‘You never said about the whisky. We presumed it hadn’t been used.’
‘Oh, it was used all right,’ said Joseph morosely. ‘Enough to give me a hankering for it like I haven’t had in a long time. Two years sober and I’m thrown off the wagon by this. I’m nothing but a useless drunk.’
‘But it’s not your fault,’ protested Delilah. ‘If anything, we’re to blame for not asking about it. For not making sure you were okay. You need to tell Samson. Get his help with this.’
‘No!’ Joseph looked at her, eyes wild. ‘Don’t tell him. He’ll be so disappointed in me. You have to promise you won’t say a word.’
Against her better judgement, Delilah acquiesced. ‘Okay. But you have to do something. Don’t you have an AA sponsor?’
‘Not any more. He moved away to be nearer his family and I don’t have the energy to go through the whole process again. I think it would kill me.’
‘Well, you can’t be left on your own to deal with this.’ She pulled out her phone, Joseph watching warily as her fingers flicked over the screen.
‘Are you googling “hopeless cases”?’ he asked with a dry laugh.
She grinned at him and slipped her mobile back in her pocket. ‘Something like that. How about we begin right here?’ She pointed at the whisky on the table.
Joseph reached out, picked up the cap in shaking hands and slowly screwed it back on. ‘Take it,’ he said, gruffly, thrusting the bottle at her. ‘And get rid of it.’
A knock at the door made him start in his chair.
‘No visitors,’ he said, panicked, but Delilah was already crossing to the hallway, opening the front door. She returned with two people behind her.
‘Meet your new sponsors, Joseph O’Brien.’ She stepped aside to reveal Arty Robinson and Edith Hird, both looking concerned.
‘We came as soon as Delilah texted,’ said Edith, taking a seat opposite Joseph.
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell us sooner, you daft bugger?’ Arty had moved to the other side of the coffee table, staring at the bottle of whisky in Delilah’s grasp.
‘We don’t have any training,’ said Delilah. She raised a hand as Joseph began to protest. ‘But we care about you. A lot. So I reckon with the three of us by your side, you’ll be back on track in no time.’
Arty was nodding. ‘Whatever you need to beat this, Joseph. We’ll be there for you.’
Joseph O’Brien rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes to wipe away tears. Not for the first time, he thought Fellside Court and its residents had been the saving of him.
A rookie. They’d sent a bloody rookie to check up on him. To make sure he wasn’t about to throw himself off the Crag in despair. Samson didn’t know what to make of it. According to DC Green, she’d been hand-picked for the job by Samson’s boss.
A detective straight out of uniform.
For the past thirty minutes she’d been asking anodyne questions about his mental health, about the support network he had around him. She hadn’t once touched on the topic of his suspension. Or the seriousness of the imminent investigation.
‘Just one last thing,’ she was saying as Samson got to his feet, ready to show her to the door. ‘DI Warren doesn’t have your current address listed in the file.’
His boss. DI Warren. The man who’d saved his life by telling him to get out of London when things became toxic. When men in balaclavas started calling by and leaving boot prints on Samson’s body as calling cards.
‘If you could fill me in on your correct place of residence, I’ll make a note of it,’ she concluded.
He paused, hand on the door, formulating a lie.
‘And I will check it out,’ she said quietly, pre-empting his instinct to deceive.
‘Is it entirely necessary?’ he asked.
‘It’s procedure. You have to reside at the address on file during suspension. Technically you’re breaking those terms right now.’ She glanced around the room, so clearly an office, the golden letters arching over the window. ‘I’m already pretending this isn’t your place of work, because moonlighting during suspension would be another infraction. So lying about where you’re living is a whole load more trouble you don’t want to bring down on yourself. Not with the mess you’re in already.’
It was her first mention of the extent of his problem.
‘And if I told you I would be endangering myself by committing my address to record?’
She studied him from under the mass of blonde hair that was now free of the clasp which had so ineffectually tried to hold it back. ‘You have proof of that?’
He laughed. ‘Four months ago, yes. But the bruises have healed. You’ll just have to take my word for it.’
