‘No,’ she said firmly, wriggling away from me in the bed. I was beginning to learn that Manee was both stubborn and opinionated, much like most of the English women I’d encountered over the years. It seemed I had failed dismally in my quest for the compliant, Thai girl every other man seemed to have.
‘No bums,’ she said again. ‘It is in Bible.’
‘Where in the Bible?’ I asked.
‘Don’t know,’ she replied. ‘There somewhere.’
And that was that.
I lay back on the pillow full of frustration. I guess I had kind of assumed she would be Buddhist, like so many Thais, or nothing at all. In any case, what had her being a Catholic got to do with refusing to indulge in anal sex? What about all those perverted old priests over the years and what they’d done? Not just to consenting adults either. All too often, children were the victims of their unnatural lusts.
Eventually I fell into a fitful sleep. When I woke in the morning Manee was already up making tea. I had a weak erection, just as she had predicted. I wondered if I should try to persuade her to have another go, but she didn’t seem interested. I didn’t blame her.
She made no mention of the night before, instead asking when we were going to go out, to a restaurant or a bar, to meet my friends. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. She was a young girl. How had I imagined I could keep her hidden away?
‘You said you wanted a quiet life, for us to build a home together,’ I reminded her.
‘This not our home,’ she said in a puzzled voice. ‘You tell me this not our home.’
I had indeed told her that. She was supposed to be the naïve one. Actually, I was beginning to suspect it was me. How could I have expected to get away with any of this?
‘Soon,’ I said ‘Soon we will move into our real home and soon we will go out, meet people. I am sorry I have been so busy.’
I’d been blaming pressure of work for not being able to spend more time with her, and claimed to be too exhausted to do anything by the time I returned to the flat at night.
‘I have been nowhere,’ she said. ‘You lock door when you go out. Flat on fourth floor. Manee prisoner.’
‘No baby. It’s not like that. You’re not a prisoner. Not at all. It’s just that this flat is in a rough area. I don’t want you wandering about on your own here and I told you, this is just a temporary rental. I only have one set of keys, for the front door downstairs too.’
‘In England they no have locksmith?’ Manee queried, her pretty, little face set into a quite unattractive pout.
I forced a smile. Trust me to find a tricky one. I’d thought Thai girls were supposed to never question their men. Wasn’t that why so many Western men wanted them for wives?
‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘As soon as I have time, I will get another set cut. I promise.’
‘Today,’ said Manee.
It wasn’t a query. It was an order. This really wasn’t how it was supposed to be.
Things just went from bad to worse after that.
I kept making excuses about the keys. She started to get angry. There was no landline telephone in the flat, I’d made sure of that. She had a mobile, but I wasn’t too worried about it. I was beginning to get to know Manee. She was impulsive. She had come to England, to me, on an impulse. She was also proud and feisty. She would be reluctant to contact her sister, or anyone else back home, to tell them she had made a mistake. She wouldn’t want to admit that and, as far as I was aware, she knew nobody in the UK whom she might phone or text.
However, I felt that Manee’s patience was running out.
I had to try to keep her sweet. I took her to a big anonymous out of town supermarket and let her choose the food. She wasn’t very impressed. I told her that as soon as I had the time I would take her shopping properly and buy her lovely things. Her look said that she didn’t believe a word I was saying any more, but she stayed silent. I made a huge fuss of her. I even told her I loved her. She seemed to like to hear that, but she didn’t say it back.
Late one night, I took her to a nearby Thai restaurant. I told her I wanted to make her feel at home, but it was pretty downmarket.
‘This is rubbish restaurant,’ she said. ‘Rubbish restaurant and rubbish food.’
On balance, she was right. I had chosen the restaurant because it was so unlikely that I would meet anyone there who knew me. I was well aware that it wasn’t the sort of place Manee or any other young woman would expect to be taken to after flying halfway across the world.
We were reaching a crisis, Manee and me, I thought to myself as we walked home from the Thai restaurant. She wasn’t going to put up with this much longer. She wasn’t the sort. In any case, I wasn’t sure that any sort of girl would be very happy in the situation I had created.
I had to do something about it. I just wasn’t sure what, but something had to be done. And soon.
Seventeen
Vogel took Willis and Saslow with him to arrest Terry Cooke, backed up by four uniforms in squad cars.
They went to the Fisher home first, Willis and the family liaison officer, who was already in residence, both being able to advise that there was where Terry Cooke was spending most of his time.
‘Much to the annoyance of his second missus, I wouldn’t mind betting,’ volunteered Willis. ‘Or maybe she’ll be relieved; no more mystery bruises for a bit.’
Several members of the press were still hanging round outside 16 Carraby Street. The murder of a schoolgirl was always a big story.
Vogel positioned two of the uniforms on the pavement outside. Their brief was to keep the vultures at bay.
Vogel himself led the other two uniforms, Willis and Saslow to the house.
Sarah Fisher came to the door, the FLO, who had been discreetly informed of the impending arrest, just behind her. Sarah’s eyes opened wide in surprise at the extent of the police presence which confronted her.
‘Has something else happened?’ she asked. ‘Have you arrested someone?’
‘Is Melanie’s father with you, Mrs Fisher?’ asked Vogel.
‘Uh yes, he’s been ever so good, well he idolised that girl, you see…’ Sarah Fisher paused. She looked as if she had begun to put two and two together and didn’t like at all the sum achieved.
Vogel had no time to waste. Once he had ascertained that Terry Cooke was inside, he didn’t intend to wait to be asked into the house.
‘Move out of the way, Mrs Fisher, please,’ he commanded, at the same time pushing his way past the woman, closely followed by the rest of his team.
Vogel guessed that Cooke would be in the sitting room. He was right. Melanie’s father was sprawled across the sofa in front of the TV. He had a bottle of beer in one hand and a pile of sandwiches were on a plate on a small side table.
Well, he’d certainly got his feet under his ex’s table, thought Vogel, remembering Willis’s description of the chaotic squalor of the man’s own home.
Cooke looked pretty relaxed and content, under the circumstances, until he swung round to face the door and found himself confronted by four police officers.
Alarm spread across his sallow features.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked and then, echoing his wife, ‘have you got any more news?’
Vogel strode swiftly forward until he was standing directly in front of the man.
‘Terence James Cooke, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of your daughter Melanie Anne Cooke,’ he began. ‘You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention…’
The standard caution was interrupted by Cooke jumping to his feet with unexpected athleticism, uttering a strange, animalistic wail and lurching towards the door, in what appeared to be an ill-thought-out attempt at making a run for it.