Date with Justice by Julia Chapman

Author:Julia Chapman [Chapman, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2024-02-12T17:00:00+00:00

19

Ida Capstick had left the Dales Detective agency hot on Delilah’s heels and ridden straight over to start her new case, having an idea of where was the best place to commence it. Which is why she was standing in the doorway of the manager’s office in Fellside Court, taking in the scene. Arty Robinson kneeling on the floor, Edith Hird standing over him, a hand on his shoulder. It looked like a marriage proposal. Apart from the incongruity of the safe yawning open behind them.

Ida stared at them. Stared at the bookcase and the hidden safe. And quietly closed the office door behind her.

‘Tha’s got some explaining to do.’ She addressed her statement to Arty, because this escapade had his name written all over it.

‘I’m trying to find out who the new owner is,’ he blurted out.

‘We thought we might come across some answers in here,’ added Edith, looking the most contrite Ida had ever seen her.

But Ida was still transfixed by the open safe. She’d known it was there. She’d been working long enough in the building to know a lot about the place and had discovered the real purpose of the bookcase the first time she’d dusted it, her dusting style having a certain Capstick vigour, sufficient to trigger the mechanism. But the safe itself, she hadn’t touched.

She’d heard about it, though. The whole of Bruncliffe had. For when Rick Procter had been trying to flee the country back in June, he’d made an unsuccessful attempt to access it. Little surprise, then, that the police had raided Fellside Court the following day as part of their endeavours to uncover the property developer’s illegal assets. But on opening the safe, they’d been perplexed to find it contained nothing more than a fake passport and a ledger. Even more perplexing, the ledger had held detailed accounts of Procter’s income from money laundering, suggesting there should have been upwards of two hundred grand in there.

There’d been nothing but dust.

The mystery of the missing cash had yet to be solved. Unless . . .

‘Happen we’re all singing from the same hymn book,’ Ida finally said, moving her gaze onto the two unlikely cat burglars. ‘Has tha looked at that lot on the desk?’

Edith shook her head. ‘I started but then got distracted.’

‘Hmph.’ Ida crossed the floor, reached for the first pile of correspondence and began rifling through it. ‘Bingo,’ she murmured, pulling out a cream envelope. She held it up, tapping the Turpin’s logo across the top. ‘Seems tha safe-cracking skills were uncalled for,’ she said to Arty.

He was on his feet in a shot, hustling over to see what she’d found.

She slid a finger under the seal and ripped the envelope open, eliciting a gasp from Edith.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be more discreet? Steam it open or something? Otherwise they’ll know we’ve been snooping!’

Ida grunted. ‘And who exactly is going to care? The staff are as angsty as thee to know who’s taking this place over.’ She pulled out a

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