Shattered: a gripping crime thriller

by Heleyne Hammersley

  It was exactly what Hollis had told her. She was about to ask more about Sadie’s grisly discovery when she heard footsteps pounding down the stairs. Hollis stepped into the room wearing a white protective suit, his hair dishevelled as if he’d just tugged the hood down.

  ‘Can you come upstairs for a minute? We’ve found something interesting.’

  After mumbling an apology to Sadie, who seemed to have barely registered the interruption, Kate followed Hollis up to where Kailisa was waiting on the landing, a large digital camera in his hand.

  ‘DI Fletcher,’ he said, unsmiling. ‘I’d heard you’d arrived.’

  Kate nodded. ‘You’ve found something?’

  He handed her the camera, display screen facing her. ‘It’s a photograph of Julia Sullivan’s ankle. This is the clearest image I have. If you want to see the real thing, you’ll have to put on a suit.’ He looked her up and down as if to say that white coveralls might be an improvement on her dark trousers and pale-grey blouse.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, peering at the screen.

  ‘A tattoo.’

  Kate tilted the screen slightly to reduce the glare and made out a clear shape against the pale skin of Julia Sullivan’s leg. It was crude, possibly done by a friend rather than a professional, but the shape was still clear. A cross below a circle. The scientific symbol for female. And a popular emblem for feminism.

  ‘It’s not recent, is it?’ Kate asked.

  Kailisa shook his head making the hood of his overalls flop around his face. ‘Looks like it was done at least ten years ago judging by the blurring at the edges. The ink has dissipated through the surrounding flesh. And it’s not very professionally drawn.’

  Kate stared at the image again. It made no sense. Why would somebody who appeared to be the epitome of right-wing conservatism be tattooed with a symbol associated with views that were almost the exact opposite?

  2

  ‘Julia Sullivan.’ Kate opened the briefing with a slide showing a picture of the councillor standing at a podium, her fist clenched at shoulder height as if to emphasise a point. Her short dark hair looked like it was sticking to her temples and her screwed-up face was flushed. ‘Local councillor, independent rather than with a party, known for her anti-immigrant views and her fundamental Christian faith which she claimed confirmed her opinions on just about any subject. According to her daughter, Julia had some sort of religious conversion a few years ago. It caused a rift in the family, but she remained married to her husband. He’s a painter.’

  ‘Lincoln Sullivan?’ DC Sam Cooper asked. ‘And the daughter – is she Sadie?’

  ‘You know them?’ Kate sipped her latte, allowing Cooper time to explain. The DC spent a lot of her work time data mining to help with cases – was it possible she’d come across the family in that context?

  ‘Sadie’s a children’s author. My sister’s kids love her books. I don’t know much about Lincoln.’

  Blank looks all round. None of the team had young children.

  ‘Well, she’s fairly well known. Got a bit of stick about having help from her father but, as far as I’ve read, she does all the words and illustrations herself – it’s nothing to do with him.’

  Sadie hadn’t mentioned her profession to Kate, only her father’s, but the background didn’t seem to help them.

  ‘Moving on,’ Kate said, tapping the keyboard of her laptop. In the next image Julia Sullivan looked much less aggressive – it showed her slumped forwards in a bath almost full of bloody water. The wounds on her wrists were clearly visible but the one on her neck was obscured by her hair, longer than in the first photograph, and the angle of the shot.

  ‘Mrs Sullivan was found by her daughter who’d been concerned about her mother not turning up for a meeting with her and then not answering her phone. According to Sadie, she couldn’t sleep so she went round to Julia’s house and let herself in. This is what she found. And this.’

  The next image showed the neck wound and the blood spatter up the tiles next to the bath.

  ‘Whoa!’ O’Connor said. ‘That’s a bit extreme.’ He looked genuinely shocked, his red hair and beard standing out starkly against his pale skin. It was a startling image but she hadn’t expected such a strong reaction. As her detective sergeant, Kate would have expected him to have seen much worse.

