Samson O’Brien’s detective skills had been spot on: Delilah had been lying. Far from sitting with her sister-in-law in Peaks Patisserie, putting the world to rights over coffee and a blueberry muffin, she was standing in the gloom of the Fleece about to address a crowd of people.
People she’d personally invited to be there.
‘If I could have your attention?’ She raised her voice above the muted conversations and waited for silence to fall.
The place was packed. The small tables that hugged the walls were crowded with farmers, shopkeepers, hairdressers, a large group of pensioners from the retirement complex, a solicitor, a vet, a restaurant owner, a livestock auctioneer, a librarian, a gamekeeper and several members of Delilah’s family. All people she knew. All people she could trust. They were sitting on stools or standing, leaning against the bar or the walls, not much of the pub’s threadbare floral carpet showing. And all of them were looking at her, faces alight with curiosity at the nature of this meeting which had pulled them away from whatever a Friday morning would normally hold.
All she had to do now was convince them to put themselves in danger. And for someone who was widely viewed as the town’s black sheep . . .
‘First of all, thanks for coming at such short notice,’ she began as Ida Capstick slipped into the room and stood at the back. ‘I’m sure you’re all wondering what this is all about—’
‘I’m hoping it’s an early bird lock-in,’ called out a frail elderly man, a portable oxygen cylinder between his knees.
A wave of laughter washed over the room, even the sullen features of landlord Troy Murgatroyd behind the bar showing a semblance of a smile.
‘Sorry, Eric,’ said Delilah, glad of the break in tension, ‘but what I’m about to ask of you is nowhere near as enjoyable as drinking in the Fleece. In fact, it could be dangerous.’
She had their attention now. Smiles gone. A few eyebrows raised. But no one was walking out. Because these folk would walk through fire for her, Delilah knew that. She was Bruncliffe born and bred, with a lineage spanning generations in the town and surrounding farms. Whether they would show the same loyalty to the man many viewed as an offcumden, despite him having been born there, remained to be seen. It wasn’t just the fourteen years he’d spent away from Bruncliffe that had labelled Samson O’Brien as an outsider. It was the manner in which he’d left. And regardless of all he’d done to overthrow that reputation since his return in the autumn, there was still a wariness when it came to accepting him as a true local.
‘Thing is,’ she continued, ‘I need your help. Or more precisely, Samson needs your help. He’s in serious trouble—’
‘Nothing new there, then,’ muttered Troy, a few nods echoing his statement, the mood in the room not as receptive as moments ago.
‘What’s he done this time?’ asked Tom Hardacre, a farmer from out on the Horton Road.
Delilah had been prepared for the scepticism – these were Bruncliffe folk after all – and she knew the only way to win them over was to be upfront and frank. Problem was, that wasn’t an option. Not in the situation she was in.
‘It’s not what he’s done. It’s what he didn’t do. You all saw the article in the Herald, the charges he’s facing . . .’ She didn’t need to elaborate. The local paper had covered the case in detail and the locals had lapped it up. The undercover operative, suspended from his role with the National Crime Agency and accused of being in cahoots with organised crime, making sure drugs seized in operations made their way back onto the streets, generating substantial profits for himself and his partners. It was the stuff of Hollywood, playing out in this small town in the Yorkshire Dales. And Samson O’Brien was at the heart of it. ‘It’s connected to that.’
The reluctance was visible now, broad arms folding over broader chests, one or two shakes of the head. For despite Samson’s protestations of innocence, the legends that had built up over the decades about Bruncliffe’s reprobate made the current accusations all too credible. Delilah sensed she was losing them and she hadn’t even got to the difficult bit.
‘If he needs a character reference for the trial,’ piped up Kamal Hussain, his daughter Nina next to him, ‘I’ll happily provide one.’
The owner of the town’s Indian restaurant seemed unfazed to be going against the tide of opinion in the room. Delilah gave him a grateful smile.
‘I wish it was that simple,’ she said before taking a deep breath, knowing that what she said next was going to change how she was viewed in her home town forevermore. ‘But the truth is, Samson is never going to make it to court. He’s going to be dead before then unless we act.’
‘Dead?’ Troy Murgatroyd’s exclamation of surprise was backed with gasps from the rest of the room. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about a very real threat to his life. There’s a hitman coming to Bruncliffe to kill Samson. And we’re going to stop him.’
There was a second of stunned silence. Then the laughter started.
While Delilah was trying to regain control of her covert meeting in the Fleece, the subject of that meeting was out in the ginnel which ran behind the office building, staring at the ground.