Her pen hovered over the file and he could see her thinking it through. His undercover work. The connection to drugs. The seriousness of the allegations laid against him. The kind of people who would be involved.
She tapped the end of the biro against her mouth, not realising she’d got the pen the wrong way round and was leaving a trace of ink on her lips. ‘You think your life is in danger?’
‘Yes.’
DC Green glanced at the paperwork in her hands. Then she closed the file and slipped it into her bag along with her biro. ‘Here’s the deal,’ she said. ‘I’ll arrange a meeting with you in person once a month. As long as you turn up, we’ll leave your address as it is. If you fail to attend, then I will inform the authorities that you have broken the conditions of your suspension. Agreed?’
Samson sighed. ‘I don’t need babysitting—’
‘Agreed?’ She had her arms folded, a steeliness to her tone. There would be no dissuading her. He either complied with her demands or had his whereabouts put on file. A file that could easily be seen by people who wanted him out of the way.
‘Okay. But don’t just turn up unannounced. This isn’t something I want everyone round here knowing about.’
Her face softened – was it sympathy, pity? An awareness of the nature of small-town gossip, given her own upbringing? ‘Agreed.’
‘Until next time, then.’ Samson opened the office door.
Delilah Metcalfe was standing in the corridor.
She’d caught the end of it. Arriving back from Fellside Court, stressed from the morning’s incident and the worry of seeing Joseph O’Brien so close to giving up his battle with alcohol, Delilah hadn’t been in the best of moods. Weighed down by the secret she’d been asked to keep from him, she’d headed straight for Samson’s office, intending to pressure him to contact the police over the air-rifle incident. She dreaded the thought that someone more vulnerable might be the next target of the irresponsible idiots behind it. When she’d seen his door closed, she’d been surprised. In the few months he’d been her tenant, she’d rarely known him to hold a meeting with it shut. He said it went against his nature to be cooped up with people he didn’t know – a remnant, no doubt, of his years undercover.
So when she’d spotted the anomaly, she’d walked up to the door. She’d heard the voices, one of them a woman. And curiosity had overcome her. She’d pressed her ear against the wood. Pressed so close that she’d had seconds to step away before the door swung open and Samson was standing there, a blonde-haired woman behind him.
‘Delilah?’ Samson was frowning.
‘Hi,’ she said, trying to control the heat that was coursing up her face. ‘I was about to ask if you wanted a coffee. I didn’t realise you had visitors.’
‘No, no need for coffee.’ He turned to the woman, ushering her out of the office and towards the back door.
No introductions. The woman giving the smallest of smiles as she walked past.
Delilah kept an eye on them as they walked into the yard, Samson saying something, the woman nodding. Then he was opening the gate and she was gone.
Who was that woman? And the bit Delilah had overheard – Samson declaring he didn’t need babysitting – what the hell was that all about? And what was it that Samson didn’t want the p
eople of Bruncliffe to know?
The back door slammed and Samson was coming towards her, a smile on his face.
‘Didn’t take you for someone to listen at doors, Delilah.’
She blushed. ‘And I didn’t take you for someone so secretive.’
‘Can’t a man even have a private life around here?’ he asked, grinning. ‘Or do I have to go to York to get away from prying eyes?’
It threw her. The mention of York. Was that the woman he’d spent Valentine’s Day with? The one with the sultry voice? She’d been expecting someone more . . . sophisticated. Not a child with ink smeared on her lips and her hair all over the place.
Thoughts churning, she turned towards the stairs, only for Samson to call after her.
‘I’ve changed my mind about that coffee. Drop one down when you’ve made yours. Cheers.’
Delilah Metcalfe swore she could hear him chuckling as she marched off to make a drink she didn’t even want. But she didn’t get far. The white envelope on the tiles inside the front door pulled her up short. She picked it up and stared at the odd lettering across the front.
Normally she wouldn’t open Samson’s mail. But there was something sinister about the cut-and-pasted letters. She pulled out the single sheet of paper, unfolded it and gasped.
