Aunt Bessie Questions (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 17)

by Diana Xarissa

  “How lovely,” Bessie said. “I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time.”

  “It’s too fancy for my taste, really, but it’s where Grace and her mother want to go. The portions are generous, at least.”

  “Grace can drop the children and me off at Treoghe Bwaane whenever she needs to so that she can be ready for dinner, then.”

  “Oh, we aren’t meeting Mrs. Christian until seven, so that shouldn’t be a problem,” Hugh assured her.

  Doona walked back into the kitchen with a frown on her face. “I could have done that,” she told them.

  “Is everything okay?” Bessie asked her.

  “I just feel funny about sending the children home with John. I know he’s really busy with the case, and I hate the thought of him having to leave them alone if something comes up.”

  “They’re old enough to be left alone for a few hours now and then,” Bessie said. “I know what you mean, though. I’d have them both to stay at my cottage for a few nights if I thought John would agree.”

  “He’s determined to do as much as he can by himself,” Doona sighed. “He wants to prove to Sue that he can manage looking after them on his own. I think he’s hoping she might let them stay on the island after she’s back, if they want to.”

  “He did say she won’t be back until the end of September, which complicates things for the new school year. I can’t imagine she’d want to let them stay here for an entire year, though” Bessie said.

  “Maybe she and Harvey will decide to stay in Africa,” Hugh suggested. “Then John could keep the children for good.”

  “That would be a lot for John to take on,” Bessie pointed out. “He’s already struggling a bit due to this case, after all.”

  “Part of the problem now is the uncertainty, though,” Doona said. “The children don’t feel settled because they’re meant to be going back to Manchester in September. If John did have custody, they’d have to learn to like the island, whether they wanted to or not.”

  “Or they’d have to talk John into going back to Manchester with them,” Bessie said. “I suspect he’d do it if both children asked.”

  Doona frowned. “You’re probably right,” she said after a minute. “I know how much he misses them when they aren’t around. I just hope he doesn’t decide to move back there once Sue and Harvey have returned. I’d hate to see him leave the island.”

  Bessie finished washing the cups and plates, worrying about John and what he might do come September. Hugh chatted with her and Doona about his new house and the baby and all manner of things as they worked. Bessie was quite tired by the time the last plate was put away.

  “I’ll run Bessie home if you want,” Doona told Hugh. “You must be eager to get home.”

  “I am, but Bessie is almost on my way,” Hugh replied. “It won’t take me more than a few minutes to drop her off.”

  Doona walked the pair to the door. Hugh offered his arm to Bessie, and they made their way down the short pavement to the street where his car was parked. It only took a minute or two for him to make the short drive to Treoghe Bwaane.

  “Thank you for the ride,” Bessie told him as he parked his car.

  “You’re very welcome. I’ll just come in with you and make sure that everything is okay,” he said.

  “Everything will be fine,” Bessie replied. “It’s always fine. The island is one of the safest places in the world.”

  “Yes, it is, and I work hard to keep it that,” Hugh replied, “but I’m still coming in with you to make sure. Doona would never forgive me if I didn’t.”

  Bessie smiled. “I won’t tell her if you don’t. I know you’re eager to get home to your lovely wife. Just watch me walk to my door, and then you can be on your way.”

  Hugh looked at her for a minute, hesitating, before he shook his head. “I’ll just walk you to your door and peek inside,” he said. “As long as everything is normal, I’ll leave you to lock yourself in for the night.”

  Bessie thought about arguing further, but she didn’t think it would do her much good. Hugh was determined, and she knew he was only doing what he thought was right. She sighed deeply and then opened her car door. Hugh was there to help her out of the car before she could move. She took his arm and let him lead her across the uneven soil that made up the parking area.

  Her keys somehow always managed to make their way to the very bottom of her handbag. When she had someone with her, they seemed to be even more difficult to find. She finally dug them out and reached for the doorknob. The door swung open under her touch.

