Date with Mystery Read online

‘How old was she?’ asked Delilah.

  ‘Seventeen.’

  ‘Poor Jimmy. Imagine losing your sister like that.’

  ‘And then his father not long after,’ added Matty. ‘Life can be cruel.’

  ‘Not sure his father would have been as widely mourned,’ said Samson.

  ‘You knew Carl Thornton?’

  ‘Not through choice. When I’d be trying to drag Dad out of the Fleece, Thornton would be in there, getting drunk and shedding tears over his precious Livvy. Until someone knocked his arm and spilled his drink, and then he’d explode in violence.’

  ‘He certainly took a violent way to go,’ said Delilah, shuddering. ‘Turning a shotgun on yourself is not the easiest option for leaving this world.’

  ‘Grief tears people up in different ways,’ said Samson, thinking about his mother’s death and his father’s decision to drink himself numb in the wake of it. ‘Which makes me wonder if that’s what this situation is. A manifestation of Mrs Thornton’s grief.’

  ‘You mean she added Livvy’s name to the will deliberately, as a kind of tribute?’ asked Matty.

  ‘Yes. A final acknowledgement of her daughter from a woman who knew she was dying.’

  ‘That makes sense. And in truth, that gesture in itself shouldn’t complicate things unduly when it comes to executing the will. However, what does complicate things,’ said Matty, a frown returning to his forehead, ‘is not being able to prove Livvy is dead.’

  ‘What?’ Delilah was staring at the solicitor. ‘How do you mean you can’t prove it?’

  ‘I can’t find a death certificate. And I’ve looked everywhere. I’ve accessed the national database. I’ve tried the local register office. There is no paperwork to attest to her death.’ Matty shrugged. ‘As far as the state is concerned, Olivia Thornton is not deceased.’

  ‘Which is why you need help,’ said Samson.

  ‘Precisely. I need someone to do a bit of legwork for me. Although,’ added the solicitor, turning to Delilah, ‘the more I think about it, this one might require some local knowledge, too. You know Jimmy Thornton quite well?’

  ‘Well enough,’ she said. ‘He was good friends with my brother Chris when he was younger. They were in the same year at school, and Jimmy was up at the farm a fair bit. He was also a client of the dating agency.’

  ‘Was?’

  She grinned. ‘Yes. Unfortunately, when I’m successful I lose my clients. He’s engaged to a young woman he met through my website.’

  Matty nodded. ‘In that case,’ he said, looking from Delilah to Samson and back again, ‘I’d like to hire you both.’

  Delilah’s delight was clear to see, while Samson stifled a groan. He wasn’t sure he could survive working with Delilah Metcalfe again.

  Thorough in the way you’d expect of a conscientious solicitor, it took Matty a full fifteen minutes to satisfy himself that his hired help understood their remit: Samson and Delilah were tasked with finding the necessary paperwork that would testify to Olivia Thornton’s death. Or, if that proved impossible, discovering why there was no official verification.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Matty, getting to his feet. ‘How soon can you get onto this?’

  Samson made a show of consulting his laptop while Delilah tapped her smartwatch and scrolled through her diary.

  ‘If I move a few appointments, I can start tomorrow,’ said Delilah. ‘Would that suit you, Samson?’

  ‘Yes. I can juggle things around to make that work,’ he said, looking at a blank screen.

  ‘I really appreciate it,’ said Matty, bending down to fondle Tolpuddle’s ears, the dog stretching in his bed. ‘It’s great to know you’re both so busy, though. Helps keep this guy in dog biscuits.’

  Tolpuddle closed his eyes, head flopping back onto his paws, and Matty laughed. Then he glanced at Delilah. The shake of her head was so slight, Samson almost missed it. But it was impossible not to notice the intensity with which she was regarding the solicitor.

  ‘I’ll walk you out, Matty,’ she said, ushering him out of the room and closing the door behind them.

  The second they left his office, Samson moved across to the door. And put his ear to it.

  ‘Sorry,’ he heard Delilah murmur. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’

  ‘You still haven’t told him, have you?’ Matty asked.

  ‘No. And I don’t intend to.’

  ‘You’re making a mistake. The law can’t help you with this. But Samson might be able to.’

  ‘I don’t see how.’

