Aunt Bessie Invites (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 9) (15 page)

“Hello?”

“Bessie, it’s Doona.
 
I’ve just finished with my solicitor
from across and, well, I just needed someone to talk to.”

“Why don’t you come over?” Bessie
suggested.
 
“I’ve had two lots of
tea and biscuits already today.
 
Maybe you could bring something a little bit healthier than that with
you?”

Doona laughed.
 
“I’ll bring fish and chips,” she
said.
 
“At least that’s what sounds
good to me.
 
Would you rather have
something else?”

“Fish and chips is fine,” Bessie said, even
though she wasn’t sure that they were much healthier than biscuits.
 

“I’ll see you in a few minutes,” Doona
promised before she disconnected.

Bessie used the time to wipe down her
kitchen counters and check that her small downstairs loo was clean.
 
Doona’s car was pulling to the small parking
area outside Bessie’s cottage as Bessie finished.

As Doona climbed out of her car, Bessie saw
that her friend was upset.
 
She
opened the cottage door and rushed outside to greet Doona with a huge hug.

“It’s nice to see you, too,” Doona said with
a laugh as Bessie released her.

“You looked upset,” Bessie replied.

“I am, a bit,” Doona admitted.
 
“But I’m also hungry.”
 
Doona opened her boot and handed Bessie
a large bag, the contents of which smelled delicious.

“You put the food in your boot?” Bessie questioned.

“If I hadn’t, there wouldn’t be any chips
left to go with the fish,” Doona told her.

Inside the cottage, Bessie got down plates
and the pair quickly filled them with the battered fish and thick and salty
chips.
 
Bessie handed Doona a fizzy
drink and then sat down with one for
herself
.
 
They ate in silence for several minutes.

“That was gorgeous,”
Bessie
said when her plate was empty.
 

“It was very nice,” Doona agreed.
 
“But I didn’t bring a pudding.”

“How about an apple?” Bessie suggested.
 
“After that meal, we should have
something healthy.”

Doona made a face and then laughed.
 
“You’re right, and I agree, as long as I
can have a few biscuits with it.”

Bessie handed her friend an apple and then
put chocolate biscuits on a plate.
 
She switched the kettle on and then sat back down with her own piece of
fruit.
 

“So I met with my solicitor,” Doona said
after a moment.
 
“Things are still
in a state of confusion, really.
 
The accounts of the company that Charles was a partner in are being very
closely examined.
 
It’s clear that
Lawrence Jenkins was manipulating the books, but no one is certain who knew
about it.
 
Charles isn’t around to
defend himself, of course.
 
Anyway,
there is a lot of money tied up in the company, but no one can touch it until
the police and the
inland revenue
finish their
investigation.”

“What a mess,” Bessie said, shaking her
head.
 
“Do you have enough money to
pay the solicitor?
 
I can always
help you out…” she trailed off when Doona held up a hand.

“I’m fine,” she told Bessie.
 
“In fact, I’m more than fine.
 
Charles had several life insurance
policies and he had me listed as the beneficiary on all of them.
 
Only one has paid out so far, but the
solicitor brought me a cheque for almost fifty thousand pounds.”

“Well, my goodness,” Bessie exclaimed.

“Exactly,” Doona said.
 
“I don’t really feel as if I should
accept the money, as we were only together for such a short time.”

“Of course you should take the money,”
Bessie said firmly.
 
“If you don’t
take it, where would it go?”

“I suppose to his relatives in New Zealand
that he’d never met,” Doona said.

“Well, there you are.
 
You knew him and even loved him, if only
for a short time.”

“I loved for a long time,” Doona said
sadly.
 
“It was only recently that I
started feeling like I wasn’t still in love with him.”

“So the money is yours.
 
What will you do with your sudden
windfall?”

“I think I’ll pay down my mortgage, at least
a little bit,” Doona said.
 
“And
maybe do up the house some, as well.
 
I don’t really know.
 
It
isn’t enough that I can quit my job and just go travelling or anything,
although if the solicitor is to be believed, I might be in line for considerably
more once everything is settled.”

“That would be wonderful,” Bessie said.
 
“But I think you’re sensible to not
count on it.”

“I’m definitely not counting on it,” Doona
replied.
 
“But I will admit to
indulging in the odd fantasy about it now and then.”

Bessie laughed.
 