  Chapter 8

  “You need to wait in my car,” Hugh said firmly. “I’m going to get backup before I go in.”

  “Maybe I just didn’t shut the door properly when we left,” Bessie suggested.

  “I was with you. You shut it properly, and you locked it,” Hugh said. “Let’s go back to the car and wait for John.”

  “Don’t bother John with this,” Bessie said quickly. “He’s only just taken the children home for the night. Ring another constable if you need to, but let John have some time with Thomas and Amy.”

  Hugh let Bessie back into the car and then slid behind the steering wheel. “I’m sorry, I truly am, but I’m going to ring John,” he told her. “He’ll never forgive me if I don’t.”

  Bessie frowned but didn’t argue any further. While she felt terrible about bothering John, if she was honest with herself, she really wanted the man there. Someone had broken into her cottage, and she was shocked and more than a little upset by that. Closing her eyes, Bessie took several deep breaths, doing what she could to remain calm. She could hear Hugh talking on the phone next to her, but she didn’t pay attention to what he was saying. It might have been five minutes or twenty when he finally took her hand.

  “John and Doona are on their way,” he told her, “along with a crime scene team and probably half of Laxey.”

  Bessie forced herself to chuckle at his words. “But who will watch the children?” she asked.

  “Grace is going over to sit with them at John’s until John is done here,” Hugh told her. “She reckons she can use the practice.”

  “Teenagers are very different to babies,” Bessie said. “I’m sure Amy and Thomas will be much less trouble than your baby will be when he or she arrives.”

  “No doubt,” Hugh replied. “Here’s John.” He nodded at the road outside the car window. John pulled into the parking area a moment later. “Stay here for a minute, okay?” Hugh asked Bessie.

  “Sure,” Bessie replied.

  In the quiet emptiness of the beach, the men’s voices carried back to Bessie as they talked at John’s car.

  “The door swung open a few inches when Bessie touched it,” Hugh said.

  “You didn’t go inside?”

  “No, sir. I didn’t even look inside. Bessie and I went back to my car, and I rang you.”

  John nodded. “Let’s go and see what we have, then,” he said.

  Bessie watched as the two men approached the cottage door. John pushed the door open and shouted something. After a moment, he and Hugh stepped inside. They were back outside only a minute or two later. Bessie climbed out of the car and walked over to them.

  “Is it really bad?” she asked, her voice quavering slightly.

  “It’s a mess,” John told her, sounding disgusted. “Someone tore open just about everything they could get their hands on and spread the mess throughout the kitchen. I don’t know what’s beyond that, as I didn’t want to risk contaminating any potential evidence. The crime scene team will be here soon.”

  Doona was parked and out of her car almost before Bessie noticed her arrival. “Are you okay?” she demanded, pulling Bessie into a hug.

  “I’m fine, but don’t be too nice to me, or I’ll break down,” Bessie told her in a low voice.

  Doona nodded and then released her. “What happened?”

  “Someone broke in and made a mess,” John replied. “We won’t know what was
taken until the crime scene team has been through.”

  “How much of a mess?” Bessie asked.

  “The kitchen appears to be covered in flour,” John replied, “and everything from the refrigerator and freezer has been dumped on the floor.”

  Bessie blinked back tears. “Who would do such a thing?” she demanded.

  “Bored kids from the holiday cottages, maybe,” Hugh suggested.

  “Or bored adults,” Bessie said grimly. “Brandon and his friends were watching me as I left with Hugh. They’re at the top of my list of suspects.”

  “We’ll be going door to door at the cottages, asking if anyone noticed anything,” John told her. “It will be interesting to see what Brandon and his friends have to say.”

  A police van and two police cars pulled into the parking area. That pretty much filled the entire space. If anyone else arrived, they’d have to park on the road. John walked over and spoke to one of the men. Bessie looked over at Hugh.

  “I want to see,” she told him.

  “We need to let the crime scene team do their job first,” Hugh told her.

