Aunt Bessie Provides (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 16)

by Diana Xarissa

  “I’d hate to think that the poor man ended up dead after everything else he’d been through,” Hugh said.

  “I know. I’ve always hoped that he made a happy new life for himself somewhere else.”

  “And that’s everyone?”

  “Everyone so far, anyway,” Bessie told him. “I have a much longer list of people who left the island around that time, but most of them have come back. A few that haven’t are women. I assume you aren’t interested in them.”

  “No, the body was definitely a man’s,” Hugh said. “Thank you for the list, then. I’ll start doing some digging to see what I can find out about the men you’ve suggested.”

  “It really does seem far more likely that the man came from somewhere else,” Bessie said as Hugh got to his feet. “He could have been from anywhere in the world, couldn’t he?”

  “In theory, yes, but, well, I just have a feeling about this one,” Hugh told her. “I’m not going to spend a lot of time and effort on it, because I don’t have a lot of spare time, really, but I can’t help but believe that someone on the island knows something. I really hope I can work out what that something is.”

  “But you don’t want me to dig any deeper into the people I’ve suggested?” Bessie asked.

  “Not at this point. Let me see what I can find. Dan is going to run an article on Friday about the case, and then a follow-up article next week. John and I are debating whether or not to include the sketch in the article.”

  “I can’t see it doing much good,” Bessie said. “It looks like just about every thirty-year-old man I’ve ever met.”

  Hugh nodded. “I know it isn’t great, but it’s all we have to work with at this point. I may see if our current artist can do us a new version. Maybe he can do a better job. He has some modern techniques at his disposal.”

  Bessie let the young man out and then sat back down at the table. All this talk about missing men had left her feeling restless, though. She sighed and looked out the window. The beach in front of the holiday cottages was packed with people. The tide was going out, though, so the beach was getting larger every minute. Maybe she could walk along the water’s edge and stay out of everyone’s way.

  She decided to leave her shoes at home and walk barefoot through the sand and water. For the first few steps the water felt bitterly cold, but her feet soon grew accustomed to the temperature and before long she found that she was enjoying the feeling of the cold water and wet sand underfoot. It helped that the sun was shining brightly, warming her head and body as she went. Most of the people on the beach seemed content in chairs or on blankets in the sand. Only a few children were splashing at the water’s edge and Bessie negotiated her way around them easily.

  Feeling as if she wanted to walk forever, she passed Thie yn Traie and kept going. Now she had the beach to herself, which made her even happier to continue. When she got within sight of the new houses, though, she decided to turn for home. A cup of tea with a new murder mystery was exactly what she needed, and she picked up her pace as she decided that a few biscuits were necessary as well.

  “Bessie? Lovely night for a walk, isn’t it?” a loud voice called across the beach as Bessie wandered past Thie yn Traie again.

  She frowned and then forced herself to smile at the woman who was crossing the sand towards her. “Maggie, how are you?” she asked.

  “Mustn’t complain,” Maggie Shimmin replied. “Although my back has been giving me trouble again and the weather has been so variable that I’ve had migraines nearly every day. My car’s been acting up as well, refusing to start whenever it rains. Still, mustn’t complain.”

  Bessie didn’t bother to point out that the woman had just done a great deal of complaining. That was simply Maggie. She was always happiest when she had something to complain about. A good bit of juicy gossip was the other thing that made Maggie happy. She and her husband, Thomas, owned the row of holiday cottages, although Maggie usually left as much of the work to Thomas as she possibly could.

  “What brings you here today?” she asked Maggie.

  “Oh, I’m working with Thomas on the last cottage,” Maggie replied. “We’re hoping we can do something with it, but, well, it’s difficult.”

  Bessie nodded. “I can’t imagine many people will want to stay in a holiday cottage where someone was murdered. I gather there is a similar problem with the house along the way where the other murder took place.”

