Aunt Bessie Goes (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 7) (5 page)

“The water
damage is a shame, but it isn’t unusual in houses of this age, especially when
they haven’t been properly maintained,” Alan said.
 
“If we get a quote for the cost of
repairing that damage, perhaps we can get the owners to take that amount off
the asking price.”

John shook his
head.
 
“The dimensions are all
wrong,” he said.
  
“Do you have
the particulars for this house?” he asked Alan.

Alan flipped
through the papers he’d been carrying around all morning.
 
“Here you go,” he said, handing a sheet
to John.

John studied
it for a minute and then showed the paper to Bessie.

“See?
 
The other two bedrooms along the hall are
both listed as being ten feet long, but that bedroom is only eight feet
long.
 
Why?”

He headed back
out of the master bedroom before Bessie could reply.
 
She joined him in the small bedroom as
he studied the walls.

“This is a
false wall,” he announced, pointing to the back wall of the room.
 
“It’s made the room somewhat smaller
than it should be, and presumably, blocked off the window.”

Bessie looked
at the room more closely and then walked to the bedroom next to it, and the
third as well.
 
Now that John had
pointed it out, it was obvious that the back wall in the smallest bedroom
didn’t line up with the back wall in the other two bedrooms.
 
Bessie hadn’t given the lack of a window
much thought, but now that John mentioned it, it was strange.

“Maybe it’s a
built-in wardrobe,” Alan was suggesting when Bessie returned to the small room.

“There’s no
way into the space, though,” John pointed out.
 
“Why block off such a large amount of
such a small room?”

“On the plus
side, if you buy the house, you’ll be able to take down the wall and have a
much larger room here,” Alan pointed out in a cheery voice.

John was
running his hand along the mysterious back wall.
 
“It’s damp almost from top to bottom in
this corner,” he said.
 
“I’m not sure
what this wall is made of, but it isn’t exactly sturdy.”
 

Bessie watched
as he pushed on a section near the worst of the water damage.
 
The waterlogged surface began to tear
under the pressure.

“Maybe we
shouldn’t do that,” Alan suggested nervously.
 

“Maybe you’d
like to run back to your car and get me a measuring tape and a torch?” John
suggested.
 
“I just want to see
exactly how extensive the water damage is.
 
It seems to be mostly behind this wall.
 
I’d also like to see if there is a
window back there.”

Alan nodded
and then glanced at Bessie.
 
“I
guess I’ll just grab those things from my car.
 
You two will wait here, then?
 
I mean, I guess you’re a policeman,
aren’t you?
 
I suppose I can trust
you.”

John
sighed.
 
“Just go,” he said
firmly.
 

John and
Bessie stood silently until they heard the front door open and close.
 

“What do you
think is behind the wall?” Bessie asked.

“I suspect
it’s hiding even more water damage,” John told her.
 
“And there’s no way I’m prepared to even
think about making an offer until I check.”

He pushed the
wall again in the same spot and the crack spread down the wall.
 
With a bit more pressure, a large section
of the wall seemed to fall away and disappear behind it.
 
John reached into a pocket and pulled
out a small torch.
 
He aimed it into
the space.

“Just as I
thought,” he told Bessie.
 
“There’s
a lot of water damage on the real wall behind this one.”
 
He aimed the torch upwards and then
shook his head.
 

“The ceiling
back there has pretty much collapsed into the space below,” he said.
 
“It looks like there’s a serious problem
with that section of the roof.
 
I
can’t imagine how much time and money this will take to fix.”

They heard the
front door again before Bessie could reply.
 
Alan rushed back in, breathing
heavily.
 
“I went as fast as I
could,” he told John.
 
“I couldn’t
find a measuring tape, but here’s a torch.”

He handed John
a large torch and John switched it on.
 

“You made a
hole in the wall,” Alan said, clearly trying not to sound too angry.

“And there’s a
lot of water damage in there,” John replied calmly.
 
“I’m guessing they had problems in the
past and built the false wall to hide them.”