  ‘And unlikely,’ Barratt interjected. ‘According to Kailisa she couldn’t have made all three cuts herself.’

  ‘Was there any sign of a struggle?’ O’Connor asked. ‘How could you get somebody to sit calmly in a bath while you cut them to shreds?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Barratt said. ‘The only blood spatter seems to be arterial from the throat wound. Kailisa suspects she was drugged but we’ll have to wait for the lab report.’

  Kate raised her eyebrows at the four detectives who were now sitting to attention. ‘Not a suicide then, despite this note.’ She projected the image of the A4 paper that had been placed on top of the toilet cistern and weighted down with a tub of hand cream.

  Life has been a gift but I have to go now.

  It had been printed in a clear font rather than written by hand.

  ‘Strange wording,’ O’Connor mused. ‘I have to go. Almost like there’s a compulsion or something forcing her to do this.’

  ‘Or forcing the killer,’ Hollis added. ‘The use of “have” might suggest that the killer feels compelled to murder her. He has to get rid of her for some reason.’

  ‘Good call,’ Kate said. She’d had the same feeling. There was a reason for this murder, a purpose known only to the killer. If they could work out what it was, they might be able to find the perpetrator.

  ‘Like a cleansing?’ Cooper suggested. ‘He’s getting rid of her because he feels that she deserves it for some reason. Maybe a reference to some of the stuff she’s said over the past few months.’

  O’Connor snorted. ‘Christ, just look on Twitter – lots of people make unpleasant comments about immigrants and transsexuals and gays. Our killer’s going to be busy if he’s going to wipe them all out.’

  He’s right, Kate thought – there had to be something more specific, some perceived slight or something that the killer found completely intolerable. This didn’t feel random. The scene was intimate, the woman naked in the bath, and there had been no sign of forced entry. The more she thought about the note, the more convinced Kate was that the victim knew her murderer – possibly quite well. There were mugs and plates in the kitchen which had all been photographed and bagged to be swabbed for DNA and checked for fingerprints. She’d watched as one of the SOCOs had hoovered sections of the bedroom and bathroom floors and she knew that the doormat in the hall had also been taken away for analysis. Anything that might give a clue about the attacker’s identity had been identified, bagged and sent to the labs. Unfortunately, the results could take days. There were other avenues to explore while they waited, and she needed to get her team focused and moving.

  ‘Sam,’ she said to Cooper. ‘We need to find out about Julia Sullivan’s social media presence. Find out what she’d been saying and how people were responding. Look at her Twitter feed if she has one, and Facebook. Did she have regular comments from one particular person? Were there any threats made?’

  Cooper nodded and made a note on her tablet.

  ‘Steve and Matt…’

  ‘Post-mortem?’ Barratt interrupted.

  ‘It’s this afternoon. This morning I want both of you working with the uniforms doing the house-to-house in Julia Sullivan’s street. They’ll be focused on who saw what, but I want you to get an impression of what they thought of the woman. Was she well liked, or did they find her views obnoxious? Had she argued with anybody? Ruffled any feathers for reasons other than political ones?

  ‘Dan, with me to speak to Lincoln Sullivan. The daughter implied that they were separated – I want to know why and to find out what he can tell us about his wife’s past.’

  The job allocation felt insubstantial. They nee
ded a strong lead, something to give the team focus and momentum but, in the absence of such a lead, all Kate could do was try to cover all bases in the hope that a pattern emerged from all the separate lines of enquiry.

  3

  Lincoln Sullivan’s studio was on the top floor of a converted factory just off York Road to the north of Doncaster. The building appeared to be Victorian in construction – red brick with arched, sandstone windows, all sandblasted clean of the black sootiness of the town’s industrial past. Now, perched incongruously behind a KFC and a discount pet food superstore, the building had a prehistoric quality – an elderly relative presiding over a gathering of younger family members.

  ‘I had no idea this was here,’ Hollis said, craning his neck for a better view of the upper windows. ‘And I use this road every day.’

