Aunt Bessie Invites (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 9) (16 page)

“I have your lot down here,” Eoin told
Bessie.
 
He led to the corner of the
barn where five large birds were
on their own in a small
enclosure
.

“I thought I only asked for four,” Bessie
said.

“Aye, but I had a fifth that I thought would
be ready early as well,” Eoin told her.
 
“If you don’t want it, I’ll keep it for myself.”

“I probably could use five,” Bessie
replied.
 
“There seem to be an awful
lot of people coming to my dinner.”

“And you’re happy with them all?” he asked.

Bessie looked at the five birds and wondered
what she was meant to be considering.
 
They all looked fine to her, but then they always did.
 
“I’m sure they’ll be delicious,” she
said after a moment.

Eoin nodded.
 
“I’ll get you back up to the house,
then, so you can have some tea with Fen.”

They were nearly back to the farmhouse
before Eoin spoke again.
 
“I hope you
won’t be talking to Fen about the body,” he said.

Bessie opened her mouth and then closed it
again.
 
She had no idea how she
wanted to respond.
 
After a moment,
Eoin continued.

“She’s pretty upset, you see,” he told
her.
 
“I think she’s worried that
her father, well, I suppose he had to know about it, didn’t he?”

Bessie nodded slowly.
 
“I suppose Niall may have known
something about it,” she said.
 
“But
it’s also possible that he didn’t.
 
Maybe Jacob, if that is who it is, got into a fight with one of the farmhands
or something.
 
He could have been
killed accidently and the farmhand might have buried the body in the back of
the barn.”

“I like that idea,” Eoin said.
 
“We’ve had dozens of temporary workers
over the years and some of them were quite capable of killing a man, I reckon.”

“I don’t suppose you remember any of their
names or know where they are now?” Bessie asked.

“I don’t suppose I do,” Eoin said.
 
“Fen might have kept track of a few of
them, but once they left here, I didn’t really care where they went or what
they did.”

“What about any that were here when Jacob
Conover was on the island?”

Eoin shrugged.
 
“Like I said, I didn’t really keep
track.
 
In those days Niall was in
charge, anyway.
 
I was just one of
the hired help.”

“Until you and Fenella fell in love,” Bessie
said.

“Best thing that ever happened to me,” the
man replied.
 

Bessie smiled to herself as she saw the look
that came over the man’s face.
 
He
was clearly still deeply in love with his wife, even after all of their years
together.
 

He pulled up in front of the farmhouse and
turned to Bessie.
 
“I really hope
you don’t upset Fen,” he said anxiously.
 
“She hasn’t slept properly since that body turned up.
 
I’m hoping, given enough time, she’ll
forget all about it.”

“I should think she’ll sleep better once the
police work out what happened to the man,” Bessie replied.
 
“And the only way they’re going to do
that is if everyone answers all their questions with as much information as
they can provide.”

“I’ve told them everything I know and so has
Fen,” Eoin said angrily.
 
“Anyway,
you aren’t the police, so you don’t need to bother my wife.”

“I’ll just have a cup of tea and chat about
the weather,” Bessie said in her most reassuring voice.
 
“Thank you for letting me
see
the turkeys.
 
I’m really looking forward to the feast.”

“I’ll have them delivered to The Swing
Bridge in plenty of time,” Eoin told her.

Bessie got out of the car and walked up the
path to the house.
 
If Eoin felt
that strongly about it, she wouldn’t ask Fenella any questions, no matter how
difficult that might be.
 
She
knocked and then turned and smiled at Eoin, who was still sitting in the car
watching her.
 
When Fenella opened
the door, Bessie gave Eoin a quick wave and then quickly entered the house.

“Did he tell you not to talk about the
body?” Fenella asked as she led Bessie into the spacious kitchen.

“I promised him I won’t ask any questions,”
Bessie told her.

Fenella sighed deeply.
 
“That man,” she said tiredly.
 
She waved Bessie into a chair at the
small wooden table in one corner of the kitchen.
 
Bessie watched as the other woman
switched on the kettle and piled a few biscuits on a plate.

“Sorry they aren’t my own,” she said as she
put the plate on the table.
 
“I
don’t bake very often these days.
 
Eoin doesn’t care if they’re store-bought; he doesn’t eat much anyway,
with his health.”

“I’m certainly not going to complain,”
Bessie told her.
 
“You’re being kind
enough to provide tea and biscuits, after all.”

Fenella smiled.
 
“I know you only want to talk to me about
the body, no matter what you promised my husband.”

Bessie shook her head.
 
“I’m happy to talk about whatever you’d
like,” she told the woman.
 
“But I
am curious about the body and I would like to know who it was and what happened
to him.”

Fenella nodded.
 
“It is a strange thing, isn’t it?
 
I can’t believe the body has been there
all this time and we never knew about it.
 
But it worries me as well.”

“I suppose you must worry that your father
was involved,” Bessie replied, carefully making her remark a statement, not a
question.

Fenella got up from the table and began to
fix the tea.
 
She didn’t reply until
after it was poured and served.
 
Then she sat back down and looked at Bessie.
 
“He doesn’t remember me,” she said
sadly.
 
“And it’s harder and harder
for me to remember what he was like before, when he was younger and his mind
was sharp.”

