Aunt Bessie's Holiday (22 page)

Joe took a couple of steps towards his car,
with Bessie following closely.
 
Doona wandered a few paces in the opposite direction, finally sitting
down on a bench near the building’s front door.

Bessie glanced at Doona and then smiled at
Joe.
 
“Obviously, Doona’s very upset
about Charles’s death,” she said.

“Obviously,” the man echoed.

“Did Charles have any enemies?”

Joe shrugged.
 
“As I said, it isn’t my place to get
involved,” he said, glancing around nervously.
 

“Is Harold going to get his old job back
now, then?” Bessie asked.
  
“He
seems like such a nice man.”

“That’s up to the company that owns the
park,” Joe said.
 
“I just do my job
and try to avoid getting caught up in the management’s hassles.”

“But you’re head of security.
 
That’s an important job.”

Joe laughed.
 
“Mostly I walk around the park and
listen to parents tell their children that if they don’t behave I’ll take them
away,” he said, his tone somewhat harsh.
 
“Once in a while someone will misplace something and start shouting
about it being stolen, but in the two years I’ve been here, we’ve always
managed to find whatever was lost.
 
This murder was the first real crime we’ve had since I’ve been here, but
of course it’s not my place to get involved.”

“I do hope the inspector isn’t taking that
attitude,” Bessie said.
 
“You’ve all
the insider knowledge that she needs to work out what happened.”

Joe opened his mouth and then snapped it
shut.
 
After a moment he
sighed.
 
“Let’s just say the
inspector has her own way of doing things,” he said quietly.

It seemed clear to Bessie that the man
resented being sidelined during the murder investigation.
 
“I don’t know about Lawrence Jenkins,”
Bessie said, keeping her tone conversational.
 
“I’m not even sure what he does
here.
 
What is his job title?”

“He’s here from the corporate headquarters,”
Joe told her.
 
“He showed up about
three weeks ago and started giving orders.”

“I’ve heard that Charles was interested in
cutting costs.
 
Is that what
Lawrence is here for, as well?”

Joe shrugged.
 
“When Charles first arrived he cut my
security team in half,” he replied.
 
“I suppose you could call that cost cutting, couldn’t you?
 
I’ve barely spoken to Lawrence, but I
can’t see where they could reduce my staff any further, so maybe he doesn’t
need to talk to me.”

“Maybe if the park had better security
Charles wouldn’t have been murdered,” Bessie suggested.

“Sort of ironic, isn’t it?” Joe replied with
an unpleasant grin.

“I understand Monique isn’t feeling well,”
Bessie said, changing the subject abruptly to see what sort of reaction she’d
get.

“She’s off sick more than she’s in work,”
Joe told her.
 
“If Nathan wasn’t so
devoted to her, I think Harold would have fired her a long time ago.”

“I’m surprised she survived Charles’s cost
cutting.”

“Oh, she and Charles got along well,” Joe
replied.
 
“He had enough problems
with Nathan with regard to food costs.
 
He wasn’t going to fire the man’s wife.”

“What do you know about Jessica and Herbert
Howe?” Bessie asked, changing the subject yet again.

“Jessica was here a lot,” Joe said.
 
“She arrived for a week right after
Charles came and she’s been back regularly since.
 
I think Charles had finished with her,
but she was having trouble accepting that.”

“Really?
 
What about Herbert?
 
Does he always come with her?”

“No,” Joe shook his head.
 
“He came with her for a week last
month.
 
All they did all week long
was argue all over the park.
 
Harold
finally had to speak to them both about their behaviour.”

“But he came back again with her this time,”
Bessie said thoughtfully.

“And they’ve been arguing up a storm again,”
Joe replied.
 
“Although for the most
part they’ve kept the fights more private.
 
Mostly they’ve been shouting at each
other in their lodge.
 
We’ve had a
few complaints from the neighbours, but not that many.”

“So why do they stay together?” Bessie
asked.

“She’s stays for the money,” Joe said.
 
“Why he puts up with her is beyond me,
though.”

