“I wanted a quick word with everyone. I’m trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. I wanted to get a feel for how everyone was feeling towards me.”
“You’re thinking of rejoining the troupe?”
“Well, I’m not sure what else to do,” Candy said frankly. “Scott was my ticket out, you know? Oh, I have a few connections here and there, but what I don’t have is another client with his star power. Say what you like about the man, he was hugely talented.”
“What about Sienna?” John asked.
Candy shook her head. “Look, I offered to help her out, and I think I could have landed her a few little jobs here and there, especially with Scott’s name on my books, you know? But she can’t act to save her life. She’s pretty and she’s ambitious and that can take you quite a long way if you have the right connections, but I reckon her chances at the big time died with Scott, just like mine did. I’m just trying to find a way to hold on now until I can collect the insurance money from Scott’s death. They won’t pay out until there’s an official verdict on what happened to him.”
“So who do you think tampered with the balcony?”
Candy shrugged. “My best guess would be William,” she said. “I think Sienna was driving him crazy, demanding a bigger part and threatening to leave every two seconds. I think he fixed the balcony and then offered Sienna the lead role, knowing the balcony wasn’t safe.”
“Do you think he was trying to kill her?”
“Oh, good heavens, no,” Candy laughed until she began to cough. “Sorry,” she said when she could breathe again. “No, I don’t think he wanted to kill her. I doubt he even wanted to hurt her. I suspect he just wanted to shake her up a little bit. I bet he figured the balcony would creak and shake while she was on it and she’d decide she didn’t want to be the star after all, that’s all.”
“It’s a theory,” John said noncommittally, writing something in his notebook.
As the door shut behind Candy, he let out a huge sigh. “Sometimes I think I should have been a postman,” he told Bessie.
She laughed. “You would have found it boring after a few weeks,” she replied.
“Maybe, but some days….” he trailed off, flipping through his notebook aimlessly.
“You need a good night’s sleep,” Bessie suggested.
“Yeah, and a holiday,” he grumbled back. “Let’s get out of here.”
They quickly tidied up the room as much as they could and then headed out. Hugh and the other constables were still working their way through the audience, the extras and the vendors, and the inspector left Bessie on her own so he could have a chat with Hugh.
“Okay, Hugh’s going to handle things here,” he told Bessie when he rejoined her. “And he’s going to make sure Doona gets home safely. Let’s go.”
“You have to get into Douglas and talk to Sienna, right?” Bessie asked. “Why don’t I just wait here and get a ride home with Hugh when he’s done?”
“That could be hours,” John replied. “I’ll run you home. You don’t need to sit around here all night.”
Bessie protested a bit more, but John wouldn’t change his mind. They made their way back to his car and then headed out of Peel towards Laxey.
“I never took your statement,” John said tiredly as he drove.
“I don’t have anything interesting to put in it,” Bessie told him.
“But I do need a formal statement from you,” he said with a sigh. “Is it too much to ask that you stop by the station tomorrow sometime?”
“I’d be happy to,” Bessie assured him. “I’ll come in the morning and then maybe I can take you and Doona to lunch, Hugh too, if he’s around.”
“That sounds good,” John agreed. “I’ll put you in my diary for eleven and then plan on lunch at midday.”
“I’ll call Doona’s answering machine and let her know,” Bessie said. “I suppose I’ll call Hugh’s as well.”
“No need,” John assured her. “He’s meeting me later tonight to go over everything. I’ll tell him then.”
Plans in place, Bessie settled back to enjoy the view as they made their way to her cottage.
At home she felt restless, but she forced herself to curl up with her book and read through the rest of the spy story she’d started at the castle. After all the biscuits she’d eaten through the afternoon, she wasn’t terribly hungry for dinner. She reheated some soup that she’s tucked in her freezer some weeks earlier and toasted a few slices of bread to go with it.
