Mary shrugged. “She’s very focussed on her career.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Not if it gets in the way of proper behaviour,” Mary replied.
Bessie gave her a questioning look, but Mary ignored it. “I’ll tell you about it another day,” she said. “Now isn’t the time.”
“She’s suddenly very friendly with Mark,” Bessie said.
“Yes, maybe he wants a room or two in his house redesigned or something.”
Bessie watched the couple for another minute. “It seems like she wants to do more than decorate for him,” she muttered as Natasha leaned in closer to Mark and whispered in his ear.
“I didn’t approve when she flirted with Michael and Richard Teare, but it wasn’t really my business,” Mary said. “But flirting with George is going too far.”
“She was flirting with George?” Bessie gasped.
“We’ll talk about it another time,” Mary told her. “For now I’m just trying to work out a way to get rid of her without upsetting her.”
“She deserves to be upset,” Bessie said.
“But I’d rather not deal with a lawsuit for breach of contract,” Mary replied.
“I can’t believe there isn’t champagne,” a voice announced from the doorway.
Richard Teare was standing there, his arms full of champagne bottles.
“Oh, darling, what a wonderful idea,” Carolyn called, crossing to him quickly.
“It was a good idea,” Natasha purred. She turned away from Mark, quickly walked over to Richard, and grabbed a bottle. “Glasses?” she shouted.
A member of MNH staff quickly brought in some of the glasses that were meant to be for guests later in the evening. Within minutes, everyone was being handed a glass full of the bubbly drink.
Bessie thought about refusing, as she didn’t really want to drink, but it would have seemed rude to not take it. Intending to dump it out as soon as she could find a safe place to do so, she took the glass and joined in a toast to Mark. As everyone chatted, she worked her way around to Natasha.
“Are you okay?” she asked the woman.
“I’m fine, why?” Natasha shot back.
“You just don’t seem yourself,” Bessie replied.
“Mary’s been complaining about me, hasn’t she?” Natasha demanded. “I didn’t mean to upset her, though. It was all a misunderstanding, that’s all.”
“I’m sure it was,” Bessie replied.
“You’ll have to excuse me now, though,” the woman added. “I’ll see you later.”
“Where are you going?” Bessie asked.
“Oh, I need to freshen up before the crowd gets here,” she replied.
Bessie watched her leave and then shrugged. It seemed as if everyone was acting oddly tonight. She took another sip of her drink as her phone began to buzz.
“I’m here,” Doona announced happily. “I’m in the courtyard and it’s magical. I can’t believe how beautiful it looks.”
“We’re up in the banquet room,” Bessie told her. “Come on up and have some champagne.”
She barely finished speaking when something somewhere in the castle made a horrible crashing noise. As everyone stopped talking, another bang was followed by a short silence. Before anyone spoke, a third booming noise came as the lights went out and everything went completely dark.
“Um, Bessie? Are you still there?” Doona’s voice startled Bessie.
“I am,” Bessie replied. “In total darkness, but here.”
“It’s only very dark in the courtyard,” Doona told her. “It’s pretty cloudy, so there isn’t much natural light. What’s going on?”
“I have no idea, but I’m sure Henry and Mark are working on it,” Bessie replied.
“Well, what shall we talk about?” Doona asked with a laugh.
Before Bessie could reply, she heard a scream from Doona’s end of the conversation. “What was that?” she demanded.
“I’m not sure,” Doona replied. “I’m afraid someone might have just fallen down the stairs.”
“You should stand still,” Bessie told her. “Wait until someone with a torch arrives to find out what happened.”
“I’m just going to walk towards the stairs,” Doona told her. “Someone might be hurt. I’m putting you on speaker phone so you can hear what’s going on.”
Bessie pressed the phone to her ear, trying to hear what was happening in the courtyard.
“Hello?” she heard Doona shout. “Is there someone there? Are you hurt?”
“Too bloody right I’m hurt,” a voice snapped.
“Who’s there?” Doona asked.