“What’s Mai’s connection with Lawrence?”
Bessie tried a different direction, hoping the man would continue to be
forthcoming.

“I’m not sure, but there’s something there,”
he replied.
 
“She’s another one that
gets special treatment.
 
From
Charles and from Lawrence, though I don’t know why.”

“Bessie, we need to talk,” Doona’s voice
carried across the space.

Bessie smiled at Joe.
 
“It’s been interesting talking with
you,” she told the man.
 

“Likewise,” he said.
 
He nodded at Doona and then crossed to his
car.

Bessie watched as he drove away, then she
joined Doona on the bench.

“What’s wrong?” she asked her friend,
suddenly concerned by how pale and miserable Doona looked.

“I’m pretty sure Margaret Hopkins is going
to be back to ask us more questions later,” Doona told her.
 
“And there’s something you need to know
before she starts.”

“What?”

Doona shook her head.
 
“I’m sorry I wasn’t totally honest with
you,” she said, her voice shaking.

Bessie took Doona’s hands and held them
tightly.
 
“Whatever it is, it can’t
be that bad,” she said soothingly.
 
“I’m your friend and I love you.
 
It will be okay.”

Doona stared into Bessie’s eyes for a moment
before looking away.
 
“I’m sorry,”
she repeated quietly.
 
“The thing
is, Charles and I were still married.”

Chapter Eleven

Bessie sat in stunned silence for a moment,
her mind racing.
 
Doona pulled her
hands away and covered her face.
 
Bessie quickly put her arm around her friend.

“I’m sure you can explain,” she said, her
voice a bit too loud.

“Of course I can,” Doona replied without
looking up.
 
“I never set out to lie
to you, but things just got so complicated.”

Bessie rubbed Doona’s shoulders and then
gently took her hands again.
 
She
pulled them away from her friend’s face and stared into Doona’s eyes.
 
“I thought you told me, two years ago,
that you and Charles had divorced,” she said, working to keep from sounding
accusatory.

Doona shrugged.
 
“Do you remember when we first met, I
told you that working out the divorce was complicated?”

Bessie thought back and then nodded.
 
“There was some problem because you
hadn’t been married for very long,” she remembered.

“Exactly, you can’t even apply for a divorce
on the Isle of Man until you’ve been married at least a year,” Doona told
her.
 
“And then you have to have a
good reason for applying as well.”

“Surely adultery is a good reason,” Bessie
said.

“It is, if you can prove it.”

“But you had all the things you were sent.”

Doona sighed.
 
“When I got back from the trip after I
saw Charles with Jessica, I gathered together everything that Charles had ever
given me and I had a huge bonfire with it.
 
And when it was really blazing, I threw the envelope on the fire.”

“Oh,” Bessie said flatly.

“I know,” Doona replied.
 
“I was so upset that I simply wasn’t thinking
straight.
 
I didn’t really know
anything about divorce law on the island.
 
When my first husband and I split up, it was amicable and neither of us
really cared how long it took to work its way though the courts.”
 
She looked down at the ground and Bessie
could see the tears flowing down her face.

“So without the evidence, you couldn’t get
the divorce?” Bessie asked.

“I had to wait until we’d been married a
year to even apply,” Doona told her.
 
“When I talked to my advocate, we agreed that the easiest thing to do
would be to wait until we’d been separated for two years and then apply, using
the separation as the reason.”

“Surely you could have gathered more
evidence of his cheating?” Bessie suggested.

Doona flushed.
 
“I didn’t really want to pursue that,”
she admitted quietly.
 
“I didn’t
want everyone on the island to know that Charles had cheated on me.
 
I was embarrassed.”

Bessie hugged her friend.
 
“It certainly wasn’t your fault that the
man cheated,” she said indignantly.
 
“You had nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“I suppose,” Doona said with a shrug.
 
“Anyway, I think I told you that my
advocate and I had worked everything out once we’d decided to wait the two
years.
 
I meant to give you the
impression that the divorce was settled, even though it wasn’t.
 
