Samson was standing in the congregation, watching Delilah walk up the aisle, Tolpuddle by her side. At the altar, her bridegroom waited. Samson craned his neck to see who it was. But Mrs Hargreaves was in front of him, a huge hat with feathers on her head blocking his view. He leaned to the side and saw the groom’s profile. The blond hair. The handsome face. Morning suit stretched across broad shoulders.
‘No!’ he shouted, trying to leap into the aisle. ‘No, Delilah!’
Then the stairs creaked, his eyes flew open and Samson O’Brien was instantly awake in the dark of his makeshift bedroom on the second floor, and sensing danger.
Pushing his sleeping bag aside, he eased to his feet, picking up the golf club he’d dug out of one of Delilah’s many boxes the night before. Silently, he stepped the short distance to the door.
There. He could hear someone on the landing. Moving this way.
Holding the club in both hands, he shifted his weight onto the balls of his toes and watched the door handle begin to turn.
Now! As the door swung open against the bed, he leaped forward into the light and prepared to wield the club. Instead, he was met with a sharp blow to his midriff and a yelp of surprise, the golf club clattering to the floor.
‘Ida,’ he gasped, doubled over as he tried to draw breath into his lungs. ‘What are you doing here at this hour?’
The cleaning lady, brandishing her mop and face rigid with shock, glared down at him. ‘Tha’s got the question all wrong, Mr O’Brien. More like tha tells me why tha’s sleeping in Miss Delilah’s bed!’
* * *
Ida Capstick might have lived her entire life in Bruncliffe, but still, she liked to think she was a woman of the world. But what she’d seen that morning had fair shocked her. Reaching for her tea, her hand trembled and she had to grasp the mug in both hands to stop the liquid from spilling all over her newly mopped floor.
She’d arrived at Miss Delilah’s place no earlier than normal and had noticed nothing out of the ordinary as she let herself in by the back door. The motorbike – that contraption that had her George in raptures – was parked in the yard, so she’d expected to see young Mr O’Brien at his desk as usual. But his office had been empty.
He was out then, she’d surmised, listening to the silence of the three-storey building. So she’d set about her work. By the time she reached the top floor, she’d been in a world of her own, thinking about the win she’d had at bingo the night before and the two steaks she was planning on buying for tea as a celebration. Bingo was her only vice. She didn’t drink. Had never been tempted by smoking. But once a week she went to Bruncliffe Social Club and tried to get a full house.
It’d been quieter than normal last night, given the darts match in the Fleece. Perhaps that had helped send the win her way? She’d been musing on this when she’d approached the spare room at the back of the building and opened the door.
He’d come at her out of the dark like the last of the Mohicans, black hair swinging around his shoulders, chest bare, golf club high above his head, and as naked as the day he was born.
She’d felt her heart stutter in fear and admiration at this attack from such a prime specimen of a male, and had reacted with the only weapon she had to hand. Her mop. Straight in his gut. Lucky for him she hadn’t aimed lower. Then he’d really have been in pain.
‘Sorry, Ida,’ he said as he placed a plate of biscuits in front of her. The good ones, she noted. Not those cheap, plain things Delilah kept for clients she didn’t like, but the chocolate-coated special ones which cost a fortune. As young Mr O’Brien wasn’t paying, happen he wouldn’t care.
Ida took two, immediately dunking one of them in her tea.
‘I’m really sorry,’ he repeated, running a hand through his hair, which was a bit tamer now, his body thankfully clad in T-shirt and jeans so at least she was spared the sight of all that flesh. That amazing chest. Those biceps.
She heard the splosh as half of the over-dunked biscuit in her hand fell into her tea in a sodden lump.
‘Damnation,’ she muttered, wiping up the spilled liquid with the sleeve of her overalls. Then she stared at the young man opposite. ‘How long has this been going on?’ she demanded.
He looked at the floor. ‘Since I arrived. George met me at the farm the day I got here and told me it was sold. I was homeless. And I don’t have a lot of money. So…’
‘So tha’s been camping out here?’
‘Yes.’
She pursed her lips, making sense of the times the upstairs shower had been damp first thing in the morning. That strange musky scent in the spare room, too – deodorant or aftershave, or some such thing. ‘Does Miss Delilah know?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I wasn’t expecting to still be here. Thought it would only be a night or two and that it wouldn’t harm anyone. But I’ll have to tell her now. And find somewhere else to stay.’