  Maggie nodded. “Aye, we’ve not been able to book anyone in there since the murder happened. I’m not sure how, but everyone seems to know about it. Everyone who rings to book specifically asks that they not be given that cottage. At least that’s what I’ve been told by Mary, the girl in the Douglas office who handles all of our bookings.”

  “What a shame,” Bessie replied. “Although I can’t say that I blame people. I’m not sure I’d want to stay there myself.”

  “It’s just such a shame, after we did all that hard work making it into a themed cottage,” Maggie sighed. “It was the first, and now Thomas doesn’t want to do any more. He reckons the whole thing was a bad idea now.”

  “You don’t seem to have any trouble filling the other cottages, themed or not.”

  “No, we don’t, but we could charge more for them if they were extra special.” Maggie shook her head. “Now Thomas is talking about tearing down the cottage where the murder happened. He wants to build a new cottage there, a larger one that will accommodate more people at one time. I hate the idea, especially the expense, but we have to do something.”

  “A larger cottage might be a good idea,” Bessie said thoughtfully. “You get several large groups each summer, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but at the moment they just rent two or three cottages, whatever they need. I’m not sure having them all in one larger one is going to make us more money.”

  “You and Thomas will have to work out what’s best, I suppose.”

  “Yes, of course, but what’s this I hear about Hugh Watterson finding a dead body?” Maggie asked.

  “I don’t believe he’s found a dead body,” Bessie exclaimed. “If he has, I haven’t heard about it.”

  “I understand there’s going to be something in the local paper about it on Friday,” Maggie told her. “I heard that much, but I didn’t get any of the details.”

  “I think Hugh is reexamining a cold case. I’m sure that’s what the article on Friday is going to be about.”

  “Oh, a cold case,” Maggie said thoughtfully. “I wonder which one. If it involves a dead body, there can’t be many possibilities, can there?”

  “I’m sure we’ll all know more on Friday.”

  Maggie narrowed her eyes at Bessie. “You already know, though, don’t you? You’ve been ringing everyone and asking about people who left the island twenty years ago. Hugh must be looking into something that happened twenty years ago.”

  “I’ve been ringing around and asking for names of people who left the island around twenty years ago,” Bessie told her. “But I’ve been doing so because I’m helping Marjorie with some research. She wants to talk to people who moved off of the island in the late seventies, both those who left for good and those who have returned.”

  “Why would she want to do that?”

  “You’d have to ask her about that,” Bessie replied.

  “Yes, maybe I will, at that,” Maggie said. “Do you have a long list, then, of people who moved away? There must have been hundreds of young people who went away for uni.”

  “Marjorie wants to focus on people who left when they were older, not university students.”

  “There still must be a fair few. I’ve never understood why people want to leave, but it seems that many of them do. Of course, a great many of them come right back again once they realise that things aren’t any better across, but they seem to have to find that out for themselves.”

  “Yes, well, Marjorie wants to talk to some of them about their experiences, that’s all I know.”

/>   “I thought maybe Hugh was looking into what happened to Craig Fox,” Maggie said.

  Bessie could feel the woman staring at her intently, probably hoping for a reaction. “His name did come up,” Bessie said. “But why would Hugh be investigating him? Did something happen to him?”

  “He disappeared, didn’t he? I always thought they should track down Jackson Blakeslee and ask him what happened to Craig.”

  “That was Miranda’s husband?”

  “Oh, yes, even though poor Craig thought he’d married her legally. She was something else, that Miranda. She took advantage of poor Craig in every possible way. He should have left her as soon as the kids and the mother-in-law arrived.”

  “At least when he found out what was really going on, he was able to collect his things and leave her, rather than the other way around.”

  “You think so, but I’m not so sure. I’ve always suspected that Jackson and Miranda got rid of him somehow.”

  “I do hope not,” Bessie said. “He deserved to get away and find happiness somewhere else.”

