The noise ripped through the town, windows rattled in the nearby school and a dark plume of smoke rose into the blue sky. It was enough to startle the people of Bruncliffe.
Standing idly in the kitchen while the kettle boiled, marvelling at how rapidly her good humour – which had originated from the unexpected treat of having Elaine Bullock staying over the night before – had evaporated under the curmudgeonly temperament of her tenant, Delilah was torn from her thoughts by the blast. She hared down the stairs and out onto the street, Troy Murgatroyd coming crashing out of the pub at the same time. Next door, Jo Whitfield was already on the steps of her salon, hands in gloves covered in hair dye.
‘What was that?’ asked the hairdresser.
‘Sounded like an explosion,’ Troy replied as the small road began to fill with people.
‘Fireworks!’ said someone further down by the antique shop. ‘Someone’s letting off fireworks.’
‘That was more than a couple of rockets,’ muttered Seth Thistlethwaite, who’d followed Troy out of the pub. ‘That was serious.’
‘Fireworks…’ murmured Delilah, looking to the sky where black clouds were blotting out the sun. ‘Fireworks! The rugby club!’
She began running.
* * *
It seemed like the whole of Bruncliffe had descended on the rugby club. Delilah arrived, breathing hard, panic squeezing her chest, and had to squirm through a scrum of people gathered on the pavement.
‘Samson,’ she shouted, pushing past.
‘Be careful, love! Don’t go too close.’ A well-meaning hand grabbed hold of her, but she shrugged it off and broke through to where a fire engine was already in place, hoses snaking away towards the clubhouse.
Or what had been the clubhouse. Flames were shooting out of the broken windows, part of the roof had already collapsed and fireworks were spiralling into the sky. On the grass, some distance from the inferno, two paramedics were preparing to lift a prone figure onto a stretcher.
‘Samson!’ She ran across the car park, past an ambulance with its back doors wide open, and staggered towards the man on the ground.
Harry Furness. An oxygen mask over his mouth. Blood gushing down his blackened face. Eyes closed. But his chest was rising and falling.
‘Thank goodness,’ she murmured. Then she looked over at the burning building. Samson. Where was Samson? She felt her knees weaken as she watched the firefighters battling the blaze, the wind whipping the flames. No one could still be in there and survive.
‘Don’t go collapsing on us, love.’ One of the paramedics was standing next to her, a firm hand under her arm. ‘We’ve got our work cut out with these two buggers!’
‘Two?’ Delilah turned in confusion and the paramedic pointed back towards the ambulance.
She wheeled round and there, huddled in a blanket, was Samson O’Brien, perched between the open doors of the emergency vehicle.
‘He’s refusing to come back to hospital with us. But I tell you what – if it hadn’t been for him, this one would be a goner.’
Delilah was already crossing the grass before the paramedic had stopped speaking. ‘What happened?’ she asked, taking in Samson’s singed eyebrows, the cuts and grazes on his soot-covered face and arms.
He started coughing and winced, a hand going to his throat. She thought he wasn’t going to be able to speak, but then a hoarse sound emerged and his words turned the chilly autumn day even colder.
‘Attempted murder,’ he rasped. ‘That’s what happened.’
* * *
‘You should have gone to hospital,’ said Delilah, watching Samson come down the stairs from the second floor, his hair damp, fresh clothes replacing the reeking, singed items he’d been wearing.
She’d tried to persuade him to join the unconscious Harry Furness in the ambulance, telling him he at least needed to get a check-up, but he’d stubbornly refused, walking back with her into town instead. In the five minutes it took to reach their building, it seemed like all of Bruncliffe came up to them, most already aware there had been an explosion at the rugby club; most already hailing Samson as a hero for saving Harry’s life.
He’d shaken off the praise and quickened his step, his expression darkened by more than just the residue of the smoke-filled clubhouse. When Delilah opened the front door of their building and an anxious Tolpuddle came bursting down the hallway at them, barking at the top of his lungs in complaint at having been left alone, Samson had slipped past her and dropped to his knees, burying his face in the dog’s ecstatic welcome.
Realising this was therapy for both man and dog, she left them there for a few moments, then gently pulled Tolpuddle aside.
‘Come on,’ she said to Samson, holding out a hand. ‘You need a shower. You can use the one upstairs.’
He’d nodded, got to his feet mumbling something about having a towel and change of clothes with him because he’d been to the launderette that morning, and had gone upstairs, Tolpuddle shadowing him. Twenty minutes later, a change of outfit and a shower hadn’t taken away the red-rimmed eyes, the hacking cough and the worry etched onto his cut and bruised face.
