‘Prints from the duct tape?’ Barratt asked hopefully.
‘Nothing yet.’
‘If one of the Houghtons had attached the tubing, their prints would have been all over it. Do we know where the piping is from?’
‘Not yet,’ Kate said again. She made a note. It was a good question. If the plastic tubing wasn’t from the Houghtons’ house or garage, then they might be able to trace it to a source which could lead them to the killer.
Three pictures showed the ‘suicide note’. Kate had already had confirmation that the paper matched that in the printer in Peter Houghton’s home office, but it had no distinguishing marks and was probably from a supermarket or office supplies shop. More analysis was needed to match the ink to the printer but, again, the printer was a common brand and model. The note could have been printed by the killer and taken to the house.
‘The phrasing’s weird,’ Sam commented. ‘Why the explanation? Why not just a request to be left alone?’
Kate studied the words. It was polite – please leave us alone – and the second sentence did seem a little unnecessary. Why bother to tell whoever found them that the couple had had a good life? Exactly the same as the note in Julia Sullivan’s bathroom.
‘We and us,’ Hollis commented. ‘They’re in this together, like it’s a joint decision. We’re being drawn to Peter Houghton because of his business and his profile in the media but the note suggests that they’re both the target.’
‘They’re both as much to blame,’ Sam mused. ‘Both as guilty.’
‘What about time to go?’ Kate asked. ‘To me it suggests that they’ve been set a deadline and they’ve not met it. Maybe a ransom request or they were being blackmailed and didn’t pay? Could they have some link with Julia Sullivan’s politics? We know Peter was unpleasant to Adele based on her being trans. Not that different from Julia’s comments on homosexuality.’
Blank looks from her colleagues. Kate enjoyed these morning brainstorming sessions – they often set out a plan for the day, each team member following up on promising ideas – but this time it didn’t seem to be working.
‘What about their time being up in the sense of it being time the world was rid of them? Or am I reaching a bit too far?’ Barratt asked.
Kate shrugged. It seemed as likely as anything else that had been suggested. Sam was tapping on her keyboard, engrossed in something. The young DC often seemed oblivious to the world around her when she was chasing something in cyberspace and Kate knew better than to disturb her.
She moved on to the next image, the keys hanging from a rivet of the television mast. ‘Car keys,’ she said. ‘About fifty yards from the vehicle. Whoever left them there climbed the gate of the compound. It’s six feet high and well beyond the capabilities of either of the Houghtons.’
‘Are we sure about that?’
Kate nodded. ‘They were elderly, Eleanor usually walked with a stick.’
‘So even if the couple had survived, they couldn’t have driven home,’ Barratt said. ‘But it’s not far to walk. This isn’t about making sure they couldn’t reach the keys – it’s symbolic. It means something to the killer.’
O’Connor sighed heavily. ‘Just what we need. Another psycho. If it only means something to him, how the hell are we supposed to understand it?’
Kate smiled. O’Connor wasn’t a fan of the use of psychology in police work. He liked his villains to be bad – end of story. He understood means and motive but anything more ‘airy-fairy’ and he tended towards open scepticism.
‘If we can work out what it means it might speak to motive. Like the mirror.’ Kate switched to a photograph of the rear-view mirror in its unusual position, a different image from the one they’d seen previously. In this one the crack was clearly visible and it caught a portion of Eleanor Houghton’s face.
‘I still think it was an accident,’ O’Connor said dismissively.
‘Maybe. Or maybe our murderer wanted Eleanor Houghton to take one last long look at herself,’ Hollis said. ‘Perhaps that’s why he used part of a mirror to kill Julia.’
Kate displayed a photograph of the broken mirror on the landing of Julia Sullivan’s home. If it had fallen it would have landed on carpet and probably have remained intact. It looked as though somebody had taken it down from the wall and deliberately broken it.
The positioning of the mirror in the car was interesting – shifting the focus from Peter to Eleanor – an idea they couldn’t ignore. Kate was about to show the last two images from the Turton scene when Cooper sat up suddenly.
