If there was anything Samson had learned in his thirty-four years on the planet, it was that families were a law unto themselves. One best not interfered with.
‘Well, if Livvy did fall out with someone, it must have been her father,’ said Delilah, pointing to the photo on Samson’s phone. ‘Which would explain why she was writing to her mother on the quiet. It would also explain why her parents never talked about her.’
‘Don’t forget we only have Jimmy’s word that they never spoke about her,’ cautioned Samson.
‘What are you suggesting?’
He shrugged. ‘I got the sense young Jimmy was holding back when we were up there yesterday. I think he knows more than he’s letting on.’
Delilah laughed. ‘You’ve been away too long! While folk around here are happy to spread gossip about neighbours and friends, no one in Bruncliffe airs their own laundry willingly. Least of all farmers. Jimmy was behaving the same way anyone would if someone was prying into their affairs.’
‘Especially if that someone’s an offcumden?’ asked Samson with a wry smile, knowing that the local term for outsider would always be applied to him by his fellow townsfolk.
‘Which is exactly why Matty asked me to be on the case,’ said Delilah with a triumphant grin. ‘So,’ she continued, ‘we think Livvy’s move to Leeds might have been more than just a change of scenery. I wonder what it was that drove her away?’
‘Luckily we’re not tasked with investigating the Thorntons,’ Samson said, noticing the gleam of speculation in his partner’s eyes. ‘We simply have to get a copy of Livvy’s death certificate.’
‘And this?’ Delilah indicated the photo of the envelope.
‘If we don’t have any success at the register office, it might come in handy. Livvy was helpful enough to write her own address at the top of her letters. It’ll be a good starting point, if we need it.’
Delilah handed him back his mobile and turned to stare out of the window. It had been an early start, standing on a cold Bruncliffe platform by seven-fifteen to catch the first train. Huddled inside her thick winter coat, hands thrust deep in her pockets, she’d pitied the commuters around her who had to make this journey every morning. She’d been amongst their number herself after she left school, taking the train to Skipton each day for six years, working her way up in a newly established tech company and studying at college in the evening.
She didn’t miss it. The freezing wait in winter. The unbearable waste of precious hours on the train in the summer when she could have been out running. She’d been more than happy to give it up when she’d set up her web-design business with her then-husband, basing themselves in Bruncliffe, where her commute became a walk down the hill into town.
But Delilah had to admit – if she had to commute, it would be difficult to beat this journey. Pulling out of Bruncliffe, the train was almost immediately in the open countryside, gliding down the dale, the fells rising up around it. In the half-light of a winter’s morning, the stone walls that cut across the fields were black grid-lines corralling the white smudges of sheep like a giant game of noughts and crosses. It was hard for Delilah Metcalfe, Bruncliffe to her bones, to imagine living anywhere else. To imagine wanting to live anywhere else.
Yet Livvy Thornton had been eager to leave all of this. To escape to the vibrancy and bustle of Leeds, for whatever reason. But within a few months of leaving, she was dead, her life cut short by a reckless driver.
It put things into perspective. Delilah’s troubles – the debt, the struggling businesses, the failed marriage – amounted to nothing in light of the price Livvy had paid for trying to change her destiny. As for Tolpuddle . . . She glanced down at the grey shape curled up on the floor between the seats, the dog having managed to place a part of his body on both Samson’s and Delilah’s feet, binding them all together even in his sleep.
‘We’ll sort it,’ Samson said softly, guessing the direction of her thoughts.
Delilah forced a smile. Because while Matty had been right about telling Samson, the weight of this problem made lighter by having shared it, she didn’t for a moment believe that there was anything Samson O’Brien could do to prevent Tolpuddle leaving their lives. She was resigned to making the most of the next four days. She would deal with the aftermath when it came.
‘You haven’t told me yet what Clive Knowles wanted yesterday,’ continued Samson.
