Aunt Bessie Volunteers

by Diana Xarissa

  “Any idea what is happening with Sue?”

  “Not really. John said you were going to see if Andrew Cheatham could help at all.”

  “I’ve spoken to him. He’s going to see if he can find out anything.”

  Doona sighed. “She should come home, sick or not. At least if she was in Manchester we would know we were getting accurate information about her care.”

  “Is that a possibility?”

  “I don’t know. Harvey insists that she’s too ill to travel. Maybe that’s something that Andrew can find out.”

  Bessie nodded. “Maybe we should talk about other things.”

  “As Inspector Lambert is in charge of the Peel Castle case, I’ve not heard anything about how that’s progressing. Have you been able to help at all?”

  “I gave Anna a list of five women who disappeared from the island at about the right time. So far, two have turned up alive and well.”

  “Really? That’s good news, I suppose, although I’m sure Inspector Lambert would rather work out who was found in Peel than find women who are alive and well.”

  “Probably,” Bessie agreed. “She’s very eager to solve the case.”

  “I never cared for her when she worked in Laxey, but I do think she’s had a difficult time of it lately. I’m trying to be nice to her when I see her now.”

  Bessie smiled. “I’m doing everything I can to help her, which I never imagined I would.”

  “There are still three good possibilities, then?”

  “I don’t know how good they are, but there are still three possibilities. The longer I have to think about the case, the more likely it seems that the woman wasn’t from the island, though. I keep thinking that she would have been missed if she’d been from here.”

  “Not if she was murdered and her killer told everyone that she’d chosen to leave. We’ve seen that happen before, after all.”

  “That’s true,” Bessie sighed. “Why are people so horrible to other people?”

  “There’s a conversation I’d rather miss,” the waitress said as she delivered their drinks. “Your food will be right out.”

  “Thank you,” Bessie said. She took a sip of her drink. “Let’s find something pleasant to discuss over dinner,” she suggested to Doona.

  They were talking about the weather when the food arrived a few minutes later. Once they were eating, they found plenty to discuss as they enjoyed their meal.

  “I’ve never tried wrapping pork tenderloin in bacon, but now I’m not sure I ever want to eat it any other way,” Doona said when she finally put her knife and fork down on her empty plate.

  “It was very good, but then, so was everything else.”

  Pudding was equally delicious. The two women were just finishing their last bites of that when Dan came out of the kitchen.

  “I heard you were here and I had to come and say hello,” he told Bessie.

  “Hello,” she laughed. “How are you? Are you looking forward to the big move?”

  “Yes and no. We’ve done so well here, in a less than ideal location, that I’m worried that once we’re more conveniently located people won’t bother coming.”

  “If you keep doing the same amazing food as you did tonight, you’ll fill your larger dining room without any trouble,” Bessie predicted.

  “I hope so. We’re going to be open fewer hours in the new location. Our goal is to make the same profit by working a bit less. We’re going to do more catering to help make up the difference, too,” Dan told her.

  “Now I shall have to come up with a reason to have something catered,” Bessie mused.

  Dan laughed. “We’re pretty well booked for catering for the next three months, actually. Elizabeth is keeping us pretty busy.”

  Bessie nodded. Elizabeth Quayle was the only daughter of Bessie’s friends, George and Mary. They were the wealthy owners of Thie yn Traie, the mansion near Bessie’s cottage. Elizabeth had dropped out of several different universities, unable to work out what she wanted to do with her life. She’d recently begun a party planning business on the island and Bessie was amazed and delighted that it had become a success almost immediately.

  “I’ll be doing a lot more on my own for the next several months,” Dan added. “We’re just now telling people. Carol is expecting our first child in late July.”

  “Congratulations,” Bessie exclaimed. She knew that one of the reasons that the couple had moved to the island was so that they could start a family. Carol had stopped working at the café some months earlier and Bessie had been waiting for the good news ever since.

