‘She’s moving?’
‘Reckon so. Wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t happen over this way.’
‘She’s coming to Bruncliffe?’
‘Maybe.’ Ida pursed her lips and Samson knew that was as much as he would get out of her. Ida Capstick had never had time for gossip. Which meant he had to tread carefully if he was to get anywhere with his next line of questioning.
‘Have you heard about the case I’m on?’ he asked, casually.
A shrewd look was his reply. ‘Aye. And I know why tha’s raised it. Spit it out, whatever it is tha wants to know.’
He grinned, hands raised in surrender. ‘You’re right. I need your help. It’s about the letters Livvy was writing to her mother.’
Ida nodded. ‘Thought as much.’ She shook her head, staring into her tea. ‘What a mess that was. Poor Marian not able to write to her own daughter without him kicking off.’
‘Carl Thornton?’
‘Aye. A right devil of a man. He had that family living in fear.’
‘Is that why Livvy left?’
‘Marian never said, and I never asked. But I’d lay money on him being at the back of it.’
‘So how did you get involved?’
‘I knew Marian through church. Livvy, too. That lass could sing like an angel.’ Ida smiled sadly.
‘Mrs Thornton asked you to be an intermediary, then?’
‘If that’s the fancy word tha wants to put on it. She took me aside one morning after service and asked if I would hold letters for her. She didn’t go into great detail, but it was clear her husband didn’t want her in communication with Livvy. I didn’t see the harm in helping her out. No more than I do in having George collect tha post from the farm.’
Her reply was accompanied by a defiant glare, making it clear that if there was any blame to be apportioned for her actions in the past, Samson was guilty of a similar sin, seeing as he had given his old home in Thorpdale as his address to contacts in London. Not wanting the trouble that was brewing in the capital to find him, or relishing a repeat performance of the beating he’d been given before he left there, he’d decided it was best to hide his exact whereabouts for now. As a result, Ida’s brother, George, who had been appointed caretaker of Twistleton Farm by Rick Procter, was picking up Samson’s mail.
‘How often did Livvy write to her mother?’ Samson asked, neatly sidestepping the issue.
‘Once a week. Up until a couple of weeks before she was killed.’
‘So Livvy stopped writing before she died?’
‘Aye. A couple of weeks before.’
‘What made her stop?’
Another purse of the lips. Prying secrets out of Ida Capstick wasn’t easy. ‘I’m not sure as it’s my place to divulge confidences. Especially when all them that’s involved are dead,’ she said.
‘It could help sort out the mess Jimmy’s having to deal with.’
The cleaner’s face softened. ‘Poor lad. What a life he’s had,’ she murmured. She reached for another biscuit, ate it in silence, wiped the crumbs off the table into her tissue and then looked at Samson. ‘Carl Thornton threatened to kill her.’
‘He threatened to kill his wife?’
Ida shook her head. ‘No. Livvy. His own daughter.’
Samson stared at the cleaner, shocked. ‘Did Mrs Thornton tell you that?’
‘Not in so many words. She came to see me in a complete state and said Livvy wouldn’t be writing any more. It wasn’t safe.’ Ida’s face screwed up in distaste. ‘Combined with the bruises Marian had that day, I put two and two together. Carl Thornton must have found out what was going on and he put a stop to it. He was always handy with his fists.’
‘But why would he threaten to kill Livvy?’
Ida lifted her chin, eyes sparking with anger. ‘Because threatening his wife would have made no difference. Marian Thornton would have died for her daughter. But she wouldn’t allow her daughter to die for her.’
‘Bloody hell!’ Delilah sank onto the chair opposite Samson’s desk, stunned. ‘You’re sure about that?’
Samson raised an eyebrow. ‘Have you ever known Ida Capstick to exaggerate?’
Since his conversation with the cleaner two hours before, her words had been haunting him. What kind of father threatened to kill his own daughter? And what light did this shed on Livvy’s death and her missing death certificate?
‘Crikey. Do we need to tell the police?’
‘What would we tell them? That a man, now dead, threatened to kill his daughter, who is also dead, and the only witness to it has passed away, too? I hardly think they’ll break their necks to investigate it.’