Doona was looking better and sounding
happier than she had in some time.
 
“Nothing wrong with a good fantasy or two,” she said.

The pair tidied up the kitchen and then took
a long walk on the beach.
 
It was
chilly and dark, but they each took a torch and enjoyed the peacefulness as
they walked along listening to the waves splashing onto the shore.

“There are lights on in Thie yn Traie,”
Bessie said when they’d reached the stairs to the mansion above them.

“When Doncan and I were chatting tonight
before the solicitor arrived, he mentioned that someone was seriously
considering purchasing the place,” Doona told her.
 
“He said something about them staying
there for the weekend to see how they liked it.”

“That’s interesting,” Bessie said
thoughtfully.
 
“I do hope they like
it enough to buy it.”

“I’d better get home,” Doona said when they
returned to the cottage.
 
“Are you
going to the auction tomorrow?”

“I don’t think so,” Bessie said.
 
“I’ve given the auction company my
maximum bid for the painting.
 
I’m
not sure I could stand it, sitting there and watching it get sold.
 
If my bid is the highest, I’ll be
thrilled, but if it isn’t, I’ll just have to be happy with having the view.”

Doona nodded.
 
“I might go,” she told her friend.
 
“I understand there are a lot of
different items going under the hammer, including televisions, jewellery,
furniture and appliances.
 
Now I have
some unexpected money to spend, maybe I can get something special.”

Bessie bit back all the words of caution and
warning that sprang to her lips.
 
“I
hope you find something perfect,” she told her friend.

“Me, too,” Doona said.

Bessie locked the door behind her and then
did a final check of the kitchen.
 
She was just about to switch off the ringer on her phone when the phone
rang.

“Hello?” she said, curious who would be
ringing so late and hoping it wasn’t an insurance salesman.

“Bessie?
 
It’s Fenella Faragher.
 
We’ve been so busy with the police and
everything that Eoin and I forgot all about your turkeys.
 
Or rather, we forgot to have you back to
see them.
 
I don’t suppose you’d be
free tomorrow?
 
Only we need to get
them ready, you understand, so tomorrow is about the deadline if you want to
see them, well, while they’re still alive.”

“I can come up tomorrow,” Bessie
agreed.
 
“What time?”

They settled on two o’clock and Bessie
headed up to bed with her mind racing.
 
She hoped she would get to see both Eoin and Fenella; she had a great
many questions for both of them.

Chapter Eight

Bessie woke up at six as normal.
 
She took a shower and then, once
dressed, headed out for her usual walk.
 
Thie yn Traie was dark as she walked towards it.
 
On the way back home, she saw Thomas
Shimmin unpacking his car for another day of painting.

“How is it all coming along?” she asked,
having walked up the beach to greet him in the small car park for the holiday
cottages.

“It’s fine,” he replied.
 
“I’ve finished a couple of the cottages,
but it seems to be taking longer this year than it has in the past.
 
I suppose I’m just getting slower as I
get older.”

“Maybe you should get someone in to help you
out,” Bessie suggested.

Thomas shrugged.
 
“It isn’t like I’m in a hurry,” he
said.
 
“I’d like to have them all
done before Christmas, but really, as long as they’re ready for our first
bookings in the spring, I’ll be good.”

“Just giving them all a coat of beige?”
Bessie asked.

“It isn’t beige,” he protested.
 
“It’s ‘Soft Ivory Mist,’ or that’s what
is says on the tins, anyway.”

“So beige,” Bessie said with a laugh.
 

“Yep, and don’t you start, too,” he told
her.
 

Bessie gave him a questioning look.

“Oh, Maggie has been saying that we ought to
paint the cottages with brighter and more interesting colours.
 
She’s been watching some show on the
telly where they change rooms all around and make them hideous, and now she
wants to give each cottage a theme, whatever that means.”

“Oh, my,” Bessie said.
 
“Yet again, I don’t think I’m missing
anything by not having a telly.”

“I’d miss watching the football,” Thomas
said.
 
“But everything else just
seems to put ideas in Maggie’s head.
 
Fancy having one of the cottages all decorated in animal prints.
 
It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

“Beige is lovely,” Bessie said with a
laugh.
 
“And you don’t have to worry
about anyone complaining about it, either.”

“Exactly,” Thomas replied.
 
“Now if you could just convince Maggie
of that, I’d be a happy man.”