“What difference does it make?” the voice shot back. “Do you have a torch?” Bessie recognised the other voice as Natasha’s.
“No, I’m afraid not,” Doona said.
“I might have broken my ankle,” Natasha said. “And I really need to get out of here.”
“I think we’ll just have to wait for the lights to come back on,” Doona said.
Bessie could hear Mark somewhere behind her on his mobile, issuing instructions to the various staff members who were on-site.
“I hit my head, too,” Natasha said. “I’m feeling quite dizzy.”
Bessie covered the bottom of her mobile with her hand and spoke loudly. “Someone needs to ring for an ambulance. It sounds as if Natasha is hurt.”
“My mobile doesn’t give off much light,” Doona was saying in Bessie’s ear. “I’m afraid I’m going to trip over something if I keep walking towards you.”
“I’m due on a flight at seven,” Natasha said angrily. “I have important business meetings to get back across for.”
“If you’re hurt, you might not be able to fly,” Doona said. “Anyway, it’s Christmas tomorrow. Surely you won’t be having meetings on Christmas.”
“This is all Christopher Hart’s fault,” Natasha raged. “Try to do a little long-range career planning and you end up with a broken ankle. My head hurts.”
“Maybe you should keep talking,” Doona suggested. “I don’t know how hard you hit your head, but I know they say you shouldn’t go to sleep with a concussion.”
“It would be just my luck I’d end up with a concussion,” Natasha replied. “All my careful planning was wasted, wasn’t it? Did you ever play with dolls when you were little?”
“Um, yes,” Doona replied, sounding puzzled.
“I didn’t,” Natasha said. “I played with doll houses. All I ever wanted to do was be a designer. Do you know how hard it is to make it big in this business?”
“Very hard?” Doona guessed.
“I don’t mean finding jobs. It’s easy enough to find people who want a few rooms doing over, especially now when half the shows on telly are about redecorating. I’m talking about making it big, being on one of those telly shows and designing rooms for the rich and famous.”
“That must be very difficult,” Doona replied.
“It’s nearly impossible,” Natasha told her. “You can’t blame a girl for eliminating a bit of the competition now and then, can you?”
Bessie wasn’t sure she’d heard that correctly. She tapped the nearest person on the shoulder. “We need the police, too,” she whispered. “Ask them to send John Rockwell and Pete Corkill.”
Bessie recognised Liz’s whispered “okay,” before she went back to listening to the conversation that was happening in the courtyard.
“…difficult getting noticed is,” Doona was saying.
“There’s just too much competition,” Natasha replied. “And men like Chris Hart get all the publicity because they do outlandish things that everyone secretly hates, but no one wants to admit that they hate it because it’s meant to be artsy and conceptual and whatever other stupid description the designer can come up with.”
“So what happened to Christopher Hart?” Doona asked.
Bessie pressed the phone to her ear and held her breath.
“Oh, I killed him,” Nat
asha said with a laugh. “We were staying in the same hotel, so it was easy enough to find him. Mary sent me an email to ask if I would be prepared to help out down here if Carolyn and Christopher didn’t make up in time, so I heard about their disagreement.”
“You killed him because he was a competitor?” Doona asked.
“Well, yeah. I’ll do anything to get ahead in this business. Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do in order to further your career, you know? Like sleeping with old men or combining colours that don’t go together because that’s what the client wants. Or maybe even making sure that the star of the show you work on keeps being told the wrong start time every day.”
“Or killing someone,” Doona added.
“That was really unpleasant,” Natasha said. “I didn’t realise how hard it would be, and it was messy, too. I planned better for the next one.”
“You killed Michael, too,” Doona said sadly.
“I just put a bunch of tablets in his wine. He just fell asleep and didn’t wake up. That was much better. That’s what I’ll do next time, too.”
“You’re planning to kill more people?”
“I’ve made a list. I’ll just keep taking them out, one at a time, until I start getting the recognition I deserve,” Natasha said.