  ‘It’s well hidden,’ Kate agreed. ‘Not the quietest spot for an art studio though. I would have thought he’d have wanted somewhere more peaceful to get the creative juices flowing.’ She scanned the column of names next to the intercom system and pressed the button next to ‘Sullivan’. After waiting for a minute, she pressed again. This time a voice responded.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mr Sullivan?’

  ‘Yes.’ The middle vowel was drawn out, reluctantly acknowledging the name.

  ‘I’m DI Kate Fletcher. I’m here with DC Hollis. We’d like to talk to you about your wife. I thought you’d be expecting us.’

  A long pause. ‘Of course. I’m sorry, I’m afraid I rather lost track of the time. Please, come in. Top floor. The door on the left.’

  A buzz and a click and Kate pushed the door open.

  ‘Nice,’ Hollis breathed as he followed her into a large atrium. The huge arched window – which had probably once been the main door onto the factory floor – flooded the area with light. A dark-red steel staircase led up the right-hand wall to a door then continued, cutting across the window to a door in the opposite wall. Kate turned, following its progress along the wall above them to the third floor where it split to allow access to two more doors.

  ‘Impressive,’ she agreed. Their footsteps rang hollow tones as they ascended, and Kate wondered how annoying she’d find the sounds of her neighbours coming and going with each tuneless note. On the highest landing, the door to the left was ajar and Kate saw that her musings about the noise level had been anticipated by the building planners – the door was steel-fronted and at least three inches thick.

  ‘Mr Sullivan?’ Kate pushed the door further open and stepped into a bright hallway with white walls and blond wood flooring. ‘Mr Sullivan?’

  A head emerged from a door to the right. Kate had seen photographs of the painter, but they hadn’t prepared her for his sheer physical presence. As he stepped out into the hall, she saw that he was heavily built and tall – taller than Hollis – his mane of grey hair was swept back from a broad face that, in the harsh light, was all lines and shadows. Wearing a baggy, dark-blue T-shirt and paint-spattered tracksuit bottoms that might once have been grey he looked like a giant toddler who’d been sent out of class for making too much mess with the colours.

  ‘Sorry I didn’t answer the door straight away, bit busy finishing my latest commission,’ Sullivan said, splaying his huge hands in apology. ‘Please, come through.’

  As she followed Sullivan into his studio, she struggled to suppress a smile as Hollis whispered, ‘Gordon’s alive.’ Sullivan’s resemblance to Brian Blessed, another of South Yorkshire’s famous sons, was hard to miss.

  The studio was a huge room, lit from both sides by the arched windows that Hollis had spotted from below. The wood floor continued, scuffed and spotted with paint, to a kitchenette and an area hidden by a Japanese-style screen in a cream fabric. In the opposite corner a battered brown sofa and two plastic patio chairs crowded round a small coffee table. If Sullivan was living here it was an almost monastic existence.

  ‘I’d apologise for the mess,’ Sullivan said with a smile. ‘But I’m not sorry. I don’t have many visitors; this is my space, so I keep it how I like it.’

  In the middle of the vast expanse of floor was a pair of easels holding a large canvas, at least four feet across and three tall. It was facing away from Kate, obviously to maximise the light from the arched windows, but her curiosity overcame her politeness. She’d seen prints of Sullivan’s work but had never had a chance to view the real thing.

  ‘May I?’ she asked, already moving towards the painting. Sullivan shrugged, his indifference bordering on arrogance as he turned his back to fill a kettle and wash two mugs.

  The piece was just as striking as the others Kate had seen in magazines, but seeing Sullivan’s work in the flesh, newly painted and huge, was breathtaking. It depicted a modern mining scene with the coal face as a backdrop for a pair of miners, stripped to the waist, holding pneumatic tools. One had turned to the other, their faces caught in the light of an electric lamp suspended above the black seam of mineral, his expression grimly determined. The character of each man seemed to leap from the canvas amid the light and sweat and dust.

  ‘That’s amazing,’ Kate said, lost for anything more profound to say.