‘I don’t have time to go to hospital. We’ve got work to do.’ He accepted the mug of tea she was holding out and followed her into her office, both of them taking seats before the computer.
‘You’re convinced it was deliberate then, the fire?’ Delilah couldn’t believe she was asking, when in her gut she already knew.
‘Totally. Harry was lying on the floor in the hallway when I got there. He should have had time to make it as far as the door, unless—’
‘Unless he was already unconscious when the fire started. I saw the cut on his head. You think someone knocked him out and then set the building alight?’
‘That’s exactly what I think.’
‘What if it’s simply the case that he was careless handling the fireworks? Then slipped, in his rush to escape the fire he’d caused?’
Samson stared at her and she bit her lip.
‘Sorry. I just don’t want to believe…’
‘That we placed Harry in danger? Well, we did. Imagine how I feel.’ Samson looked bleak. ‘I was the one who twisted his arm into making up the numbers for Speedy Date night. If it hadn’t been for that, I doubt any of this would have happened.’
‘But it doesn’t make sense,’ said Delilah, staring at a list of client records on the screen. ‘I made sure no one could contact Hannah or Sarah. So how—?’
‘Hannah Wilson was there.’ He said it almost reluctantly.
‘Where?’
‘At the rugby club. I saw her driving away as I arrived. She was in a hell of a hurry…’
‘So what are you suggesting? That she set the fire?’ Delilah couldn’t keep the scepticism out of her voice.
Samson shrugged, a wave of fatigue washing over him. ‘She was there. She’s a suspect. In my line of work, that kind of coincidence usually means something.’
Hearing the lack of conviction in his argument, Delilah persisted. ‘But why? Hannah has no connection to Harry. Why would she single him out?’
It was the question he was asking himself. How had Harry Furness become a target, when Delilah had made sure that the two suspects were corralled behind a virtual cordon?
He shook his head, the throbbing behind his eyes intensified with the motion. ‘I don’t know. Is it possible Harry managed to get around your modifications somehow and contact her without you knowing?’
‘Not a chance.’ Despite her certainty, Delilah’s fingers were flying over the keys, checking and double-checking her program. ‘Look.’ She pointed at the screen. ‘You were the only one to get in touch with her. So it doesn’t make sense that she’s involved. Besides, you were happy to dismiss her as a suspect after the Speedy Date night.’
‘I did warn you,’ Samson said with a hint of exasperation, ‘that when it comes to women, my judgement has been known to be flawed—’
He broke off, fragments of conversation, vague and shifting, tugging at his memory. Something about flawed judgement …
He pulled out his phone. The lawyer answered on the first ring.
‘Matty?’ Samson paced the office as he spoke. ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. Thanks. But I need your help. You said something the other day – something about Richard Hargreaves having poor taste in women … Yes, and you mentioned an exception…’
Delilah waited as Samson, voice rasping, conducted his conversation with Matthew Thistlethwaite. When he finished the call, he stood staring down into the backyard.
‘What is it?’ she finally asked.
He turned to her, face haggard. ‘We’ve been looking at the wrong people. We assumed Hannah Wilson and Sarah Mitchell were the only common link to your dead clients.’
‘But they are. I’ve been through the records countless times and no one else dated all three men.’
‘Dated them, no. Rejected them…’ Samson reached out and clicked on one of the names on the computer, making a folder open onto the screen.
‘Lucy?’ Delilah stared at the man next to her. ‘You think she had something to do with this? You have to be kidding!’
But Samson’s expression was far from jovial.
* * *
‘Goodness, what a morning!’ Lucy Metcalfe untied the strings on her apron and slipped it over her head. Leaning against the counter, feeling as though she’d done a full day’s work already, she looked out over her cafe, which was crammed full of customers.
‘That’s what tragedy does for you,’ said Elaine, helping herself to a lemon-and-ginger scone while she manned the till. ‘Brings everyone together for a cup of tea and a gossip.’
‘You can say that again. I’ve never known the place so busy. I’ll owe Harry more than just a cheese-and-onion tart when he gets out of hospital. Poor bloke…’
‘Lucky bloke, is how I’d put it.’
‘Don’t! I can’t bear to think what might have happened if Samson hadn’t been there.’
‘Haven’t you heard?’ Mrs Pettiford from the bank was waiting to pay. ‘They’re saying it was foul play.’
