Shattered: a gripping crime thriller
Page 24
‘I’ve been here before,’ Sadie said, shifting position slightly so she could look straight at Kate. If she noticed that the distance between them had narrowed she didn’t show any sign of concern. ‘Well, not here exactly, not this roof. Everything I’ve done to those women I tried to do to myself when I couldn’t live up to their expectations. When I felt like I was being ungrateful for what they’d done.’
Kate’s thoughts were spinning as she tried to make some sort of sense of Sadie’s words. She’d tried to kill herself because of the actions of her victims. What on Earth had happened to her?
‘I was supposed to be different, to help make everything better but I couldn’t. I just wanted to tell stories and I turned out to be bloody good at it. I’m successful, people love my work but all I feel is guilt. You’ve seen my home. When I buy myself something nice, I feel like I’m doing something wrong. What has it done to the environment? Was it made in a sweatshop? Is it ethical to have a big house all to myself? I can hear all their voices talking about communities and sisterhood and solidarity and I know I’ve let them down. I feel like I need to be punished. And I’ve tried. I’ve cut myself, I’ve deliberately stayed in abusive relationships, I’ve stood on bridges and ledges and clifftops. Because of those women. But they let me down. They made me feel like this when they’ve all done much worse things than me. They all lied and let everybody down.’
Sadie’s fists clenched as she took a deep breath.
‘Liv was the worst,’ she said. ‘She became one of us, part of us and all the time she was a spy. She was a police officer trying to stop us, to betray us. How did she live with herself?’
Kate took another half step while Sadie looked down at the roof.
‘She didn’t even try to deny it. Said it had been her job back then.’
‘She was a decent person,’ Kate said quietly. ‘She did a lot for others, minorities, equal rights for women and the LGBTQ community. She was an advocate for diversity within the police force.’
Sadie shook her head defiantly. ‘She was a liar! Like Eleanor. All that shit about building a better world, looking after the environment and then she went and married Peter Houghton. Sold out completely.’
Kate knew she needed to try again – to give Sadie something to think about. ‘She still cared for people,’ she said. ‘Eleanor was active in her local church. A neighbour told me that she was scared of her husband but underneath she was kind. She tried to help.’
Had she seen a flicker of doubt on Sadie’s face or was it just another strand of hair caught by the breeze?
‘And Anna… Taz… she worked so hard defending people who couldn’t defend themselves. You probably only heard about the high-profile case but that wasn’t what she usually did. She protected women from abuse. We spoke to her ex-husband and she hated having to take on the case that was in the papers.’ This wasn’t strictly true, but Kate needed to buy time and if that meant embellishing the few facts she had, then she was prepared to add a few details.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Sadie said, shuffling along the wall slightly, her eyes fixed on Kate. ‘They all lied. They all changed. Even my own mother. The woman who took me there in the first place. She became a different person.’
Another half step.
Kate’s breathing had slowed to a normal rate and she could hear traffic on the road that ran past the hospital. A plane flew low, probably just having taken off from Robin Hood Airport and she heard the warning beep of a heavy vehicle reversing somewhere below.
‘Sadie, your mother was ill. She sustained a massive head injury in the car accident. That’s what changed her.’
‘No. We’d have known if she’d been hurt badly enough to change her personality. She just turned against everything she’d believed in. She was a liar.’
‘She didn’t want you and your father to know. While she was in hospital, she was preyed upon by some unscrupulous people who convinced her that they knew her better than you both did. They helped her to change by keeping her apart from you and Lincoln. She was vulnerable. It wasn’t her fault. Sadie, she was still your mother.’
The other woman took a deep breath and shook her head. ‘No,’ she said simply.
Kate took another step. Three or four more and she’d be able to reach out and grab the white coat that Sadie had worn to disguise her identity.
‘It’s true, Sadie. None of these women deserved to die. They were good people, people who cared and were cared about.’
Another step.
