She didn’t even break stride. ‘I’ll be fine. Call the police and tell them to follow us, then see if Lucy’s in there,’ she yelled, pointing at the caravan. ‘And check on Tolpuddle, too.’
‘Delilah, no!’ Samson shouted after her. Because the path they had taken led to only one place – Thursgill Force. If the stonemason ended up cornered, trapped between the waterfall at the end of the path and Delilah behind him, he wouldn’t hesitate to confront her. He had too much to lose. But with a last worried glance at her dog, who had crawled towards the motorbike before collapsing, she was gone, chasing the huge silhouette of Rob Harrison up the hillside.
Grabbing his mobile out of his pocket, Samson started dialling as he staggered over to where Tolpuddle was lying with his eyes half-closed. He ran a hand along the dog’s grey flank and got a soft whimper in response.
‘Police and ambulance,’ Samson said as the operator answered. ‘High Laithe, the Metcalfe place.’
Then he noticed his hand. It was covered in blood. ‘And a vet,’ he said with urgency. ‘We need a vet, too.’
If the operator thought it a strange request, she didn’t say. Just took the necessary details and assured Samson that someone would be with him as soon as possible.
‘You daft mutt,’ said Samson, voice thickening with emotion as Tolpuddle whimpered again. ‘I thought I told you to stay in the office.’
Then he turned back to the caravan. And that was when he saw the smoke curling out from underneath it. If Lucy really was in there, she was in trouble.
* * *
Smoke. Seeping up though the floor. Lucy could smell it quite clearly despite her muddled state. But there was nothing she could do. Her mind touched briefly on the awful prospect of fire. Of her lying there, unable to move. But then it spiralled away, Ryan calling her from beyond the space she was in.
‘Lucy! Lucy! You need to get out!’
She smiled. Then she cried. Because there was no way she could join him when she couldn’t move. And besides, she couldn’t leave the cake. Not after the effort it took to bake it.
* * *
‘Lucy! Lucy! You need to get out!’
Samson rattled the handle of the locked door, conscious of the acrid smoke rising up between the steps. He’d glanced under the caravan and it hadn’t looked good. A small fire of leaves burning slowly but steadily, it had been enough to panic him. If the flames got as far as the petrol-soaked gravel, Lucy would be unreachable.
He pressed his face to the glass of the door once again, but Lucy was in the same position she’d been in when he’d raced over to the caravan moments before. She was lying prone on the floor, eyes closed, long hair draped across her face and a rag tied across her mouth.
‘Come on, Lucy!’ he shouted. ‘You need to move!’
A leg twitched and he saw her eyelids flicker, but nothing more. Lucy was unable to help herself.
He needed to get in there. Samson ran back down the steps and assessed the caravan. Big windows at the front. He’d be able to get her out through one of those. But first he had to get them open.
A loud pop from beneath the caravan made him jump and he heard the crackle of fire. It was catching hold. And there was a gas canister around the back.
He was running out of time. So was Lucy.
* * *
Delilah wasn’t taking risks. She’d managed to gain ground on the stonemason as they cut across the open fell, his heavier muscle counting against him as the hillside rose steeply. But when they’d gone over the stile and into the copse that led to Thursgill Force, the path began to flatten out and Rob Harrison had started to pull away.
Ahead she could see his lumbering figure crashing through the trees, reckless in his headlong flight along a path strewn with rocks and roots, and only the width of a footfall. Behind him, Delilah was a lot more careful, aware of her running shoes slipping on the greasy limestone and of the abrupt drop to the right.
‘One foot in front of the other,’ she muttered, quoting her old coach Seth Thistlethwaite as she continued the chase. ‘One foot in front of the other.’
There was no real rush after all. Because Delilah knew where the path ended. At the top of Thursgill Force, a waterfall that dropped thirty feet onto rocks below.
Rob Harrison was running into a dead end. She chose not to think about what might happen when he reached it.
‘One foot in front of the other,’ she said again as she kept up her pace.
* * *
Something to smash the double glazing.