There was glass all right, no big bits but enough to have caused Ida’s puncture, scattered across the rough surface in a small area just over halfway down the alleyway, towards the end furthest from the marketplace. Samson bent down and picked up a sliver, turning it in the sunlight. Green glass. Thick. The sort used in wine bottles. He held it to his nose, the deep aroma telling him he’d guessed correctly. That and the crimson stain blotting the gravel to one side.
A bottle of red. This wasn’t the work of teenage hooligans as Ida had thought. Bored kids looking for trouble wouldn’t go to the expense of buying wine if they wanted to smash something.
A soft bark made him turn, his partner for the day, tail wagging, was snuffling at the ground close to the high stone wall that separated the ginnel from the back yards of the properties that lined it.
‘What you got, boy?’
Tolpuddle lifted his head and barked again. And then whined, nose hovering over the area. Samson crouched down beside him and saw the gravel was flecked with tiny pink crumbs. Food of some sort, judging by his partner’s reaction. Thinking nothing of it, he was about to stand when something wedged in a crack at the base of the wall caught his eye. He reached over and pulled it out.
A prawn cracker. Pink. That explained the crumbs. Another whine came from the Weimaraner, focus now on the object in Samson’s hand, a hopeful expression on his face.
‘Here,’ said Samson with a laugh, offering up his find, which was consumed in an instant. ‘Who says detective work can’t be enjoyable?’ With a pat on the grateful dog’s flank, he straightened up. ‘And as for our conclusions,’ he continued, looking from the crumbs of what had presumably been other prawn crackers to the remnants of the smashed bottle, ‘I’d say we have a simple case of dropped takeaway . . .’
Even as he said it, he was thinking back to the evening before. To the Chinese meal that had been promised but never delivered, Delilah returning to the office after a lengthy absence to claim that she was abandoning the plan due to a headache. Not only abandoning the plan to eat but also pulling back from the new phase of their relationship that Samson was sure they’d entered. That kiss before she set off for the Happy House to collect their food – had he blown it out of proportion? He didn’t think so.
Could this be an explanation for her abrupt change of heart? She’d dropped the takeaway and spoiled the evening and so had gone home in a foul mood?
But the evidence, if it was that, was in the wrong place. It was too far down the ginnel, implying that Delilah had walked straight past the back gate for some reason, and then had her mishap. Plus, if that was what had happened, where was the rest of the bottle? And the rest of the prawn crackers? Because the scene of the crime was remarkably clean considering what he was suggesting.
Even though he was already dismissing his hypothesis as ludicrous, he started walking, away from the office, following the curve of the ginnel until he emerged at the far end of Back Street. If the street wasn’t exactly the commercial hub of Bruncliffe, this part of it, where it became Hillside Lane – the road that wound up the fells towards Ellershaw Farm, the Metcalfe place – had even more of an abandoned air. To his left was the old school, the long Victorian building with its many gables having been converted into what were mostly holiday homes, which lay empty for long stretches of the year. Across from it was the stern facade of the Wesleyan chapel, somewhere Samson had been well acquainted with as a small boy, his mother being one of the Sunday school teachers. He’d not set foot in the place after her death, his father at first not having the heart to cajole an eight-year-old into more schooling on a weekend and then later, when the drinking started, being in no state to drive all the way from their isolated farm even if Samson had expressed an inclination to attend.
Judging by the cracks in some of the windows and the weeds pushing up past the paving slabs, not many others had set foot inside the chapel recently either.
Not entirely sure why he’d felt compelled to walk down here, his musings of moments ago now seeming ridiculous, Samson turned to go back into the ginnel. His partner had other ideas. Stretched up on his hind legs, Tolpuddle was pulling at a white plastic bag that was sticking out of one of the wheelie bins which had been left in front of the old school cottages for collection.
‘No, Tolpuddle!’ Samson admonished, the dog dropping to the ground, turning to look at him, innocence personified. With the large body of the Weimaraner no longer blocking the view, the bag was now clearly visible. As was the name on it.
Happy House Takeaway.
A coincidence? After years working undercover, Samson didn’t believe in them. He walked over to the bin and pulled the bag clear, the weight of it catching him by surprise. Inside were five aluminium food cartons of various sizes, covers still on, all of them full, although some sauce had leaked out of one where the corner was bashed. As if it had been dropped.
If Samson had been asked to bet on the contents he’d have said crispy duck, special chow mein, Szechuan beef, spring rolls and a portion of fried rice. But he didn’t need to open the containers to confirm his educated guess. There was a receipt stapled to the bag, listing the order he recognised from the night before. And if that wasn’t enough, Delilah’s name was scrawled in pencil across it.