“But why build
it so far out?” Bessie wondered.
 
“They could have just put up a new wall right over the old one.”

“Let’s see
what I can find out,” John suggested.
 
He aimed Alan’s larger torch through the hole, now focusing the light
downwards into the space.

“There are
some suitcases back there,” he said.

“Why would you
put suitcases behind a wall?” Bessie queried.
 

“Maybe they
were going to build a door, but never got around to it,” Alan suggested.

“Is there
anything else back there?” Bessie asked John.

John turned
around and switched off the torch.
 
“I’m afraid there is,” he said grimly.
 
“Alan, I need you to give me the keys to
the house and take Bessie home.
 
This house is now a crime scene.”

Bessie gasped
as Alan began to protest.
 
John held
up his hand and stopped Alan in mid-sentence.

“If you want
to stay, you can.
 
I suppose you’re
the owner’s official representative here, under the circumstances,” he told
Alan.
 
“Bessie, I’m going to have to
ask you to leave, however.”

“What’s back
there?” she had to ask.

“I’m not
sure,” John said.
 
“But it looks
very much like a body that has been there for some considerable time.”

Chapter
Three

Bessie walked
away from Nancy King’s house slowly, her brain trying to process what John had
said.
 
Alan Collins had nearly
fainted when John said the word body, but he had remained adamant that he
couldn’t leave the property.
 
Bessie
knew John was indulging him for the moment, but if what he’d found really was a
body, she had no doubt that John would send the obnoxious man away quite
quickly.

John had
offered to ring for a taxi for Bessie, but she insisted she was happy to walk
back to her cottage.
 
It wasn’t
until she was nearly at
Doona’s
door that Bessie
realised
that she wasn’t walking home at all.
 
She shook her head and had a quick word
with her subconscious.
 
Imagine
walking all that way without informing the rest of Bessie as to what it was up
to.
 
She rang
Doona’s
doorbell, hoping her friend would be at home.

“Bessie?
 
What a wonderful
surprise,” Doona said, pulling her door open wide to let her friend in.
 
“What brings you here this morning?”

Bessie tried
to force herself to smile, but found unexpected tears welling up in her eyes
instead.
 
“John’s found a body,” she
blurted out.
 
“In Nancy King’s
house.
 
It was just too awful.”

Doona quickly
wrapped Bessie in a huge hug, holding on tightly while a few tears slipped from
Bessie’s eyes.

“Tea?” she
asked after a moment.

“Yes, please,”
Bessie
replied.

In
Doona’s
comfortable kitchen, Doona handed Bessie a box of
tissues before she put the kettle on.
 
She found a box of biscuits and dumped them onto a plate.
 
“Eat one.
 
You need the sugar,” she told Bessie
sternly.

Bessie took a
biscuit and nibbled on it dispiritedly.
 
Now that her tears had stopped, she was frustrated with herself for
crying.

“Can you talk
about it?” Doona asked as she fixed the tea.
 
“Or should we talk about the loser I met
at the grocery store this morning instead?”

Bessie managed
a small grin now.
 
“You do seem to
rather attract strange men,” she commented.
 
“Tell me about him while I sip my tea
and then, when I’m feeling a bit more like myself, I’ll tell you everything.”

Doona
nodded.
 
“I went into Ramsey to
ShopFast
to get my weekly shop, and this man was wandering
around the fruit and veg as if he’d never seen any of it before.”

“How old was
he?” Bessie asked.

“Oh, forty or
so,” Doona replied.
 
“I suspect it
was all an act, though, because when I picked up some carrots he started
talking to me.
 
He said he never
cooks and he wasn’t sure what half the stuff was, but maybe I could help him
learn.”
 
Doona laughed.
 
“I pointed him towards the cookbook aisle
and got away.”

“How very
odd,” Bessie said.

“I’ve heard
that lots of single men are using the grocery store as a place to meet women,”
Doona told her.
 
“But this guy was
going about it all wrong.
 