Ida Capstick took a long sip of tea, watching the man she’d seen grow from a child on the farm next door. He’d always been good to George, him and his father both. And his mother … she’d been a saint. She took another sip of tea, even though it was rather on the weak side for her, young Mr O’Brien having lost the art of making a true Yorkshire brew in the years he was down south, and came to her conclusion.
‘No concern of mine where tha stops. Just don’t go scaring the life out of me like tha did this morning.’
A beaming smile split his face. ‘Thanks, Ida. I’ll get sorted soon and move out before Delilah knows anything about it.’
‘And another thing,’ she said, extracting her pound of flesh. ‘I’ve taken to these biscuits. Happen as they’d be nice with that morning cuppa tha makes me most days.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Underpants.’ She busied herself with clearing the cups off the table as heat rose up her face. ‘Make sure tha wears underpants at all times!’
‘Consider it a deal,’ he said, face crimson.
‘Aye, well, that deal will be off if I find as much as a drop of water in that shower up there of a morning. Understand?’
He nodded and stood up, offering her his hand to shake. Ida Capstick took it solemnly, doing her very best not to smile.
* * *
Harry Furness was in a muddle. Head thick from the night before, he’d left the house twice and had had to return, first to get the keys for the rugby club and the second time to get the keys to his car.
It wasn’t a good omen for the day to come, he thought as he pulled up outside the clubhouse, nine-thirty already showing on his watch on this bright November morning. He let himself into the small building, leaving the door unlocked for Samson, and made his way through the main function room and bar to the kitchen. A coffee – that would help. Then he could start the delicate work of sorting out the fireworks.
He didn’t hear the front door creak. And if he had, he would have blamed the wind, which was whipping along the dale in its usual autumnal fashion. He’d have been wrong.
* * *
Bloody Delilah! She’d been the cause of him attacking Ida Capstick – and whilst in the nude!
By quarter to ten, Samson was still cringing at the thought of his early-morning surprise, the cleaning lady’s shocked face something that would haunt his dreams for a long time. Luckily he’d not had his underwear drip-drying in the shower when she arrived, or she might have been less than forgiving. Although, given that she’d just been set upon by a naked man wielding a golf club, the laundry dripping all over her clean bathroom might have escaped her notice.
He groaned, head in his hands.
It served him right for being a fool. Instead of having an early night when he got in last night, he’d had the bright idea of staking out the pub from the spare room at the front of the house. Huddled down between two piles of boxes, he’d sat by the window watching the locals drift homewards, waiting for Delilah to appear. Why? He couldn’t really answer that, but it was something to do with Rick Procter. He hadn’t wanted to see her leaving with him.
He’d finally been rewarded gone midnight, when Delilah and Tolpuddle emerged from the Fleece. She’d stood there for a second or two, concentrating on her mobile with the dog by her side, before the pub door opened again, emitting a wave of noise and the golden-haired property developer. He leaned down to say something to her and she’d laughed, his arm around her shoulders.
From his hiding place above, Samson felt bitter disappointment wash over him. His best friend’s little sister was dating a man Ryan would never have respected. And Samson had no right to intervene.
Then the pub door had swung open one more time, Elaine Bullock appearing on the pavement with Ash Metcalfe behind her. The four of them had walked up the street and into the night, leaving Samson staring after them.
Blood fizzing, it had taken him an age to get to sleep and he’d forgotten to set his alarm. The next thing he knew, Ida Capstick was coming up the stairs, tearing him out of some stupid dream about a wedding.
So Miss Delilah, as Ida called her, was entirely to blame.
‘Morning!’
Samson looked up from his desk as Delilah and Tolpuddle entered the room.
‘We’re running late this morning, aren’t we Tolpuddle?’ She leaned down and fondled the dog’s ears, a smile of delight on her face.
‘You’re not the only one,’ he muttered.
‘Well, it’s not often we have a guest stay over. It’s a perfect excuse for a leisurely breakfast.’ She grinned at him and his dark mood got darker.
‘None of my business,’ he said, stacking the files he’d been reading and preparing to leave.
‘Have you got time for a coffee? Before you go?’
‘No.’
‘Oh.’ She seemed surprised by his churlish tone. ‘It’s just there’s some things I need to talk about.’
He made a point of looking at his watch. ‘Best make it quick.’
‘Okay then. You’ve got two dates tonight.’ She turned on her heel and walked out, the dog looking from the door to Samson in confusion, unsure of whom to follow.
