Aunt Bessie Goes (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 7) (20 page)

“I think I can
manage a few pounds,” Bessie said.
 
“But I also wanted to double-check that I can bring a friend?”

“I hope
it’s
Doona you’re asking about,” Mary replied.
 
“I liked her so much when I met her at
your little gathering in Douglas last month.
 
It’s a shame I’ll be too busy on Friday
night to spend much time with you two, because I’m sure you’ll be the most
interesting people there.”

Bessie
laughed.
 
“It is Doona I was hoping
to bring,” she confirmed.
 
“And
perhaps I can persuade her to join us for lunch one day soon so you two can get
better acquainted.”

“I’d really
like that,” Mary told her.

“I suppose I’d
better let you go.
 
It sounds as if
you have a lot to get done before Friday.”

“I do rather,”
Mary replied.
 
“Anyway, the
replacement auctioneer is due any minute and I have to go back over everything
with him that I went over with Fiona on Monday night.”

“I hope she’s
in all sorts of trouble,” Bessie said.

“She’s
claiming the stress of seeing a dead body made her crazy,” Mary told her.
 
“I think she was taking something she
shouldn’t have been and was worried that the police would catch her at it.”

“Well, good
luck with everything.
 
I’ll see you
at seven on Friday, but do ring if you think of anything I can do to help in
the meantime.”

“Thanks,
Bessie.
 
I might just take you up on
that.”

Bessie sat at
the table for several minutes, going back over the phone conversation in her
head.
 
Neither George nor Mary had
asked Bessie any questions.
 
Perhaps
their connection with the Chief Constable meant that they knew everything that
Bessie did and more.
 
She
sighed.
 
Until the police were
certain exactly who the two victims were,
there
seemed
very little that anyone could do.

With nothing
better to do with herself, Bessie rang her taxi service and went into
Douglas.
 
She found herself walking
towards the building on Seaside Terrace that had been her home for a very short
time.
 
She rang the buzzer for her
friend
Bahey
Corlett’s
flat, but no one answered.
 
Bahey
was about ten years younger than Bessie and had
retired a few years earlier.
 
Bessie
knew she’d been away, but thought she might have returned.
 
Next, she rang the buzzer for Howard
Mayer’s flat.
 
He was
Bahey’s
boyfriend and next-door
neighbour
.
 
No one answered there, either.

After a moment’s
thought, she buzzed flat number one, unsure if Margaret Green, Nigel’s mother,
was still living there or not.
 
They’d shared the small flat while Nigel had been the building manager.

“What?” a harsh
voice snarled over the intercom.

“Mrs. Green?
 
It’s Bessie
Cubbon
.
 
I used to live in flat ten.”

“So?”

Bessie
sighed.
 
“I was just wondering if I
could come in and talk to you for a minute.”

There was a
long pause and Bessie started to wonder if she should just give up when the
intercom crackled again.

“I got nothing
to say to anyone about anything,” the voice said.
 
“Go away.”

Bessie was
trying to decide if there was any point in arguing with the woman when she
heard a car pulling into the car park behind her.
 
She turned around, hoping she might
recognise
the new arrival.
 
If it was one of her former
neighbours
, perhaps they might be more willing to talk than
Margaret Green had been.
 
She
definitely
recognised
the new arrival as he emerged
from his car.

“Inspector
Corkill
, this is a surprise,” she said as he greeted her.

“I might say
the same, and I thought you were going to call me Pete,” was the reply.
 

Bessie smiled
at the tall, middle-aged man.
 
He
was around the same age as John Rockwell, but not in quite as good shape.
 
His hair was greying and his expression
was always glum, at least in Bessie’s experience.
 

“I was in the
neighbourhood
,” Bessie said vaguely.

The inspector
shook his head.
 
“I rather doubt
that, but I won’t argue with you.
 
Your friend Ms.
Corlett
is still across with
Mr. Mayer, but perhaps you didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t know
if they were back yet or not,” Bessie said.
 
“I haven’t spoken to
Bahey
lately.”

Her friend had
actually rung several weeks earlier to share the news that Howard’s daughter
had given birth to a beautiful and healthy baby boy.
 
Bahey
had told
her that she and Howard, her first ever boyfriend, were going to stay and help
with the baby for at least a few weeks.
 

“I may as well
tell you, as I’m sure you’ll find out anyway, that I agree with you.
 
The body found in
Jurby
is definitely the same man who was found in the flat here.
 
I tried to contact Ms.
Corlett
and Mr. Mayer to confirm my opinion, but they are
both still across,” Pete said.
 