“I can try to have a chat with her at
Thanksgiving,” Bessie suggested.
 
“Although it’s going to be an awfully busy day.”

“Don’t you worry about it,” Thomas assured
her.
 
“Maggie can have all the crazy
ideas she likes; it isn’t as if she’s going to actually do any of the work
around here.
 
Maybe, if I get the
painting done early enough, I’ll let her redecorate one cottage and we’ll see
how it goes.
 
But I can promise you
it won’t be filled with animal prints, that’s for sure.”

“It will be interesting to see what Maggie
comes up with,” Bessie said.
 

“I’m not sure interesting is the right
word,” Thomas replied.

He headed into one of the cottages while
Bessie continued on her way home.
 
Once inside, she looked around her overcrowded kitchen.
 
Every room in the cottage was the
same,
full of things she’d accumulated over an entire life
lived within the same space.
 
It
would feel much more spacious if she’d cleared out most of the books, but that
was something Bessie wasn’t prepared to even consider.
 
She looked around again and then
sighed.
 
Her heirs would have quite
a job to do to clear the place out after she’d gone.

Her morning post brought a few photocopied
sheets from Marjorie Stevens at the Manx Museum library.
 
Bessie read the note that accompanied
them.

Bessie,
I thought you might like to see what you could make of these copies of some of the
oldest wills we have at the museum now that you’ve taken the course in reading
old handwriting.
 
There are four
here and hundreds more at the museum if you enjoy the work.
 
Let me know.
 
Marjorie.

Sitting down at her desk, Bessie looked over
the copied sheets.
 
At first glance
they were completely indecipherable, but when she started to focus on one page,
she began to pick out a few words here and there.
 
Of course wills generally follow a
standard format, which meant the first words of the documents should all be the
same.
 
Feeling as if she was working
on a particularly complex puzzle, Bessie worked her way through the document,
word by word, sometimes letter by letter, until she had a very rough
transcription.
 
She sat back with a
happy sigh.
 
When she glanced at the
clock, she was shocked to find that it was past midday.

“I haven’t had lunch,” she exclaimed.
 
Her tummy rumbled back at her, and
laughing to herself, she headed to the kitchen to remedy the situation.
 
By the time she’d eaten and tidied up,
she needed to get ready to go the Clague farm.
 
Her taxi arrived right on time for the
journey and she chatted easily with Dave as they made
their
way north.

“I’ll have to ring when I’ve finished,” she
told him when he dropped her off at the farmhouse.
 
“I’ve no idea how long this will take.”

Bessie walked to the door and knocked
loudly.
 
She was conscious that Dave
was watching her, waiting until he was certain that someone was home before he
drove away.
 
That was just one of
the reasons he was her favourite driver.
 
After a few moments, the door swung open.

“Fenella, how are you?” Bessie asked as she
waved to Dave and entered the house.
 

“Oh, fine,”
Fenella
muttered.
 

Bessie looked hard at the woman.
 
It didn’t look as if Fenella had slept
since the last time Bessie had seen her.
 
Her hair was pulled back into a messy plait and Bessie could see half a
dozen pins sticking out of it at various angles.
 
Bessie couldn’t resist giving the woman
a quick hug.
 
Fenella went rigid
under the contact.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered as Bessie pulled
back quickly.
 
“I’m just not dealing
very well with any of this.”

“I’m sure finding the body was upsetting,”
Bessie said in a soothing tone.
 
“I
do hope nothing else is bothering you.”

Fenella shrugged.
 
“I just hate not knowing what happened,”
she said.
 
Bessie could hear tears
in the woman’s voice.

“Did you know Jacob Conover?” Bessie asked.

“Ah, Bessie, there you are,” Eoin’s voice
boomed through the small entryway where they were still standing.
 
“Sorry that you’ve had to come
back.
 
That dead man is causing no
end of trouble.”

Bessie smiled at the man as he joined
them.
 
“Hello, Eoin,” she said.
 
He, too, looked tired, but Bessie wondered
if he had more serious health problems than she’d realised.
 
He was tall and he’d always been a
somewhat imposing figure as he strode around the farm, but now he seemed to
have shrunk somehow.
 
His grey hair
had thinned dramatically as well since Bessie had seen him last, only a year
earlier.

“I know,” he barked at her.
 
“I look awful.
 