‘What, the fire? I thought it was simply the fireworks that went up?’ Elaine raised an eyebrow in disbelief, but Mrs Pettiford was undaunted.
‘Apparently not. Mrs Hargreaves was in, paying in a cheque, and she said she’d heard from her nephew, Ian, that there’s reason to believe the fire broke out in the kitchen, nowhere near the fireworks. And that an accelerant might have been used to start it.’
‘Petrol?’
The bank clerk nodded. ‘Mrs Hargreaves was in a right state about it. What with her suspecting her Richard was … you know. She was telling anyone who’d listen that Bruncliffe has a killer in its midst.’
Lucy shivered while Elaine continued to eat her scone.
‘All seems a bit too dramatic for round here,’ said Elaine. ‘Ian Hargreaves, volunteer firefighter or not, should know better than to be spreading such tales. Sometimes I think the uniform goes to their heads.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Mrs Pettiford, taking her change and leaving a tip in the jar by the till. ‘But there must be something in it when the police have decided to put a guard outside Harry Furness’s ward. The minute he comes round, they’re going to be questioning him.’
‘Wow,’ said Elaine, finally impressed. ‘Someone might have tried to kill Harry? Why would anyone want to do that?’
Lucy shook her head. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Any of it.’
‘And me being here covering your lunch hour doesn’t make sense, either, if you’re going to stand around for the entire time,’ said Elaine, looking pointedly at the clock on the wall.
‘Okay! I’m off. Are you sure you’re all right to do this for me?’
‘For the tenth time, yes! And are you sure you’re okay with me eating all these scones?’
Lucy laughed, threw her apron at her friend, picked up the cake box that was sitting by the till and, with her handbag over her shoulder, headed for the door.
‘One o’clock,’ Elaine shouted after her. ‘Not a minute later. If I’m late getting to my real job, Titch will kill me.’
‘I won’t be late. I promise.’
It was to be a promise that Lucy Metcalfe would fail to keep.
* * *
‘I can’t believe you’re suggesting Lucy is involved in any of this. What on earth did Matty say?’
‘He said Richard Hargreaves had poor taste in women, with one exception. And that exception was Lucy.’
‘So?’ Delilah snapped. ‘That doesn’t prove anything. Did he say Richard dated her?’
‘Not exactly. Richard contacted her through the website after October’s Speedy Date night. But she sent him a firm no. Apparently he didn’t take offence. He told Matty he’d always known she was out of his league, and he ended up going out with Hannah Wilson instead.’
Delilah threw up her arms in indignation. ‘It still proves nothing.’
Samson wished he could share her conviction. And her loyalty. It would be so much easier to ignore this hunch of his. A hunch that was implicating someone he cared about in murder.
Lucy Metcalfe had rejected an advance from Richard Hargreaves and the man had ended up dead. Now Harry, having also been snubbed, was unconscious but lucky to be alive. Was it possible that Lucy was connected to the others, too?
It was preposterous. The widow of his best friend. Someone he’d known all his life. And the gentlest person you could ever meet.
But the inconsistencies were plain to see and, in cases like this, inconsistencies often led to breakthroughs. Samson wasn’t inclined to ignore his growing concerns.
‘Lucy lied,’ he said. ‘When we were in the pub last night for the darts match. She said she’d never received a date request. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but those papers…’ He gestured at the desk.
‘The papers you saw in my drawer when you broke in here that night?’ Delilah’s tone was even more caustic than usual, her affront at his accusation adding to her normal temper.
‘Yes, those papers. You made lists of all the people who’d been contacted by Richard Hargreaves, Martin Foster and Tom Alderson.’
‘And?’
‘Lucy was on them. On all three lists, along with Hannah Wilson and Sarah Mitchell.’
‘So? It doesn’t mean she killed them.’
‘But why would she lie?’
Delilah shrugged. ‘Maybe you misheard her?’
‘No. She clearly said she’d never had a follow-up after either date night. So much so that Harry, being the kindhearted soul he is, immediately sent her one. As a joke.’ Samson began pacing the floor, thinking about the prostrate form of the auctioneer. Thinking about the fact that he’d almost abandoned him. If it hadn’t been for that firework lighting up the place … He shuddered. ‘Some joke it turned out to be.’
‘Harry sent Lucy a date request? I didn’t know that.’
‘He and Ash thought it would make her laugh,’ said Samson. ‘She fired back with an outright no.’