Ignoring the slicing pain in his side every time he took a breath, Samson raced over to the stonemason’s van, its back doors still wide open. Inside, a jerrycan lay discarded alongside some rope, a roll of gaffer tape and, thankfully, a toolbox. Choosing a robust mason’s hammer from the array of tools, he sprinted back to the caravan, aware of the ever-denser swirls of smoke creeping out from under it.
Reaching the front windows, he pulled himself up onto the A-frame used for towing that jutted out beneath them. He balanced himself across it and then, concentrating on the middle of the three panes of glass, swung the hammer as hard as he could at the bottom right-hand corner.
The impact jarred his body, his ribs screaming in protest. But the glass remained intact. And the fire was growing in strength, the southerly wind breathing life into the flames and sending twists of grey curling up around his legs.
‘Come on,’ he grunted, tensing his body again in preparation. Spurred on by desperation and fear, he brought the hammer over his shoulder and crashing into the window.
The glass shattered, exploding into a thousand shards which rained down onto him, cutting into his face and hands. He barely noticed. Because at that moment a burning leaf blew out onto the gravel and the circle of petrol finally burst into flames.
20
In one swift movement Samson grasped the windowsill and pulled himself inside the caravan, jagged fragments of glass digging into his hands. He landed on the sofa where, what seemed like years ago, he’d sat with Lucy and had lunch.
Flames dancing high outside the windows now, he moved quickly past the table and into the small kitchen area where Lucy was lying on the floor. The floor that was already covered in spiralling smoke.
‘Lucy!’ He bent down in the cramped space and removed the filthy rag that had been used to gag her, but she didn’t even turn her head. From her moving lips came a barely audible sound. Drugged. He didn’t need his years of experience in the police to tell him that.
Slipping his hands under her armpits, he pulled her upright and her entire weight flopped against him. With her legs dragging uselessly behind, he hauled her across to the broken window. She weighed a heck of a sight less than Harry Furness.
But then he hadn’t had to get Harry out of a window and across a cordon of fire.
Propping Lucy on the sofa, he crossed to the door and grabbed one of the coats hanging on a row of pegs, trying not to notice the thickening fog of smoke clinging to his legs. He draped the coat over her head and down her back. It would offer some protection. But as for him?
His clothes. They were already soaked in petrol. If he was going to brave the flames, he had no option but to take them off.
Fingers fumbling at the zip, he quickly removed his jacket and then his jeans, transferring his mobile and his keys to his shirt pocket. He looked at his trainers. And then at the flames licking at the edge of the caravan. No way was he going across them in bare feet. He’d take his chances.
Ready and terrified, he hoisted Lucy into his arms and she jolted awake.
‘The cake!’ she said, and he could feel her limbs straining to move.
‘We’re in a fire, Lucy. We have to get out.’
But she wriggled, making it difficult for him to hold her. ‘The cake. Don’t forget the cake.’
Tears in her eyes, she stared up at him.
‘I won’t forget. I promise,’ he said. Then he looked out at the blaze he was going to have to get her th
rough and his heart sank. There was no way he could manage to step through the window and onto the A-frame while carrying her. And even if he could, he’d then have to dive through the fire with her in his arms. It wasn’t possible. Which meant the only option was to lower her out of the window. But how could he do that if she couldn’t support herself? She’d fall into the flames.
With dread overwhelming him, he stepped up onto the couch.
* * *
Still out of sight, the waterfall could be heard thundering over the cliff, its noise getting louder and the path narrower as they approached the end. Rob Harrison had pulled further ahead, jumping and leaping over rocks and protruding tree roots, occasionally slipping and stumbling, but always managing to keep his balance.
Behind him, Delilah was going even more cautiously than before. The drop to the right was now terrifying, a sheer fall down into Thursgill Beck, the scattering of trees sparse enough to allow a body to tumble the entire way down to the bottom. She didn’t fancy the chances of survival.
She also didn’t fancy the confrontation that was inevitable when Rob Harrison realised he’d run out of path. Perhaps she could hold him long enough, keep him there until the police arrived?
