Shattered: a gripping crime thriller

by Heleyne Hammersley

  ‘I don’t think we’re any further forward, are we, Detective Inspector Fletcher? I have no idea why you’re asking about my wife’s involvement with the Greenham protests or why you seem to think I might have lied about the date I left our marital home.’

  Kate considered her next move. Her abrupt change of topic hadn’t fazed Sullivan in the slightest – he was either very confident that she could prove nothing, or he was wholly innocent of any involvement in Julia’s death.

  ‘Okay.’ She sighed. ‘Forensics from the house found only three sets of fingerprints. You and Sadie gave our officer your fingerprints for elimination purposes and your wife’s, your daughter’s and yours were the only ones found. In a case that we believe to be connected to this one, the surfaces in the house were wiped clean. I’m having trouble understanding why this didn’t happen in your house. Unless the killer knew that his or her prints would already be there for legitimate reasons.’

  Sullivan threw back his head and laughed. ‘That’s all you’ve got? Bloody hell. So now you think the killer is either me or Sadie? And I suppose, like myself, my daughter has no alibi?’

  Kate stayed silent.

  ‘Could the killer have worn gloves? Could he have spent so much time cleaning up after his last murder that he wanted to save time with this one? Has that occurred to the great minds of South Yorkshire Police?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Kate conceded as Hollis shifted uncomfortably. Sullivan had them on the back foot. ‘But it seems unlikely that the killer left no trace evidence at all without cleaning up after himself, or herself. And there was nothing to suggest that any cleaning had been done. So far there isn’t a fibre or a hair that shouldn’t have been there.’

  ‘If you think I killed my ex-wife then please, give me a motive,’ Sullivan demanded.

  ‘She was an embarrassment,’ Kate said. ‘You said yourself her views and opinions were odious to you.’

  ‘Which is why I left. Why did I kill the other one? Because of his or her views? Christ, do you know how many politicians I loathe? How sick I am of self-serving chancers who pretend to want to improve the lot of the poorest in society while lining their own pockets? I think an automatic rifle would be a much more efficient weapon for wiping out people whose views I find odious.’

  ‘One of the other victims was at Greenham Common at the same time as your wife,’ Kate said. ‘And we suspect there’s a link with a third murder.’

  Sullivan raised his hands, palms up in an exaggerated shrug. ‘And? What possible reason could I have for killing people my wife may have known over thirty years ago?’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Kate said, frustrated with his attitude. ‘She abandoned you on a regular basis to hang out with women that the media labelled as “loony lesbians” and “feminist fascists”. How did that feel? How did it look to your macho miner chums?’

  The artist looked at her almost sympathetically and slowly shook his head. ‘How old are you, DI Fletcher? Old enough to remember the eighties?’

  ‘I remember,’ Kate said. ‘I was a teenager.’

  ‘So you’d understand if I told you that those of us on the left didn’t see ourselves as a radical group. We weren’t revolutionaries plotting the downfall of governments, we just wanted everybody to be treated fairly. For poor communities not to be made poorer by the decimating of their industries.’

  ‘My dad was a miner,’ Kate said. ‘I know what happened.’

  ‘Then you’ll understand when I tell you that I supported my wife’s cause. We all wanted a better world for our children and, if it took Julia away for weeks on end, it was a price worth paying.’

  ‘Even if it left you at home trying to get your career started while raising a daughter?’

  Sullivan tilted his head and frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Sadie. You couldn’t have been happy having a young child under your feet when you were courting the great and the good of the political left.’

  ‘Oh, DI Fletcher.’ Sullivan sighed. ‘Once again you don’t have the full facts. You can’t arrest me on assumptions and speculation.’

  ‘What speculation?’

  ‘Sadie wasn’t at home with me. Her mother took her on every trip to Greenham Common. Every one.’