Delilah clicked on the records for the last dating event, bringing up all of Lucy’s interactions. There, clear as day, was Harry’s request. And less than five minutes later, a brusque refusal.
She navigated back to the data for the October Speedy Date night. Three requests to Lucy, all of them rejected within minutes. All of them with the least tactful of the three reply options. And all three recipients were now dead.
‘Okay,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘There’s a connection, for sure. And it’s weird the way she’s replying so fast, almost taking no time to turn these men down. It also doesn’t seem like Lucy to be so abrupt with them, either. But there’s a hole in your theory.’
‘What?’
‘She had another follow-up after Tuesday night.’
‘You mean other than Harry?’ Samson made to approach the computer but his mobile began to ring. He turned to the window to answer the call. ‘Hi, Danny.’
‘Mr … Samson.’ The constable’s voice echoed in his ear. ‘Sorry, but I’m going to have to cancel our meeting. I’m still at the hospital.’
‘Something wrong?’
‘I hear you know all about it. Harry Furness. Sergeant Clayton has asked me to stand guard outside his ward.’
‘Has he come round yet?’
‘Not that I’ve heard. But the sergeant seems to think he might know something about how the fire started. Seems it could have been deliberate…’
Samson let the silence stretch down the line.
‘Sounds like you might already have thought the same?’ the constable urged.
‘Yes,’ said Samson, rubbing a hand over his face. ‘I’m sure it was deliberate.’
‘Can you tell me why you think that?’
‘Harry was lying in the hallway when I got there. He was only a few yards from the front door, where the smoke was least dense, yet he was already unconscious. Somehow I don’t think smoke inhalation was to blame. Plus, he was lying the wrong way for someone struggling to get out of a fire, with his feet pointing towards the exit. He wouldn’t have been crawling in that position.’
‘Anything else?’ asked the constable.
‘I’d get the doctors to have a close look at the cut on his head, too. Strikes me a flat floor wouldn’t have made that mess, even if he’d fallen hard.’
‘So you think he was targeted?’
‘Yes.’
The blunt reply caused Danny to pause. ‘Is this connected to your suspicions about Richard Hargreaves?’
‘It could be. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you any more than that for now.’
‘Keep me posted, then,’ said the constable. Then he sighed loudly. ‘What a day. A man run off the road by a stolen tractor and left for dead last night, who swears someone was trying to kill him, and now this.’
‘Someone was run off the road?’ Out of the corner of his eye, Samson saw Delilah glance towards him. He turned back to face her. ‘Anyone we know?’
‘That new estate agent from Taylor’s. Stuart Lister. That’s who I was interviewing this morning at the hospital. He’d gone out to meet a prospective tenant at that old farmhouse on Henside Road. When they didn’t show, he headed home and was driving up the big hill before the Goat Lane turn at about nine o’clock, when a tractor came over the top and forced him into a wall. He’s in a bad way, but he managed to talk. What’s really weird is that he swears the driver of the tractor tried to smother him, after crashing into him. He reckons he’s only alive because the Bruncliffe Harriers chose to take their evening run out by Fountains Fell.’
Samson wasn’t listening. He was staring at the computer screen, where Lucy’s data from the Speedy Date night was still showing. Staring at the name of the second date request she’d received.
‘Christ!’ he muttered.
‘What is it?’ The constable was alert on the other end of the phone.
‘I think you might want to tell Sergeant Clayton to put a guard on Stuart’s door, too.’
* * *
Two of them still alive. It was getting risky.
The first couple had been straightforward – a simple push at an opportune moment and accidents had been created. Fatal accidents.
But the farmer. That had taken more planning. The sheep had to be killed. The phone calls to the Parish Council made. And then the death itself.
And now …
Word was all over town that Harry Furness and Stuart Lister were both in hospital, although no one was suggesting there was any link. But it was only a matter of time before one or other of the men started talking.
There was no alternative. It had to be done. It’s what he would have wanted.
She had to be stopped.
* * *
‘Stuart Lister is in hospital?’ Delilah was standing, the shock of the news having driven her to her feet.
‘Someone tried to kill him last night. Ran him off the road with a tractor.’
Face grey, she put a hand out to support herself on the desk. ‘Is he going to be okay?’
‘Danny seems to think so. He’s talking at least.’
She slumped back into her chair and gazed blindly at the computer screen, the names of the two men hospitalised in the last twenty-four hours staring back at her.
‘We placed them in danger,’ she said, voice small.