Their meal. Abandoned uneaten at the far end of the ginnel. No matter how he worked it in his mind, Samson couldn’t make head nor tail of it. He set the bag on the floor, guarding it with his leg from the keen interest of his partner, and lifted the lid of the bin.
On top of several black bin bags was an abandoned bag of prawn crackers and a small pile of glass.
Mystery solved. Kind of. For some reason, Delilah had dropped the takeaway, spilling the prawn crackers and smashing the bottle of wine. At which point, instead of simply going back to the office with the rest of the meal, which was unscathed, she’d carried on down the ginnel and dumped it in the nearest wheelie bin. And then cleared up the mess as best as she could before returning to the waiting Samson and Tolpuddle to announce she was heading straight home.
Even allowing for the fact that this was Delilah Metcalfe – a tempestuous woman he made no claims to fully understand – such behaviour was bizarre. But the evidence was here, staring him in the face and making Tolpuddle whine with anticipation.
With a shake of his head, Samson picked up the bag of uneaten Chinese food and placed it back in the bin, much to the Weimaraner’s consternation.
At least Ida didn’t need to worry about the ginnel having become a focal point for troublemakers. Although Samson wouldn’t be telling her the details – that would mean confronting Delilah with what he’d discovered and he had no intention of doing that. Not when their relationship was in such a perilous state.
A simple accident. That’s what he’d tell his client. Ida would accept that, especially when he presented her with her repaired bike.
Smiling at the thought, Samson turned towards the ginnel. And spotted something which cast doubt on all of his attempts to second-guess Delilah Metcalfe’s movements the previous evening.
A footprint, forged in what looked like blood.
‘You mean an actual assassin—?’
‘That sounds dangerous—’
‘I don’t see how we can help—’
‘Count me out—!’
Over in the Fleece, the mirth that had greeted Delilah’s astonishing announcement had descended into shock as she’d gone on to describe the terrible situation Samson O’Brien was in. That shock was being replaced with a growing tone of belligerence, not just from Troy Murgatroyd behind the bar. Although it was his voice which now rose above all of the others.
‘You’ve got to be joking, lass,’ he said. ‘You’re asking us to put our lives on the line for someone who couldn’t wait to be shot of this town? Why on earth should we do that?’
‘Aye,’ came a murmured agreement from Tom Hardacre, the farmer nodding vigorously. ‘That’s a lot to ask. Sounds like it’s more a job for Sergeant Clayton and young Constable Bradley.’
‘He’s got a point, Delilah,’ the calm tones of Matty Thistlethwaite came from a table to one side. A respected solicitor in the town despite his relative youth, as he continued to speak the murmuring fell silent. ‘If Samson is in this much trouble then you should be getting the police involved. I’m sure Frank would be able to help—’
‘No!’ Delilah cut him off. ‘No police. No Sergeant Clayton or Danny. And no Frank.’
DCI Frank Thistlethwaite was not only Matty’s cousin, but it was common knowledge that he also held Delilah in high regard. No surprise then, that her curt refusal of his assistance raised a few eyebrows amongst those gathered.
‘Sorry, Matty,’ she said, before turning to Eric Bradley, grandfather of Danny, ‘and Eric, but I don’t trust anyone outside this room. This needs to be done by us. And by us alone.’
Her brother Will was shaking his head. ‘Come on, sis. You’re asking folk to do something that should really be the remit of the officers of the law, and for someone who hasn’t exactly earned their respect—’
‘He’s got my respect,’ said Lucy Metcalfe, countering her brother-in-law.
‘Mine, too!’ stated Annie Hardacre. ‘And he should have everyone else’s as well, with all he’s done since he came back—’
‘But what about what he did before he left?’ demanded Troy. ‘It’s not like he was blemish-free when he lived here.’
‘Oh come on, don’t be raking up the past again,’ interjected Barbara Hargreaves, the butcher’s wife shaking a thick finger of reproach in the direction of the landlord. ‘Not like any of us are saints—’
‘Saints? He was a long way from that—!’
It was like lighting a touchpaper, voices starting to rise once more, some in support of Bruncliffe’s black sheep, others in opposition. The room fast descended into a babble of noise as people argued heatedly in small groups about the O’Brien lad, neighbour against neighbour, friend against friend and, in Tom Hardacre’s case, husband against wife – Annie making it clear she didn’t share Tom’s reticence to get involved. Against all this, Delilah’s attempts to reclaim order were going unnoticed.