His suit
was ugly, he was almost totally bald but trying to hide it with a bad
comb-over, and he had strange beady little eyes as well.”

“Was the suit
brown?” Bessie asked.
 

“How did you
know that?” Doona demanded.

“I think you
may have just met my least
favourite
estate agent,
Alan Collins,” Bessie replied.
 
“Although
you would have had to have been in Ramsey quite early to have done so, because
we met him at nine for house hunting.”

“This was
about half seven,” Doona told her.
 
“I woke up at six.
 
I guess
my body doesn’t always understand about weekends.
 
I figured since I was up I might as well
get some shopping done.”

“I’m awfully
glad you didn’t like him,” Bessie said.
 
“He’s one of my least
favourite
people in the
world right now.”

“What did he
do this morning?
 
And does he have
anything to do with the body?”

Bessie shook
her head.
 
“I’m sure he’s a
perfectly nice man,” she said, although she wasn’t certain she meant it.
 
“He just always seems to annoy me.
 
He insists on calling me Mrs.
Cubbon
, for one thing.”

Doona nodded.
 
“I see.”

“You think I’m
overreacting,” she said, smiling at her friend.

“If I hadn’t
met the man, I might,” Doona admitted.
 
“But there is definitely something unpleasant about him.”

“There really
is, although I don’t think we can blame the dead body on him.”

“Do you want
to tell me about it now?” Doona asked gently.

“I suppose I
should,” Bessie said with a sigh.
 
“We
saw four different properties,” she began, knowing full well that she was
prevaricating.
 
“The old Looney
place is in a terrible state, by the way.”

“I’d heard
that it was finally on the market,” Doona replied.
 
“I can’t imagine why the family didn’t
sell it years ago.”

“Me,
either.
 
They’ve let it get into a
terrible state, though.
 
I’m not
sure who’s going to buy it.
 
It will
have to be someone who’s ready to do a lot of work.”

“Or someone
with plenty of money,” Doona suggested.
 

“I don’t know
that it’s large enough or in the right place to attract someone with money,”
Bessie told her.
 
“But I hope
someone buys it.
 
I hate seeing it sit
empty.”

“Like
Thie
yn
Traie
,”
Doona said.

“Exactly.”
 
The enormous mansion on a cliff
overlooking Laxey beach was just past the holiday cottages near Bessie’s
home.
 
Most days, on her morning
walk, she walked to the foot of the cliff below the mansion.
 
And most days she felt sad when she
looked up at the empty building.
 
She was still hoping someone might buy it to live in full-time rather
than using the place as a summer home the way the Pierce family had done.

“Any news on
that?” Doona asked.

“
Doncan
says that yet another offer fell through at the last
minute,” Bessie told her, referring to her advocate, who was handing the sale
on the behalf of the family.
 
“Apparently, this time, the financing didn’t work out.”
 

“So you saw
the Looney place; where else did you go?” Doona dragged the subject back to the
house hunting.

“One of those
new buildings of flats.
 
While John
hated it, it might be a good idea for him, as they take care of the garden and
there’s plenty of parking at all hours of the day and night.”

“That would be
handy for him,” Doona agreed.
 
“I
know he sometimes has a hard time finding a spot on the street around here when
he works late.”

“We also went
around that house on the next block that was extended last year.”
 
Bessie told her the address and Doona
nodded.

“What’s it
like inside?
 
I’m dying to see it,
actually, but I haven’t the nerve to bother an estate agent just to satisfy my
curiosity.”

“It’s nice
enough, although I think they’ve rather ruined the exterior.”

“Aye, they
have at that,” Doona said.
 
“And I
don’t know why, because they didn’t actually need to touch the outside of the
home.
 
It was in great condition
before they started.”

“They’ve done
a nice enough job with the inside,” Bessie told her.
 
“It’s very modern and completely lacking
in character, which I gather is what many people are looking for these days.”

Doona
laughed.
 
“With all the new housing
estates going up in Douglas and
Onchan
, I’d have to
agree with you.
 
Every house looks
exactly like its
neighbours
.
 