Oh, you’re too polite to say it to my
face, but I have a mirror, not that I spend any time looking in it, you know.
 
Still, the doctors keep giving me
medicines and saying they’ll fix me.
 
I’m sure I felt better before they got their hands on me, but now I’m
stuck with them.”
 
He shook his
head.
 
“I know I can’t live forever,
no matter what them doctors say.”

“I hope you haven’t been too upset by the
discovery of the body,” Bessie said.

“Oh, I have enough of my own things to worry
about without fretting over that,” Eoin told her.
 
“But let’s go and see the birds, shall
we?”

“I’d love a quick chat with Fenella when
we’re done,” Bessie said, glancing at the woman, even though she’d addressed
the comment to Eoin.

“Come on back up and we’ll have a cuppa,”
Fenella offered.
 
“It’s chilly out
in the barns.
 
You’ll want a hot
drink anyway.”

“Let’s get moving,” Eoin said.
 
“I have to see to the cows next.
 
Nothing gets done when I’m not there.”

Bessie followed the man out the front door
and down the short path to the road.
 
He opened the door to the car that was parked there, and then when
Bessie was safely tucked up inside, he walked around and climbed in the
driver’s side.

“Is this a new car?” Bessie asked as they
drove slowly towards one of the barns.

“Aye, it’s new for us, anyway,” Eoin
replied.
 
“I wanted something that
would get me around in a bit more comfort.
 
I’m getting too old for riding tractors everywhere.”

Bessie nodded, remembering previous visits
where Eoin, and before him Niall, would boost Bessie into a tractor for a scary
and bumpy ride across the farm.
 
In
the last few years, Eoin had taken to driving small cars that struggled to get
around the unpaved farm roads.
 
This
vehicle was much larger and far more comfortable, at least as far as Bessie was
concerned.

“Is Fenella very upset about the dead man?”
Bessie asked as they waited for several sheep to move across the road.

Eoin shrugged.
 
“I don’t reckon either of us knew the
man they think it was,” he told her.
 
“I suppose that the body has been there for so long it feels sort of
unreal or something.”

“You don’t remember Jacob Conover?” Bessie
asked.

“Nope,” he replied.
 
“I was working on the farm in those
days, just as an assistant farmhand.
 
I was far too busy up here working to socialise.
 
I didn’t get into Laxey village more
than once a month, and that was usually when I took things to the market.
 
Really, I don’t remember much from those
days.
 
It was a long time ago, of
course.”

“I understand he was looking to buy a farm
in the area,” Bessie said.
 
“I
thought maybe you met him when he came to look at the farm.”

Eoin chuckled.
 
“If he did have any idea of buying the
farm, Niall would have set him straight pretty quick.
 
There was no way Niall was ever going to
sell the Clague farm to any one from across, that’s for sure.”

“I wonder if Niall would remember him,”
Bessie said thoughtfully.

“He doesn’t remember his own name, most
days,” Eoin told her.
 
“As much as I
hate being sick, I’d rather deal with my problems than his.
 
His body is holding out much better than
his mind.
 
He can’t even remember
how to feed himself some days.
 
It’s
a shame, really.”

“It is,” Bessie agreed.
 
“Perhaps I should pay him a visit.
 
I haven’t seen him in a long time.”

“Don’t expect him to remember you,” Eoin
warned her.
 
“Although, you never
know, he might.
 
Or he might think
you are your mother, if you look like her.
 
He gets confused a lot.”

Bessie pressed her lips together and sat
back in her seat.
 
She knew she did
resemble her mother, but the thought wasn’t a pleasant one.
 
Bessie had never forgiven her parents,
blaming them for Matthew’s untimely death.
 
When first her father and then her mother had died many years later,
Bessie hadn’t spoken to either of them since the day she’d been told of
Matthew’s passing.
 
Now, after many
more years had flown by, Bessie deeply regretted her behaviour, but, of course,
she could do nothing to change the past.

The last sheep finally decided to meander
out of the way and Eoin pressed the accelerator.
 
“Maybe we can get through before any of
the others decide to take a walk,” he muttered as they crossed the large
field.
 

After another minute, he stopped in front of
a large barn.
 
“Careful of the mud,”
he warned Bessie as he helped her from the car.

Bessie took his arm and let him lead her
into the barn.
 
Inside, what looked
like dozens or even hundreds of turkeys were busily eating and chasing one
another around large pens.