‘Look at this,’ she said, turning her laptop round so they could see what was on the screen. It was an image of another suicide note held down by a chunk of rock. Two sentences.
I’M SORRY. I’VE HAD A GOOD LIFE BUT IT’S TIME TO GO.
‘Where was this?’ Kate asked, intrigued by the similarity.
‘Suicide on Burbage Edge earlier this year. Olivia Thornbury. Found hanged by a couple who were out on a hike. Nothing to suggest suspicious death.’
‘Doesn’t sound much like our case,’ Barratt said. ‘Apart from the wording of the note.’
‘Or our killer could have a link to this woman and used words from her note,’ Sam suggested.
Kate was already accessing the case file, intrigued by the similarity. ‘She was one of us. A retired DCI. Hang on.’ She skimmed the notes, trying to absorb the most important details.
‘Partner hadn’t reported her missing. Thought she was out for an early walk, but she was found hanged from a climbing rope on one of the steep pitches on Burbage Edge. She’d been a bit down because she’d been forced to give up climbing due to ill health. PM reports diazepam in her system which partner confirms was prescribed by her GP. Nothing to suggest it wasn’t suicide.’
‘Nice try, Cooper,’ O’Connor said with a grin. ‘I still think it’s to do with the haulage company. There’s something going on there and I reckon that’s why Houghton was murdered. The wife’s just collateral damage. I reckon we’ll find some sort of link with the Sullivans before long.’
‘Hang on,’ Kate said, still reading. ‘There’s a statement from her sister that says Olivia wouldn’t have taken her own life. They were raised Catholic and it went against everything she believed in. There’s also a question mark about the veracity of the note. It’s in block capitals so nobody could confirm it’s Olivia’s handwriting.’
‘Religion again,’ Hollis mused. Kate had given the others a brief account of their visit to the Church of the Right Hand but they hadn’t been able to use it to move the Sullivan case forward beyond Kate’s suspicion that Julia had been manipulated in some way.
‘We hear that all the time though,’ Barratt said. ‘Family members often claim that their husband or father or whatever would never have killed themselves for whatever reason. It’s just denial.’
‘She’s an ex-copper though,’ Hollis said. ‘Probably lots of people out there bearing a grudge against her. But how would that link to the Houghtons? Or Julia Sullivan?’
The group sat in silence for a few seconds as they pondered a possible link. Kate could see that O’Connor had already dismissed it and Barratt seemed to be inclined to side with him. They’d spent some time poking around the haulage yard and the DS was convinced that something was amiss in Houghton’s company, despite the lack of concrete evidence. Cooper would want to find more – data mining until she struck gold, or bedrock. Kate looked at the note again trying to feel what her instinct was telling her because, really, that was what connections like this came down to – her gut. Two sentences and there it was, that niggle, that faint electric current in her brain that told her not to ignore this even if it amounted to nothing.
‘Right, jobs,’ she said, decision made. ‘Sam, keep on with background for the Houghtons – especially the money. Find out more about this nephew as well – did he stand to gain anything by their deaths? And see if you can find a connection between either of the Houghtons, Julia Sullivan
and/or Olivia Thornbury.’
O’Connor shook his head, but Kate knew he wouldn’t dare to comment. ‘Steve, Matt, I haven’t forgotten it’s your lucky day. Get over to Doncaster Royal Infirmary for the PMs on Peter and Eleanor Houghton. Give Kailisa my regards.’
Barratt stood up, grinning, and grabbed his suit jacket from the back of his chair. ‘I’m sure he’ll appreciate that.’
Kate waited until she was alone with Hollis before revealing his assignment for the morning. She wasn’t entirely certain of his support, but she knew he wouldn’t voice his doubts until the job had been done. He was looking at her, half expectant, half apprehensive. He knew what she was going to say.
‘Okay, Dan. We’re off to Sheffield to talk to DCI Thornbury’s partner. If I’m right and there is a link to the Houghtons and Julia Sullivan, it might help us find our murderer. And, if I’m wrong, lunch is on me.’