Above her, through the fanlight over the door, the first flakes of snow were visible, beginning to fall.
‘What do you mean this isn’t the first one?’
Anger mounting, Delilah was standing in front of Samson’s desk, the opened envelope lying on the surface and next to it, the threatening message it had contained.
‘I was going to tell you—’
‘Of course you were.’ A roll of her eyes accompanied Delilah’s retort. She pointed a finger at the sheet of paper with the hotchpotch of yellow and black lettering staggered across it. ‘You had the audacity to lie to me. Telling me it was just kids shooting at us up there, when you knew differently all the time.’
‘I’m sorry. Really, I am. I should have told you sooner.’
‘Too bloody right!’ She turned away, feeling her anger mixing with the stress of the day and threatening tears. She was damned if she’d cry in front of him.
‘If it’s any consolation,’ Samson was saying, ‘I don’t think you’re in any danger.’
She whirled back to face him. ‘Oh, really? So it wasn’t my Micra someone was firing at? With myself and Tolpuddle both in it?’ She had the satisfaction of seeing him flinch.
‘Yes, fair point,’ he muttered. ‘But it was me they were targeting.’ He tapped the envelope. ‘Both letters were addressed to me.’
If he was trying to reassure her, he failed miserably. A shaft of concern shot through her fury, making her even more annoyed at his cavalier attitude. And his exclusion of her. She thought of the ease with which he told lies. The way he kept things secret. The mystery woman with the blonde hair . . .
Frank Thistlethwaite’s warning was beginning to make sense.
‘And that makes it all okay?’ she snapped. ‘You knew someone was threatening you, but you saw no need to tell me. Or to go to the police. Honestly, Samson, when are you going to realise that real life isn’t lived undercover?’ Calling Tolpuddle from his bed, she clipped on his lead and strode out of the office, holding her head high and willing the tears to stay back. At least until she was out of the building.
The back door slammed, rattling the windows and making the ensuing silence even more pronounced.
Damn it! Samson O’Brien let his head fall into his hands and roundly cursed his inability to maintain a working relationship with Delilah Metcalfe. Or any kind of relationship. Every time he thought he’d made progress, he messed up and put them right back to that day in October when she’d greeted his homecoming with a punch.
He should have told her. He should have at least explained to her why he didn’t want the police involved. The letters were their only lead in a case that was going nowhere. If he handed them over to Sergeant Clayton, Bruncliffe’s plodding policeman, word would get round and the perpetrator would go to ground, eliminating whatever slim chance Samson had of finding them and getting closer to the mystery behind Livvy’s death.
It was too late to tell Delilah that now. He stared at the sheet of paper that had caused the trouble.
He hadn’t even had the chance to get the benefit of her insight into the source of the letters. Delilah would have been able to tell him who had air rifles in the area. Who was a good enough marksman to hit a moving car – presuming that was what had been intended. She’d have been able to corroborate the suspicion forming in his mind. Two names. Both involved with the Thornton case.
Oscar Hardacre. A man who didn’t want to talk about the past. Whose love for Livvy had turned bitter. Did he know the truth behind what had happened? Had he been involved somehow? The shooting trophies Samson had seen in the Hardacres’ kitchen suggested Oscar was a feasible candidate for the role of sniper.
And Jimmy Thornton himself. Samson sensed the farmer still wasn’t telling them everything. If he knew what fate had really befallen his sister – possibly at the hands of his own father – would he try to keep it quiet?
Both could have a motive for trying to silence Samson. Both had had the opportunity to fire on the Micra that morning. Although Jimmy would have had to move fast to get from the house to the fellside before they drove past.
Other than that, Samson didn’t have a clue who would want Livvy Thornton to stay well and truly buried. Wherever that was.
Faced with a mystery in the town he was born in, Samson had never felt more like an outsider.
He glanced up from his desk and saw thick snow falling beyond the window, isolating the office from the world beyond. As metaphors went, it was fairly apt.
