“I’ve never seen Inspector Corkill smile so much,” Hugh told her. “In fact, before he met Helen, I don’t think I’d ever seen him smile at all. He didn’t smile like that when he was married to his first wife.”
“It was such a shame; the vicar dying right before the wedding,” Grace said in a low voice.
“Yes, it was,” Bessie agreed.
“I almost expected the inspector to cancel his honeymoon so he could stay and help with the investigation,” Hugh confided. “I’m sure he thought about it.”
“They have such wonderful plans,” Bessie said. “It would be incredibly sad if they had to cancel.”
Pete and Helen made their way around the room, hugging everyone and thanking them for coming.
“I had a wonderful time. Thank you for including me,” Bessie told them both. “I hope you have an amazing time in the US.”
“I’m sure we will,” Helen replied.
“Thank you for everything,” Pete said to Bessie. “I know you found Elizabeth for us, and she was brilliant, and you found Andy to do that amazing cake. We couldn’t have done all of this without you.”
“You’d have managed, but I was more than happy to help,” Bessie replied. “I’m so very happy for both of you.”
A short while later Doona found Bessie. “The kids have been behaving wonderfully, but they’re both bored to bits. I’m going to take them home now.”
“I’ll come as well if you don’t mind giving me a ride,” Bessie said. “I think I’ve spoken to everyone I know at least once, and I’m getting tired. It’s been a stressful twenty-four hours.”
At Bessie’s cottage, Doona insisted on coming inside to make sure everything was okay. “I hate when you fuss,” Bessie told her.
“I know, but I’m going to do it anyway,” Doona replied.
While Doona was peeking under beds and into wardrobes, Bessie told Thomas and Amy to have a walk on the beach.
“Splash in the sea if you want to,” she added. “I’m sure you need a bit of fun after that long afternoon.”
When Doona came down, she frowned at Bessie. “I was only gone for two minutes, and you’ve already lost John’s children?”
“I told them to go and run on the beach for a bit. They need to let off some steam.”
“Yes, you’re probably right,” Doona sighed. “I don’t know a lot about looking after children, really.”
“I’m sure you’re doing a great job. Just try to remember what you were like when you were fourteen.”
“I’m not sure I want to remember,” Doona laughed. “I thought I was going to marry some movie star or other, and I wanted to be a supermodel. I was sure I was going to keep growing taller, but it turns out I never did. I’ve been five feet six since I was in my early teens.”
“And thus a bit too short to be a supermodel.”
“Yes, well, that wasn’t the only reason I never managed to become a supermodel, but that’s beside the point. I should go and see how the kids are getting on.”
“I’ll come along,” Bessie said. “I could do with a walk on the beach.”
As both women were still dressed for the wedding, they slipped off their shoes and tights before they left the cottage.
“I should have changed,” Bessie remarked after a few minutes. “It’s too warm out here for this dress.”
“The kids should have changed,” Doona said, nodding towards Amy and Thomas, who were happily splashing along the water’s edge in their fancy clothes.
“I didn’t even think about that,” Bessie admitted. “I hope they don’t ruin their good clothes.”
“I hope everything is washable,” Doona said. “At least the kids are.”
The beach was crowded in the early evening sunshine. Bessie and Doona made their way through the groups of families on blankets and in folding chairs, collecting Thomas and Amy along the way. When they reached Thie yn Traie, the crowds began to thin. Only a few holidaymakers had bothered to walk beyond the beach immediately behind their own holiday cottages. A short while later Bessie and her friends had the beach to themselves.
“I feel as if I could walk forever,” Doona said as Thomas and Amy chased one another around rocks.
“I know what you mean. After days like today, it’s so good to get out and get some exercise. I wish I had their energy,” Bessie added, nodding at the children.
As if on cue, the children stopped racing around and came over to join Bessie and Doona.
“That was weirdly fun,” Amy said. “I haven’t run around that way in a long time.”
“Yeah, it was fun being a little kid again for a while,” Thomas said.
Bessie laughed. “If you ever watch parents chasing their children around on the beach, you’ll see that most of the parents seem to having as much, if not more, fun than the children. I think we’re all in too much of a hurry to grow up and behave responsibly, and we forget to have fun and simply enjoy life.”
“Yeah, I miss being a little kid,” Amy said with a sigh. “All of my friends are worried about getting boyfriends, and I’d much rather still be playing with my toys.”
“Stay as young as you can for as long as you can,” Bessie told her. “You’ve many years ahead to find boyfriends and all of that.”
The foursome walked a bit further before turning back towards Treoghe Bwaane.
“I hope you weren’t too bored at the wedding,” Bessie said.
“It was okay,” Thomas shrugged. “The food was good, anyway.”
“I just wish Dad had been there,” Amy said softly. “I hope he solves the case quickly so we can spend some time with him while we’re here.”
“Like we spend so much time with Mum back home,” Thomas said.
Amy giggled. “But we don’t mind not seeing that much of Mum. She’s too in love with Harvey to be any fun anyway. Dad’s fun to spend time with.”
“There is that,” Thomas agreed.