14
Barratt smiled as O’Connor wrinkled his nose in disgust. ‘I hate the smell of this place. It’s so clean. All you can smell is chemicals.’
‘You’d prefer rotting flesh and body fluids?’
O’Connor nodded. ‘It’d be a bit more real.’
Barratt snorted. He knew it was all bluster. Nobody liked attending a post-mortem – and three in a couple of days was a bit much – but after your first, which was a rite of passage and you were lucky if you didn’t pass out, they got better. He didn’t actually mind the cutting and weighing and measuring – it was fascinating how much the body could tell them about manner of death – but he still hated the first few minutes where he had to adjust to being around the remains of a human being. Once the cutting started it was easier to see the flesh as meat and the organs as clues.
The pathology suite at Doncaster Royal Infirmary was state-of-the-art, a stark contrast with the 1960s pebble-dashed exterior of the bulk of the building. It housed laboratories and a sealed area where observers could watch and listen without being exposed directly to the bodies. The two men made their way to the viewing gallery and waited for Dr Kailisa to appear in the pathology lab below – an audience of two awaiting an especially grisly play.
‘Gentlemen.’ Kailisa greeted them with only a slight glance up to where they were sitting and a tiny nod. Barratt had a lot of respect for the pathologist, finding him to be thorough and diligent but he knew that DI Fletcher had often found the man frustrating and cold.
‘Your boss off doing more important things?’ His smile took the sting out of the sarcasm, but Barratt still felt the need to jump to Kate’s defence.
‘We might have a link to another case. She’s gone off to Sheffield to investigate,’ he said, disclosing the surprising details of the email the boss had sent him just as he and O’Connor had arrived at the hospital.
‘Ah, the lure of the big city. Shall we begin?’ This last comment was directed at his assistant rather than to the two police officers. Barratt recognised the woman from previous PMs he’d attended. He was always struck by the contrast between her and her boss. Kailisa was short with dark hair and olive skin – his brown eyes shrewd but not unkind. The assistant was tall and slim with a helmet of bleached blonde hair cropped close to her head – a startling contrast with her dark skin. Whenever Barratt had needed to speak to her, her intense green eyes made him feel like he was a butterfly skewered on a pin. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant feeling.
The post-mortem on Peter Houghton was unremarkable and, in the absence of toxicology results, no cause of death was discovered. Kailisa was reasonably convinced that the man hadn’t died solely from carbon monoxide poisoning but couldn’t say for certain how close to death Houghton had been when the hose from the exhaust was placed in the car. Not prone to supposition, he offered no theories or speculation but simply recorded the facts.
‘Well, that was tedious,’ O’Connor said, tapping on the screen of his phone. ‘I’ve emailed the key points to Kate. Coffee?’
Barratt would rather have gone over the findings himself, looking for anomalies, but there really hadn’t been much to work with and caffeine seemed like a good way to fortify himself for Eleanor Houghton’s PM. He allowed O’Connor to lead the way to the hospital canteen and didn’t bother to argue when his colleague sent him to the counter – insisting that, as his junior, it was down to Barratt to buy the refreshments. Not that Barratt minded. There was only one rank between them, but O’Connor enjoyed the pretence of superiority and Barratt had no reason to deprive him of his fun.
‘So, Kailisa’s assistant?’ O’Connor said with a grin. ‘I can’t tell if you fancy her or if you’re scared of her.’
Barratt took a swig of his coffee and stared at the scuffed Formica tabletop. ‘Me neither,’ he admitted.
O’Connor laughed, a quick, sharp bark. ‘Maybe you should find out which it is. Ask her if she wants a cup of coffee on her next break.’ He was staring intently at Barratt over the rim of his mug, foam from his cappuccino caught in his moustache.
‘Not while I’m working.’
‘God, you’re so bloody uptight,’ O’Connor said, slamming his coffee down on the table hard enough to make Barratt flinch. ‘It’s a cup of coffee not dinner and back to yours. She might have some useful information for you. Use that as an excuse.’
‘I don’t even know her name,’ Barratt admitted. ‘Kailisa has never introduced us.’