After dinner, she took a walk on the beach, enjoying how different it felt to when she normally walked early in the morning. She smiled and nodded at several families that were making sandcastles and splashing in the sea. Encouraged by their actions, Bessie slipped off her shoes and walked to the water’s edge, thinking she’d enjoy the coolness of the water on her feet. She quickly changed her mind as what felt like ice-cold water washed over her toes.
Laughing at herself, she headed further up the beach, enjoying the way the warm sand squished under her bare feet. The water would be warmer in July and August, and she would, no doubt, try again, but she sternly told herself that there would be no more walking in the sea this month.
She pulled an old favourite off her bookshelf when she got back home and took herself upstairs to get ready for bed. Snuggling down under the covers, she read until she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. She slept soundly and, as far as she could remember the next day, dreamlessly.
Chapter Eleven
On Monday morning Bessie woke up close to her normal time of six. She took a quick shower, patted on her favourite powder, dressed, and then fixed herself tea and cereal. She was out the cottage door for her walk before seven and had the beach almost entirely to herself.
She waved to a fisherman who was sitting on the low wall that ran along one section of the beach. He’d turned around as she’d shut her cottage door. Now he waved back and then turned back to watch the day’s calm sea.
Bessie walked past the new cottages, glancing in where curtains were open. She was appalled at the mess she saw in most of the rooms. It’s a wonder there’s any sand left out here, she thought, as she walked past yet another cottage where she could see trails of sandy footprints stretching from the patio doors into the cottage interior.
One cottage was neat as a pin, and Bessie wondered if it was empty. It would be strange for there to be a vacancy at this time of year, but last-minute cancellations did happen. Once again, when she reached the Pierce mansion, she thought about climbing up for a good look around.
A light rain, almost more of a mist, changed her mind. The narrow wooden stairs were quite steep, and having fallen down them once, she wasn’t in a hurry to repeat the experience. She turned towards home, quickening her pace a bit in light of the weather.
As she reached the cottages, she again found herself peeking inside where curtains were open. No one seemed to be awake in most of the cottages, although she did spot one exhausted looking woman rocking a crying baby. In another she saw a toddler in his pyjamas eating cereal right out of a box. A carton of milk had tipped over on the table, and she watched for a moment as it dripped steadily every time the child bumped the table. The pile of clothes under the table didn’t look clean anyway, so the fact that milk was spilling on them probably didn’t matter much, she thought. As she passed the single tidy cottage, she was shocked when she glanced through the glass patio door and met the eyes of someone looking out.
After a moment’s indecision, Bessie squared her shoulders and waved to the stranger. It was no good pretending she hadn’t been looking, and if the cottage inhabitants wanted privacy, they needed to learn to pull their curtains shut. It was a public beach, after all.
She needn’t have worried. Her nervous wave was returned, and the occupant also gave Bessie a cheery smile. Bessie slowed her pace as the cottage’s inhabitant slid open the patio door.
“Good morning to you,” the other woman called.
Bessie retuned the greeting, studying the woman as she emerged from the cottage. Bessie would have put her somewhere in her mid-sixties. She had grey hair and bright blue eyes, and was tending towards plump. About Bessie’s height, she was dressed in casual and comfortable clothing, and her bright smile made the drizzly morning suddenly feel warmer.
“Please tell me you’re the owner of that adorable little cottage down there,” the woman said. “Joan and I have been wanting to meet you.”
Bessie wasn’t sure what to make of that, but she smiled and admitted to ownership of her home.
“Oh, you must pardon me,” the other woman laughed. “I think my manners have deserted me. When I’m on holiday I’m simply not myself. I’m Janet Markham. My sister, Joan, and I have been holidaying on the island for years, but this is our first stay in Laxey. We love our little hired cottage, but we’re both mad jealous of yours.”
Bessie laughed, delighted by the friendly woman. “I’m Bessie Cubbon, and I love my little cottage as well,” she told Janet. “It’s been my home since I was eighteen.”