Sadie looked up and gave her a weak smile. And then she leaned backwards. Kate ran forward, lunged and grabbed something. A wrist? An ankle? She didn’t know but it was warm and solid. She clung tightly even as she felt herself being dragged over the edge.
‘Dan, she’s gone over the side of the roof. I’m holding on but I–’
And then she was falling.
43
‘What happened to your beard?’
O’Connor smiled weakly. The lack of facial hair made him look younger, more vulnerable.
‘They shaved it off. Hygiene. Apparently, beards are breeding grounds for germs. I might not grow it back.’
Another face came into view on the screen of Kate’s tablet. Cooper.
‘We’ve told him to grow it back. Nobody needs to see that ugly mug.’
Kate laughed and winced. Her arm was still in a sling to allow her broken clavicle to recover and the two broken ribs were incredibly sore even after five weeks of her being almost immobile. She tried to hide her pain though; O’Connor was in a much worse state and had a much longer and harder road ahead of him. He’d have all the support he needed through the Police Federation but she knew that much of his resolve came from the knowledge that he’d been injured doing the right thing and that his instincts had been rock solid. Houghton Haulage had been thoroughly searched and Tony Sims was facing some very serious charges.
Shifting her back against the pillow, Kate tried to find a more comfortable position. She still wasn’t sure how Sadie Sullivan had landed on top of her, but she knew that, if they’d fallen all the way off the roof she wouldn’t have been here, enjoying the banter of the others. Dan had quite literally saved her life. He’d followed her instructions, worked out what was happening and called for help. The fire service had managed to get an elevating platform in place below where Sadie had been sitting with her back to them. The drop had still been brutal because they’d not had time to get the platform in position properly. Kate and Sadie had fallen fifteen feet but both women had survived and, much to her annoyance, Kate had the worst of the injuries.
Sadie had been charged with the four murders and the attempted murder of Anastasia Cohen who was still in recovery. Kate had interrupted Sadie before she could inject the lawyer with whatever she’d had in the syringe, but the woman was still facing months of agonising therapy.
Kate’s broken bones had meant that she hadn’t been able to help with the house move – which was a blessing. Nick had sorted everything, including hiring movers to finish her packing and overseeing the final stages of the sale of her flat.
Now, leaning back on her bed… their bed… looking out over the fields, she knew that he’d been right. It was time that she and Nick made their relationship more solid, more permanent.
She smiled at the group on the tablet. Barratt had made a joke and Cooper was slapping him on the arm. Hollis was holding his phone so she could see them all, gathered on O’Connor’s hospital bed. He’d been moved to Doncaster to be nearer his children and his ex-wife, and his colleagues made regular visits. They kept the mood light, never talking in detail about Steve’s injuries, never offering false assurances about the possibility of him being able to walk again, but not treating him with kid gloves.
They knew what worked. They knew how to be with each other – and with her. Despite her doubts about her age and her capabilities, Kate knew she couldn’t give this up yet.
They were a team.
THE END
I’d had an image in my head for more than a year before I began to write this book. It was something I wanted to use as the basis for a Kate Fletcher novel, but I had no idea how it would fit into a narrative. On one of our long walks along the River Eden during the first lockdown of 2020 my partner, Viv, was telling me about an article she’d read about walking on Greenham Common. I stopped, grabbed my phone and started to type. Within a few minutes I had my plot mapped out. I owe her a huge debt of gratitude for giving me this story.
Thanks, as always, to the great team at Bloodhound – especially Tara and Clare. I always feel like I’m in safe hands as soon as a manuscript is accepted.
A huge thank you to everybody who has bought my books over the years and to anyone who has left a review or sent me a message of support. Hearing that somebody has enjoyed one of my novels never gets old.
A note from the publisher
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We hate typos. All of our books have been rigorously edited and proofread, but sometimes mistakes do slip through. If you have spotted a typo, please do let us know and we can get it amended within hours.
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