Delilah’s gaze lifted from the dog and she grimaced. ‘A wife.’
Samson let out a loud laugh of surprise, startling some of the commuters from their half-slumber. ‘You’re joking?’
‘I wish I was. He’s given me a two-month deadline.’
‘No pressure, then!’ Samson was grinning now. ‘Where are you going to start? With giving him a bath?’
She smiled in response. ‘Wouldn’t be a bad idea. Then I’m going to work on his profile. See if I can’t tweak it a bit and invite some suitable replies.’
‘Tweak it? It’ll take more than that. The man’s a Neanderthal. No sane woman would touch him.’
‘You don’t need to remind me,’ Delilah groaned. ‘But I have to try, no matter how impossible it seems.’
She didn’t mention that her motivation was more than simply job satisfaction. The handsome bonus that the farmer had promised would coincide with the end of the six months’ grace period granted to her by the bank on her loans; those extra funds in her account would mean the difference between solvency and ruin. The very success of her businesses rested on her finding a wife for Clive Knowles. She would give it everything she had.
‘Somewhere out there someone is waiting for him,’ she murmured, trying to convince herself. ‘I just have to find them.’
‘Good luck with that. But if you want my advice, stick Ralph up as the profile photo,’ quipped Samson, referring to Clive Knowles’ prize-winning Swaledale tup. ‘That lad has no problem attracting the lasses!’
Delilah gave a hiccup of a laugh. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ Then she sighed and pulled her laptop out of her rucksack. ‘I suppose I’d better do a bit of work. A woman willing to marry that man is going to take some finding.’
Samson watched, amused, as her fingers flicked across the keyboard, her attention totally on her hopeless assignment. He looked down at the snoozing dog, pleased to have diverted Delilah’s attention from that particular problem, if only for a while.
As to how he would manage to keep Tolpuddle in Bruncliffe, he still didn’t have a clue. The woman sitting opposite wasn’t the only one facing mission impossible.
‘Delilah didn’t mention you were coming.’
The tall figure of Chris Metcalfe hailed them at the entrance to Leeds station, fair hair falling carelessly across his forehead in a way that made him look too young to be a doctor. Fourth son of the Metcalfes, he was three years older than Delilah, the same age as Jimmy Thornton. But whereas the farmer from Bruncliffe carried an aura of maturity about him that was common to most folk who worked the land, Chris still had the youthful air of a student. Although, from the bulk of muscle straining against his down jacket, there was nothing immature about his physique. It was with some relief that Samson noticed the hand being held out towards him wasn’t clenched.
‘Good to see you again,’ continued the doctor.
‘Likewise,’ said Samson.
‘So, where first?’ Chris looked from Samson to Delilah and back again. ‘My car is at your command.’
‘The register office—’
‘Snips Hair Salon—’
The two voices cancelled each other out, making Chris laugh.
‘We’re here to find a copy of the death certificate,’ Samson stated. ‘So it makes sense to start at the register office.’
‘But if they had a copy, it would have been online and Matty would have found it,’ replied Delilah, hand on hip and jaw thrust forward in a way her brother recognised. It didn’t bode well for the day ahead. ‘So we’re better off going to Livvy’s place of work and doin
g some proper investigating.’
‘I keep telling you, there’s nothing to investigate. This is simply a matter of a computer error. You, of all people, should appreciate that.’
‘Computers don’t make errors,’ snapped Delilah, ‘humans do.’
‘How about,’ interjected Chris, ‘we start at the place closest to us?’ He gestured to the town centre behind him. ‘The register office is only a short walk away and will be open in fifteen minutes. So,’ he added, sweetening Delilah’s defeat, ‘we can get a coffee on the way. I know a place that does an excellent bacon butty.’
Tolpuddle let out a bark at the mention of bacon, settling the argument, and Chris led the way into town, a town that Samson was already struggling to recognise from his time as a trainee policeman. Following the Metcalfes through the swarm of morning commuters, he bizarrely found himself already pining for the open spaces of Bruncliffe.