  “If he were still alive, he’d have come back to the island,” Maggie insisted. “He’d never lived anywhere else, and I don’t think he ever really left. He may have been planning to go, but I suspect he never made it anywhere.”

  “And Jackson and Miranda hid the body somewhere?” Bessie asked, determined not to mention Hugh’s unidentified remains.

  “Or maybe they took it with them when they went. Maybe they threw it in their boot and then dumped it somewhere across. If the police stumbled over a body somewhere in the UK, they’d never think to ask the police here if anyone matching it was missing.”

  “Actually, I believe the police across do coordinate their efforts with the island’s police when it comes to identifying bodies. If no one had ever reported poor Craig as missing, though, they may not have known about him.”

  “Maybe I’ll report him missing,” Maggie said thoughtfully. “We were good friends for a while, Craig and I.”

  “I didn’t realise that.”

  “Oh, yes, back before I met Thomas I was very popular, you know. Craig wasn’t really, well, he didn’t seem interested in girls, though. We were good friends in school and did our homework together sometimes and things like that. I was shocked when he told me he was getting married. I’d always thought he was, well, as I said, not interested in girls.”

  “Well, whatever Hugh is investigating, I hope you’ll talk to him about Craig,” Bessie said. “It sounds as if he should be looking into what happened to the man.”

  “He should start by looking in the prisons across. I’m sure he’ll find Jackson Blakeslee in one of them. Then he just has to find Miranda. I wonder if they even remember poor Craig, though. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that she’s played the same trick on other men over the years.”

  “I really hope Hugh can find Craig. I’m feeling rather worried about him now, even though I hadn’t thought about him in twenty years.”

  “I think about people from my past all the time,” Maggie told her. “I was just talking to a friend about Harry Jensen, actually. I don’t suppose you remember him?”

  “I do remember him. In fact, his name came up when I was making my list for Marjorie. He moved to Cumbria after his mother, didn’t he?”

  “Again, that was what we were told, but I’ve always wondered about him as well. Barbara was friendly with my mother, but my mother never heard from her again once she moved across. Thomas knew Harry, but he’s never had so much as a single note from him in the past twenty years, either.”

  “Some people aren’t very good at staying in touch,” Bessie said.

  “No, I suppose not, but it’s unfortunate. I enjoy hearing from old friends and finding out about their lives once they leave the island. Usually, it reminds me of why I stay here.”

  Bessie chuckled. “I know what you mean. Living across doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest. I lived in America, and I had a chance to move to Australia and turned it down. I’m quite happy staying right where I am.”

  “Me, too,” Maggie agreed. She glanced at her watch. “Oh, is that the time? I really must dash. I don’t have all day to stand on the beach and chat. I have work to do.”

  She spun around and walked quickly back through the sand to the last holiday cottage. Bessie bit her tongue before she could apologise for keeping the woman. It was hardly Bessie’s fault that Maggie had come down to talk to her, and it was Maggie who’d kept the conversation going, not Bessie.

  The beach was slightly less crowded than it had been when she’d left home, but she still stuck to the water’s edge, staying as far from the holidaymakers as she could manage.

  “It’s bloody cold,” a man in his forties grumbled as he tested the water with one foot.

  “It is,” Bessie agreed, “but it’s refreshing.”

  “We should have gone to Spain,” he snapped before turning and stomping back up the beach.

  Bessie just shook her head and continued on her way. There was no point in arguing with the man. He seemed the type who would find Spain too hot or too full of foreigners to be enjoyable, anyway.

  Back at home, she cleaned sand off her feet and ankles and then settled into her favourite chair with a book. For a few hours she was lost in California, as a private detective did everything she could to find a serial killer. The book was more like a thriller than the cosy mysteries that Bessie usually read, but she thoroughly enjoyed the story. Unable to put it down, she read until past her normal bedtime, only heading upstairs once the killer was safely behind bars.

  She fell asleep within minutes of getting into bed and slept soundly until six the next morning.