I’m sorry, but I simply wanted to put
the whole ugly episode out of my mind.”

Bessie hugged her again.
 
“I understand,” she said.
 
“And I can see you not wanting to have
to think about it.
 
Having to wait
the two years is hard enough, without constantly having to think about it.”

“I thought about it quite a bit anyway,”
Doona admitted.
 
“But I didn’t want
to have to talk about it.
 
Doncan
rang me a month ago to let me know that he’d sent the paperwork to Charles’s
solicitor.
 
All we needed was Charles’s
signature and it would have all been over.”

Doncan Quayle was Bessie’s advocate as well,
so Bessie was certain that Doona was getting the best possible advice and
assistance.
 
“But Charles didn’t
sign before he died?” Bessie guessed.

“According to his solicitor, he wasn’t going
to sign,” Doona said.
 
“And without
his signature, I’d have to wait another three years to get the divorce.”

Bessie swallowed hard.
 
It seemed as if Doona had an even
stronger motive for the murder than she’d realised.
 
“And Margaret Hopkins knows all of
this?”

“She knew some it almost immediately,” Doona
replied.
 
“I told her, when she
first questioned me, that the divorce wasn’t final yet.
 
I gather Charles’s solicitor has now
been questioned and he’s told her that Charles wasn’t going to sign the
papers.”

“So where does all of this leave you?”
Bessie asked.

“I’d imagine it leaves me as Margaret’s
chief suspect,” Doona said sadly.
 
“It also leaves me in a weird position here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Charles owned some part of the company that
owns the park,” Doona explained.
 
“Lawrence suggested to me that I might still be Charles’s heir.”

“Surely someone will contest the will,”
Bessie said thoughtfully.

“I’ve no doubt Lawrence will want to fight
it, if such a will even exists,” Doona replied.
 
“But for the moment, everything seems to
be on hold.
 
Apparently Charles’s
solicitor won’t even consider a formal reading of the will until the murderer
is caught.”

“Can he do that?”

Doona shrugged.
 
“I’ve no idea.
 
I think I’m his chief suspect as well.”

Bessie frowned at the misery in her friend’s
voice.
 
“Well, that’s just
nonsense,” she said stoutly.
 
“I
know you didn’t kill Charles, even if you had plenty of provocation.”

“And a very strong motive,” Doona added.

“So what?”

“And access to the murder weapon,” Doona
continued.
 
“That’s assuming that
the knife from our lodge was the murder weapon, but I think that’s a fair
assumption.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Bessie said firmly.

“And, of course, plenty of opportunity,”
Doona concluded.
 
“I’ve admitted to
going out for a walk that night.
 
I’ve even admitted that I saw Charles outside the Squirrel’s Drey.
 
I can’t prove that I hid from him and
walked away.”

Bessie shook her head.
 
“Motive, means and opportunity aren’t
everything,” she said.
 
“There’s a
human element that matters as well.
 
You simply aren’t a murderer.”

“I know that, but I’m not sure anyone else
does,” Doona said with a sigh.

“Maybe we need to work out who is,” Bessie
suggested.
 
“Before Margaret Hopkins
starts looking in the wrong direction.”

“I’ve been trying to think it through,”
Doona said.
 
“But I simply can’t think
straight.”

“It seems to me,” Bessie said thoughtfully,
“that just about everyone had means and opportunity.
 
Charles was alone in the building, or at
least alone with the killer.
 
Anyone
could have arranged to meet with him there after hours, couldn’t they?”

Doona nodded.
 
“I thought that as well.
 
I know we have a list of suspects, but
really anyone in the park could have made an appointment to see him, or even
just turned up and surprised him.”

“So we’re back to suspecting every single
person at Lakeview,” Bessie said with a sigh.

“Except we haven’t talked about motive,”
Doona reminded her.

“And we’ve no idea who might have known
Charles in the past,” Bessie said.
 
“Maybe one of the guests had an affair with him ten years ago, and when
she saw him again, she just had to kill him.”

