Aunt Bessie Goes (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 7) (25 page)

“Oh?
 
Are you clearing the house then?” Bessie
asked.

Sarah
exchanged glances with her brothers.
 
“We’re having the house emptied and we’re going to do some updating,”
she said after a moment.
 
“Mike is
going to supervise things so that I don’t have to be there.
 
Obviously, we have to do something with
the smallest bedroom.
 
All that
water damage needs fixing.”

Now that the
police have removed the body, Bessie thought to herself.
 
“Well, it’s good that you both could get
home to help Sarah now,” was what she said out loud.

“I want to try
to get home a lot more often,” Fred said.
 
“I didn’t
realise
how much I missed the island
until I arrived last night.”

“Me, too,”
James said.
 
“I’d really like to
holiday here next summer if I can persuade my other half.”

“Did neither
of you ever ask your parents about Adam?” Bessie asked.

Fred
shrugged.
 
“I was across, starting
my career.
 
Adam kept threatening to
come and stay with me, which I was dead against.
 
I think, when they told me he’d
emigrated to Australia, I was just so relieved that he wasn’t coming to stay
with me that I didn’t want to know more.”

“I was still
at university,” James said.
 
“Besides,
I wasn’t close to mum and dad, or to Adam for that matter.”

“Do either of
you have any idea what might have happened to him?” Bessie asked, feeling as if
she was being incredibly nosy, but too curious to stop pushing.

“I would guess
it was some kind of accident,” Fred said.
 
“The police told us that they can’t determine a cause of death, but it
must have been an accident.”

“Dad wasn’t
fond of any of us children,” James remarked.
 
“And he really hadn’t wanted any more
after Sarah, but I still can’t see him actually killing Adam.”

“But why hide
the body?” Bessie asked.

“Maybe dad was
afraid no one would believe him that it was an accident,” Fred offered.
 
“He probably just panicked when he
realised
that Adam was dead.”

He was calm
enough to build an entire fake wall to hide the body behind, Bessie
thought.
 
Instead of saying that, she
asked another question.
 
“Do you
think your mother knew about it?”

“She had to
know,” Sarah spoke up.
 
“Dad
couldn’t have built the wall without her noticing.
 
Besides, she told me that she and dad
took Adam to the airport, when obviously they didn’t.
 
She had to know what happened.”

“Mum would
have done whatever dad told her,” James added.
 
“She was obsessed with him.
 
Looking back now, I can see that they
had a rather unhealthy relationship, but that’s beside the point.
 
Whatever happened to Adam, mum would
have done exactly what dad said.”

“Even if your
father had killed Adam?” Bessie had to ask.

“Even then,”
Fred replied.

“What about
Mark Carr?” Bessie asked.
 
“Where does
he fit into all of this?”

“What makes
you think he does?” Fred asked.
 
“He
was Adam’s friend, but that was thirty years ago.
 
I know he’s just turned up dead, but
surely it’s more likely he’s dead because of something that happened much more
recently?”

Bessie nodded
slowly.
 
“I just wondered if you
could imagine any connection between the two deaths,” she told them.

“As we don’t
really know what happened to Adam, it’s impossible to speculate, isn’t it?”
Fred said.
 
“I will say that I
thought Mark was a bad influence on Adam, but I didn’t really pay that much
attention to what Adam did.”

“Were you
surprised when your father gave Adam a job at the bank?” Bessie changed the
subject.

“Very,” Fred
said with a frown.
 
“I nagged him
every summer to give me a job there while I was at university, but he never
would.
 
I remember when Adam rang me
and told me he was going to work for dad.
 
I was furious.
 
In fact, I
didn’t speak to Adam or dad for several months.
 
I didn’t actually speak to Adam again.”

“So why would
your father have given him the job?” Bessie wondered.

“Knowing Adam,
he blackmailed dad into it,” James said.

“That’s not
fair,” Sarah said softly.

“It is
fair.
 
Adam always got away with a
lot more than we did because he was the youngest, but he also had a way of
finding things out about people and then using that information to get what he
wanted,” James said.

“He never did
that with me,” Sarah said.

“Well, he did
with me,” James told her.
 
“He found
out that I was sneaking out to see, well, a certain young lady friend, and he
threatened to tell dad.
 
I had to pay
him to keep quiet.”

“I’m pretty
sure he knew something about dad,” Fred said.
 
“Something that dad didn’t want anyone
else to know.”

“I don’t want
to hear this,” Sarah said.
 
“Isn’t
it bad enough that Adam’s dead and mum and dad hid the body?
 
Can’t we just leave it there?
 
I think Adam died of natural causes and
mum and dad just hid the body for some reason.
 
And I don’t want to talk about it any more.”

Mike put his
arm around his wife and rubbed her back gently.
 
“It was all such a long time ago,” he
said.
 
“Surely none of it matters
now,” he suggested.

“It matters if
it had something to do with Mark’s death,” Bessie replied.

“Mark was
mixed up in all sorts of
unsavoury
things,” Sarah
said.
 
“His friendship with Adam
thirty years ago can’t possibly be relevant to his death now.”

Bessie bit her
tongue and then sipped her tea.
 
She
didn’t want to argue with Sarah, who was obviously upset.

“None of us
know anything about Mark’s death,” Fred said.
 
“I’m with Sarah on this one, I find it
hard to believe that the two deaths are connected.
 
Adam died too long ago.”

“What might
Adam have known about your father that he used against him?” Bessie asked.

“Dad travelled
back and forth to London quite regularly for work,” Fred said.
 
“I think he had a girlfriend there.”