  “At least let me look through a window,” Bessie replied.

  Hugh hesitated and then nodded towards John. “Ask the inspector,” he told her.

  Bessie frowned at the man’s use of John’s title, but she supposed it was justified. Her home, her little cottage that she loved, was now a crime scene. Blinking and swallowing hard, she worked to suppress the tears that threatened again. Now was not the time to cry.

  “The team will work as quickly as they can, but it will take them several hours to do the whole cottage,” John said when he rejoined Bessie and the others. “Why don’t you go home with Doona and get some sleep?” he asked Bessie.

  “I want to see the cottage,” Bessie told him. “I’m not leaving until I’ve had a chance to see exactly how bad it is.”

  John shrugged. “I can’t let you in until the technicians are finished.”

  “There are windows,” Bessie suggested.

  John glanced back at the cottage and then looked at Bessie. “Give me a minute to walk around the whole cottage. It’s just possible that our intruders used the windows to check that the cottage was empty. Again, I don’t want to risk destroying any evidence.”

  Bessie nodded and then watched as the man walked away. When he’d disappeared behind the cottage, she turned and stared at the sea instead.

  “It’s going to be okay,” Doona told her. “I’ll help you clean it all up, and anything that’s been taken can be replaced.”

  “I don’t even have anything particularly valuable,” Bessie shrugged. “A few pieces of jewellery, but none that are worth much. They simply have sentimental value; that’s all. Some of my furniture is probably antique, but only because I bought it new many years ago. I can’t imagine they found much of anything to take.”

  “Maybe that’s why they made such a mess,” Doona said. “Maybe they were angry that you didn’t have chests full of silver and gold.”

  Bessie gave her a bleak smile. “You know I would count my books as my most valuable possessions. I just hope they didn’t have the time or the inclination to destroy them.” Movement caught her eye, and she watched John as he crossed the parking area to her side.

  “Okay, let’s take a walk around,” he told Bessie. “You can’t get too close, but the techs have lights on everywhere. You should be able to get some idea of what you’re going to have to deal with.”

  “What we’re going to have to deal with,” Doona reminded her. “We’ve already been through a lot together. We’ll get through this as well.”

  “Yes, I know,” Bessie replied. Doona took her hand, and John offered his arm. Together the trio made their way closer to the cottage. When standing behind it, she got a good view into her kitchen.

  “My goodness,” she exclaimed when she saw the mess that had been made there. “I’m awfully glad you warned me, but even so, I wasn’t, that is, my goodness. I’ve never seen such a mess.”

  Bessie could see puddles of milk and other liquids all over the floor. Containers of soup and spaghetti sauce from her freezer had been opened. The containers had been dumped on countertops and on her kitchen table. Crackers and biscuits had been taken from their packages and seemingly thrown in every possible direction. The entire room appeared to have a fine layer of flour over the top of everything else.

  “We’ll get someone in to clean it all up,” John said.

  “I don’t know about that,” Bessie replied. “I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with having someone else doing the cleaning. I’m not sure I want any more strangers at Treoghe Bwaane.”

  “The sitting room doesn’t look as bad,” Doona said. She’d taken a few steps further along the beach. Bessie joined her there.

  “It hardly looks touched, at least in comparison to the kitchen,” Bessie said, feeling relieved. A few books had been taken off their shelves and dropped on the floor, but otherwise the room looked much like it always did, aside from the dusting of flour that Bessie could see in the doorway between the sitting room and the kitchen.

  “I’ve spoken to Matthew, the head technician. He says the rest of the house is much like the sitting room. A few things have been tossed around, but nowhere near as badly as the kitchen,” John said. “He reckons whoever it was didn’t spend long upstairs. Obviously, he can’t say whether anything has been taken or not, though.”

  Bessie blew out the breath she’d been holding. “Overall, it isn’t as terrible as I thought it would be,” she told her friends. “I mean, the kitchen is horrible, but if the rest of the cottage is okay, then it shouldn’t take too long to put it all right again.”

