Shattered: a gripping crime thriller

by Heleyne Hammersley

  A rather strange image of the Sullivan family was developing in Kate’s mind. Earlier she’d thought she’d detected a tone of disapproval when Sadie spoke about her mother’s views but now it seemed as if it was the two women pitted against Lincoln. The background questions didn’t seem to be taking them any further forwards – it was time to focus on the murder.

  ‘Where were you last night?’ Kate asked.

  Sullivan smiled. ‘I thought we might get round to that eventually. I’ve already given a statement – I was here, working.’

  ‘Can anybody verify that?’

  ‘No. I was alone. Unusually, I’m working to a deadline. This piece has been commissioned by the National Coal Mining Museum – they’ve got a big anniversary coming up and an Arts Council grant for a new display. It’s being collected later.’

  ‘Would your neighbours have been aware that you were here? Would they have heard if you’d gone out?’

  ‘I doubt it. You’ve seen the thickness of these doors.’

  ‘And when were you last at the house you’d shared with your wife?’

  ‘The fourteenth of April – it was my birthday, so I chose to finally leave my wife as a present to myself.’

  Hollis snorted in surprise and tried to cover it up with a cough.

  ‘I know how that sounds,’ Sullivan said, turning to Dan. ‘But it really was the most sensible thing I could do for myself. We weren’t getting on and there was no common ground left. My work was suffering and, honestly, there was no reason to maintain the pretence of a solid marriage. On my part at least. I didn’t want to carry on sharing a house with somebody I didn’t like. The woman I’d married was gone long before her death.’

  ‘Your daughter thought Julia might be having an affair,’ Kate said.

  Sullivan threw his head back and let out a booming laugh. ‘Sadie likes to see things that aren’t there. I wasn’t in the least bit surprised when she became a writer – she always had an overactive imagination. Julia’s new religious beliefs wouldn’t have permitted infidelity; I was about to test whether they would permit divorce.’

  There was a germ of motive here, Kate thought. If Julia Sullivan had already refused her husband his divorce would it be reason enough for him to kill her? Or if he’d discovered an affair would he have murdered her out of rage, or to protect his reputation? Either scenario was vaguely plausible.

  ‘Can you think of anybody who would want to harm your wife… ex-wife? Had she had a recent falling out with a neighbour for instance?’

  Sullivan snorted. ‘I can think of lots of people who would have liked to give her a good slap – myself included – and I know, that’s not very PC. But Julia had become infuriating in her conviction that she was right about everything and only people who shared her beliefs could possibly understand.’

  There was something slightly pompous in his tone that was making Kate dislike the man. Her initial impression of him as welcoming and forthright was being replaced by distaste. She glanced at Hollis who was still scribbling in his notebook and could infer from his upright position that he was feeling something similar. Lincoln Sullivan might be innocent of his wife’s death, but he wasn’t a pleasant man to spend time with.

  ‘I think that’s all we need for now,’ Kate said, struggling awkwardly to her feet from her position on the low sofa. Hollis snapped his notebook shut and pocketed it before following her to the door.

  ‘Just one thing,’ Kate said, turning back. ‘We’ll need someone to formally identify your wife’s body. As next of kin would you be happy to do that?’

  If he registered her deliberate choice of words, Sullivan showed no response, he simply agreed and ushered them out onto the landing.

  ‘Well that was–’ Before Hollis could finish his sentence Kate’s phone rang. Cooper.

  ‘What have you got, Sam?’

  Cooper’s voice on the other end of the line sounded shaky. ‘I’d rather not say over the phone. I think you’re going to want to see this.’

  4

  ‘Jesus, that’s vile,’ Hollis spluttered, reading over Cooper’s shoulder. ‘I thought it was usually extreme right-wingers who post this sort of shit.’

  Cooper ran a hand through her blonde hair and seemed faintly puzzled when it got caught around her neck. She’d been growing it for a few months and it finally seemed to have settled into a style but, Kate could see, she still wasn’t used to the length.