“He was a very hard-working man,” Bessie
said.
 
“He loved this farm and he
loved you.
 
He was so proud of you, and
of everything that you did.”

“I remember I came third in a race on sports
day when I was in year three or four.
 
You might have thought I’d won an Olympic medal the way he carried on
when I told him.”

Bessie reached out to pat Fenella’s hand as
the woman’s eyes filled with tears.
 
“It’s so hard,” she told Bessie.
 
“Sometimes he has moments where he remembers something from long ago,
and we laugh and reminisce together and it’s almost magical, and then suddenly
he’s lost again.”

“I’m so sorry,” Bessie said.
 

Fenella took a deep breath and then
straightened in her chair.
 
“Still,
mustn’t complain.
 
He’s happy where
he is, even if he gets confused a great deal.
 
I visit when I can, but the farm takes
up a lot of my time.
 
If he did know
what was happening, he’d understand.”

Bessie nodded.
 
“He would at that,” she said.
 
“Perhaps I’ll go and see him one day
soon.
 
I’d like to do that.”

“I’m sure he’d like that as well,” Fenella
said.
 
“He loves visitors, even
though he rarely recognises anyone.
 
If you take him some chocolate biscuits, he’ll like you even more.”

Bessie laughed.
 
“I think I can manage that,” she said.

“Please don’t ask him about the body,”
Fenella said.
 
“He’s so confused
anyway, there’s no telling what he’d say.”

“I won’t,” Bessie promised.

“That police woman, she’s going to interview
him, she said,” Fenella told her.
 
“Like you can interview someone in that state.”

“Inspector Lambert?” Bessie asked.

“That’s the one,” Fenella agreed.
 
“She talked to me for hours, and then
asked Eoin the same questions.
 
I’m
sure she’s going to ask my father all manner of things he can’t possibly
answer.”

“She has a job to do,” Bessie said.

“I know, but my father might say anything,”
Fenella complained.
 
“He might
confess to murder or even blame Eoin for it.
 
He’s not in his right mind.”

“I’m sure they’ll take that into account,”
Bessie assured her.
 
“And it’s just
possible he might remember something that’s relevant.”

“Except you can never be sure with him,
whether he’s actually remembering something or just making things up.”

“But with the body found here, she has to
talk to him,” Bessie said.
 
“It was
his farm in those days.
 
If anyone
ought to know what happened, it’s him.”

Fenella nodded.
 
“But whatever he knows is now trapped
inside a very fragmented brain,” she said sadly.
 

A dozen questions popped into Bessie’s head,
but mindful of her promise to Eoin, she washed them all down with a sip of
tea.
 
Fenella was watching her
closely and after a minute she chuckled.

“You did say you’d promised Eoin not to ask
anything,” she said.
 
“But I can’t
stand seeing you biting your tongue so hard.
 
For what it’s worth, I don’t really
remember Jacob Conover at all.
 
I
was eighteen the summer he was here and I was busy learning all about running
the farm.”
 

She looked down at the table and
blushed.
 
“Eoin was just starting to
court me that summer as well,” she said quietly.
 
“But I didn’t really notice until
later.
 
I’d never really had a
boyfriend so I just thought he was being nice for the longest time.”

“It’s a good thing he was persistent,”
Bessie said with a laugh.

“He told me once that he very nearly gave up
on me.
 
I gather there were one or
two other young ladies who were not quite as stupid about men as I was.
 
Eoin didn’t go to the pub very often,
but I don’t think he was short of company when he did stop in for a drink.”

Bessie smiled.
 
“He was a good-looking young man,” she
remembered.
 
“I think there were a
few young women who were quite disappointed when he married you.”

Fenella nodded.
 
“Of course, there were a few men who
were disappointed as well,” she pointed out.
 
“But that was mostly because I was the
heir to the Clague farm.”

“You were a lovely young woman,” Bessie said
stoutly.
 
“I’m sure more than one
man in the village would have taken you out, given the opportunity.”

“But my father wasn’t about to let that
happen,” Fenella told her.
 
“He
didn’t want me to get married until I was older.
 
Eoin only managed to court me because he
was here on the farm.
 
My father
didn’t really notice our relationship was developing until it was too late and
Eoin was asking for my hand.
 
If it
had been anyone else, my father would have chased him away for sure.”

“You don’t remember the man, but his body
was found on your farm,” Bessie mused.

“Which isn’t a question, but I will answer
what you want to know,” Fenella said with a grin.
 
“Unfortunately, it isn’t much of an
answer, though.
 
I haven’t the
slightest idea why he was on our farm.
 
I suppose it’s possible he was killed somewhere else, though, and the
body was just hidden here.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Bessie
said.
 
“Although that does rather
complicate things.
 
I’d much rather
think that he came up here to talk to one of the farmhands after the pub and
that person accidently killed him and hid the body.”

Fenella nodded.
 
“I quite like that solution,” she
said.
 
“We’ve had a huge number of
farmhands over the years.
 
Most of
them didn’t last long, though.
 
Farming is hard work and many of them decided to move across and try to
find something that was easier and paid better.”

“Farming is hard work,” Bessie agreed.
 
“I’m not sure how you’ve managed to keep
it up for all these years.”