  34

  Three missed calls from Das. Kate stared at the screen of her phone trying to prioritise. They needed to find Sadie Sullivan immediately. How was it possible for the woman to have disappeared? She also wanted to get an update on Anastasia Cohen’s condition. If the woman was Taz she might hold the key to the whole case but, until she was in a position to talk to them, she was an unknown, and potentially vulnerable if her attempted murderer knew that she was still alive. But she didn’t dare ignore the DCI.

  ‘Kate,’ Das snapped after a single ring. ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  ‘Sorry ma’am, I’ve been interviewing Lincoln Sullivan, he’s–’

  Das cut her off. ‘Listen, is Hollis with you?’

  ‘Yes, he’s–’

  ‘There’s been an incident,’ Das said. Kate immediately suspected another murder until Das’s next words made it impossible to think clearly.

  ‘O’Connor was hit by a lorry last night. He was at the Kielder rendezvous site with officers from Northumbria. I don’t have all the details, but it seems the driver they were trying to arrest turned the vehicle on Steve and rammed him.’

  ‘Was he in a car?’ Kate managed to ask, imagining mangled metal, glass and blood.

  Silence. Then, ‘He was on foot, Kate. The lorry hit him head on.’

  ‘Is he… did he?’ She couldn’t form the question that she didn’t want to ask.

  ‘He’s alive. Multiple fractures to his legs and pelvis. There’s damage to his spine as well. It’s far too early for the medical staff to make any sort of prognosis. I spoke to his ex-wife this morning. She’s taken the kids up to see him. He’s in the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.’

  The words weren’t making sense. She didn’t know that O’Connor had children. As far as she knew he was single and didn’t want to be tied down. How could he not have told her about his family? How...?

  She realised her mind was skirting around the important information, not allowing her to focus on the extent of O’Connor’s injuries and what they might mean for his future. It was easier to be outraged that he hadn’t trusted her, easier to be angry with him.

  Hollis was leaning against the side of the car looking at her with obvious concern. She signalled for him to get into the driver’s seat so he wasn’t watching her, making her self-conscious.

  ‘Did they arrest the driver of the lorry?’ Kate asked. The only thing that could make this any worse was if the perpetrator had managed to escape.

  ‘He’s been arrested and charged with trafficking offences and attempted murder. He’s not going anywhere, Kate – they got him.’ Her tone was calm, placatory and Kate allowed herself to breathe properly.

  ‘Okay. Er, I need to find Sadie Sullivan as a matter of urgency and then–’

  ‘No. Come into the office, Kate. Barratt and Cooper are here. I think you need to talk to your team.’

  ‘Have you told them what’s happened?’

  ‘Not yet. I thought it best if it came from you but I’m happy to brief them before you get here if it’ll help.’

  Das was offering to make it easier but Kate couldn’t accept. They were a team and they deserved to hear about this from her so they could move forward together.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘I’m with Dan and I can tell from his face that he knows something’s wrong. I’ll have to fill him in on the drive back to Doncaster. I’ll be there in about half an hour.’

  ‘What did Sullivan say?’ Barratt asked as soon as Kate sat down at the large desk. ‘Anything to suggest it’s him?’

  Kate shook her head. ‘Not now, Matt. I need to talk to you and Sam.’ She looked over at Hollis who seemed to be finding the grain in the wooden surface of the desk
top fascinating. He’d been virtually silent since she’d told him about O’Connor, and she could see that the weight of knowledge that the other two didn’t share was getting to him.

  ‘Steve was hurt last night during the Northumberland case.’

  Sam glared at her as though she were to blame. ‘Hurt how? Is it serious?’

  ‘Very.’ It took a few seconds to relay the information that Das had shared but, for Kate, it felt like time had slowed, that she was speaking through liquid and the words were taking an age to form.

  ‘But they got the bastard that did it?’ Barratt sat with clenched fists, staring at her as though he wanted to hit something.

  ‘Yes. He’s in custody in Hexham. He’s been charged with attempted murder.’

  Barratt exhaled noisily. ‘Well, that’s good.’

  ‘Can we visit?’ Cooper asked. ‘Is he able to talk to anybody?’

