By early afternoon, the lounge in Fellside Court was thrumming with voices. Such was the excitement, the TV in the background was going largely ignored, even the pensioners’ favourite programme, Flog It, unable to compete with the news which had broken that morning.
Someone had murdered the young ecologist who was working on the Dinsdale planning permission and dumped the body up at the Hoffmann kiln. And in a twist of fate, Elaine Bullock, known to all the residents as the god-daughter of Fellside Court’s Alice Shepherd – who herself had been murdered just eight months past – was being questioned in connection with the crime.
It was enough to keep the residents buzzing for a week. One person, however, was being uncharacteristically quiet.
As the August sunshine streamed in through the wall of windows which overlooked the courtyard of the retirement complex, Arty Robinson was wrapped up in his own selfish thoughts. Because they were selfish, he was aware of that. While the lovely Elaine was being questioned about her involvement in the murder, rather than fretting over how she was getting on, as was the topic among the circle of friends seated around him, all his thoughts were for himself.
How the hell was he going to find out who had bought Fellside Court? With Elaine being dragged into the drama which had beset the town, Arty knew Delilah and Samson would be caught up in it too, eager to prove their friend’s innocence. How would they spare the time now to help him with his enquiries?
It was looking more and more likely that he was going to have to go with his Plan B. The nuclear option—
‘What do you think, Arty?’ Clarissa was sitting forward, looking at him expectantly, awaiting an answer to a question he hadn’t heard.
‘Sorry? I was miles away.’
‘I said, we ought to see if we can help somehow. Offer our services to the Dales Detective Agency, because we all know Elaine didn’t do this.’
‘What, like another stakeout at the cafe?’ asked Eric, his voice filled with optimism, remembering a joyous day filled with endless coffee and cake while they carried out covert surveillance.
Clarissa shook her head. ‘Not quite. I was thinking at the scene of the murder. I’ve been watching—’
‘Seriously, Clarissa,’ said Edith, ‘if you’re about to suggest we go up to the Hoffmann kiln and spend a night out on the fells waiting for the murderer to revisit the scene of the crime, just because you saw it on that wretched True Crime channel you’re always glued to, you are more demented than I thought.’
‘But it’s a credible strategy,’ her sister protested.
‘Not really,’ said Eric. ‘I have it on good authority that the kiln wasn’t even where it happened.’
The group turned to him, stunned by the revelation but not questioning it for a moment. Because they all knew Eric’s ‘good authority’ was his grandson, Constable Danny Bradley. After a heartbeat of silence, when it became clear that nothing further was going to be volunteered without prompting, Joseph asked what they were all wondering.
‘Where was Irwin killed, then?’
‘Danny didn’t spell it out but he said he was heading over to Malham Cove on a fingertip search. Ergo . . .’ Eric let the word hang, taking a deep inhale of his oxygen as though the revelation had exhausted him.
‘Malham Cove,’ murmured Edith, frowning. ‘That’s where Elaine went with him.’
‘Doesn’t look good,’ agreed Joseph. ‘I hope she has a watertight alibi.’
Clarissa however, was still staring at Eric. ‘How long have you known this?’ she demanded.
Eric shrugged. ‘About half an hour. Danny texted to say he’d not be able to pop in as promised because he was having to work.’
‘And you didn’t think to tell us this key bit of information which is so pertinent to the case?’ Clarissa’s indignation had brought red circles to her cheeks and a lawyerly tone to her voice.
‘I forgot, your honour,’ he grunted, tapping the cylinder by his side. ‘I was in my apartment replacing this as I was running low on air, and that kind of took precedence.’
Clarissa’s umbrage dissipated when confronted with the reality of Eric’s life, where keeping his oxygen supply going was of far more importance than the details of a murder investigation. She patted his hand. ‘Well at least we know now. Although I suspect getting to Malham Cove for a stakeout might prove rather more difficult.’