“Anything is possible,” Doona admitted.
 
“I think we have to hope that isn’t the
case, though.
 
We need to focus on
the people we know had a motive.”

“So Jessica and Herbert Howe, Harold Butler,
Lawrence Jenkins, maybe Nathan Beck; who am I forgetting?” Bessie asked.

“I’d add Monique Beck and Mai Stratton to
the list,” Doona said.
 
“And Joe
Klein, just because he makes me nervous.”

Bessie sat back on the bench and closed her
eyes, trying to think.
 
It felt like
there was something she was missing, but she couldn’t work out what it
was.
 
Her stomach growled loudly and
interrupted her thinking.

“Maybe we should talk after dinner,” Doona
suggested with a faint smile.

“I’m fine,” Bessie said, ignoring another
rumble.

“Let’s go get some food,” Doona said,
getting to her feet.
 
“I’m pretty
sure I’m due for more questioning.
 
Maybe we can eat before the questions this time.”

Bessie and Doona headed back towards the Squirrel’s
Drey.
 
Bessie was aware that she was
watching closely for Margaret Hopkins as they went.
 

“I keep thinking every woman is Inspector
Hopkins,” Doona whispered as they went past a large group of men and women.

“I know what you mean,” Bessie agreed.

They reached the short row of
restaurants.
 
There was a short
queue in front of the Italian restaurant and an even longer one in front of the
American one.
 
Only the French
restaurant looked quiet.

“We said we’d try the Italian, didn’t we?”
Bessie murmured.

“I’m not sure I want to wait in the queue,”
Doona replied.
 
“But I’m not sure I
want to eat at
L’Ex
périence Anglaise
either.”

“Maybe we can ask Nathan a few discreet
questions,” Bessie suggested.
 
“Apparently Monique isn’t well.
 
Maybe she killed Charles and the guilt is proving to be too much for
her.”

“I doubt it,” Doona said.
 
“She strikes me as the type who could
stab a man without batting an eyelash.”

Bessie looked at her friend, surprised at
the harsh assessment of the young girl.
 
“I take it you don’t like Monique,” she said.

“I don’t like anyone right now,” Doona said
with a sigh.
 
“Don’t mind me.
 
I’m just looking for someone I can blame
Charles’s murder on.
 
I really just
want this all to be over.”

“Let’s go get some dinner and see what we
can find out,” Bessie said, turning and heading towards
L’Ex
périence Anglaise
.
 
Doona followed.

“Ah, customers,” Mai said as they walked
in.
 
“What a nice surprise.”

“All the other restaurants are quite busy,
and we’re very hungry,” Bessie told her.

“And we’re very quiet because everyone has
heard how bad the food was the other day when Nathan was having his temper
tantrum,” Mai said, too loudly.
 

“I do hope he’s feeling better tonight,”
Bessie said.

“I haven’t had any complaints,” Mai
said.
 
“But then, we haven’t had all
that many customers.
 
Follow me.”

Bessie was surprised at how empty the dining
room was when they walked in.
 
Only
three other tables were occupied
;
a total of six other
customers in all.

“How about a quiet booth at the back?” Mai
suggested, leading the women to the far side of the restaurant.

“This is fine,”
Bessie
said, happy to be at a table almost as far as they could be from where they’d
sat on their last two visits to the place.

Mai handed them each a menu and then took
their drink order.
 
Bessie and Doona
had a quick chat about the menu, both deciding to try something completely
different.
 
Once Mai had delivered
their glasses of wine and taken their food order, Bessie sat back, determined
to try to relax.
 
Mai delivered a
basket of fresh bread rolls and butter, and the friends were pleased to find
that they were delicious.
 

Bessie was focussed on her wine when she
realised that Doona had turned pale.
 
It only took a second to realise why, as Bessie watched as Mai led
Jessica and Herbert Howe to a table not far from theirs.

Jessica frowned as she looked over at
them.
 
She said something to her
husband and then walked over to Bessie and Doona’s table.