An hour and a half later, Samson and Delilah were exiting the register office on Great George Street.
‘Don’t say it!’ Samson warned.
Delilah grinned, a finger on her lips as they crossed to the low wall where Chris was waiting with Tolpuddle. ‘I didn’t say a word.’
‘Any luck?’ asked Chris.
Samson shook his head. ‘Not a trace. No Olivia Thornton on any registration covering the period she was here.’
‘So it wasn’t a simple mistake with the date. Or a computer error,’ added Delilah with a smug smile.
‘Where next, then?’ Chris asked.
‘Snips Hair—’
‘The library,’ said Samson, overriding Delilah. ‘We need to check the archives for the day of Livvy’s death. A fatal accident would have been headline news in the local press, and it might give us a pointer as to why her death doesn’t seem to have been recorded.’
Chris nodded. ‘That makes sense, and the library is just around the corner.’
‘Then we’re going to Snips,’ muttered Delilah as she tagged along behind the two men and Tolpuddle, feeling exactly as she had all those years ago when Samson and Ryan had endured her presence.
‘Nothing.’ On the second floor of the library in a room dedicated to local history, Samson scrolled through the newspaper archives once more, shaking his head. ‘No mention of an accident, fatal or otherwise. And no mention of Olivia Thornton at all.’
‘Do you think it just got overlooked?’ Delilah was sitting beside him, peering at the screen. For the past hour they had diligently trawled through old editions of The Yorkshire Post, the Yorkshire Evening Post, the Wetherby News and the Craven Herald from the year Livvy died, looking not just at May the twenty-ninth, but at the days and weeks around it. They hadn’t found a thing.
‘If it was a mere accident, maybe. But not a fatality. Local papers thrive on news like that.’ Samson sat back in his chair, staring at the headlines from more than twenty years ago. ‘I don’t get it,’ he muttered. ‘No official record of her death. And now no account of it in the press, either. Something isn’t right.’
‘Maybe we’re looking in the wrong place,’ said Delilah.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Leeds. Maybe she wasn’t here.’
‘You mean she lied about where she was living?’
Delilah nodded. ‘Her family had no contact with her during those few months, apart from the handful of letters she sent home. It would have been easy for her to tell her mother she was in one place, while living in a completely different part of the country. Who would know?’
Thinking of his own situation and the double life he was leading in terms of accommodation, Samson knew she had a valid point. Who would know? Except . . .
‘What about this?’ He took out his mobile and pulled up a photo of one of Livvy’s letters. ‘Why would she bother putting an address at the top of the page unless she was getting replies?’
‘Perhaps Livvy had her own Ida Capstick.’
‘Another intermediary?’ Samson considered the idea. ‘Perhaps. Either way, there’s nothing more we can do here.’ He pushed his chair away from the desk and stood to go.
‘So, next stop Snips,’ said Delilah, following him.
Samson was already shaking his head as he started down the library’s ornate staircase. ‘Not yet. I want to check out the house on North Park Avenue, the address on Livvy’s letter.’
‘But that could be miles away,’ protested Delilah. ‘And what can you possibly learn from it anyhow? It’s over twenty years since she lived there. If she lived there.’
‘Right now it’s the only firm connection we have to her, so that’s where we’re going. Besides, it’s nearer than the hairdresser’s.’
‘You’re just saying that,’ Delilah argued, picking up her pace in order to keep up with his longer stride as they headed down the final flight of stairs.
‘Fine,’ said Samson. ‘How about we let Chris decide, seeing as he’s the local?’
‘Let’s do that,’ Delilah said, marching through the door he was holding open and down the steps onto the pavement.
They crossed the road and headed into the pub on the corner where Chris and Tolpuddle were sitting by a window, Chris reading a paper and drinking a coffee, Tolpuddle stretching next to him as he spotted their approach.