  “Which is a job for tomorrow,” Doona said. “For tonight, come home with me. You can sleep in my spare bedroom now that the children have gone to John’s.”

  “Who also needs some sleep,” Bessie said, looking pointedly at the man in question.

  John nodded. “I think I’ll go home now, actually. The team doesn’t need me underfoot. I’ll get a full report from them in the morning and then come and talk to you about what they found,” he told Bessie.

  “When can I get inside?” she asked.

  “Probably in the morning. We’ll want you to go through it as early as possible, so we can get a complete list of what’s missing. The sooner we have that list, the sooner we can start looking for the items,” he replied.

  “So we’ll see you in the morning,” Doona said. “I have to work at nine, but Bessie is welcome to stay at my house until you get there.”

  “I should be there before nine,” John told her. “A lot will depend on how the team does here, of course.”

  “But I’m meant to be taking the children to Castletown tomorrow,” Bessie remembered. “I don’t want to disappoint them, but if I have to go through the house…” she trailed off.

  “The children will survive,” John said. “They need to find ways to entertain themselves.”

  “Maybe they can come down and spend some time on the beach while I’m cleaning,” Bessie suggested.

  “Let’s work on one thing at a time,” John said. “You go with Doona now and get some sleep. I’ll be over to talk to you in the morning. If the techs are done here, I’ll bring you down to go through the house to see what’s missing. Cleaning can wait until both of those things are done.”

  “The milk will sour, and the floors will be ruined,” Bessie objected.

  “One thing at a time,” John replied. “I’ll get someone to mop up the worst of the puddles on the floor before they go. The rest can wait a short while.”

  Bessie wanted to argue, but she was too tired and upset to do so. Doona led her to her car and bundled her inside. “Try not to fret,” Doona said. “We’ll get it all sorted in a day or two.”

  While she nodded, Bessie wasn’t sure it was going to be that easy. Her brain kept replaying the shocking mess that had been her much-loved cosy kitchen. Whenever she tried to think
about something else, she started to worry that the intruders might have inadvertently stolen something that she held as valuable. The locket that Matthew Saunders, her lost love, had given her was probably only worth a few pounds, but it had huge sentimental value. The thought that someone might have taken it made Bessie feel physically ill.

  “Come on, now,” Doona said coaxingly after she’d parked in front of her house. “Stop thinking about it. There’s nothing you can do tonight except rest. Tomorrow is another day.”

  Bessie followed Doona into the house and then into Doona’s spare bedroom. While Doona found a nightgown and a spare toothbrush for her, Bessie sat on the edge of the bed feeling numb.

  “I have some tablets that will help you sleep,” Doona told her.

  “No, thank you. I’ll be fine,” Bessie said, fully aware that she wasn’t telling the truth.

  “You won’t, but you’re too stubborn to give in,” Doona replied. “I’ll leave a sleeping tablet in a glass by the sink in the loo. If you decide you want it, it will be there.”

  Bessie nodded. As soon as Doona shut the door, she climbed into the borrowed nightie and then crawled under the covers. Squeezing her eyes tightly shut didn’t stop the tears that began to flow. Bessie was shocked the next morning to discover that she’d cried herself to sleep.

  Doona’s house was quiet when Bessie awoke. It was right around six, and Bessie knew she’d never get back to sleep at that hour. While she wanted a shower, there seemed little point in having one, as she’d only be putting back on the same clothes she’d worn the previous day. After helping herself to a bowl of cereal, Bessie let herself out and began a brisk walk along the pavement that ran the length of the street.

  She walked from Doona’s to the far end of the road and then back again. The fresh air and exercise helped to wake her up and even improved her mood, at least slightly. She was still feeling shocked and saddened by what had happened, but in the cold light of morning she felt more ready to cope with it.

  Doona was up when Bessie got back. “I was only a little bit worried when you weren’t here,” she told Bessie as Bessie let herself back into the house.