At Rainsrigg the snow was already settling. Soft white flakes fluttering out of the sky and lying gently upon the exposed stone like a gauze dressing. The sound of a door closing echoed in the silence and two figures emerged from the house which stood sentry over the disused quarry. Arms around each other, they hurried towards their cars, the track leading out to the world beyond patched in white.
A burst of engine noise and the vehicles set off in convoy, leaving the quarry to settle back into a winter’s hush. Leaving the snow to fall on the vegetable patch, covering the bare soil, the last of the cabbages. To coat the roof of the old barn and blur the edges between path and garden. To lie across the handle of the spade, its blade still buried deep in the earth, and to smother the rhubarb, hiding it from sight.
19
The winter that had abated somewhat since mid-February came back with a vengeance in the days following Samson and Delilah’s visit to Rainsrigg Quarry. Snow fell across the Dales, blanketing the fields in white and masking the contours of the fellsides. Sheep huddled up against walls, farmers tracked to and fro with feed, worried by the drifts that were forming, drifts capable of killing their pregnant stock and the newborn lambs that were beginning to dot the hills. Down in the town, roads were mired in grit and slush, pavements covered in a treacherous mixture of compacted snow and ice. Those who ventured out on foot wore sturdy boots. And walked carefully.
Those who ventured out by car put a snow shovel in the boot. And a flask. And a blanket.
Delilah had all three stowed in the Micra – and a Weimaraner on the back seat – as she turned off the main road in Horton, a village to the north of Bruncliffe, and onto the small lane that led to Mire End Farm. Even so, she didn’t feel overly confident. It was foolhardy. Making a trip out in this weather. In a Nissan Micra. Will would have a fit if he knew. But she’d had no choice. Plus, if she’d stayed indoors another moment, she would have gone mad.
A week. An entire week of nothing much happening. No one had taken a shot at her from the fells. And to her knowledge, there’d been no more threatening letters delivered to the Dales Detective Agency. Not that she could vouch for that as she hadn’t spent much time in town, apart from leaving her ca
r at the garage to get the window fixed. She’d told them it was a casualty of debris on the road. If they were puzzled as to how the passenger window and not the windscreen had come to be shattered by a flying piece of rock, they didn’t say.
So seven days of humdrum mediocrity had passed. Other than watching the snow falling and stopping and falling and stopping, Delilah had spent them working from home on a new website for Taylor’s Estate Agents. The commission had come out of the blue, her former father-in-law calling her into his office for a meeting six days ago and asking her to redesign the site she’d created several years before – the website that had brought Neil Taylor into her life. If Delilah’s surprise at being asked to take on the role had shown on her face, Bernard Taylor hadn’t commented. He’d just outlined the brief and told her to get on with it. And mentioned, as she left, that Neil would want some input on the final product.
Of course he would. Her ex-husband wouldn’t allow her to have free rein on a project that had once been his baby. It wasn’t a condition that alarmed her. She was confident that she could work with him without killing him. Especially now the whole farce over Tolpuddle was sorted, the dog’s registration papers having been reissued under her name.
No, what alarmed Delilah about Mr Taylor’s insistence on his son’s collaboration was the danger of her family finding out. Or more specifically, Will. So she hadn’t mentioned the commission at all. Not even to Samson – which, as she’d barely seen him since she stormed out of his office the day of the shooting, was hardly surprising. Her silence wasn’t due solely to a lack of opportunity. For some reason, she was just as averse to her tenant knowing that she would be working alongside Neil as she was to her brother discovering the fact. Unfortunately, however, the Taylor contract wasn’t one she could afford to turn down.
Even with spring just around the corner, a time for new life and new love, the Dales Dating Agency was still struggling for new customers. Admittedly some regulars had renewed their subscriptions, but a handful of repeat payments didn’t represent a business model that would lead to success. Or even survival. To keep the company afloat she needed fresh blood. She’d placed adverts in the local press, hit the internet with targeted marketing – as much as she could afford – and crossed her fingers. Sometimes it felt like the latter had more chance of succeeding than anything else.
Date with Mystery Page 22