Samson sat next to her, a hand on her arm. ‘What else could we have done? There wasn’t enough evidence for the police to get involved. Whereas now…’
‘Now there are two badly wounded men who got their injuries as a result of our recklessness. And Lucy is somehow at the centre of it all. I just can’t…’ Delilah shook her head, dazed by the day’s revelations. Samson knew how she felt.
Lucy Metcalfe. He’d experienced at first hand the innate goodness of the woman. Never having a bad word for anyone, she’d been the only one to welcome him back to Bruncliffe, to treat him like a friend rather than a villain. Even though she, of all people, had reason to see things differently. His behaviour at the christening, his lack of contact with his godson over the years, his absence from her life when Ryan died … She should have been standing at the door of her caravan with a shotgun, not throwing her arms around him and offering forgiveness.
How could a woman of that calibre be involved in murder?
But Samson had witnessed enough as a policeman to know that the world of crime was never black and white. And there, on the screen before him, was evidence that Lucy Metcalfe had a direct connection with the latest casualties amongst the Dales Dating Agency clients – one attacked this morning and the other attacked last night.
Last night …
He slapped his palm to his forehead, wincing as he brushed one of the many grazes that now graced his face.
‘Stuart was attacked around nine o’clock last night,’ he muttered. ‘Lucy was with us in the pub until much later than that.’
Delilah spun round. ‘Of course!’ Relief flooded across her pale face. ‘Which means she can’t have—’
Samson shook his head. ‘It’s not that simple, Delilah. It only means there’s at least another person involved. Someone who is aware of Lucy’s dating responses.’
‘But … why? I’m finding it difficult enough to believe that Lucy is killing people who ask her out. Why on earth would anyone be helping her?’
She was right. It just didn’t make sense. He sighed, rubbing his aching throat, wanting nothing more than to crawl into his bed. Delilah’s bed, as he now knew.
‘Okay, so let’s assume Lucy was telling the truth in the pub,’ he said.
‘About the date requests?’
‘Exactly. Is it possible that she didn’t know?’
Delilah looked sceptical. ‘Not really. When a date request is received, a message is sent to the recipient immediately.’
‘By email?’
‘Email or text. They choose when they set up their account.’
‘Would it be possible for someone to intercept those messages?’
A short bark of derisory laughter met his question. ‘Only in Hollywood. Here in the real world, the short answer is no.’
‘So, if Lucy was telling the truth and she didn’t get those messages, why would that be?’
‘A program malfunction. But I’d have seen that on her data. Or she changed her email address or phone number and forgot to update her account details. It happens sometimes. In Lucy’s case, though, I can tell you she hasn’t changed either in the last few years.’
‘Can you humour me and check her account?’
She nodded, pulling up the relevant data with a few clicks of the mouse.
‘Here,’ she pointed at the screen. ‘Lucy has set up her account so that she gets agency information through her email – notification of dating sessions, subscription payments and the like. But she gets her date requests sent via SMS.’
‘Is that normal?’
‘Totally. Most people want the immediacy of a text message when it comes to the important stuff, like whether or not they’ve been lucky on a date night.’
‘And her contact details are all up to date?’
‘Yes, that’s her email and—’ Delilah blinked. Leaned forward and then frowned.
‘What?’
‘That’s not her mobile number.’
A fizz of adrenalin shot through Samson. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes. Hers ends in 2001, the year Nathan was born. That’s how she remembers it.’
‘So whose…?’
Delilah was already scrolling through her contacts on her mobile. She paused, then turned to him, face blanched, hand over her mouth. ‘It’s Nathan’s.’
* * *
It was perfect. He’d love it.
Actually, she didn’t know if he’d love it or not. Two months ago she would have been confident of her ability to please her son. But as the days had started to darken into winter, so Nathan had become more reclusive, and Lucy Metcalfe had begun to feel like she was living with a stranger.
A brooding, sullen stranger who bore little resemblance to the carefree boy she’d brought into this world.
And she was hoping to change that with a cake?
She let the lid fall, swamped by an urge to swipe the box and its contents across the caravan.
‘Sod it!’ she muttered, brushing away the tears that were stinging her eyes. She had to get back to work. She tied a bow across the middle of the box and left it on the table along with a card, so he’d see it as soon as he came home. Then she gathered her coat and bag and stepped out of the door.
She didn’t hear a thing. Just felt the hand across her mouth, the scratch on her neck, and then her legs gave way beneath her.