I think the house numbers are just there
so people can be sure they’re at the right place.”

“Still, with
all the people coming over for jobs in banking and insurance, we need a lot
more housing.
 
I suppose the new
estates are quick and easy to build, if nothing else.”

“I guess.
 
Where else did you go?”

Bessie looked
down at the table.
 
“Just Nancy
King’s house,” she said softly.
 

Doona took her
hand and then, after giving it a squeeze, she slid her chair closer to Bessie’s
and put her arm around her friend.
 
“If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay,” she said soothingly.

Bessie looked
up at her.
 
“Thank you, but I think
I need to talk about it.
 
But I’m grateful
you didn’t rush me, anyway.”

“That’s what
friends are for.”

“Sarah and her
brothers haven’t done anything to the place since Nancy died,” Bessie
said.
 
“It’s in desperate need of a
really good clean.
 
They’ve also
left a lot of the furniture and are selling it with the house.”

“The boys are
all across, right?” Doona asked.

“Yes, and
Sarah’s in Port Erin, but that doesn’t excuse putting the house on the market
in its current state.”

“How was the
kitchen?” Doona asked hesitantly.

“That was the
only clean space in the house,” Bessie replied.
 
“They had the kitchen professionally
cleaned after the police finished with it.”

“I guess
that’s something,” Doona remarked.

“They should
have done the whole house,” Bessie told her.

“And there was
a body in the house?” Doona asked.

“The smallest
bedroom, which was used as an office, had a false wall about two feet in from
the side of the house.
 
There was a
lot of water damage on the wall and the ceiling above it, and once John
realised
it wasn’t actually the outside wall, he made a
small hole in it and looked inside with a torch.”

Doona shook
her head.
 
“When you said there was
a body in the house, I was thinking it was just lying on a bedroom floor or
something.
 
This was behind a false
wall?”

“I guess
so.
 
I didn’t actually see it.
 
John looked behind the wall.
 
He saw a lot more water damage and then
he noticed a few suitcases, which was strange enough.
 
After another look, he got all
policeman-like and sent me away.
 
He
let Alan Collins stay as the official representative of the home owners,
though.”

“Another
reason not to like him,” Doona remarked as she hugged Bessie again.
 
“So you’ve no idea how long the body has
been there?”

Bessie shook
her head.
 
“I never spent a lot of time
with Nancy and I think I’d only been in her home maybe a dozen times in all the
years she lived there.
 
I never had
occasion to go into the office on any of those visits, except when I went
around with Sarah just after Nancy died.
 
I’m sure the false wall was there then, though, and no one has been
moving any walls around in there lately.”

“So who could
it be?” Doona asked.

Bessie felt
tears beginning again.
 
“That’s part
of the reason why I’m so upset,” she told her friend.
 
“It’s crazy, but the whole thing is
crazy.
 
Who hides a body behind a
wall in their own home?
 
I can’t
believe the builders did it and no one ever noticed, so that means that Nancy
and Frederick had to have had something to do with it.
 
But that just can’t be.”
 
Bessie shook her head.
 

“It sounds
like you think you know who it is,” Doona said, rubbing Bessie’s back.

“I just keep
thinking that it’s Adam,” Bessie said as her tears began to flow.
 
“But that’s even crazier still.”

“I thought
Adam was Nancy’s youngest son,” Doona said.
 
“I’m trying to remember everything from
the investigation into Nancy’s death in July.
 
Didn’t he move to Australia when he was
eighteen or something?”

Bessie nodded
slowly.
 
“That was what Nancy always
said,” she said after a moment.
 
“But Sarah said she’s never heard from him again.
 
He and Sarah were pretty close when they
were children.
 
I would have thought
he would have sent her a Christmas card or two over the years, at least.”

“But he
couldn’t do that if he was dead and buried behind a wall in Nancy’s house.”

“But that’s
insane,” Bessie argued.
 
“Why would
anyone hide their own child’s body behind a fake wall?
 
None of this makes sense.”