‘What do you mean?’ he shouted after her as she walked up the stairs, the thump of her feet telling him he’d triggered her temper. Her voice floated back down to him.
‘Hannah Wilson and Sarah Mitchell. They both accepted your date request, so I booked dates for you tonight.’
‘But…’
She’d stopped and was leaning over the bannister rail, looking down. ‘What? Is there a problem? Because I thought this was what we agreed when I hired you.’
‘Yes, it was, but—’
‘Are two in one night too much for you to handle?’ she asked, sarcasm barely veiled.
‘No … no it’s … nothing. Don’t worry about it. Just tell me where and when.’
‘Six-thirty in the Coach and Horses for Sarah. She’s agreed to come over here. I thought that was safer than you going all the way over to Hawes, considering that you might be in danger. And then eight o’clock for Hannah.’
He nodded. ‘Where am I meeting Hannah?’
‘The Crown.’ Delilah named the pub on the outskirts of town. ‘Sarah will probably head home straight after your date, but in case she doesn’t, I thought it best to have two different venues. They both know it’s just for a drink. Sort of a preliminary date, so you should be able to make your excuses with Sarah when it’s time. I can’t imagine she’s the type to keep you talking.’
Six-thirty and eight o’clock – the whole evening taken up with it.
‘Samson…?’ He looked up at her face, which had softened slightly. ‘You will take care, won’t you?’
‘I promise,’ he said.
She gave a sharp nod and entered her office, leaving him to set off for the rugby club and wondering about two things.
Why was he so upset that he would be missing the Bonfire Night celebrations? And why had Ida Capstick mentioned that he was sleeping in Delilah’s bed? If that was Delilah’s bed, then what the hell was it doing in the spare room upstairs? He was out of the door before he remembered Delilah’s mystery guest and his mood turned even darker.
* * *
When they’d designed the clubhouse twenty years ago, as well as an office, changing rooms, a kitchen and the all-important bar, the men in charge of the rugby club had had the foresight to build a storeroom, too. Situated at the end of the hallway that led from the front door, it was normally the realm of the caretaker, filled with such mundane items as cleaning utensils and supplies. But for the week leading up to Bonfire Night, for Harry Furness it became a veritable treasure trove.
Unlocking the door, he flicked on the light and crossed to the metal cabinet that he’d had installed a few years before. It was secured with a standard lock and two padlocks. Because you could never be too sure. Working quickly, he opened them all and turned the handle, feeling a burst of excitement as he looked inside.
Fireworks!
The cabinet was filled with them. Rockets … Catherine wheels … fountains … Roman candles … sparklers for the kids … and this year, a surprise. He’d treated the club, and himself, to a display-standard firework called The Godfather. After seeing a demo online, he’d been unable to resist, and was confident it was going to provide a spectacular finale. One that Bruncliffe would be talking about for years to come.
Anticipating a great evening, Harry started stacking the fireworks in neat piles on the floor, ready for transporting outside. He was nearly finished when he realised that the diagram he’d drawn up for the display was still in the car. Muttering about his inability to concentrate and thinking that the excess of alcohol the night before might not have been the wisest of ideas, he went back out into the hallway. When he saw a figure silhouetted against the light coming through the front door, naturally he presumed it was Samson.
‘You made it!’ he said, squinting at the brightness in his hungover state as he stepped towards the shadowy shape. Then Harry realised his mistake. ‘Oh, sorry, I was expecting someone else. But it’s good to see you anyway—’
The silhouette raised an arm, strangely misshapen in the illumination from behind, and the auctioneer felt something strike him hard on the side of the head. In a crumple of limbs, he fell to the floor.
* * *
‘Mr O’Brien … Samson!’
With his dark mood having ensured a brisk walking pace, Samson was almost at the rugby club when the police car pulled up alongside him, Constable Bradley leaning across from the driver’s seat.
‘Morning Danny. How’s the head?’
Danny grinned sheepishly. ‘A bit sore. But it was worth it. We beat the Mason’s Arms!’
Samson laughed, the young man’s joy infectious. With the sun shining, the wind whipping leaves along the road, and a great darts victory to dwell on, it was hard not to celebrate this wonderful morning. Despite his earlier bad humour.
‘Is that what you stopped to tell me?’ he asked with a smile.
The constable’s face became serious. ‘Not quite. I wanted to let you know that I might be a bit late for our appointment after lunch. I’m on my way to the hospital to interview someone who was in a car crash last night.’
‘On your own?’ Samson could tell the lad wasn’t relishing the task.