  ‘It’s anybody who feels safe hiding behind the anonymity of the internet,’ Cooper said. ‘There are a lot of people out there who feel it’s fine to say anything they want as long as it’s ‘only’ online. I doubt they have any particular opinion about Julia’s views but she’s a public figure and fair game in their minds.’

  Kate leaned in and read the three tweets that Cooper had copied and pasted into a Word document. They were graphic and threatening. One said that they knew where Julia lived and would come round to her house and rape her. Another threatened to kill her by running her down in the street and the final one, the most chilling, was a threat to slit her throat.

  ‘Bloody hell.’ She sighed. ‘There are some real nutters out there. How credible are these threats, Sam?’

  Cooper tapped on her keyboard and pulled up the profile of the person who’d sent the final threat.

  ‘This one’s been the hardest to track down. The other two seem to systematically abuse women in positions of power whatever their political affiliation. I’ve flagged them up for further investigation, but they don’t sound as personal as the other one – especially when you read them in the context of tweets to other women. The one who threatens to cut Julia’s throat has three followers and doesn’t follow anybody else. The account was set up in the last few months and the tweets are mainly innocuous, stuff about politics and how the people are being lied to by the government. I have no idea why they homed in on Julia Sullivan, but this feels a bit more personal than the others.’

  ‘Killing somebody by cutting their throat is about as personal as it gets,’ Kate observed. ‘It’s close contact and potentially messy.’

  Hollis took a step back and settled into a chair. ‘But it’s also a common threat,’ he said. ‘There are plenty of reports about people being threatened with stabbing, rape and having their throat cut. There’s something medieval about it that seems to appeal to a particular type of nutter.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s medieval,’ Sam said. ‘It’s more like something that would happen in hand-to-hand combat.’

  ‘Like Braveheart?’

  Kate smiled to herself. The two detective constables were getting side-tracked, but it was interesting to listen in on their conversation. They were both shrewd, and bouncing ideas off each other often led to some interesting insights. ‘So, this is a war?’ she suggested. ‘A struggle for what? Dominance, justice?’

  Cooper’s eyes lost focus as she raised them to the ceiling, deep in thought.

  ‘No,’ Hollis said. ‘That doesn’t fit with the suicide note. Why would this person not want to claim their trophy, their handiwork?’

  ‘But they must have known that we wouldn’t be fooled. Unless they were completely forensically unaware and who’s ignorant about evidence these days?’

  ‘I still think it’s personal,’ Cooper said. ‘How did the killer get the victim into the bath? Was he already in the house? There was no sign of forced entry, so it might have been somebody she knew.’

  ‘Her clothes were in a pile on her bed. They weren’t torn or cut, suggesting Julia took them off herself.’

  ‘Or she was drugged and compliant as he undressed her,’ Kate suggested.

  ‘Or already dead.’

  Hollis shook his head at Cooper’s comment. ‘No. There was arterial spatter on the tiles. She still had blood pressure when her throat was cut.’

  Kate closed her eyes, trying to visualise the sequence of events. It was difficult to imagine Julia Sullivan allowing a stranger into her house, somehow being drugged, and
then being led upstairs, undressed and killed. If the woman had been drugged, then how? Other than her family, they needed to find out who she was in contact with on a regular basis and to see if there was any truth to Sadie’s suspicions about an affair.

  ‘What church did Julia attend?’ she asked Cooper.

  The DC typed something into her computer. ‘The Church of the Right Hand.’

  ‘What the hell’s that?’ Hollis asked. ‘What happened to Catholic or Protestant?’

  Kate did a quick internet search to find the answer to his question. ‘Apparently, they’re an evangelical group who believe in extending the right hand of friendship to anybody who shares their beliefs.’

  ‘Which are?’

  ‘“The sanctity of marriage; the holiness of conception; the oneness of man and woman as a unit” – whatever that means–’

  ‘It means homophobia,’ Cooper interrupted. ‘Please don’t ask me to go and interview any of the congregation.’