“Do we know
for sure who he is, though?” Bessie asked.

“John’s still waiting for the fingerprints to be confirmed.
 
I thought I might have a word with Mrs. Green
while we wait.”

“She wouldn’t
talk to me,” Bessie told him.

“Oh, she’ll
talk to me,” Pete said grimly.
 
“Whether she’ll actually tell me anything is another matter.”

“I’d better
let you get to it,” Bessie said, hoping he’d invite her along.
 
John might have, under certain
circumstances.

“Bessie, I’m
going to ask you to stay away from Seaside Terrace for a few days,” Pete said
instead, earning a frown from Bessie.

“Why?” she
demanded.

“We already
have two dead bodies and I’m not keen to add a third,” Pete told her.
 
“Just give me and John a few days to
figure it all out, okay?”

Bessie wanted
to argue, but she really had no business at Seaside Terrace and she knew he was
just trying to protect her, anyway.
 
“I’ll stay away unless
Bahey
gets back,” she
told him.
 
“I’ve already promised
her that I’ll come over as soon as she gets in and look at the thousands of
photos she’s taken of the baby.”

Pete nodded.
 
“That seems fair enough,” he told
her.
 

Bessie turned
and walked back towards the Douglas promenade.
 
Before she reached the end of the
street, she glanced back.
 
Pete was standing
still, watching her progress.
 
She
gave him a jaunty wave and then turned the corner.
 

A long browse
around the new bookstore in the city
centre
improved
Bessie’s mood tremendously.
 
In her taxi
on the way home she admired the spines of the half-dozen new books she’d
purchased.
 
A separate bag held a
handful of gossipy magazines that detailed the private lives of the sort of
minor celebrities that enjoyed sharing far too much with the fickle public.
 
Bessie generally only read such
magazines in waiting rooms and airports, but they were exactly the
sort
of mindless nonsense she sometimes found she needed
when she knew there was a murderer loose on the island.
 

Back at home,
she fixed herself some dinner and then curled up with one of her new
books.
 
She was soon lost in the
plot, the magazines forgotten.
 
They
would easily keep for another day, though.
 
It didn’t matter to Bessie how current they were.
 
She was highly unlikely to know who any
of the celebrities were, anyway.

A loud knock
on her door startled her a short time later.
 
She got to her feet and walked slowly
into the kitchen.
 
The caller
knocked again and Bessie scolded herself for feeling nervous as she reached for
the handle.
 
Just because she’d
found two dead bodies in the last ten days didn’t mean she was in any danger.

Chapter Eleven

Bessie felt as
if her heart skipped a beat and then relaxed again when she
recognised
John Rockwell on her doorstep.
 

“Oh, goodness,
John,” she gasped.
 
“How are you?”

“I’m fine,
Bessie,” John said.
 
“You look
rather pale, though.
 
Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,”
Bessie assured him.
 
“I just wasn’t
expecting anyone, that’s all.”

“I’m sorry I
didn’t ring first,” John told her.
 
“I really should have.”

“It’s fine,”
Bessie said.
 
“But do come in.”

“I will, but I
can’t stay long,” he said.
 
“I’m on
my way home and I’m completely knackered.
 
It’s been another long day.”

“Would you
like some tea and biscuits?” Bessie offered.

“A biscuit
would be great,” he replied.
 
“I
don’t want to wait for the kettle to boil, though.”

Bessie smiled
and quickly pulled out a box of biscuits.
 
She put a few on a plate and handed it to John.
 
He took a seat at the table and quickly
ate one while Bessie refilled the kettle.

“I need tea,”
she told the man.
 
“If it boils
while you’re still here, you’re more than welcome to change your mind.”

John nodded
and then swallowed.
 
“I really just
stopped to pass along the one piece of solid news we’ve had thus far.”

“Oh?” Bessie
said, trying to sound only slightly interested.

John grinned,
clearly not fooled by her casual tone.
 
“Yes, well, the body from
Jurby
has definitely
been identified as Mark Carr’s.”

Bessie sighed
deeply.
 
“I suppose I should be
grateful that Joan isn’t here to suffer through this,” she said after a long
minute.
 
“After losing both her
girls like she did, losing Mark would have been very hard on her.”

“We’re trying
to track down next of kin,” John told her.
 
“If you have any thoughts on the subject, I’d love to hear them.

“Michael,
Joan’s husband, had some cousins that lived in the south of the island,” she
said, struggling to remember more.
 