  A pause. And then the sound of the front door opening, the voices harder to hear now.

  Samson hurried back to the desk, gathered up the mugs onto the tray and, with a perfect excuse, headed out into the hall. He was in time to see Delilah closing the front door and turning round, a hand to her mouth, her face twisted in worry.

  ‘Everything okay?’ he asked.

  She glanced up, a bright smile chasing away the frown. ‘Yes. Fine. Just thinking about how much I’m going to have to rejig my schedule.’

  She breezed past him and into the office, where he heard her making a fuss of Tolpuddle.

  Rejig her schedule, indeed, thought Samson, not fooled for a moment by her lies as he made his way up to the kitchen with the tray. He’d bet everything he had – which wasn’t much – on her calendar being as blank as his own. So what was bothering Miss Metcalfe? And how come Matty Thistlethwaite knew all about it and he didn’t?

  More importantly, if it was something Matty believed Samson could sort, how come she hadn’t asked for help?

  ‘What do you think, boy? Should I ask him?’

  Tolpuddle regarded Delilah with his head tilted, one ear slightly cocked, delighting in the fuss she was making of him. It wasn’t exactly an answer.

  Trouble was, Delilah already knew the answer. Matty was right. She’d been to see him before Christmas to explain the situation, and Matty had been clear – the law wasn’t going to be able to help her keep her dog. The paperwork from the Kennel Club was in her ex-husband’s name, so she was fooling herself if she thought she could win a court case. Neil would be awarded custody the minute those documents were produced. Even though everyone in Bruncliffe knew Tolpuddle was her dog, bought by Neil in a rare thoughtful act to ease her heartbreak after the loss of her brother, Ryan.

  So, other than running away with Tolpuddle, Samson was Delilah’s only remaining option.

  But asking him for help would mean telling him she’d been married. And divorced. Something she was certain he wasn’t aware of, having been away from Bruncliffe in the years she lived to regret her reckless decision to wed Neil Taylor, son of the town’s most successful estate agent and the current mayor. She was afraid Samson would think badly of her. Give her lectures on the perils of youthful romance just as Will, her oldest brother, insisted on doing every time her failed marriage was brought up.

  Besides, she decided as she heard footsteps coming back down the stairs, what on earth could Samson do anyway? There was absolutely no point in telling him.

  Slapping a smile on her face, she moved towards the door, Tolpuddle in tow. A run on the fells. That would help clear her head. After all, nearly two months had passed since Neil had contacted her to say he would be coming to Bruncliffe to take what he considered to be his dog. There hadn’t been a word from him since. Given his fickle nature, there was every chance he’d had second thoughts and decided he didn’t want Tolpuddle back in his life.

  With her head firmly buried in the sand, Delilah headed upstairs to change.

  3

  Wednesday morning dawned bright and clear, a crisp sky above the Dales and a sharp wind blowing from the east. But inside the Dales Detective Agency, dark clouds were brewing.

  ‘I said no. You’re not coming.’

  Delilah scowled, her right foot very close to being stomped on the tattered lino of Samson’s office floor. ‘I am coming. Matty hired both of us, or have you forgotten that already?’

 
; Samson scowled back at her. ‘How could I forget it when it’s all you’ve talked about since yesterday morning? But that doesn’t change anything. I work better alone.’

  ‘Huh! Not much evidence of that lately. Who had to run across the fells chasing a killer?’

  ‘Only because I was injured in a fight with said killer. And besides, the victims were all your clients, so in actual fact I was helping you.’

  ‘What about at Fellside Court?’ Delilah continued, referring to events just before Christmas. ‘You couldn’t have sorted that without my input. You haven’t got a clue about surveillance cameras and spy software.’

  ‘Gadgets which only work if someone doesn’t tip a cup of tea all over them,’ he replied pointedly.

  ‘That’s not fair! It was Tolpuddle’s fault.’

  ‘That’s right. Blame the dog when he’s not here to defend himself. Where is the hound, by the way?’

  ‘Clarissa Ralph is looking after him,’ said Delilah with a twinge of guilt. Normally Tolpuddle never left her side, his anxiety in the wake of her divorce such that he didn’t cope well with being separated from her. Or rather, things around him didn’t cope well. Shoes, trainers, cushions – when Tolpuddle got stressed, they took the brunt of his worries. All accompanied by a loud wail that could be mistaken for an air-raid siren.