‘Did you find anything?’ Chris asked.
Samson leaned down to scratch behind Tolpuddle’s ears. ‘No. Not a thing.’
‘So what now?’
‘Whichever is nearest – Snips Hair Salon on Street Lane or North Park Avenue.’ Samson smiled at Delilah.
‘They’re both in Roundhay,’ said Chris, folding his paper and getting to his feet. ‘But North Park Avenue is definitely closer.’
Samson grinned, taking a step back as Delilah turned on him.
‘How the hell did you know that?’ she muttered.
‘You forget,’ he said, ushering her ahead of him as they all trooped out of the pub. ‘I used to live here. Roundhay was on my beat.’
Delilah cursed under her breath. How could she have forgotten the years Samson had spent in the city? Whenever she thought of his life away from Bruncliffe, she associated him with London. Yet Leeds had been the first place he’d lived when he left home, where he’d trained as a policeman.
‘Fine,’ she said, with a bright smile. ‘Your choice of destination, so my choice of seat in the car. And I’m taking the front one.’
When they arrived at the car park five minutes later, it was easy to see Delilah had insider knowledge.
‘It might be a bit of a squeeze,’ Chris was saying as he unlocked the midnight-blue Mini Cooper convertible. ‘But we’re not going that far.’
‘Be my guest,’ said Delilah with a grin, opening the passenger door and folding forward the front seat. Tolpuddle was fastest off the mark, hopping in and sprawling out in the back.
‘I thought you Metcalfes liked cars that can carry sheep,’ muttered Samson as he squeezed in next to the dog, getting a lick on his cheek from his travelling companion.
Chris laughed. ‘You’re thinking of the farming Metcalfes. The urban variety prefers a bit of style.’
With dog breath on his neck and a heavy paw on his lap, as they headed out into the suburbs Samson couldn’t help thinking that style was vastly overrated.
North Park Avenue wasn’t what Delilah had expected. When she’d envisioned young Livvy Thornton making her life away from home, she’d pictured a bedsit above a takeaway or a shared house in a down-at-heel area. A tree-lined avenue with large houses set back behind high hedges didn’t really fit with that image.
‘Wow!’ she said, stepping out of the car, Samson and Tolpuddle spilling out onto the pavement behind her. ‘Are you sure you’ve got the right road?’ She turned back the way they’d come, the tennis courts of Roundhay Park visible on the other side of the T-junction just yards away, the park stretching out beyond them. Its expanse of green was another thing Delilah hadn’t anticipated in the heart of the city. She wondered if its proximity had m
ade leaving the Dales easier for Livvy.
‘Certain,’ said Samson. He pointed away from the tennis courts. ‘It should be this way.’
They set off along the pavement, Tolpuddle tugging at his lead as he took in all the new scents, Chris and Delilah craning their necks trying to see some of the residences hidden down driveways.
‘Here,’ said Samson, coming to a halt at a property bordered by overgrown hedges, a solid fence towering up behind them. ‘This is it.’
‘Bugger!’ Delilah stared at the fence. It was impossible to see anything through it. Or over it.
‘It’s being developed,’ said Chris, pointing at the wrought-iron gates which had been similarly barricaded. Fixed to the metal railings was a sign:
Danger. Construction Site. Keep Out.
‘I guess we’re not going to learn much here, then,’ said Delilah, turning to Samson with the beginnings of a smug smile.
‘I don’t know about that,’ he muttered. He’d moved over to the gate and was looking at the sign. ‘Guess who the developer is.’
Delilah shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’
He stepped aside, letting her get close enough to read the small writing at the bottom of the sign.
‘Procter Properties?’ she exclaimed, turning to Chris. ‘Rick Procter has development projects over here?’
Chris nodded. ‘I’ve seen a few of his placards on buildings that are being renovated. He buys big houses like these and converts them into flats. There’s good money in it.’
Date with Mystery Page 7