‘Please, please, if you could just hear me out?’ she was saying, waving her arms, trying to get her audience to calm down, to no avail.
‘She’s losing them,’ murmured Arty Robinson. Having abandoned his post at the back door of the pub in order to hear what merited such an impressive gathering of people, he was sitting next to his friend, Joseph O’Brien – father of the man causing such impassioned debate – and watching the growing uproar with a shrewd eye. ‘I’d say she’s got a couple of minutes before folk start walking.’
Joseph nodded and got to his feet, a man aged beyond his years by premature grief followed by decades of drinking. He was a quiet soul by nature, not one to make a fuss about anything, Arty unable to recall the last time he’d seen the Irishman get cross. Head slightly bowed, shoulders hunched, he made his way to the front of the room.
‘What’s he up to?’ hissed Eric Bradley, leaning over to Arty, one hand protectively on his oxygen canister as though he suspected the raucous arguments could turn into a riot. Which, judging by the way Will Metcalfe was shaking his head furiously at his sister-in-law, Lucy, might not be that far off, the oldest of the Metcalfe siblings having a notorious temper. ‘Joseph’s liable to get himself killed if he tries talking to this lot.’
Arty shared Eric’s concern. For this was a powder keg that had been over fourteen years waiting for a spark, since the moment the young O’Brien had disappeared into the night on his father’s Royal Enfield motorbike, never to be seen or heard of until he’d turned up out of the blue October just gone.
Fourteen years in which he’d left his father to fester out at Twistleton Farm, the man an alcoholic, the farm a wreck. And there hadn’t been a peep out of the lad. Not even when his best mate, Ryan Metcalfe, had been killed on duty over in Afghanistan. While the town had turned out to show its support for Lucy, her son and the grieving Metcalfes, Samson had been nowhere to be seen. Little wonder resentment had built up over that time, even amongst those who’d had close contact with the lad since his return.
Delilah’s request had lanced a long-festering boil. And if he wasn’t careful, Joseph O’Brien was about to get the sins of his son visited upon him.
‘If I could have a word?’ It was said quietly, Joseph’s soft lilt somehow cutting through the more strident Yorkshire tones filling the room. He dipped his head in acknowledgement as silence fell. ‘Thank you. Now, you all know I’m not one to interfere much in town politics. Even when it’s my family at the centre of it.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘But I’m making an exception today. This is my son you’re talking about—’
‘Aye, Joseph,’ Troy Murgatroyd muttered. ‘Your son who isn’t even here today to ask us for help in person. Leaving it to his father to do his dirty work.’
‘Like when he left town,’ grumbled Will Metcalfe. ‘Leaving other folk to pick up the pieces.’
Joseph didn’t get annoyed. He just nodded, as though granting them the fairness of their arguments. Then he gave a sad smile. ‘Thing is,’ he said, ‘if we’re going to rake over the coals of a fire long since gone out, there’s something you all need to know about that night fourteen years ago.’
If Joseph had been battling to keep the focus of the room, he had it now, every eye in the place on him, the silence strained with anticipation. For despite the speculation and the rumour over the years, no one knew the truth of that momentous evening. Of how a celebration had turned into a family tragedy.
‘I’m sure youse remember it well,’ Joseph continued, with the same wry tone. He nodded towards Lucy Metcalfe. ‘Young Nathan’s christening, all of us there to commemorate the birth of Lucy and Ryan’s first child against that dreadful backdrop of foot-and-mouth, which was ravaging our land and our livelihoods.’
His words brought back the memories, vivid still despite the passing years. The burning sheep carcases in the fields. The farms losing herds that had been built up over countless generations. The countryside locked down, businesses going bust. The christening had been like a bright star in those dark days. Until the fight broke out.
‘I’ve no need to tell you that I celebrated more than most, as was my wont in those days. To be honest, I was probably already drunk when we got there. But despite what you all think, that wasn’t the reason Samson and I fell out—’
Will Metcalfe let out an exasperated snort. ‘Fell out? He flattened you! Not more than two hours after he accepted his responsibilities as godfather to a newborn baby he went and punched his own father, wrecked the entire afternoon, and then left home rather than face the consequences. Instead of getting you the help you needed. And you wonder why folk are reticent to put their lives at risk for him.’
A low murmur of agreement met Will’s words but Joseph was shaking his head. ‘That’s not what happened,’ he said softly. ‘Not what happened at all.’