Up ahead, the falling waters came into sight. In less than five minutes he would be there.
‘One foot in front of the other,’ she told herself as her courage began to fail.
* * *
He stood on the couch, teetering for a couple of seconds, staring at the flames below the window as he held Lucy in his arms.
‘The cake,’ she muttered, oblivious to their predicament. Samson wished he was as numb to the danger.
‘I’ll get the bloody cake when you’re safe,’ he said, and with that he took the first step out of the window and onto the A-frame.
‘Samson!’ A hoarse cry from the other side of the flames. Will Metcalfe was there, beating at the fire with his coat, Nathan at his side doing likewise, trying to smother the inferno. ‘Throw her!’
Throw Lucy? With what he thought were broken ribs and while balanced half-in and half-out of a window?
‘Throw her!’ Will roared. ‘I’ll catch her.’
Samson glanced down at the woman in his arms. Could he do it? Get her across the fire?
‘Hurry. It’s almost at the gas canisters.’ Will was beckoning, arms wide open, Nathan looking terrified beside him.
‘The cake,’ Lucy murmured again.
‘You and your bloody cake,’ said Samson with a swell of affection.
And he gathered every ounce of strength he had left and threw his best friend’s wife from the shattered window. She twisted in the air, limbs flailing uselessly, and then Will was there, staggering back from the burning caravan as Lucy landed in his arms.
‘Got her! Now jump!’ shouted Will. ‘Jump before the gas goes!’
Afterwards Samson couldn’t explain why he did it. But he glanced back into the interior and saw the beautifully wrapped box on the table. Peaks Patisserie. And the card next to it.
The cake. Her damn cake.
He stepped back inside, tucked the card in his already bulging shirt pocket, lifted the cake in his hands and headed for the window. He got both legs out onto the A-frame, the flames scorching his bare flesh, and with a huge leap, flung himself across the fire.
He was in the air when the back end of the caravan exploded.
* * *
The sound ruptured the autumn afternoon. It could be heard down at Ellershaw Farm where Peggy and Ted Metcalfe were having a coffee, eyes avoiding each other as they sat in their customary strained silence. It rippled across the hills and made a muffled sound in the centre of Bruncliffe where Elaine Bullock was still working in Peaks Patisserie, worried about her friend and that uncharacteristic broken promise. For the police car and the ambulance that were speeding up the road to High Laithe, the noise was a trigger to drive faster. And for Delilah Metcalfe and the man she was chasing, it came as a whisper of wind and then a large bang, ricocheting through the trees from behind like a gunshot.
Rob Harrison reacted first, twisting round in surprise, face stricken. Then Delilah, grabbing hold of a tree trunk to steady herself as she turned to assess what had happened.
An explosion. The caravan. Had Lucy been in it? And Samson?
‘No!’ she wheeled back to face the stonemason, anger burning through her at all he had done.
But he wasn’t there. Just the trees. And the rocks. And the narrow path. And behind it, the impressive fall of water cascading down into the gill.
She looked up the hillside, thinking he’d scrambled upwards, using the distraction to escape her. But no. Which left only one option.
Heart in mouth, she jogged forward to where she’d last seen him. Then she forced herself to look down.
Far below, on a large rock beside the narrow stream of water that was Thursgill Beck, she could see his body. It wasn’t moving.
She turned away, legs shaking, and began running. In the distance were the dark shapes of men coming towards her. The police.
‘One foot in front of the other,’ she mumbled as she ran back along the path towards them, tears on her cheeks at the thought of what she might find when she reached High Laithe.
* * *
‘You shouldn’t have let her run after him!’ Will prowled back and forth across the gravel, an eye on the men from the mountain rescue team who were setting out along the path that Delilah had taken in her pursuit of Rob Harrison. She’d yet to return.
Samson pulled the silver emergency blanket closer around his shoulders, a shiver of panic running the length of his spine at Will’s words. ‘I didn’t have much choice,’ he muttered. ‘She’s fairly stubborn.’