“Oh, my,” Janet sighed. “How very fortunate you are.”
Bessie nodded. “I quite agree with you.”
“But Joan will never forgive me if I don’t ask you what your cottage is called. I mean, we’ve both tried reading it out from the sign by your door, but I’m guessing it’s Manx, so we’re probably pronouncing it all wrong. And we’re both desperate to know what it means, as well.”
Bessie smiled. “Treoghe Bwaaue,” she replied, confident of her Manx pronunciation of that much, if little else, in the difficult Celtic tongue. “It means widow’s cottage,” she told the other woman.
“Oh, are you a widow?” Janet asked. “I am sorry.”
“Actually, I’m not,” Bessie told her. “I never married. The cottage already had its name when I bought it.”
“Really?” Janet beamed at her. “Neither Joan nor I ever married, either. We were both schoolteachers in our local village school until we retired. Now we have more time to travel, although neither of us wants to go too far from home. I’ve no interest in getting on a plane, and Joan shares that sentiment.”
“Janet, to whom are you speaking?” The voice startled both women. From behind Janet, another woman emerged. If Bessie had seen them in a crowd of thousands, she could have instantly identified them as sisters. Joan appeared to be a few years older than her sister, and was a few pounds lighter, but otherwise there was little difference between the pair.
After Janet performed the necessary introductions, Joan shook her head.
“My sister never has mastered her manners,” Joan said with an affectionate grin. “Imagine keeping you standing out in the rain to chat. Do you have time to come in for a cuppa?”
Bessie glanced at her watch and grinned. “Maybe just a quick one,” she said.
An hour later she emerged from the small holiday home stuffed full of tea and homemade biscuits. It seemed that Joan baked nearly every day, wherever they were.
“That’s why this cottage has been so good for us,” Janet explained. “We can self-cater to our hearts’ content.”
Bessie made her way home feeling as if she’d made two new friends. The sisters had only arrived on Saturday for a fortnight-long stay, and Bessie was looking forward to having a chance to visit with them again. I just need to figure out who killed Scott first, she thought to herself.
Back in her own snug home, she had little time left before she had to report to the police station. The light rain had blown over, and the sun was shining a short time later as she climbed into the taxi she’d ordered. Her favourite driver, Dave, greeted her cheerfully.
“Mark was pleased with you the other day,” he said to Bessie during the short journey. “He said he came out to your cottage and picked up some gorgeous actress.”
“Yes, well, Penny’s an actress at any rate,” Bessie replied with a grin.
Dave laughed. “I’d rather drive you any day,” he told Bessie gallantly.
At the station, Doona fixed Bessie a cup of tea while she waited for Inspector Rockwell to finish a phone call.
“I won’t offer you biscuits, because we’re going for lunch later,” Doona told her.
Bessie thought about arguing, but the biscuits she’d eaten with the Markham sisters had been quite filling and very tasty. Doona only ever stocked plain digestives at the police station, otherwise the young constables would eat them all every time her back was turned. She had a hard enough time keeping the unexciting digestives away from them.
“Ah, Bessie, thank you for coming in.” The inspector greeted her with a smile a moment later. “Come on back and let’s get your statement sorted out, shall we?”
Bessie sighed as she sat down on the hard chair in the inspector’s office. “I feel like I’ve done this an awful lot lately,” she complained.
“Let’s hope this is the last time,” John grinned at her. He took her back through everything that she’d done the previous day, starting with breakfast.
They walked slowly through her entire day.
“Why do you have me start with breakfast?” Bessie asked. “Nothing relevant happened until I got to the castle.”
“But once you start running through your day, you get into a rhythm,” John explained. “By taking me through the ordinary parts of your day, you start to talk without really thinking about it. Then, when we get to the difficult parts, you’re used to giving me what I need.”
“I guess so,” Bessie said doubtfully.