  Kate smiled. Cooper had been guarded about her sexual orientation when Kate first took over the team, but she’d soon come to realise that her colleagues didn’t care who she was in a relationship with as long as she could take some gentle teasing. It had amused Kate to see Cooper adapting well enough to give as good as she got on most occasions.

  ‘They veer a bit towards the fundamental then?’

  ‘Sounds like it,’ Kate said. ‘The Doncaster branch, group, sect, whatever, meets on Chequer Road near the museum. We could probably see it from upstairs.’ The police station canteen was on the top floor and Kate did a lot of her clearest thinking sitting close to one of the windows clutching a mug of mediocre coffee. ‘Hang on.’ She clicked on a map of the town and then zoomed in on the address. ‘Looks like a bog-standard terraced house. Nothing to suggest it’s a religious building of any kind. Dan, grab your coat, you’re taking me to church!’

  5

  The end-terrace house looked exactly the same as all the others in the row with a deep bay window and a thin strip of tarmac instead of a front garden. A low brick wall offered the pretence of separation from the street, but the short front path was only feet from the scuffed slabs of the pavement.

  ‘Not very churchy,’ Hollis observed, his hand on the tiny front gate.

  ‘I’m not sure how official the Church of the Right Hand is,’ Kate said. ‘I got the impression from the internet they see themselves as “up and coming” in evangelical circles.’

  Hollis jabbed the doorbell and they both stepped back in unison facing the front door.

  A face appeared, indistinct behind the obscured glass, then the door opened.

  ‘Can I help you?’ The man who spoke was probably in his mid-sixties, shorter than Kate and completely bald. His blue eyes, deep within nests of wrinkles, looked suspicious and his lack of smile heightened this impression.

  ‘Is this the Church of the Right Hand?’ Hollis asked, his tone suggesting doubt.

  The man nodded tersely.

  Kate introduced herself and Hollis and explained that they wanted to talk about Julia Sullivan.

  The name seemed to change the weather in the man’s face as he gave them a jowly grin and pushed the door open wider to invite them inside. ‘She’s such a valued member of our group. Has she been threatened again?’ he said, leading them down a dingy hallway to a kitchen at the back of the property.

  Kate ignored his question. From the rear she could see that his clothes hung loose on his shoulders and bottom and the turn-ups of grey trousers scuffed the floor tiles as he walked. His untucked checked shirt was frayed around the hem and the sleeves were unevenly rolled.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  The kitchen was in a much cleaner state than its owner, but Kate still refused and Hollis followed her lead. ‘If we could just ask a few questions Mr…?’

  ‘Greaves,’ the man said, filling the pause as expected. ‘Alistair Greaves.’

  He told them to sit and then left the room.

  ‘Should we be scared?’ Hollis whispered.

  Kate was about to respond when a woman bustled through the kitchen door, her appearance the opposite of Greaves’s shabbiness. She wore a tan blouse and navy-blue A-line skirt which gave the impression of a 1950s housewife. Her make-up was subtle but flawless and her greying blonde hair was tied back in a neat bun. ‘I’m Cora Greaves,’ she announced, striding over to the kitchen counter and putting the kettle on. ‘Alistair’s wife.’

  Greaves hovered in the doorway. ‘They don’t want drinks, Cora.’

  The woman looked around as if suddenly at a loss.

  ‘We’d like to talk about Julia Sullivan,’ Hollis said gently. ‘We understand she attended church services with you.’

  Cora glanced at Greaves as though seeking permission to speak. Whatever she saw in the man’s face it was obviously enough. ‘We don’t hold church services,’ she said, smoothing a strand of hair that was threatening to break free from the bun. ‘We hold counsel. Our members sit until the spirit moves them to talk about their relationship with God.’

  ‘Like the Quakers?’ Kate asked.

  Cora’s eyes narrowed. ‘We’re nothing like the Quakers. We seek direction and instruction. God speaks to our group and we follow his teaching.’

  ‘So you don’t read the Bible?’

  ‘Brothers and sisters are free to read whatever they like. We provide our own tracts based on God’s own word, not translations by those looking to dilute the message. We believe that our way is the true way to God’s right hand.’