Edith rolled her eyes at Arty, who managed a grin, only half listening, still consumed by his own concerns. But even he couldn’t miss the dramatic appearance in the lounge doorway of a stylish lady, not a hair of her platinum blonde bob out of place as she raised her arms and called for quiet.
‘I have news!’ she announced once the room fell silent, theatrically clasping her hands in front of her, an expression of consternation on her flawlessly made-up face.
Given that this was Geraldine Mortimer, one of the few residents in Fellside Court that Arty had no time for, he didn’t swallow that sorrowful look for a second. Neither did Edith Hird.
‘Oh-oh,’ she muttered, glancing at Arty, ‘she’s looking far too smug beneath that masquerade for my liking. She’s about to put the knife in someone.’
Arty shared her foreboding. And seeing as there was really only one topic on the agenda which could justify such a melodramatic announcement, he had the awful feeling Geraldine’s knife was about to wound Elaine Bullock.
‘The police have released the Bullock girl,’ she started, proving Arty’s intuition wrong and holding up a hand as relieved murmurs could be heard all around the room. ‘And . . . have driven up to Ellershaw Farm!’
She didn’t need to elaborate. Everyone in the room knew that Ellershaw was the Metcalfe home, and that Will lived there with his family and parents.
‘Now, while I don’t like to boast,’ continued Geraldine, adopting a faux-modest smile, ‘as many of you are aware, my son is a criminal barrister so I have a bit of knowledge in this area. So while the police are only referring to Will Metcalfe as “a person of significant interest”, I can tell you that translates to him being in deep trouble.’
‘It must be about that row he had with the ecologist,’ called out a voice.
‘That and his fiery temper,’ said Geraldine, the smile slipping into malicious delight. ‘It seems he might finally have got his comeuppance. I mean, it’s hardly surprising. After all, it’s a bit of a family trait, that hit-first-ask-questions-later approach.’
The last sentence was aimed directly at Joseph O’Brien and, to Arty’s surprise, the Irishman – normally the mildest of folk – shot to his feet, eyes blazing.
‘You can keep your conjectures to yourself,’ he snapped. ‘And as for your malicious slurs about the Metcalfes, you can shove them—’
‘Somewhere dark!’ said Arty, leaping up to intercept his friend’s uncharacteristic outburst and pull him back down to his seat as the room erupted into laughter.
‘Sorry,’ muttered Joseph, breathing hard. ‘But that woman . . .’
Clarissa nodded. ‘Would make a saint swear. She’s just mean.’
Edith grunted in agreement, although Arty suspected she would have used a harsher adjective than her sister. ‘Trouble is,’ she said, ‘Geraldine might be objectionable but she’s got a point. Given what happened at the wedding yesterday, Will has ample motive. Delilah must be out of her mind with worry if the police are focusing on him now.’
A cloud of concern descended on the group, their anxiety about Elaine now transferred to Will and Delilah. That cloud was darkest over Arty.
‘Are you okay?’ Edith murmured to him as the others began talking about this latest twist in developments. ‘You don’t look yourself.’
He shrugged. Embarrassed to be caught out so preoccupied with his own affairs. ‘It’s nothing,’ he muttered.
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Doesn’t look like nothing. You’ve had a face like a wet weekend for over a week now. What’s going on?’
‘It’s just . . . the sale of this place. I really need to know who’s buying it but with all this murder enquiry going on, Delilah and Samson are going to be too busy to help.’ He gave another shrug, cheeks reddening. ‘And I know that’s selfish of me, but I can’t help it.’
Edith’s head tipped to one side, her gaze fixed on him, making him think not for the first time that she must have been an intimidating presence at the helm of Bruncliffe Primary School. ‘Arty Robinson,’ she said quietly, ‘what aren’t you telling me? We’re all keen to know who the new owners of Fellside Court are, but you seem to be particularly obsessed with it. Why?’
‘Because,’ he said, gulping, ‘I need to know if I can afford to keep living here.’