  Since Samson’s arrival, however, the dog had been a lot calmer, happy to spend time alone with the returned detective to the extent that he now had a bed in both offices, and passed his days wandering between the two of them. He’d also taken a shine to Clarissa Ralph, one of the residents of Fellside Court, the retirement complex where Samson’s father lived. And the place that had been the setting for the awful events that had come to light before Christmas.

  Still coming to terms with the tragedy that had visited their peaceful world, Clarissa and her sister, Edith Hird, had leapt at the chance to look after Tolpuddle. But that didn’t stop Delilah feeling guilty. Abandoning him for half a day when she had no idea how many more days she’d have with him.

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said to Samson, her enthusiasm for detective work fading. ‘I’ll stay here. With Tolpuddle.’

  Samson stared at her, waiting for the laughter. But none came. Delilah Metcalfe had just backed down. In all the years he’d known her, he could never remember her capitulating in an argument quite so easily.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Why?’ she snapped.

  ‘It’s just not like you to give in so soon. I was expecting this to carry on all the way up to Rainsrigg.’

  She shrugged, already heading for the stairs and her office on the first floor. ‘I’ve got better things to be doing than arguing with you.’

  ‘But it’s a lovely morning,’ he urged. ‘Come on. It’ll do you good to get out.’

  She paused on the first step, clearly wavering.

  ‘We can take the bike. Come back the scenic route.’ He was holding out the spare helmet, knowing how strong the pull of the Royal Enfield was.

  ‘I suppose it wouldn’t hurt,’ she said, stepping back down into the hall.

  Ten minutes later, not sure how he’d gone from refusing her company to begging her to go with him, Samson O’Brien was pulling out of the ginnel at the back of the office building, a pillion passenger up behind him. As they rode round the marketplace and down Church Street, passing under the high arches of the viaduct towards Gunnerstang Brow, he decided that working with Delilah Metcalfe would never be straightforward.

  ‘How can anyone live here?’ asked Delilah. Helmet in hand, she was staring at the road ahead and the brutal landscape it led to.

  They’d turned off the main road just before they got to the top of Gunnerstang Brow to the west of town and Samson had pulled over, the motorbike idling beneath them. Like her, he’d removed his helmet, the wind whipping at his shoulder-length hair.

  ‘I suppose some people don’t have a choice,’ he suggested, feeling anew the amazement that this place had produced someone as vivid as Livvy Thornton.

  It was stark. A narrow road winding away into a ravaged hillside, bare rock cut into tiers, rusting machinery left abandoned. White. Grey. Black. Not a hint of green. It was as unlike the Dales around it as you could get.

  Rainsrigg Quarry. Once a thriving industry providing work for many in Bruncliffe, now it was simply an empty pocket gouged out of the landscape. And just in front of it, like a defiant watchman guarding a burnt-out warehouse, was a cottage. The Thornton home. Although, with Mrs Thornton now deceased, it would probably be changing hands before long.

  ‘When did the quarry close?’ asked Samson, taken aback at the desolation ahead of him. When he’d left town it had been going strong, employing quite a few of his friends from school.

  ‘Must be ten years ago. Maybe more. Now it’s just a perfect setting for grief,’ muttered Delilah, putting her helmet back on. ‘It gives me the creeps.’

  Samson pulled his own helmet on and they made their way down the road to the house, coming to a stop beside the Land Rover parked out front where the large figure of Jimmy Thornton was already waiting for them.

  ‘I saw you coming,’ Jimmy said, nodding back in the direction of the main road. ‘Bit difficult to sneak up on anyone here.’ He held out a large hand. ‘Good to have you home, Samson.’

  Unused to being welcomed so warmly in Bruncliffe, Samson felt his hand engulfed in the man’s huge grip. ‘Sorry we’re meeting under these circumstances,’ he said. ‘I presume Matty Thistlethwaite filled you in on why we’re here.’

  Jimmy tilted his head to one side. ‘Aye. Something about Livvy’s death certificate being missing. Not as I see how I can help, but come on in. We’ll have more comfort if we talk inside.’