“He did not,”
Sarah said loudly.
 
“I’m sorry,
Bessie, but I can’t do this anymore.
 
If you all want to waste more time with wild speculation about our
family, you do so.
 
I’ll be walking
on the beach.”

Mike stood up
when Sarah did and Bessie opened the back door for them.
 
Sarah marched off quickly, with Mike
rushing to keep up.

“I’m sure this
is hard on all of you,” Bessie said to the two brothers when she returned to
the table.

Fred
shrugged.
 
“I’m not
harbouring
any illusions about our parents or Adam,” he
told Bessie.
 
“Mum and dad loved
each other and neither had much time for us kids.
 
Adam was manipulative and he had his own
ideas about what was right and what was wrong.”

“If your
parents were so much in love, what makes you think your father cheated?”

“There were
lots of little things,” Fred said.
 
“I didn’t really want to know, so I never checked into any of it, but
dad wasn’t all that discreet.”

“I knew he had
a woman in London,” James said.
 
“I
actually met her once, when I ran into dad with her in a restaurant there one
night.
 
I never told mum.
 
She would have been devastated.”

“You think if
Adam found out he would have blackmailed your father about it?” Bessie asked.

“Absolutely,”
Fred said.

“Definitely,”
James agreed.
 
“Dad actually offered
me a summer job at the bank if I kept quiet about the other woman, but I wasn’t
interested.
 
I’m pretty sure Adam
got given his job to keep him quiet.”

Bessie sat
back, her mind racing.
 
Before she
could speak, the back door opened.

“Ah,
Bessie?
 
I’m sorry to break up the
party, but I think I need to get Sarah home,” Mike said.
 
“She’s pretty upset.”

“I’m sorry,”
Bessie
said, aware that her prying questions had been what
upset the woman.

“I know you
just want to figure out what’s going on,” Mike said.
 
“But this is her family we’re talking
about.
 
Even though she wasn’t close
to her parents, she doesn’t like to think of them as criminals.
 
And she was quite close to Adam, so
hearing anything negative about him is difficult.”

Bessie
nodded.
 
“I should have been more
sensitive,” she said.
 
She and the
others got up and walked to the door.

“She’s waiting
in the car,” Mike told them.
 
“She
said to tell you that she’d love to see you at Adam’s memorial service on Wednesday,
if you can make it.”

“Of course
I’ll be there,” Bessie answered.

She hugged the
brothers.
 
“Thank you for being so
honest with me,” she told them.
 
“I
hope we can eventually figure out exactly what happened to Adam and to Mark.”

“We’ll see you
on Wednesday,” James said as he left.
 

“You will
indeed,” Bessie replied.

Bessie fixed
herself some lunch almost automatically, not especially hungry after all the
biscuits she’d eaten with her guests.
 
She sat down to eat with her mind racing.
 
Maybe Mike was right, maybe it was all
so long ago that it didn’t matter, she thought eventually.
 
It was difficult seeing all these old
secrets coming out.

The ringing of
her phone interrupted her thoughts.
 

“I was
wondering if I could come and bounce some ideas off you tonight,” John said
when she’d answered.
 
“I’ll invite
Hugh and Doona as well.
 
Between us
maybe we can figure something out.”

“That sounds
good,” Bessie agreed.
 
“I’ve just
had an interesting chat with Sarah and her brothers and my thoughts are
everywhere.”

“I’ll bring
Chinese food and fairy cakes,” John offered.
 
“I’ll get chocolate ones.
 
That’s sure to bring Doona.”

Bessie laughed
and agreed.
 
She spent the afternoon
ringing through her network of nosy friends and
neighbours
.
 
Everyone had heard vague
rumours
about Grant Robertson over the years, but no one
could pin them down to more than that.
 
Bessie rang her advocate last.

“
Doncan
, I need to know about Grant Robertson,” she said
when his secretary put her through.
 
“He’s offered Doona a job and I don’t trust him.”

“Bessie, how
nice to hear from you,”
Doncan
said heartily.
 
“We should have lunch one day this week
and have a good long chat.”

“I’d like
that,” Bessie replied.
 
“But what
can you tell me about Grant Robertson.”

“I’m afraid
there isn’t much I can tell you on that subject,”
Doncan
said.
 
“He’s a very influential man
on this island and he’s involved in a lot of projects.
 
Many of them are charitable and do a lot
of good for the island.”

“I’ve been
told he made a lot of his money through somewhat dishonest practices,” Bessie
pushed for more information.

“That would be
a police matter,”
Doncan
replied.
 
“I’ve only met the man once or twice,
but I know his advocate and I would be very careful if I were you.
 
Scott Meyers is very protective of his
only client’s reputation.”

Bessie
sighed.
 
She’d been hoping
Doncan
would be more forthcoming, but she ought to have expected
him to refuse to tell her anything.
 
That was one of the things that made him such a good advocate; he never
talked about anyone.
 
After settling
on a date for lunch, she hung up the phone.
 
Maybe her dinner meeting would be more
fruitful.

John was right
on
time
, making two trips to his car to bring in all
the food.
 
Hugh was only a few
minutes behind him.

“You timed
that just right to get out of carrying anything,” John teased him.

“I was parked
up the road watching,” Hugh joked.

“Is Doona
coming?” Bessie asked.

“She wasn’t
sure,” John said.
 
“She said she had
a lot to do tonight.”

Bessie
frowned.
 
Maybe she should ring
Doona and find out exactly what was more important than their meeting, she
thought to herself.
 
She was saved
from making the call by a knock on the door.