  ‘And what is your way?’ Hollis asked. Something about his tone seemed to irritate Greaves who crossed his arms and leaned on the door jamb, scowling.

  ‘Purity,’ Cora said simply. ‘Purity in all things. Purity in the way we live our lives.’

  ‘I read online that your group doesn’t agree with sex outside marriage,’ Kate prompted.

  ‘No. Man and woman are designed to fit together within the sanctity of marriage. Modern society is too lenient, too tolerant and it’s dangerous. How can people find their way back to God if they go against his word?’

  ‘What about purity of race? Are mixed-race relationships permitted?’

  Cora’s mouth tightened. ‘Of course. God created all races equal.’

  She was lying. Kate suspected that they were being given the sanitised, user-friendly version of the Church of the Right Hand which kept within the letter of equality laws in public but, in private, encouraged views like Julia Sullivan’s.

  ‘How did Julia come to join you?’ Kate asked, trying to steer the conversation away from the specifics of their beliefs for the sake of her own blood pressure.

  ‘I met her in hospital. One of our ministries is to help heal the sick so a number of us volunteer at the Doncaster Royal Infirmary. She’d been in an accident and was feeling low, so I gave her support and space to talk. She was unhappy about the state of the world and confused about what she wanted for the future. It was very clear that she was floundering even before the car crash, so I offered her direction. When she was well enough, she joined us here for regular meetings.’

  ‘Did you approve of her political career?’

  A quick glance passed between Cora and her husband.

  ‘Generally, we feel the woman’s role is in the home, but it was important for her to get her message across. And, besides, her husband is–’

  ‘Cora!’ Greaves snapped.

  ‘My apologies,’ the woman continued. ‘It’s not my place to speak about another woman’s husband. Our group supported Julia.’

  ‘What about suicide?’ Kate asked. ‘How does your church feel about that?’

  Cora visibly turned pale. ‘Has something happened to Julia?’

  Hollis leaned towards the woman. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you, Julia Sullivan is dead. Her body was found in her home in the early hours of yesterday.’

  ‘No. We’d have heard. Somebody would have told us. How did she die? She was always so full of li
fe. I can’t believe this.’ She stood up and then sat down again as if unsure what to do or how to react. Greaves moved from his position by the door and crossed the room to place a soothing hand on his wife’s shoulder.

  ‘We can’t give you any details about the case,’ Kate said. ‘When we arrived, you mentioned that Julia had been threatened. Were there many threats?’

  Greaves nodded. ‘There were a couple of things on the internet saying that she was evil and should die. She showed me on her phone.’

  ‘But nobody in your organisation bore her any ill will?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Cora spat. ‘We preach love! The only people who wished her ill are those ones who left threats. Those cowards who hid behind their fake names and pictures.’

  ‘You mentioned suicide,’ Greaves said, looking up and placing his free hand on his wife’s other shoulder. ‘Is that a possibility?’

  ‘It’s too early to say,’ Kate lied. ‘We’re just trying to get a complete picture of Julia’s life at the moment.’

  Cora nodded as though Kate’s statement made perfect sense. ‘I’m sure you’re doing everything you can. She was a good woman. Make sure you look closely at her husband – he wasn’t exactly supportive of her joining our group or of her political career.’

  ‘We’re speaking to everybody in Julia’s life,’ Kate said. ‘It has been suggested she was having an affair. Does that seem likely?’

  ‘No!’ Greaves snapped. ‘That would go against everything we believe in.’

  His wife closed her eyes as if in pain and began to mutter to herself. It took Kate a few seconds to realise that she was praying. Greaves nodded to himself and joined in as Kate stood up and slid her business card onto the table.

  ‘Please, get in touch if you think of anything that might help,’ she said but the couple ignored her. She raised her eyebrows quizzically to Hollis who gave a tiny shrug and pointed to the door. Kate nodded and walked down the hallway to the door with the voices of Cora and Alistair Greaves following them like a swarm of angry bees.