  ‘I don’t know. His ex-wife and kids know he’s been injured. Presumably they’ll be allowed in but that might be it as far as visitors go.’

  ‘His…?’ Barratt looked from Kate to Cooper to Hollis. Kate was surprised. If anybody knew about O’Connor’s home life she would have expected it to be Matt as they’d spent a lot of time together on quite a few cases.

  ‘I didn’t know either. Looks like Steve kept his private life very private.’

  They sat in silence for a few seconds.

  ‘Look,’ Kate said eventually, ‘this is a really shitty thing to have happened and I know we all feel awful, but there’s nothing we can do for Steve at the moment. Das has promised to keep me updated and I’ll make you lot the same promise. When he’s allowed visitors, I’ll make sure one of us goes up to Newcastle – and it doesn’t have to be me. For now, I think we should all do what we do best and get on with solving these murders.’

  As pep talks went it was pretty pathetic, Kate knew that, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say. She felt empty, lifeless and totally lethargic but she also knew that work was the best way for her to cope with her anger and grief. She hoped the others felt the same.

  ‘I’ve got news,’ Cooper said. ‘I’ve found Anastasia Cohen’s car on CCTV on the night she was pushed off the bridge. I’ve been tracking back from where she was found, and I picked something up outside Rossington.’

  ‘That’s great,’ Kate said, hearing the overenthusiastic tone in her reaction and immediately feeling disloyal to O’Connor.

  ‘It gets better.’ Cooper offered her a weak smile. ‘It’s going the wrong way and it’s after the event.’

  ‘Show us.’

  Cooper connected her laptop to the whiteboard and turned on the projector. She tapped a few keys and a black-and-white image appeared on the screen behind Kate. A timestamp in the top right corner gave the date and time. It was less than twenty minutes after Anastasia Cohen’s fall had brought the northbound M18 to a standstill.

  ‘The white Audi is Anastasia’s car. We don’t know where it ended up but I’m hoping I can use ANPR cameras to track it now I have definite location and time.’

  She hit ‘play’ and the car sped past the camera. Then she rewound and played the clip in slow motion.

  Kate leaned closer, squinting at the windscreen of the car. ‘It’s impossible to see who’s driving,’ she snapped, frustrated.

  ‘We know it’s not the owner,’ Cooper said. ‘I’m hoping, if I can find it on more cameras, we might just catch a glimpse of the driver.’

  ‘It’s looking like Sadie Sullivan is a distinct possibility,’ Kate said and gave them a brief account of her conversation with Lincoln.

  ‘I’m not convinced,’ Barratt said, leaning back in his chair and running a finger round his collar. Kate was pleased to see she wasn’t the only one struggling with the heat. ‘I could understand if she’d killed her mother first and then murdered the others to throw up a smokescreen but why start with Liv Thornbury?’

  ‘I’m assuming that Sadie knew Liv at Greenham and has been either nursing a grudge or she’s seen her in the local press, identified her and killed her for something that happened thirty years ago. Thornbury was undercover. If Sadie realised that, she may have felt betrayed or let down in some way.’

  Cooper shook her head. ‘But she was a kid. How old would she have been? Seven? Eight? What could these women possibly have done to her to merit murder? One of the victims is her own mother – that I can understand, it suggests a deeply personal motive but not the others.’

  Barratt was nodding in agreement. It was a valid point. All children held grudges, felt slights as though they were punches, but few went on to murder the people who’d upset them. Had Sadie been abused in some way? It seemed unlikely – most accounts of the atmosphere at Greenham suggested it was nurturing and welcoming rather than abusive.

  ‘Her father says she was there most of her holidays, until she started secondary school. Maybe she resented her mum for dragging her down there. It was hardly likely to be fun for a kid,’ Hollis said. ‘And she blames the others for making her mum keep going back?’ His voice tailed off, he was clearly unconvinced by his own suggestion.

  ‘I still think we need to take a closer look at Lincoln Sullivan. And those weird church people. What’s their connection?’ Barratt asked.