“I don’t think either of them had anyone closer than that.
 
I remember when the baby died the
Raspberry Jam Ladies sat with Michael and Joan at the service.
 
Any relatives that came, well, they were
seated further back.”

The kettle
boiled and Bessie made a pot of tea.
 
She put it on the table with her cup and then offered a cup to
John.
 
He made a face and then took
the cup from her.

“I’m afraid
I’m almost too tired to drive home,” he told Bessie.
 
“Maybe tea will give me some energy.”

“So, with the
body identified, you should be closer to finding out what happened, right?”
Bessie asked.

John shook his
head.
 
“If only it was that easy,”
he said with a sigh.
 
“It was
definitely murder, by the way.
 
Without going into too many details, his system was loaded with drugs
that would have rendered him unconscious before he was stabbed to death.”

Bessie
winced.
 
“The poor man,” she said
after a moment.

“He wouldn’t
have felt a thing,” John assured her, patting her arm.

“I suppose
that’s something,” Bessie said.
 
“Is
there anything to tie his death to Adam’s yet?”

“No, and the
more I dig into things the more it seems possible that the two deaths aren’t
connected.”

“Really?”
Bessie asked.
 
“But why?
 
Or can’t you tell me anything?”

“I can tell
you a few things,” John said.
 
“For
one, Mark didn’t make himself very many friends in prison.
 
In fact, he made himself quite a few
enemies.
 
We know of at least two
men who fought with him while they were doing time together.
 
They both threatened his life at
different times.”

“Oh, dear,”
Bessie exclaimed.
 
“So he wasn’t a
very likeable man.”

“No, he
wasn’t,”
John
agreed.
 
“Both men got out before Mark and at
least one of them made a trip to the island.
 
We aren’t sure if he’s still here or if
he went back across, but we’re doing our best to track the two men down.”

“So maybe Mark
really was here to hide from someone from his recent past, and that person found
him.
 
In a way, that seems more
likely than his death being tied to a thirty-year old murder.”

“There are a
few people here on the island
who
might have had a
reason to be unhappy with Mark as well,” John told her.
 

“Really?”

“Mark went to
prison for fraud, and some of those that he defrauded are people here on the
island.
 
One man in particular lost
quite a bit of money and never got it back.
 
He’s being looked at quite seriously.”

“And you can’t
tell me who he is,” Bessie added.

“No, I can’t,”
John
agreed.
 
“His involvement began when Mark had just taken over his father’s
business and was looking for investors.
 
This man was kind enough to invest, but then Mark disappeared with all
the money, having sold everything of value in the company before he left.
 
The man lost pretty much all of his
savings at the time, but that was thirty years ago and he seems to have
recovered pretty well.”

“Is he someone
I know?” Bessie had to ask.

John shook his
head.
 
“I doubt it very much,” he
said.
 
He must have seen the
sceptical
look in Bessie’s eyes.
 
“No, seriously, it isn’t George Quayle
or Grant Robertson, if that’s what you’re thinking.
 
The man lives in Douglas and went to
primary school with Joan Carr.
 
When
her husband died, Joan rang a few old friends and asked them to help out her
son while he was getting settled into running the business.
 
The gentleman in question invested
rather substantially.”

Bessie nodded.
 
John was probably correct; if the
man lived in Douglas, she probably didn’t know him.

“Surely, if
he’s doing okay now, he’s forgotten all about Mark Carr,” Bessie
suggested.
 

“He wrote to
Joan not long before she died and warned her that if Mark came back to the
island when he was released from prison that he would, quote, ‘make sure Mark
paid for what he did,’ end quote.”

“Oh, dear,”
Bessie said.

“Yes, Joan
kept the letter in a pile of important papers that we found when she died.
 
That suggests that she took the threat
seriously.”

“What did he
say when you questioned him?”

“That he was
just going to beat Mark up and try to get his money back,” John shrugged.
 
“I’ve already told you a lot more than I
should have.
 
I’d better go before I
tell you anything further.”

Bessie wanted
to protest, but she didn’t want to risk upsetting John.
 
He had told her rather a lot and she
really wanted to stay on his good side so that he’d do the same in the future.

“Well, thank
you for letting me know about Mark,” she said.
 
“Is that classified, or can I tell
people?”

“Oh, you can
tell people that much,” John replied.
 
“You can even tell people that we have several suspects under
investigation. I’d rather you didn’t tell anyone the story about the man in
Douglas, though, if you don’t mind.”

“That’s no
problem,” Bessie assured him.
 