‘So what were you arguing about if it wasn’t your drinking?’ asked Delilah, as mesmerised by this revelation as the rest.
Joseph took a deep breath and looked up, as though seeking guidance from the heavens. When he next spoke, there was a distinct quaver to his words. ‘I asked him to do something dreadful. Something so awful, he blew up.’
‘What did you ask of him?’ Delilah had put her hand on Joseph’s arm, sensing the man’s nervousness.
‘I told him to infect our stock with foot-and-mouth.’
The sentence hung in the air, stark, appalling. Bruncliffe being a farming community, everyone in the room knew the seriousness of what had just been said.
‘You all know how it was. The farm was failing, despite Samson’s best efforts,’ Joseph continued, ‘and I was drinking what little profit we made. Then the virus struck. Everywhere seemed to have it. But out there in Thorpdale, we were so isolated, it didn’t come close. Our healthy sheep kept grazing. Our bills kept mounting. But our hands were tied. The auctions were all closed, there were bans on transporting stock and we couldn’t sell our lambs.’ He shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of despair. ‘It seemed like the only option. To infect the stock deliberately—’
‘And get the compensation,’ murmured Delilah.
Joseph nodded morosely. ‘I can’t believe I suggested it. But all I could think about was where the money was going to come from to keep me drinking. And for some reason it came to a head at the christening. I overheard Will talking about a farmer he knew who’d just had a huge payout from the government after all his cattle were culled and it just didn’t seem fair. So I cornered Samson and started badgering him about it, demanding he did as I asked, that it was his duty as a son . . .
‘Of course, I wasn’t thinking about the impact on anyone else. That if Twistleton was infected, Ida and George would have had to cull their animals too.’ Joseph gave an apologetic glance towards the cleaner, his former neighbour who had a smallholding with her brother in Thorpdale. ‘I wasn’t thinking about anything except the fact that the compensation would be a windfall that would keep me in drink. So when Samson refused, aghast, pointing out the repercussions my selfish plan would have on others, I just kept on at him. Even when it was clear he wouldn’t condone it, I continued haranguing him until, in the end, he turned round and told me that his mother would have been disgusted with me. Which is when I hit him.’
The silence that greeted this admission was thick with shock, everyone present aware of the magnitude of what Joseph had proposed and the awful position in which he’d placed his son. Aware too, that many less scrupulous folk might have succumbed to what could have been considered an easy way out of financial hardship.
They were also busy reconfiguring their memories of that day under the late spring sunshine and the brawl that had been like a manifestation of the troubled times, son having to be pulled off father, the christening party thrown into chaos.
‘I was guilt-ridden, well aware he was right, that Kathleen would have had nothing to do with such a proposal,’ said Joseph, picking up the tale, his head hanging, gaze on the floor. ‘And so I lashed out. At my own son. But it’s what I did when Samson came home that night that I’m most ashamed of.’ He cleared his throat into the expectant hush. ‘When . . . when he arrived back at the farm, having been god knows where but no doubt trying to cool off, I greeted him on the doorstep with a loaded shotgun. And I told him he was to leave and never come back.’ Joseph’s wry shrug was offset by the glint of tears in his eyes. ‘Unfortunately, Samson took me at my word.’
‘Jesus,’ muttered Will. ‘And all this time we thought—’
‘All this time you all judged him without knowing anything of the truth. And I was too drunk and then too ashamed to set it right. But I’m setting it right now. Samson is a good lad. He’d be the first to raise his hand if any of you here were in danger. In fact, he’s done that a few times in the months since he came back. So I’m begging you, if you decide you don’t want to help him today, don’t let it be because of what happened in the past. Because the thing is, Samson was never a black sheep. It was just Bruncliffe that painted him that way. And I stood by and let it happen.’
There was a creak of chairs as Joseph fell quiet, more than one head dropped in shame as they digested this extraordinary revelation that had changed the past fourteen years of the town’s history. And then Troy Murgatroyd spoke.
‘Well bugger me!’ he exclaimed, coming round from behind the bar to shake Joseph’s hand. ‘That took some courage. And as for your lad, I disagree. He’ll always be the black sheep in this town. But he’s our black sheep. And I’m damned if I’m going to let someone come in here and threaten one of ours.’ He turned to face the room. ‘Who’s with me?’
A forest of hands shot into the air.
All except Delilah’s. Because hers were clutching her mobile, her face pale as she stared at the text she’d just received. She looked up at the crowd before her and when she spoke, her words were laced with dread.
‘It’s too late,’ she said. ‘We’ve don’t have time. It’s happening tomorrow.’