  Kate didn’t have the answers but she was still convinced that Cora Greaves had influenced Julia when she was at her most vulnerable in the hospital and persuaded her to keep information from her family.

  She was about to put this theory to the others when her phone pinged. A text. She read the contents quickly.

  ‘Sam. Looks like somebody’s saved you a long and tedious job. Anastasia Cohen’s car has turned up in a back alley off the industrial estate on York Road. Apparently, it was abandoned down the side of one of the units and it was spotted this morning when the bins were emptied.’

  Hollis was staring at her, mouth agape.

  ‘What?’ she snapped.

  ‘That’s less than a quarter of a mile from Lincoln Sullivan’s studio.’

  35

  Somebody had taken a crowbar or a baseball bat to Anastasia Cohen’s Audi A3. The windscreen was shattered and the roof and bonnet were badly dented. There was little room in the alleyway where the car had been abandoned but whoever had damaged the car had obviously managed to get a few good swings at the bodywork. The driver and passenger doors were partly open and three of the tyres were flat.

  ‘Looks like somebody set a fire in the rear seat but it didn’t catch,’ an overall-clad Martin Davies said. ‘Lucky for us really. We should be able to lift prints from the interior as the mouldings inside the door are plastic and so is the steering wheel. Good surfaces.’

  ‘Are the mirrors broken?’ Kate asked.

  The man pushed his hood down and frowned at her. His dark skin was damp with sweat and his bald head shone in the afternoon sun. He looked annoyed by her interruption, but Kate suspected it was more likely due to having to work in such an enclosed space in the heat.

  ‘Everything’s broken. Looks like it’s been joyridden.’

  Kate tried to imagine the sequence of events. The killer dumped Anastasia off the bridge, drove off in her car, was picked up by CCTV near Rossington a few minutes later and then what? The best way to get rid of an unwanted vehicle was to leave it in a rough area with the keys in. She texted Cooper.

  Try CCTV and ANPR around Denholm flats.

  It was the most likely place to try to get rid of a car and would be obvious to somebody who knew the area. Once the car had been spotted it would have been driven around for a while and then burnt out – or so the thieves thought. Luckily, the last part of the plan hadn’t worked.

  ‘Can I have a look?’ Kate asked.

  The SOCO shrugged and pointed to one of the white vans parked nearby. ‘Get suited up.’

  White coveralls rustling, Kate followed step plates to the vehicle and peered through the open passenger door. She could smell something acrid and realised it was the failed fire on
the back seat. Burnt vinyl and foam caught the back of her throat. ‘No personal effects?’

  ‘Nothing. Glove compartment was empty and all the side pockets in the doors.’

  Kate pointed at the console between the two front seats. It was raised and padded on top with a nearly hidden catch below the padding. ‘In there?’

  The man tilted his head to get a better look. ‘Not checked. Hang on.’ He leaned in and, with a gloved hand, released the latch. The top lifted to reveal a cavity.

  ‘All yours.’ He stepped back allowing Kate a closer look. The compartment contained a lead to charge a phone and a USB stick.

  ‘Bag those,’ Kate said. She observed as he bagged and tagged both items, initialled the bag and passed it to her. She checked her watch and added her initials and the date and time.

  ‘I’ll log these on my way out,’ she said, unzipping her overalls and shrugging one arm out, desperate to be rid of the cloying fabric which seemed to have trapped every degree of heat she’d given off and amplified it tenfold.

  ‘I want the contents of that USB emailed to me as soon as possible,’ Kate said as she handed the bag over to a uniformed officer with a clipboard and slipped off her shoe covers. He nodded, made a note and took the bag from her.

  ‘Anything?’ Hollis asked as she approached the car.

  ‘Nope. Car’s trashed. Looks like somebody tried to set fire to it but it didn’t take. Found a USB stick and a phone charger but everything else has been cleared out. There’s not even a tissue or a chewing gum wrapper.’

  You think our killer did this?’ Hollis looked sceptical.

  ‘Unlikely. It looks like it was dumped for joyriders to find and have a bit of fun.’