‘She’s called Nicole,’ O’Connor said with a smirk. ‘I asked.’
‘Oh, so she’s one of your sloppy seconds?’
‘No. I asked her name because I couldn’t call her Kailisa’s assistant when I was talking to her.’
Barratt wasn’t convinced. ‘Nicole what?’
‘Sherwin, Sharratt, Shields? I can’t remember. Cute accent though.’
Barratt thought for a second. He’d hardly heard the woman say two words in the lab. Had he picked up an accent? Obviously, O’Connor had managed a longer interaction with the woman, increasing Barratt’s suspicions that she’d either gone out with O’Connor or she’d knocked him back.
‘She’s a Kiwi,’ O’Connor said. ‘South Island apparently. At least think about it, Matt. Maybe a date with a cute Kiwi might loosen you up a bit.’
Barratt picked up his coffee cup and stared into its depths. O’Connor was right in one way – it had been far too long since he’d been out with anybody. The bloody job just got in the way of everything and, if he was going to achieve his next life goal and make sergeant before he was thirty-five, he needed to focus on his work. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said.
‘Yeah, right,’ his colleague responded with a shake of his head. ‘I won’t be holding my breath.’
O’Connor’s phone buzzed just as he was taking a last slug of his coffee. He glanced at the text message. ‘They’re ready for us again,’ he told Barratt. ‘Let’s see if Mrs Houghton is a bit more informative than her husband.’
Kailisa had already started examining the body when O’Connor and Barratt returned to the viewing gallery. He glanced up as they took their seats, both leaning forward, eager not to miss anything.
‘Welcome back, gentleman,’ the pathologist said once they were settled. ‘Act two has just started. External examination shows no obvious wounds or injuries so far. We have a vaccination scar on the upper left arm and a birthmark on the left calf. And we have initial toxicology results and bloods.’
‘What do they tell us?’ O’Connor asked as Kailisa stared at the screen.
‘High levels of benzodiazepine and an opiate in both Mr and Mrs Houghton.’
‘Prescribed?’
Kailisa shook his head. ‘Unlikely at this dosage. And not in this combination. There are signs that some of the opiate had been broken down, suggesting it was consumed over the course of two, maybe three hours. I need to check the stomach contents of both to see if there’s any residue, although Mr Houghton’s stomach contained only a small amount of brown fluid suggesting he hadn’t eaten anything in the hours leading up to his death.’
Barratt tapped the information into the email app on his phone, intending to send it to Kate as soon as he had all the relevant information. ‘You said something about the combination of drugs?’
Kailisa looked up. ‘It’s very unlikely that a medical practitioner would prescribe benzodiazepines with an opiate. It’s a potentially lethal combination. I can’t say yet whether the drug was a sedative or something else, possibly Rohypnol. The most common opiate would be codeine or morphine.’
‘Could either of them have been bought over the counter?’
‘Not at this dosage. Codeine is the strongest pain killer a pharmacist can sell, and it must be less than twenty milligrams per dose. Anything more than that requires a prescription. I doubt anybody could be forced to take a handful of pills against their will.’
‘And morphine?’ O’Connor asked. The team had been involved in a case where a so-called mercy killing had been carried out using liquid morphine.
‘Possibly. Morphine and diazepam are both available in liquid form.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘Alcohol. Both Mr and Mrs Houghton were over the legal driving limit. In England the limit is eight milligrams per 100 millilitres of blood. Mr Houghton had ninety-eight and Mrs Houghton had 107.’
Barratt included the figures in his email. ‘Would this level of blood alcohol have had a negative effect when combined with the drugs?’
Kailisa smiled. ‘We’re getting into the realms of speculation, DC Barratt. At the moment I’d rather not comment.’
O’Connor stood up. ‘But surely an elderly person with a few drinks and a hefty dose of a couple of drugs would struggle to stay conscious and awake? Could the killer have driven them to the dump site and just left them there, half-dead and let the carbon monoxide finish his work?’
Shattered: a gripping crime thriller Page 8