“I’ll
tell people that you’re looking at a few criminals from across that served time
with Mark, and that’ll satisfy most of them.
 
Everyone would rather think the bad guys
always come here from across, rather than consider the idea that we might have
any home-grown murderers.”

“I can’t say as
I blame them,” John replied.

“Have you
figured out if Mark was hiding in one of the storage units?” Bessie asked as
she walked John to the door.

“That’s for
tomorrow,” John said.
 
“Apparently
they found something in one of the other storage units, but I haven’t had a
chance to have a look.
 
I’ll be
driving up to
Jurby
in the morning to go over what
they’ve found with Pete
Corkill
.”

“Doesn’t
Jurby
have a CID division?” Bessie asked.

“They do, but
it’s one guy and he’s swamped with the murder investigation,” John
replied.
 
“Pete’s involved anyway
because we now know Mark was in Douglas for at least some of the time he was on
the island.
 
I’m involved because
Mark is from Laxey originally and also because his death might be tied to
Adam’s, although that’s speculation.
 
Anyway, both Pete and I are happy to help out the
Jurby
CID.”

After he left,
Bessie finished the pot of tea and had several biscuits, sitting at her kitchen
table.
 
She remembered a very young
Mark Carr sitting at that very table having biscuits and telling her about the
sandcastle he’d been building.
 
Joan
had often brought young Mark to the beach to run and play, and sometimes they’d
stop for a chat with Bessie.

Poor Joan had
been devastated by the loss of her baby girl, right around the child’s third
birthday.
 
In many ways Joan had
never recovered and young Mark had suffered from his mother’s sadness.
 
Bessie wondered now if that tragic event
had been the turning point for Mark that put him on the path to prison or if
he’d have ended up that way no matter how happy his childhood.
 
She shook her head.
 
All this introspection wasn’t
accomplishing anything.

She got ready
for bed and then slid under the covers with her book.
 
Luckily it was excellent and she was
soon happily lost in it once again.
 
She slept well once she’d finished and woke at her usual time.
 
Showered and dressed, she ate her way
through a bowl of cereal before heading out for a walk.
 
It wasn’t yet seven, so she had the
beach to herself for her long stroll.
 

It was dry, but
the air had a bit of a chill to it that suggested autumn.
 
At
Thie
yn
Traie
, she turned back around
and headed for home.
 
Her mind had
been bouncing around everywhere while she walked, but one thing became
increasingly clear to her on her way home.
 
She had nothing to wear to the art auction tomorrow.

Friday was her
regularly scheduled day for grocery shopping in Ramsey, but she didn’t want to
wait to do the clothes shopping then, just in case she couldn’t find anything in
Ramsey and had to make a trip into Douglas.
 
Once home from her walk, she rang her
taxi service and asked for the first available driver immediately, and also
cancelled her scheduled Friday pickup.
 

The knock on
her door about fifteen minutes later let her know that her car had
arrived.
 
If it had been Mark Stone,
the driver she liked least, he would have simply honked his horn until she came
out.
 
All of the other drivers were
far more polite, and Bessie was pleased to find Dave, her
favourite
,
when she opened the door.

“Off to Ramsey
a day early,” he commented once she was safely buckled into her seat and he was
pulling away from her cottage.

“I have a
special event to attend tomorrow night and I need a new outfit,” Bessie
explained.
 
“I’m afraid if I wait to
shop until tomorrow I’ll find I need a trip into Douglas as well and I’ll run
out of time.”

“Makes sense,”
Dave said.
 
“Should I plan on taking
you to Douglas tomorrow, or do you usually find what you want in Ramsey?”

“I’m usually good
with Ramsey,” Bessie replied.
 
“There are still a few little dress shops that cater to those of us that
are in the later portion of middle age.
 
Most of the shops in Douglas seem to be trying to attract a much younger
customer.”

“Aye, my
sister was just saying the same thing,” Dave told her.
 
“She ended up on one of those day trips
across to the shops in Liverpool.”

“Those trips
sound so exhausting,” Bessie said.
 
“I’ve thought about trying one, but leaving on the early ferry one day
and coming back on the late ferry that same night seems like a bit too much
sailing for me.”

“She was well
knackered when she got back,” Dave agreed.
 
“But she found a bunch of clothes she liked, so she was happy.
 
And her husband was happy too, because
he didn’t have to go with her.”

Bessie
laughed.
 
“Let’s just hope I can
find something in Ramsey and be done with it,” she said.
 
“I don’t have time to go across; the
party is tomorrow night.”