‘If anything happens to her…’
If anything happens to her, thought Samson, Will’s wrath would be nothing compared to his own self-reproach.
In the aftermath of the explosion, a police car had arrived as a dazed Samson was trying to pick himself up off the ground, an ambulance screeching to a halt just behind it. While the paramedics rushed to treat the barely conscious Lucy, a gabbled explanation of events from Samson had sent the two policemen running towards Thursgill Force, one of them calling for reinforcements as he went. It wasn’t long before another police car was on the scene, along with a fire engine and the local mountain rescue team.
A volunteer firefighter himself, Will had joined the attempts to get the blazing caravan under control, the flames a threat to the barn across the yard. Samson had overseen Lucy’s transfer into the ambulance, calming a tearful Nathan as he took his place in the back with his mother, and had then waited with Tolpuddle until the vet arrived.
It was only now, with the fire contained and help for the injured – human and canine – on hand, that he allowed himself to think about Delilah.
He should have run after her. Ignored the pain in his ribs. But then, what would have happened to Lucy?
‘Where the hell is she?’ grunted Will, and Samson’s guts twisted even tighter.
‘Lucy! Lucy!’ A loud cry came from the other side of the barn and Delilah appeared around the corner, running at full tilt, wild eyes fixed on the burning wreckage of what had been her sister-in-law’s home. She turned desperately to the gaggle of people gathered around the emergency vehicles and spotted Will. ‘Where is she?’ she cried, rushing over. ‘Where’s Lucy?’
‘It’s okay, it’s okay.’ Will placed large hands on her shoulders and pulled her into a hug while Samson felt his legs finally give way. He slumped to the ground in relief, almost sitting on the box he’d saved from the caravan.
‘Lucy’s already gone to hospital,’ explained Will to a trembling Delilah. ‘She’s fine and Nathan’s with her. But what about you? Are you okay?’
She nodded, bottom lip trapped between her teeth as he stood back to inspect her. ‘I’m all right, Will. Honestly. But Rob—’
‘Did the police get him? You should never have gone chasing after him. You could ha
ve been hurt—’
‘He’s dead.’
‘Dead?’ Will’s expression changed from concerned to stunned.
‘He must be dead after that…’ Delilah shook her head as if trying to erase the memory. ‘I was chasing him along the path above the beck and then we heard the explosion. He fell – at least, I think he fell. One moment he was there and then the next…’ She shuddered. ‘It was horrible, Will. The police are there and the mountain rescue are going to get his body.’
She took a deep breath to steady herself and spotted the grey shape by the motorbike, a man huddled over it.
‘Tolpuddle?’ Her hand went to her mouth.
‘He’s been stabbed, but Herriot’s taking good care of him. He’s going to be okay.’
‘Thank God!’ She staggered over to the dog, collapsing onto her knees beside him as the vet, James Ellison – but known to everyone in this Dales town as Herriot – finished tying a bandage.
‘It’s your turn for some attention, young man.’
Samson tore his gaze off Delilah to see a paramedic looking down at him. ‘I’m okay.’
‘Think I’m the best judge of that. You’ve got burns that need treating.’ He knelt down and began rubbing salve onto Samson’s painful legs, as Will sat down beside them.
‘Thank goodness she’s safe,’ the oldest Metcalfe muttered, his smoke-streaked face sagging with fatigue. Then he spotted the box next to Samson. ‘Is that what you went back into the caravan for?’
Samson nodded, picking it up. ‘It’s a cake.’
‘A cake? You went back into a burning caravan for a bloody cake?’ Will was staring at him. ‘What kind of a halfwit are you? You could have died!’
Samson shrugged, grinning as he held the precious box on his lap. He’d barely made it, in mid-lunge when the rear end of the caravan exploded, the propulsion of air catching him like a wave and depositing him beyond the reach of the flames. Even then, he’d been trying to protect the cake, landing badly as a result and possibly breaking a few more ribs. It had been insane.
Date with Death Page 27