“What about the vandalism here?” Doona asked.
“Oh, that was Michael,” Natasha told her. “I suggested it. I was hoping it would make him look like he hated Christopher, you see, and make his motive look stronger. Besides, it was an awful and ugly room.”
“So you got Michael to smash everything in it.”
“I told Michael that I hated Christopher and I hated the idea of a tribute to him. He was already drinking a lot. He was an alcoholic, you know. He quit drinking a few years ago, but when Christopher threatened to sue him he went back to it.”
“It sounds like he confided in you,” Doona remarked.
“Oh, yes, he thought we were friends, and was hoping for more,” Natasha replied. “He wasn’t a bad guy, really, but I needed someone to take the blame for Christopher’s murder, you see. I got him to smash up that horrid room and then I arranged to meet him at the empty house.”
“And the suicide note?”
“Oh, I can fake just about anyone’s handwriting if I try. I spent years mastering calligraphy. I had him write down the address and directions to the house where we met, so I would have something to work with.”
“The poor man,” Doona muttered.
“I’m sure he would be happy to know that his death wasn’t in vain,” Natasha said. “His suicide note explained how he killed Christopher, so the police can close the investigation and I get away with it. Michael did say once that he’d do anything for me.”
Bessie thought she’d seen a lot in her many years on the planet, but what she was hearing now shocked her deeply. Natasha seemed to be completely without a conscience.
“How are you feeling?” Doona asked Natasha.
“Sleepy,” Natasha replied. “My head and my ankle hurt too much to let me sleep, though.”
“I’m sure help is on the way,” Doona assured her.
“Just not the police,” Natasha giggled. “You won’t repeat what I told you, will you? I mean, I’ll just deny it all anyway, so you might as well not bother.”
“There’s someone with a torch coming,” Doona said. “Maybe he can get the lights back on.”
“It’s me,” a voice called in the darkness. Bessie struggled to hear who was speaking to Doona.
“It’s Henry. If I can’t fix the problem, I can switch on the emergency generator. One way or another, we’ll have lights in a few minutes.”
“Then I can get to the airport,” Natasha said.
To Bessie it sounded as if she was slightly slurring her words.
“Or to hospital,” Doona suggested.
“Hospitals are too white. I’ve always wanted to redesign a hospital. I’d put colour everywhere,” Natasha said. “But not red. Blood is red and it goes all over the place when you stab someone. Did you know that? I didn’t expect it to get all over me. I had to throw all the clothes I was wearing away, except for the shirt I left with Michael. It was a really big shirt, so it could have been his.”
Henry was as good as his word. A moment later, lights began to flicker on around the castle. Bessie glanced around at everyone else and then shook her head. They had no idea what she’d been hearing through her mobile.
“Natasha fell down the stairs on the way to the courtyard,” she told Mark. “She’s just confessed to killing Mr. Hart and Michael.”
Mark was on his mobile as Bessie hurried from the room. She was still listening on her mobile as Doona began to give instructions to the newly arrived ambulance team. By the time Bessie reached the bottom of the stairs, Natasha was on her way out of the castle, safely strapped down to a stretcher.
“Are you okay?” Bessie asked Doona as the pair hugged.
“That was horrible,” Doona gasped. “She just kept talking and telling me things I didn’t want to hear.”
“I know,” Bessie said soothingly.
“Yes, I suppose, of all people, you do understand,” Doona said. “I never realised how awful it has been for you, though.”
“How badly hurt is she?” Bessie asked.
Doona shrugged. “Her head had a nasty lump on it and they seemed to think the ankle was broken. They’ll take her to Noble’s. I rang John and suggested he meet them there.”
“Where she’ll deny everything,” Bessie said with a sigh.
“At least the police know where to look now,” Doona replied. “I’m sure John and Pete will be able to find plenty of evidence to support what Natasha told me.”
“I hope so,” Bessie said. “The thought of her getting away with it is terrifying.”
“But what happened with the lights?” Doona asked.