‘But it’s . . .’
‘Shocking. Yes. It still doesn’t tell us anything more about the missing death certificate.’
‘So what next, then?’ asked Delilah. She’d arrived at the office at nine, a bit later than normal as she’d lingered over breakfast with Tolpuddle, still awash with relief at his unexpected reprieve. On entering the building, they’d found Samson sitting at his desk, staring into space. Not even a cup of tea in front of him. He’d quickly filled Delilah in on what Ida had revealed. ‘Should we go and see Jimmy?’ she suggested. ‘Get his version of events?’
‘It’s worth a shot. We might be able to prise a bit more out of him with everything we’ve learned over the last couple of days.’
‘You still think he’s holding back?’
‘I’m sure of it,’ said Samson.
‘And the women at Snips? Have you contacted them?’
Samson laughed. ‘Yes, boss. First thing this morning. I left a message—’ The ringtone of his mobile interrupted him. ‘Talk of the devil,’ he said, recognising the number on the screen as he answered the call. ‘Hello?’
‘Mr O’Brien, it’s Paula Atkins from Snips. How can I help?’
‘Mrs Atkins, sorry to trouble you again. I just wanted to know if Livvy Thornton ever brought her dog to work?’
‘A dog? Livvy didn’t have a dog.’
‘Are you sure? She didn’t mention one at all?’
‘Not to my knowledge. Just a moment.’ Samson heard the click of the phone being laid down and the hum of a hairdryer in the background. Then muffled voices before a younger woman spoke.
‘Hello? Mr O’Brien? It’s Viv Atkins here. We spoke the other day when you called in. Mother said you were asking about a dog?’
‘Yes. Did Livvy ever refer to one? Perhaps when you were out together?’
‘Never. She talked about her brother. A bit about her mother. But she never talked about having a dog.’
‘Thanks.’
‘So did she have one?’ Samson could hear the curiosity in the woman’s voice, wanting to know more about the enigma that was Livvy Thornton.
‘Yes. She was supposed to have brought it to Leeds. They were inseparable, apparently.’
‘Oh.’ There was a small silence. Then, ‘Perhaps it died? Like her father?’
‘Did she tell you her father was dead?’
‘Not exactly. I just presumed that was the case because she never mentioned him. Maybe it was the same with her dog.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Samson. He thanked the woman for her time and hung up.
‘Well?’ Delilah was leaning across the desk, where she’d been straining to hear the other side of the phone conversation.
‘Nothing.’
‘How odd!’
Samson nodded. ‘Very peculiar. According to Jimmy Thornton, his sister left for Leeds with Red. Yet neither Mrs Atkins at Snips nor her daughter knew anything about the dog’s existence.’
Delilah shrugged. ‘It could be that Livvy just didn’t talk about him.’
‘Maybe. Just like she didn’t talk about her father.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Viv Atkins, the daughter at Snips. She thought Livvy’s father was dead because Livvy never referred to him.’
‘Hardly surprising, given what we’ve been learning about Carl
Thornton,’ said Delilah, getting to her feet. ‘Besides, there’s plenty of folk don’t talk about their parents. You don’t exactly mention yours much, and your father lives just down the road.’
The reprimand was typical of Bruncliffe and one that had been levelled at Samson many a time. Even so, it brought colour to his face. And guilt hot on its heels. He hadn’t had time to go back and check on his father since visiting Mrs Walker at Fellside Court. Or if he was honest, he hadn’t wanted to. He wanted to take his father at his word. Everything was all right. Because Samson couldn’t face it if it wasn’t.
‘Tea?’ said Delilah brightly. ‘I think better with a brew in front of me.’
She hurried out of the room, leaving Samson to brood. On families. On relationships that soured.
A snore from the corner took his attention. Tolpuddle. Fast asleep. Unaware of how close he’d come to being a London-based dog. Was it as difficult for a canine to adapt to such a change in surroundings, Samson wondered, thinking about the shock his system had taken when he’d moved to Leeds. The traffic. The noise. Not sheep noise. Or birds calling the dawn. But sirens and loud voices. Drunken laughter. It had taken him a while to adjust.