  He led them through the front garden, Delilah noting the small but immaculate lawn, the tidy borders dotted with snowdrops and the green tips of daffodils bright against the winter soil. Inside was just as well kept. A narrow hallway took them past the front room and into a kitchen at the back, which spanned the full width of the house. Wooden units ran along the walls, a range took up one side and a table nestled in the far corner against the window. The room looked out across a back garden with a sizeable vegetable patch and an old barn. And onto the quarry, the vista a complete contrast to the farmland that had formed the backdrop to Metcalfe family meals.

  ‘What an unusual view,’ Delilah said.

  ‘That’s one way of putting it,’ said Jimmy, gesturing for them to sit in while he poured tea.

  ‘Do you get used to it?’

  ‘I didn’t. Hated it when I was a nipper. Hate it now.’ He shook his head in disgust at the bare rock cutting into the fellside. ‘Mother liked it, though. Said it takes all sorts to make Nature.’

  The wind gusted outside, swirling up an eddy of white dust which spattered against the glass.

  ‘Spent her whole life trying to keep that damn dirt out,’ muttered Jimmy.

  ‘You weren’t tempted to move after your father died?’

  ‘I was.’ He placed three mugs on the table. Delilah, noting the strength of the brew and the excess of milk, didn’t dare look at Samson, whose southern tastebuds hadn’t yet reacclimatised to Dales-style tea.

  ‘Your mother wouldn’t move?’ Samson asked, not reaching for a mug.

  ‘Wouldn’t hear of it. When I left home I still couldn’t get her to budge. And it wasn’t for want of trying. I tried to persuade her to take one of those flats Rick Procter built in the old mill, but she always said she’d miss her vegetable patch. And her precious rhubarb. Even on her deathbed she was telling me to look after it.’ Jimmy shrugged. ‘Truth is, she associated the house with Livvy. Despite the fact that Livvy wasn’t living here any longer when she died.’

  ‘She was in Leeds, wasn’t she?’ asked Samson. It was a question he already knew the answer to. Because when he’d fled Bruncliffe that night fourteen years ago, he’d headed for Leeds himself. Partly because of Livvy Thornton. She’d
been dead a while then, but even so, he’d liked the connection. Although she hadn’t stolen her father’s Royal Enfield to make the journey.

  ‘Yes. I was only eight when she moved out so I can’t remember exact dates,’ said Jimmy. ‘But she must have been there a few months before the accident, because I know she wasn’t here when the curlews came back that year. We used to compete to see who could hear the first one of the season. I remember running home to tell her there was one above Hardacre’s farm, forgetting that she wasn’t there to tell.’

  ‘So she left home in early spring?’

  ‘Must have been. She never did hear that curlew.’ He gave an apologetic shrug.

  ‘We’ve got the date of the accident as May the twenty-ninth. Is that right?’ asked Delilah.

  Jimmy nodded. ‘You think that might be causing the problem with the paperwork? A mistake with the date?’

  ‘It could be that simple,’ said Samson. ‘But at this stage we’re just making sure we’ve got all the facts. Like where Livvy was living in Leeds. Do you happen to know?’

  ‘No. I never got to visit her.’

  ‘Do you have any letters from her? Anything with an address on?’

  A shadow crossed the big man’s face. ‘Nothing. All I know is that she worked at a hairdresser’s called Snips. I remember thinking that was funny as a kid.’

  ‘Your mother never talked about where Livvy was?’ asked Delilah.

  ‘No.’ The answer was concise and clipped, as if Jimmy’s lips had closed before other words could tumble out.

  ‘So did she come home much in that time?’

  ‘Not once.’ Jimmy stared at the table.

  ‘And you didn’t go to Leeds, which means the last time you saw her . . .’ Delilah paused, upset to think about the eight-year-old boy and all he’d lost.

  ‘I last saw Livvy here,’ said Jimmy with a long sigh.

  ‘You poor thing.’ Delilah reached out a hand to the farmer’s arm.

  ‘What about the accident?’ Samson asked. ‘What do you remember about it?’

  ‘Not a lot. Mother didn’t talk about it. And Father . . .’ His gaze shifted to the old barn in the yard. ‘I didn’t get much chance to talk to Father about it.’ He stared back down at the table, large hands toying with his mug. ‘But the basics are that Livvy was run over crossing the road. They never caught the driver.’