“It looks like the main switch was turned off,” Henry, who was just passing by, said. “I can’t imagine how that happened.”
Bessie shivered.
“You don’t think Mr. Hart’s ghost…” Doona began.
Bessie shook her head. “No, I don’t,” she said firmly.
“Anyway, we’re meant to open in ten minutes, and everyone is all upset,” Henry said. “Do you think we should cancel the auction?”
“No, I don’t,” Bessie said firmly. “Let’s go find Mark and make sure he isn’t thinking of doing anything silly.”
Back in the banquet room, Mark was pacing anxiously. “Is Natasha okay?” he asked.
“She’s on her way to Noble’s,” Doona told him.
“Did you actually say that she confessed to killing Mr. Hart and Michael?” he asked Bessie.
“I did, and she did,” Bessie replied.
“Maybe we should cancel the auction,” Mark began.
“After all of our hard work?” Bessie demanded. “Natasha is in hospital with a police guard. They’ll sort out that mess. It has nothing to do with ‘Christmas at the Castle.’”
Mark looked uncertain. “Committee members, we need a quick decision,” he announced. Everyone gathered around him. “Natasha has confessed to killing Mr. Hart and Michael and is on her way to hospital. The question is, do we still go ahead with the auction?”
For a moment no one spoke, and then a chorus of “yeses” filled the space. Carolyn sighed deeply and then gave Richard a hug.
“I didn’t really think you’d killed anyone,” she said loudly.
“Of course not,” Richard muttered, patting her back.
Chapter Fifteen
Ten minutes later the doors opened on the first annual ‘Christmas at the Castle’ charity auction. Bessie stuck close to Doona, who still looked upset. After an hour, and few glasses of wine, both women were feeling better when Doona’s mobile rang. It was a short conversation.
“John’s tied up at Noble’s, but he sends his apologies for not being here,” she told Bessie. “Apparently, Natasha started
out by denying everything and now she demanding that they stop questioning her because of her head injury. They’re going to search Thie yn Traie next. Apparently, Mary has already given them permission.”
Carolyn’s mood seemed to have improved dramatically after Natasha’s confession, and Bessie watched happily as the other woman coaxed her wealthy friends into bidding outrageously on the various items up for auction. Mary had her own group of wealthy friends to bid against them. By the time the doors closed behind the last of the guests, the event had raised at least twice as much as they’d hoped for MNH and the various charities, and Bessie found herself the proud owner of the mystery box of books.
“That was a huge success, in spite of the power failure,” Mark told everyone as they gathered for one last time in the banquet room.
“Did Natasha really confess to murdering Mr. Hart and Michael?” Liz asked.
“I think we’ll have to wait and see what the police say about that,” Doona told her. “She hit her head when she fell. It’s possible she was just confused.”
Bessie didn’t speak, but there was no doubt in her mind that Natasha had been telling the truth when she’d told Doona what she’d done.
“Everyone should go home and have a very happy Christmas,” Mark told them. “As for our lovely charity volunteers, your work here is done. The committee is responsible for packing up your rooms and delivering their contents to the winning bidders from tonight’s auction. Please make sure that you haven’t left any personal belongings in your room. MNH will be sending out cheques to each of you once the numbers are finalised.”
“When can we apply for a space for next year?” Agnes asked. “I definitely want to do it again. It was a lot of work, but if we raised what you’ve suggested, it was worth it.”
“I’ll be talking to my supervisor about that in the next few weeks, once we’ve finished up here and finalised all of the numbers,” Mark replied. “I’m sure if we do it again, we’ll start planning much earlier in the year. I’ll definitely be in touch with you all, one way or another.”
The committee members agreed to meet in early January to start clearing out the castle. There was a flurry of hugs, and calls of “Happy Christmas” and “Happy New Year” filled the air as everyone gathered their things and headed for home. Doona offered to take Bessie home, to save Mark the trip, and he was happy to agree.
Aunt Bessie Joins (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 10) Page 23