Had it been the same for Red?
Whichever way he looked at it, that dog seemed to be the key. Beautiful Red. The collie that wouldn’t leave Livvy’s side. The faithful hound which had chased the driver of the car that killed Livvy, according to Mrs Thornton.
How come no one in Leeds knew anything about him?
Still brooding, he heard Delilah coming down the stairs, humming, her mood like an early spring.
‘Tea,’ she announced, placing a mug in front of him. ‘Solved it yet?’
‘It’s the dog,’ Samson muttered in return. ‘Red is the clue we need to crack.’
‘I agree. I’ve been thinking about it. You know I suggested Livvy had never gone to Leeds—’
‘I think, with the evidence of her working at the hairdresser’s and singing at the Fforde Grene, we can dismiss that theory now. She was definitely living in the city. We just don’t know for sure whereabouts.’
‘That’s what I was going to say. We have to accept that Livvy was in Leeds,’ said Delilah. ‘But what if Red wasn’t?’
Samson froze, hand outstretched for his mug, his gaze fixed on Delilah. He stood, grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair and walked out of the door.
‘Hey! Where are you going?’ demanded Delilah, rushing after him.
‘To see a man about a dog,’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘You coming?’
George Capstick was anxious. From the open door of the barn next to Croft Cottage, he’d watched the car go past. An outsider’s car. Not one that would have any business in going past the cottage and into Thorpdale, an isolated valley that began at the Capstick home and ended at Twistleton Farm, formerly home to the O’Briens, now owned by Procter Properties. With nothing in between the two properties apart from fields and stone walls, there was no cause for anyone to venture up the rough track that ran beyond the Capstick gate.
No cause unless they were up to no good.
As official caretaker of Twistleton Farm, appointed by Rick Procter himself, George knew he had to go and investigate. Even though he didn’t want to. He’d just started stripping down a David Brown 850 Implematic, tractor bits now strewn across the floor of the large barn. He stared into the distance at the outline of Twistleton farmhouse, his hands restless, twitching.
Ida wasn’t there to ask. He’d have to decide for himself.
He paced back into the gloom of the barn, muttering. ‘Eight-fifty two-point-five-litre four-cylinder diesel dry disc clutch . . .’
The unpunctuated recital of tractor statistics. It was George Capstick’s equivalent of worry beads, calming his natural inclination to anxiety. Helping make sense of a world he didn’t entirely understand. And one that certainly didn’t understand him.
‘. . . thirty-five-horsepower liquid-cooled I should go up there—’ He scurried across the farmyard, scattering the hens, and entered the house, leaving his shoes by the back door. The gun cabinet was in the cupboard under the stairs.
A few minutes later, shotgun in hand, George Capstick started towards Twistleton Farm.
If it wasn’t for the satnav, the woman would have thought there was a mistake.
A couple of outbuildings in various stages of disrepair leading to a farmhouse, empty and neglected, slates slipping on the roof, windows in need of painting.
Surely no one lived here.
She got out of the car, taking in the steep rise of the fells at the back of the house, the two streams running across the land. It was a dramatic setting. One that would take some beating. But she wasn’t here to admire the scenery.
Crossing the broken concrete of the yard, she called out a greeting, expecting a dog to come hurtling out of the shadows. There was no response. Although she noted the shiny new padlock and huge doors on the largest of the barns. Someone had been here recently.
She walked round to the front of the house. Knocked on the door. Nothing. No curtains twitching. No sign of life. The windows cobwebbed and dirty.
Twistleton Farm was a dead end, in more senses than one.
She turned back towards the car and came face-to-face with a man wielding a shotgun. Disconcertingly, the man was twitching rather a lot.
With Tolpuddle precluding the use of the Royal Enfield, Samson and Delilah ended up taking Delilah’s Nissan Micra. By the time they reached the edge of town, Samson – knees cramped against the dashboard and the dog breathing down his neck – was already regretting his generous invitation. If Delilah Metcalfe was going to continue to work with him, she was going to have to get a better car. One a bit less compact and that didn’t groan every time it was faced with an incline, a serious shortfall in a place like Bruncliffe where the fells rose on all sides. It wouldn’t hurt for her to go on a couple of anger-management courses, either. Not that it was anger that was causing her reckless driving right now. Excitement seemed to have the same detrimental effect on her motoring skills.