And he found himself telling her everything. Well, almost everything. He told her about how he was already at the limit of his finances. About how he could just about cover the rent and the service charges, but that any increase in either would see him having to leave. Probably leaving Bruncliffe, too, as it wasn’t like the town had much by way of housing in his price bracket.
He didn’t mention his Plan B, because he didn’t want to witness Edith’s horror when she realised the lengths he was willing to go to in order to stay at Fellside Court. Best off she didn’t know.
Edith didn’t say a word for a few moments. Just continued to stare at him. Then she reached across her armchair and took his hand in hers.
‘You daft bugger,’ she said. She nodded, a sharp movement of decisiveness. ‘If Delilah and Samson are too busy to help us, we’ll just have to help ourselves.’
‘How do you mean?’
She leaned even further forward, whispering now. ‘I mean, this place will be empty tomorrow afternoon when everyone is down at the Silver Solos event and the coast will be clear. Let’s break into the manager’s office and see what we can discover.’
Arty felt his eyebrows shoot up so high they almost touched his bald crown. Edith Hird, the pillar of Bruncliffe society, was suggesting they do a bit of breaking and entering. But such was his predicament, he wasn’t about to talk her out of it.
Danny Bradley was indeed part of a fingertip search. Up on the fells above Malham Cove, he was in the middle of a line of officers slowly working their way across the field where Elaine Bullock claimed to have left Ross Irwin alive. And where it was now suspected the ecologist had met his end. It was a stunning setting. While the wall of limestone that reared up from the landscape to form the cove couldn’t be seen from this position, the views were magnificent. Green fields stretching out in front of him, down the fells and into the dale below, where the river had been turned into a ribbon of silver in the afternoon sun. Piecing the patchwork of land together was the grey stitching of drystone walls, hemming in the white blots of sheep, and from overhead, adding a sweet soundtrack to the scene, came the song of a lark, the bird a tiny dark shape against the bluest of skies.
Not a bad place to die, mused the young constable. Although murder was a different matter. If murder was what it was.
It wasn’t that he doubted the deductions of DS Benson. After all, the deceased had suffered multiple blows to his head, which suggested a simple fall could be ruled out. Plus there was the matter of the body having been moved. But while Danny had been keen for the drama such a high-profile investigation would bring, now that the spotlight was being turned on people he knew – and liked – it was a different matter.
First Elaine Bullock. And now Will Metcalfe, with even the lad Nathan being considered as a possible accessory. Danny’s instinct was to rule all of them out immediately, based just on his knowledge of them as decent folk. But if he’d learned anything in the last year, what with all the upheaval which had beset the town, it was that you couldn’t pre-judge anyone. Not as a police officer.
So here he was, helping to conduct a search which might lead to someone he liked and respected being accused of murder. It wasn’t easy to contemplate. In fact, it made him wonder whether he oughtn’t proceed with his original plans to apply for a transfer to the Met. Or to Leeds, where DI Frank Thistlethwaite had promised him a job. He’d put such ideas on the shelf since Samson O’Brien arrived in town, sensing he could learn a lot from a man who’d pretty much done everything in the world of policing. But now . . . At least in London and Leeds he didn’t know anyone, so he wouldn’t be faced with such a crisis of conscience.
Or with views like this.
He allowed himself a second to take in the glory of the region he was lucky enough to live in, and then lowered his eyes back to the ground. He saw the button first. A small circle of white in the green grass. As he squatted to see it better, he saw the smear of red alongside it.
He raised his hand and shouted, bringing the search line to a halt. And bringing yet more certainty to the theory that Ross Irwin’s death had in fact been murder.
Across the fells from Malham Cove, Alison Metcalfe was bringing in the washing at Ellershaw Farm, a task she enjoyed, the sight of the clothes snapping on the line against the most magnificent of backdrops being something she never tired of. It was even more soothing after negotiating a six-year-old’s tantrum for most of the afternoon.