‘Hopefully not. Sergeant Clayton is supposed to be meeting me there. But seeing as I was passing, I thought I’d mention it…’
Samson nodded. With Airedale hospital a good forty minutes’ drive away, Danny would be pushing it to get there and back before lunch was over. ‘I’ll see you when you get back then. No rush. And drive carefully.’
‘Will do.’
The police car pulled away from the kerb and Samson continued on his way, the grounds of the rugby club visible ahead. Harry’s car was parked outside the clubhouse. Hoping the auctioneer had a cup of coffee waiting for him and possibly some cake, Samson walked unwittingly towards the beginning of what would be a black day for Bruncliffe.
* * *
Petrol. Poured out in a wide arc around the floor.
The body wasn’t where it was supposed to be. But there was no time to change it. The auctioneer had been expecting someone. And afterwards, who would be able to tell where he’d been when it all went up?
With a flick of a wrist, a match was lit and thrown to the ground. The thin line of liquid flared, snaking brightly out of the kitchen and into the main room, flames leaping at the curtains and curling over the bar. By the time the back door out of the kitchen closed, the fire was already taking hold, encircling the prostrate auctioneer in the hallway and making its way towards the storeroom with its lethal contents.
* * *
Savouring his rejuvenated mood, Samson passed the school, the bright laughter of children spilling out of the classrooms and into the autumn air, lifting his spirits even further. But as he stepped off the kerb opposite the gates of the rugby club, the serenity of the morning was disrupted by the screech of brakes.
A van had come out of the small lane that ran alongside the rugby ground and he’d walked out in front of it.
Startled, he jumped back onto the pavement, his hand raised in apology to the driver, but with the sunshine bouncing off the windscreen, it was only as the vehicle pulled away in a snarl of exhaust that he noticed the red hair. Hannah Wilson, driving the mobile library. With the speed she was going at, there must have been a lot of books overdue somewhere.
Heart still thumping, Samson crossed the road.
* * *
It didn’t take long for the fire to spread. Aided by the petrol, it scaled the walls, catching at the furnishings, devouring the carpet. When it found its way to the storeroom, the precaution of padlocks and metal casing was made redundant by the neatly stacked piles of fireworks on the floor. The flames raced towards them.
* * *
He sensed there was something wrong the minute he turned onto the grounds. A weird light flickering behind the windows of the clubhouse. And carried on the wind, he thought he could detect the acrid smell of smoke. Bonfire Night come early.
Samson started running, across the car park and down the path that led to the entrance. Kicking open the front door, he stepped right into hell.
* * *
Sheets of flame engulfing the walls, thick smoke, the snap and crack of glass … Samson staggered back. He slipped off his jacket, draped it over his head and pulled the neck of his jumper up to cover his face.
‘Harry!’ he called through the open door, the roar of the fire answering him. And then a staccato of explosions coming from somewhere towards the back.
The fireworks. Christ!
‘Harry!’ he yelled again, crouched low as he tried to peer down the hallway, eyes stinging in the dense smoke.
Another series of loud bangs from the far end of the building, a rocket screaming over his head and the fire beginning to creep across the ceiling. He didn’t have much time.
Lungs searing with every intake of breath, he dropped to his knees and began crawling forward, hands sweeping blindly ahead of him. He felt his eyebrows burning, his eyes streaming, could feel his faculties slowing as the fumes took hold, and he knew his search was futile. Then the whole world exploded in light.
* * *
The Godfather. Over two hundred quid’s worth of pyrotechnics. As the flames licked across its fuse, it erupted in a shower of reds and blues, firing a hail of white flashes out into the hallway with the machine-gun staccato that had earned it the name, penetrating the thick smoke and allowing enough visibility for a stout leg to appear through the murk.
‘Harry!’ Coughing hard, senses reeling, Samson forced himself forward, reaching out to grasp the ankle of the body in front of him. Still prone on the ground, fireworks whizzing overhead, he pulled as hard as he could, dragging the unconscious auctioneer towards the doorway. Arms straining at the weight, he inched backwards. Nearly there. One more heave, then he was through the open door, dragging Harry after him.
Air. Sweet. Fresh. But still danger.
He staggered to his feet, vision fogged, hooked his hands under Harry’s armpits and hoisted him up, the auctioneer slumping over him like a drunk leaning on a mate. He’d only managed a couple of steps away from the building when there was a blinding flash of light, and on a roar of sound, a staggering force knocked the two men to the ground.