  Chapter 4

  Bessie woke up Thursday morning feeling as if she needed a shopping trip into Douglas. She’d run out of the fancy chocolate biscuits that she could only get at one particular shop there, and she wouldn’t mind a few chocolate truffles for a treat later, either. Besides, it had been a while since she’d been to the bookshop there. They had to have some new books that she’d be interested in, surely.

  The beach felt oddly quiet after her walk through the crowds the previous day. Two small children, maybe four and five, were chasing each other behind one of the cottages as their father sat on the patio watching them. She didn’t see anyone else as she made her way to Thie yn Traie.

  “Bessie, I was hoping you might be out for a stroll this morning,” a voice said from somewhere above her.

  Bessie looked up at the long and winding stairs that led to the mansion. Elizabeth Quayle was making her way down the steps towards the beach.

  “Elizabeth, what a lovely surprise,” Bessie greeted the girl.

  “It’s nice to see you, as well,” Elizabeth replied. She reached the last few steps and jumped down onto the sand. Her long blonde curls were pulled into a messy ponytail and her face appeared to be free of makeup. Her eyes were a bright blue, and they gave her an innocent look that Bessie wasn’t sure was fully deserved. Although she was in her mid-twenties, today she looked no more than fifteen to Bessie.

  “You’re up early,” Bessie said.

  Elizabeth nodded. “I’m making an effort, anyway. Mum and Dad are quite disappointed in me. All I do is lie around the house all day and watch telly. Both my brothers work hard and make oodles of money, and all I do is shop and fuss over my hair and makeup. Oh, and drink too much, when I can be bothered to go out.”

  “It sounds as if you’ve had quite a lecture recently,” Bessie suggested.

  “I did at that,” Elizabeth laughed. “Dad shouted and blustered at me, which had very little effect, but then Mum said a few things that made me really stop and think. I hate disappointing my mother. She’s, well, she’s wonderful, isn’t she?”

  Bessie nodded. She was very fond of Mary Quayle, a shy and retiring woman who’d been married to the loud and overbearing George for a great many years.

  “Anyway, after Mum talked to me I started thinking abou
t how I’m wasting my life. I really do want to do something useful with my time.”

  “I know your mother was hoping you might want to go back to school,” Bessie said.

  “I didn’t like school,” Elizabeth told her. “George and Michael were both really good at it. They both went to university and got good degrees, exactly as they were meant to do. I’ve already dropped out of three different universities and I really don’t want to add a fourth. I need to find something to do that doesn’t require a university degree.”

  “There are lots of jobs that don’t need a degree.”

  “You’d think, but I’m having trouble finding one,” Elizabeth said. “Oh, my friend Sarah offered me a job as a sales assistant in her shop in London, but that really doesn’t sound like fun. I’ve been in her shop dozens of times and it’s usually full of spoiled rich girls who behave badly and shout at the shop assistants. I don’t think that’s the job for me.”

  “It sounds quite dreadful.”

  “Yes, it truly is. Anyway, the reason I wanted to find you this morning was because I’ve run into a bit of a problem,” Elizabeth said. “I’ve been applying for jobs on the island, but everyone wants a long list of all my previous jobs and I don’t have any previous jobs, not really, anyway.”

  “I can see why that might be a problem.”

  “But then I had an idea. I can’t list previous jobs, but I can give them a list of references. I thought maybe, if you wouldn’t mind, I could list you as a reference? I’ll bet lots of places will want to hire me when they see your name on my application.”

  Bessie smiled at the girl. “I don’t know about that, but I’m happy to act as a reference for you, by all means. I won’t be able to speak about your abilities to do any particular job, but I’m happy to tell people that you’re a lovely girl from a very nice family who can be trusted. I hope that will be enough.”

  “I’m sure it will be,” Elizabeth said, giving Bessie a hug. “I’m sure your name will open all sorts of doors for me. Everyone loves Aunt Bessie, after all.”