When she couldn’t find her precious rounders bat, Izzy had thrown a complete wobbly, something which didn’t happen often but when it did, it was a spectacular sight. Driven on by tears and wails, Alison had turned the house upside down looking for the blessed thing but to no avail. Thankfully, however, Charlie had shown all the maturity of his eight years and offered to let his little sister play his Lego video game with him and, with the crisis averted, Alison had seized her chance to get the washing in, leaving the pair of them in front of the TV, happily negotiating a virtual world in the form of ninjas.
She stood now, laundry basket at her feet, hands full of half-folded shirt, admiring the view. The sharp green of the fields, so intense at this time of year, and the bloom of purple on the hills, the heather at its peak. The occasional scar of rock where the limestone erupted from the ground, adding a savage edge to what otherwise could have been a saccharine landscape. And those clouds, fluffing up along the horizon, breaking up the monotony of a perfect blue sky.
Nestled in the dale below it all was Bruncliffe, its two mills still standing tall at either end despite being long redundant, the river and the trainline forging twin lines between them, one as direct as a Yorkshireman’s opinion, the other meandering blithely along.
Alison had known Will Metcalfe all her life. Had started dating him while they were both still at school. So when he’d asked the inevitable question, some had presumed it was a given – that she would say ‘yes’ and become his wife. But it hadn’t been that simple a decision. Becoming a wife was one thing; becoming a farmer’s wife was a different prospect altogether, especially for a lass raised in the town, the daughter of a lorry driver for the local quarry and a nurse, not a drop of farming in their blood. Alison hadn’t needed a family connection to agriculture, though, to know how hard the life she’d been offered could be. She’d seen farmers driven to the brink with financial pressures. She knew one or two who’d taken their own lives, shotgun permits and despair being a lethal combination.
So she’d taken her time to agree to joining Will in this partnership at Ellershaw. Because that’s what farming was, a partnership of equals forged through early mornings and long days. Of rare time off and even rarer holidays. Plus there was the added complication of her in-laws, Peggy and Ted Metcalfe, living there as well. But she shouldn’t have worried. From the moment she’d moved up to the farm, situated above the town with vistas which stretched for miles, Alison had been smitten. Not just with her new husband, but with the land they lived on and the life she’d chosen.
Which made bringing in the washing a joy rather than a chore. Although, she mused as she continued folding the shirt, it wasn’t such a joy when the westerly wind blew in with rain and getting the washing out on the line became impossible, the house filled with the smell of drying laundry.
She paused in her folding. Her eyes caught by a trailing thread on the white cotton. She looked closer and saw a button was missing, torn from the fabric with some force, judging by the small rip where it had once been. And just to the right of it, there was a dark, thumbprint-sized mark.
Blood? She licked a finger, gave it a rub. It didn’t disappear. She’d have to get the stain remover out or it would be a good shirt lost.
She cursed quietly. That fracas with the ecologist yesterday. She’d witnessed it all, Will driven to temper by the impertinence of the man. They’d been lucky to escape with just a lost button, her husband known for having quick fists when he was riled. Luckily it hadn’t got that far in this instance.
‘Ali?’ Will’s voice, calling from the back door as he strode across the yard towards her, mobile in his hand, a frown of concern on his forehead. ‘Have you heard?’
‘Heard what?’ she asked with a smile. ‘That it’s a glorious day and you’re married to a wonderful woman?’
He laughed. Caught her around the waist from behind and planted a kiss on her cheek.
‘No,’ he said, still holding her, both of them looking out over the dale. ‘That ecologist, Ross Irwin.’
‘What about him?’ She tensed, not wanting the stress the mention of that man induced to ruin a perfect moment.
‘He’s been murdered.’
The shirt fell from her hands, landing half in and half out of the basket. And in the distance, on the road that snaked down to the town, a vehicle came into sight, its vivid livery marking it out as a police car. Alison Metcalfe felt the day’s glory cloud over.