it made Lizzie feel as if she was still there with her.
She slipped off her trainers, ripped the velcro strap from her arm and tossed the iPod onto a padded lounger. She then stripped off her sweaty vest and shorts to reveal a dark blue one-piece swim suit that was cut high over her hips. Her body was tight and firm, her legs long and her breasts full - a true Malibu beach babe but with brains that easily matched up to her incredible body. She skipped down the steps and sprinted down the powdery white beach toward the sea, diving headlong into the surf as she reached the ocean.
For fifteen minutes she swam back and forth, never too far from the beach and always within clear sight of home. Backstroke, crawl, butterfly and then finally breaststroke as she made her way back to the shore, her workout for the day now over.
Now, refreshed but weary, she strolled lazily back to the house letting the early morning sunshine slowly dry her golden skin. Her long dark hair hanging sleek and wet down her back like the luxurious pelt of an otter.
Back on the veranda she pulled on a crisp white robe and towelled down her thick mane of hair. When it was less wet but still damp, she pushed it back off her face and gathered it into a long rope which she let fall loosely between her shoulder blades.
Cautiously she checked that no one was looking and then bent and retrieved a key from under a painted plant pot. She unlocked the glass patio door and slid it back its full length letting the fresh morning air into her home.
Twenty minutes later she was on her second glass of OJ with the morning papers spread out on the kitchen table. She was studying the financial pages with interest whilst eating a small bowl of Lucky Charms - a sugary vic
e that she categorically refused to kick. The little table was now bathed in sunlight that was streaming through the wide open patio doors and after chasing the very last Lucky Charm around the bowl with her spoon and slurping up the last remnants of pale blue stained milk, she folded the papers, grabbed what was left of her orange juice and headed upstairs.
Lizzie turned on the shower and peeled off her robe. She gulped down the remainder of her juice and was just about to step into the hot stream of water when her phone rang.
The name on the caller ID meant that it was important. She flipped open the phone. “Hi,” she said. “Tell me you’re calling with good news.”
* * *
Now, less than two days since that call and as a direct result of it, Lizzie Barnes was climbing out the pool at the Crystal Waters Resort in Nassau in a white bikini looking like a goddess.
Jake had noticed her, as had every other man on the sun deck.
He was sitting on a stool at the pool bar at the Club House, having just taken delivery of a Crystal Club sandwich; a ham, turkey and Swiss cheese speciality prepared for him by Delroy, the barman. “Now that is paradise, right there, my brother,” Delroy said in a deep Bahamian patois, noticing where Jake was looking.
Jake smiled but didn’t answer, although Delroy was certainly not wrong.
The girl was a vision. Long dark hair, movie star looks, firm, full breasts and never ending legs. She also had a golden tan which, along with the striking white bikini, complimented the entire package to perfection.
Her dark, almond shaped eyes briefly met Jake’s before she turned and walked away and, for the first time since New York, he felt his pulse quicken slightly with anticipation. Which caught him completely unawares.
He watched the girl surreptitiously as she returned to her sun lounger, peering over the top of his sunglasses as she quickly dried herself down. She pulled her long hair back and fixed it into a pony tail with a scrunchy then tied a brightly coloured floral sarong around her narrow waist. She then hoisted a huge straw beach bag onto her shoulder and slipped her feet into a pretty pair of white sandals before leaving the sun deck and vanishing from Jake’s view.
Finders Keepers Page 14