The inspector laughed. “Well, that’s what they taught me in CID training school, anyway,” he told her. “It may not be true, but I’ve found over the years that I like to work that way, regardless. If nothing else, you can learn a lot about a person if you find out about the minutiae of their lives.”
“I can certainly believe that,” Bessie said. “I’m afraid to ask what you learned about me the first time you interviewed me.”
John grinned. “I learned that you are very smart and you don’t like to waste your time,” he said. “And that you have an encyclopedic knowledge of the good people of Laxey.”
Bessie laughed. “That makes me sound a bit nosy,” she protested.
John smiled. “Should we get on with your statement, then?” he asked, changing the subject.
“I don’t think I’ve helped at all,” she said when they’d finished. “I wasn’t in the right place to see anyone sabotaging the balcony and besides, you were sitting next to me the whole time.”
John nodded. “I wasn’t expecting anything new from you,” he assured Bessie. “But every word helps build up the bigger picture. Remember, it isn’t just me that reads these statements. There is a section of CID in Douglas that spends all of their time analysing active cases. They’ll read your statement along with mine and Hugh’s and Doona’s, and compare them to what was said by everyone else in the VIP area, and then the audience as a whole. They’ll look for discrepancies and patterns and that sort of thing.”
Bessie nodded. “I just wish I could have helped more.”
“You’ve done your fair share,” John told her. “Now, we have a few minutes before lunch. I shouldn’t discuss Sienna with you, but you sat in on the all the other interviews, so I can’t see what it will hurt.”
“You were able to see her last night, then?”
“I was. And, interestingly, she’s requested that no one else be allowed in to see her, at least for now.”
“How did Adam take that news?” Bessie asked.
“He wasn’t pleased, but I told him it was doctor’s orders, rather than letting him know that Sienna didn’t want to see him.”
“That was nice of you,” Bessie remarked. “Why is she refusing to see people?”
John shrugged. “I couldn’t figure out if she’s genuinely afraid of someone or if she’s just wanting some space for a little while.”
“After travelling with the same people for so many years, I have to s
ay, I’d be in favour of some peace and quiet.”
“Agreed. I didn’t get the feeling that she was worried that someone might try to hurt her again, but she’s an actress, so she might have been deliberately misleading me.”
“Penny was the only one who seemed to think what happened was a murder attempt,” Bessie remarked.
“And Sienna’s with the majority on that point. She didn’t think anyone was trying to kill anyone,” John told her.
“So what did she have to say? Did she have any idea who might have done it?”
John grinned. “I’ll save her suspicions for last,” he told her. “Her basic statement was much the same as the others. She didn’t know William was going to give her Penny’s part until just before the second half started, but she knew all of the lines and cues from rehearsals.”
“It still put a lot of pressure on her, changing things at the last minute like that.”
“From what she said, she was delighted. I think she’d been making quite a few threats about leaving before the show started,” John said.
“Did she say anything else interesting?” Bessie asked.
“Not really. She didn’t see anyone doing anything with the balcony. She said that if she had, she certainly wouldn’t have climbed up on it. Apparently it felt somewhat wobbly to her as she climbed up the stairs, but she just figured it was badly constructed. It never occurred to her that it might be dangerous.”
“So who does she think damaged it?” Bessie demanded.
“Penny,” John replied.
Bessie’s jaw dropped. “But that doesn’t even make sense,” she said, shaking her head. “Penny thought she was going to be up there. Why on earth would she put her own life in danger like that?”
“Sienna thinks Penny figured she wouldn’t get hurt too badly when it fell, and that she would garner lots of sympathy from William. She reckons Penny was hoping William might propose if he was suddenly confronted with the thought that he could have lost her.”
Bessie sighed. “It seems far-fetched,” she said. “But if a woman is prepared to pretend to have an affair with someone, thinking that will help with her relationship, maybe she is capable of putting her own life in danger for the same reason.”
Aunt Bessie Decides (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 4) Page 17