“Well, I hope you enjoy your time on the island. I know you didn’t like it all that much when you were living here,” Bessie said.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Amy told her. “Mum hated it, and I think she tried hard to convince us that we hated it too. I made a few good friends when we were here, though. I’m hoping I’ll get to see them during this visit.”
“I made a few friends as well,” Thomas added. “We’re meant to try to get together, but we haven’t made any firm plans because, well, because of the murder and all that.”
“When we get back to my house, why don’t you both see if you can make some plans for tomorrow? I have the day off, so I can drive you all over the island if you want,” Doona suggested. “I’m pretty sure your dad is going to be busy tomorrow.”
“Yeah, he told me after the wedding that things were more complicated than he’d expected with the murder. I don’t think he’ll be around much for a few days,” Thomas sighed.
“As I said, I have tomorrow off,” Doona said. “I can take you sightseeing, or you can make arrangements with your friends, or we can go to the park in Ramsey and play mini-golf and go paddle boating, whatever you want to do.”
By the time Doona finished speaking, they were back at Bessie’s cottage.
“We can talk about it on the drive home,” Thomas said, “and thank you, Doona. We really appreciate you trying to make our visit fun.”
“I’m happy to do it,” Doona told him. “Your dad is a great guy, and he just happens to have some pretty terrific kids.”
Amy gave Doona a hug, and then the trio got into Doona’s car and drove away.
At least that seems to be going well so far, Bessie thought as she let herself into her cottage. No doubt there would be some bumps in the road, but for now the children seemed to be dealing well with their father’s unavoidable absence. They seemed to like Doona and appreciate her efforts as well. Bessie hoped that the case would be solved before they began to get tired of one another.
She made herself a cup of tea and curled up with a goo
d book. She was just a few pages away from finding out who’d killed the French maid and stolen the silver sloth when someone knocked on her door.
“I’m sorry to come by so late,” John said as Bessie let him in.
“It’s fine. I was just finishing a book,” Bessie told him.
“I hope it’s a good one.”
“It isn’t, really,” Bessie sighed. “I could tell on page six who the killer was going to be, and nothing changed my mind in the next two hundred pages. If the killer turns out to be anyone other than the man I suspect, I’ll be very angry, as the entire book points to him on every single page.”
“Maybe it’s all an elaborate bluff,” John suggested.
Bessie shrugged. “He’s the only character with any motive, the only character with the means to have successfully used the rather odd murder weapon, and one of only two characters who had the opportunity to be with the victim at the right time. Unless the author has deliberately misled us through the whole book, he has to be the killer.”
John sighed. “Maybe that’s why I don’t read murder mysteries.”
“But you aren’t here to talk about fictional murders and missing sloths,” Bessie said.
“Missing sloths?”
“The dead woman had a large solid silver sloth for some reason that isn’t clear. It went missing when she was killed,” Bessie explained.
“Okay,” John said with a shrug. ‘I’m not even going to ask. As fascinated as I am by the whole thing, we really need to talk about our real-life murder.”
Chapter 5
Bessie shivered. “I was really hoping that you were going to be able to solve this one quickly,” she said.
“I always want to solve cases quickly, and much of the time we do. This isn’t one of those times, however. I have a lot to discuss with you. I’d like to start by asking you to tell me everything you can about Reverend Doyle.”
“I already did that. I don’t know much at all about the man. He seemed nice enough when I saw him, and he conducted his services well.” Bessie sighed. “I have heard some complaints that he went too quickly, but, well, I’m not one to complain about that.”
“But he seemed to know his job?”
Bessie stared at John for a minute. “Seemed to know his job? What an odd question.”
John sat back in his chair and didn’t reply. After a minute, Bessie got to her feet. “Let me put the kettle on,” she said. “While I do that, I’ll think about your question.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” John told her. “Just tell me your initial thoughts on the matter. If you think too much about the question, you’ll start to see things that aren’t there.”
“In that case, yes, he seemed to know his job. I mean, I only saw him at a couple of Sunday services, but they didn’t feel significantly different from when the previous vicar was here. Everyone does things slightly differently, of course, and as I said, he was noticeably faster at getting through the service, but I never doubted that he was a proper vicar, if that’s what you mean.”
“Perhaps your opinion would have changed if he’d conducted Helen and Pete’s wedding.”
“Perhaps. I never spoke to him about the wedding. Helen, Pete, or Elizabeth might be able to address that, though.”
“They have, although I will be following up with Elizabeth early tomorrow.”
“Are you suggesting that Reverend Doyle wasn’t a proper vicar?”
“Do you know anything about how his appointment was made?” John asked, ignoring Bessie’s question.
“Not really. I was on a selection committee for a new vicar maybe thirty years ago, but I’m sure things have changed since then. The bishop at the time liked to have a handful of parishioners on the committee, but I’m not sure if the current bishop feels the same way. I’m less involved in the local church now than I was all those years ago.”
“I have an appointment with the bishop tomorrow. I’m sure he’ll have plenty to tell me.”
“How could someone who wasn’t properly qualified get appointed? It doesn’t make sense. Surely the bishop’s office would have checked the man’s credentials?”