  Sullivan simply nodded and opened a jar of coffee.

  ‘Drink?’

  Hollis accepted but Kate shook her head, still transfixed by the painting. She moved position and the faces seemed more shadowed, the light emphasising the shine of the fresh coal. Another shift and her focus was drawn to the gloved hands of the man on the left. It was almost as though the work contained a series of optical illusions.

  Reluctantly, Kate crossed to the sofa and sat down. Hollis followed her lead and plonked his lanky frame in one of the patio chairs, looking uncomfortable and out of place. Sullivan placed a mug in front of Dan and squeezed into the other seat, nursing his own drink between his huge hands.

  ‘Firstly, can I say how sorry I am about your wife,’ Kate began. ‘It’s…’

  ‘Ex-wife,’ Sullivan corrected her.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t realise you were…’

  ‘It wasn’t official, but I’d spoken to my solicitor. The machinery of divorce had been set in motion. Neither of us had told our daughter but we’d agreed that a permanent split was for the best.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘And I suppose that makes me prime suspect in my wife’s murder.’

  ‘Can I ask why you split up?’

  Sullivan took a deep breath and his eyes drifted towards one of the windows. ‘Irreconcilable differences. Isn’t that the phrase that’s used? We’d stopped seeing eye to eye a while ago, but it was becoming increasingly acrimonious. I suggested that we live apart for a while, but Julia wasn’t keen. I moved in here, leaving her the house – there wasn’t much she could do to stop me.’

  ‘These differences,’ Kate asked. ‘What sort of things did you fall out about?’

  The man shifted in his seat, obviously struggling with the confinement of the rigid plastic chair. Kate’s choice of the sofa hadn’t been accidental – she wanted Sullivan to feel unsettled.

  ‘She’d had a religious conversion. Two years ago, she was nearly killed in a car accident and her lucky escape changed her. She got it into her head that God had chosen to save her and give her a purpose. She stood for public office – as an independent – and got herself elected to the local council. I assume you’ve read some interviews with her? Seen her odious remarks?’

  Hollis was scribbling in his notebook. He looked up suddenly. ‘Right wing?’

  ‘Her views were fairly intolerant of minorities, immigrants, anybody who wasn’t just like her. It was quite a change. She never used to be like that at all. Whenever we spoke about it, she simply told me that I couldn’t understand as I hadn’t embraced Jesus.’ Sullivan took a sip of his coffee and stared into the mug.

  ‘You say she wasn’t always like that. What was she like before her… conversion?’

  ‘She was kind, tolerant. When she was younger she was quite outspoken, but her views were always in favour
of the underdog. She hated Thatcher with a passion, loathed the privatisation of our services, supported the miners and their wives during the strike.’

  It was quite an about-turn, Kate reflected. She’d heard the adage that, as we age, our waists get wider and our minds narrower, but this seemed much more dramatic and much more sudden. ‘What did your daughter think of her mother’s new world view?’ Kate asked.

  ‘She was as shocked as I was. But a lot more tolerant. It’s easier to walk away from the person you’ve chosen to spend a life with than the person who you’re tied to through blood.’

  Out of the corner of her eye, Kate saw Hollis sit up slightly at the mention of blood.

  ‘Have you spoken to your daughter since she found her mother?’

  Sullivan nodded, his mane of grey hair tumbling around his shoulders. ‘We went to the police station together yesterday evening to have our fingerprints and DNA sampled. We’re not the best of friends at the moment. We chat on the phone from time to time but I often get the feeling that she calls out of a sense of duty rather than any genuine attachment. You’d think something like this might bring us closer together, but Sadie just rang to give me the facts, that her mother had been killed and that we had to give samples for elimination purposes. She didn’t tell me how she was feeling. I suppose she might have been in shock. When I picked her up, she didn’t say much, and we went our separate ways after leaving the police station. I take it you’ve spoken to her? Is she doing okay? She’s not got a partner at the moment – I think she’s a bit like me and gets lost in her work. I hate the thought of her having to deal with this alone.’