‘Watch out!’ Samson yelled as the Micra screeched round a corner on the narrow Horton Road and came face-to-face with a tractor barrelling along towards them.
A slam of brakes, Tolpuddle letting out a yelp of protest and Delilah cursing. ‘Road hog,’ she muttered, backing up into a passing place as the tractor pulled past, the farmer lifting a finger in recognition as he went.
‘Tom Hardacre,’ she continued, pulling back out onto the road as if nothing had happened. ‘Why are we going to see him?’
‘Because he knew Jimmy well back then. And the Hardacres are the closest thing to neighbours the Thorntons had. There’s a chance they’ll know what was going on in that house up at the quarry.’
Samson was surprised he hadn’t thought of it before. The farm tucked under the fellside that led to Rainsrigg Quarry. The place where Oscar Hardacre had nursed his crush on Livvy. Where Jimmy had worked as a youth. It was a good starting point before speaking to Jimmy himself, a conversation Samson wasn’t looking forward to having.
‘Huh,’ said Delilah as she turned into a farmyard and parked the car by a well-kept house. ‘I wouldn’t bank on the Hardacres knowing anything. Plenty of families keep secrets around here, despite all the gossip that abounds. Some walls don’t leak,’ she said, getting out of the car.
Samson didn’t challenge her. He knew too well from his own experience that she was right. Twistleton Farm had kept its secrets from his time living there. He wondered if the four walls in the shadow of the quarry had done the same.
Tom Hardacre was a lot smaller than Samson remembered. As the Micra pulled up outside, a wiry old man had emerged from the back porch of the farmhouse, a thatch of white hair above a ruddy face, thick jumper on over a checked shirt, hands broad-backed where they rested on the doorframe. He was joined by a man from the barn on the right. Oscar Hardacre. A good few years older than Samson, he was a more youthf
ul version of Tom. Broad-shouldered but short of stature, he stood next to his father, hands on hips, sleeves rolled up, the frantic bleating of newborn lambs resonating from the building behind him.
The two men watched Samson get out of the car, the same suspicion etched onto weathered features. It was a greeting Samson had been used to as an O’Brien in Bruncliffe. Seemed like nothing had changed in his fourteen-year absence.
‘Mr Hardacre, Oscar,’ he said, by way of greeting.
‘O’Brien,’ muttered the older Hardacre, with the merest inclination of his head. Oscar simply stared, brow knitted together in a deep frown.
‘Morning, Tom, Oscar,’ breezed Delilah, having finally extricated Tolpuddle from the back seat of the Micra, the hound not eager to exchange the warmth of the car for the cold of the farmyard.
At the sight of a Metcalfe – a species that inspired trust in farming folk, unlike those reprobate offcumdens, the O’Briens – the old man’s face split into a smile.
‘Delilah! Come on in, lass. The kettle’s on.’ Tom gestured towards the house, turning to his son as he did so. ‘Will tha be joining us?’
Oscar shook his head, his stare never leaving Samson’s face. ‘Got two yows about to lamb.’ But he made no move to go. Just stood there, watching, making Samson think of the heartsick teenager standing outside the hairdresser’s in the pouring rain, waiting for Livvy Thornton. There was no trace of affection in Oscar’s gaze right now.
With that brooding stare on his back, Samson followed Delilah into the cottage, aware that Matty Thistlethwaite’s insistence on having her on the case was proving wise. Without the lovely Miss Metcalfe, Samson doubted he’d have been allowed across the Hardacre threshold. Perhaps not even out of the car. As if to underline his point, as they entered the kitchen a tall, angular woman turned from the stove.
‘Delilah Metcalfe!’ Mrs Hardacre exclaimed, setting down the teapot she’d been in the act of filling and pulling Delilah into an embrace. ‘Been a while since we’ve seen you down here. How are things at Ellershaw? Lambing under way?’
Date with Mystery Page 18