“More questions for the bishop,” John replied. “Although in this case, it seems the Reverend William Doyle was perfectly well qualified for the job. It appears that the man who arrived on the island to take up the post, however, was not the Reverend William Doyle.”
Bessie put the teacups she’d just taken out of the cupboard down on the counter and turned around to look at John. “He wasn’t Reverend Doyle?” she repeated, feeling confused.
“No, he was not. And Dan Ross managed to get that information almost before we did. It’s going to be all over tomorrow’s paper, which is why I’m so eager to talk to Elizabeth early. I’d like to get her opinion of the man before she finds out he wasn’t who he claimed to be.”
“That explains Ms. Hamilton a bit better, then,” Bessie said after a moment. “I did wonder at a vicar behaving like that.”
“Yes, we’ve established that Ms. Hamilton was the man’s girlfriend, although she did do a bit of cooking and cleaning around the vicarage, I’ve been told.”
“So who was he really? And what was he doing on the island?”
“His real name was Walter Gray, spelled with an ‘a’, not an ‘e’, by the way,” John replied. “As for what he was doing on the island, well, we’re still working on that one.”
“Surely, Ms. Hamilton knows the answer to that.”
“If she does, she isn’t willing to share it, at least not yet.”
Bessie knew that John wouldn’t tell her anything that the woman had said while she was being questioned by the police. She sighed. “She must have given you some sort of explanation.”
“On the contrary, she’s insisting that she only ever knew the man as Reverend William Doyle. She’s even given an interview to Dan Ross about how betrayed she feels.”
“My goodness, that’s going to be a difficult lie for her to keep up, isn’t it?”
“Most likely, yes. We know where Walter Gray was six months ago, and we know when he arrived on the island as Reverend Doyle. Once we fill in the missing six months, we’ll find out when Ms. Hamilton arrived on the scene.”
Bessie went back to making tea and then filled a plate full of biscuits for John. She sat back down opposite him once everything had been served. “How did you work out who he was so quickly?” she asked.
“When we searched the vicarage, we found several pieces of identification for Walter Gray, and very little in William Doyle’s name. Because of the confusion, we ran the man’s fingerprints.”
“And you found them? He was a criminal, besides?”
“Assuming someone else’s identity is a criminal act,” John pointed out, “but, yes, he was already in the system. That’s why we’re quite certain of where he was six months ago. That’s when he was released from a six-month prison term for fraud.”
“What did he do?”
“I’m still waiting for further information, but it appears that he was some sort of con artist. He seems to have been very good at pretending to be things that he wasn’t.”
“I never would have imagined that he wasn’t a proper vicar,” Bessie said.
“Perhaps if he’d been here longer, people might have begun to suspect something. The more he had to do, the bigger the risk of his getting caught out. And over time, of course, people would have found out about Ms. Hamilton. That would have raised eyebrows and started talk.”
“I suspect it would have started quite a lot of talk. I’m sure there would have been complaints to the bishop about her. Were they really sharing a bedroom?”
“According to Ms. Hamilton, no, they weren’t. She can’t explain why the second bedroom in the vicarage was full of boxes that covered the bed, though.”
Bessie sighed. “If she’s going to lie to you about everything, how will you ever work out who killed the man? Or is she the chief suspect?”
“She
would probably be the chief suspect if she didn’t have a solid alibi. She was in Douglas for the entire day, having lunch with some friends who are visiting from across. We actually have video footage of the entire party at one of the restaurants on the promenade. She didn’t leave Douglas until after the body was found.”
“Were her friends acquainted with Walter Gray?”
“She says not, and they concur. The women in question are here for a girls’ weekend, and at this point, we’ve no reason to believe that they knew Walter Gray as himself, or as Reverend Doyle.”
Bessie sighed. “Who did know the man was here? He must have been killed because he was Walter Gray, mustn’t he?”
“That’s part of the problem. We don’t know if the murderer wanted to kill Reverend Doyle or Walter Gray. As far as we know at this point, no one on the island knew the man’s real identity, with the possible exception of Ms. Hamilton.”
“Why would anyone want to kill Reverend Doyle? He’d only been on the island for a short time, and he was a vicar. No one could possibly have had any reason to want him dead.”
“We have to consider all possibilities,” John told her, “but it seems most likely that the man was killed because of something that happened before he arrived on the island.”
“And Ms. Hamilton is the only one who knows anything about his life before he came here?”
“As far as we know, she’s the only person the island that may have that information, anyway. What we’re trying to do now is track down Walter Gray’s wife.”
Bessie nearly dropped her teacup. “He was married?” she gasped.
“He was. At this point, I don’t know anything more than the woman’s name and where she was living when Walter last went to prison.”
“Which was when?”
“About a year ago. He was in prison for six months, and he was released about six months ago. We know she isn’t still at the same address, because that was the first thing we tried.”
“How hard will she be to find?”
“Hopefully, not very. It being the weekend is complicating things, but I fully expect to locate her on Monday, if not before.”
Aunt Bessie Questions (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 17) Page 7