  “It was more difficult than it should have been,” Dan sighed. “We had to have some specialist treatment, but now that she’s actually pregnant, we’re both over the moon.”

  “I’m delighted for you both,” Bessie replied.

  “It does put rather more pressure on me to make a success of the new restaurant, though,” Dan added. “Having another mouth to feed is worrying.”

  “You’ll be fine. I’m sure, if the restaurant doesn’t work out, that you could become a private chef for just about any family on the island,” Bessie suggested.

  He laughed. “Mary keeps offering me that very job at Thie yn Traie. I suppose that’s something I could fall back on if things go terribly wrong.”

  “They won’t, though. You’re far too good,” Doona said.

  “Thanks for coming in tonight,” he told them both. “I’d better get back in the kitchen. Those apples aren’t going to bake themselves.”

  He gave Bessie a quick hug and then disappeared. After they’d paid the bill, Bessie and Doona walked back to her car.

  “I feel as if I should walk all the back to my cottage after eating all of that,” Bessie said as she climbed into the passenger seat.

  “I know what you mean, but it was all so good.”

  “I’ll take a walk on the beach when we get back.”

  “I hope you don’t mind if I join you,” Doona said. “I don’t really know what to do with myself at the moment. I’ve been spending so much time with the kids that I feel as if I should be doing your laundry and nagging you to do your homework.”

  “I haven’t had homework in a good many years, but you are welcome to do my laundry, if it will make you feel better.”

  “That’s fine. I have plenty of my own that needs doing, actually, but it can wait until we’ve walked off a few of those apple calories.”

  “I don’t think the apples were the problem. The pastry and the cake, on the other hand…” Bessie trailed off.

  Bessie changed into trousers and comfortable shoes before she and Doona set out across the sand. Doona had left a pair of trainers at Treoghe Bwaane some months earlier, so she changed into those before they headed out.

  “It’s a beautiful night,” Doona said, looking up at the starry sky.

  “There isn’t any cloud cover. I feel as if I can see forever.”

  “My solicitor in the UK reckons things might be sorted soon,” Doona said after several minutes of walking in silence.

  “That’s good news, isn’t it?” When Doona’s second husband had died, she’d been shocked to learn that he’d named her as his heir even though they were separated and Doona had filed for divorce. Charles had been a wealthy businessman, co-owner of hotels, restaurants, and a holiday park, among other things. The arrest of Charles’s former business partner not long after Charles’s death had complicated the inheritance. While the authorities tried to work out how much Charles had known about or had been involved with his former partner’s illegal operations, most of the estate had been frozen. In spite of that, Doona had already received a few cheques for life insurance policies that had given her more money than she’d ever imagined having.

  “It’s good news. I want it all to be over, even though I’m afraid of what might happen next.”

  “What might happen next?”

  “I could inherit a lot of money,” Doona said gloomily.

  Bessie could
n’t help but laugh. “Most people would be delighted by that idea.”

  “I know, and I should be delighted, but I’ve already been given more money than I ever dreamed of having and I’ve no idea what to do with it all. What will I do with even more?”

  “Quit your job and travel the world,” Bessie suggested.

  “Maybe, if things, well, depending on other things.”

  “How are things between you and John?”

  Doona stopped walking and turned to stare at the sea. “I don’t know,” she said eventually in a very low voice. “He’s so sad and worried about Sue that I can’t possibly say anything to him about, well, about us. I don’t think I’d ever realised how much he loved Sue. He still cares about her now, and that’s difficult for me.”

  “You need to give him time.”

  “I have been giving him time. I’ll keep giving him time, too, but I don’t know how long I want to wait, either. As you said, I could travel and see the world. If my solicitor is right about how things are going to be settled, I won’t have to work any longer. My life could be totally my own. If John asked, though, I’d stay right here and help him with the kids until they’re both old enough to not need him any longer.”

  “You’re in love with him.”

  “Sadly and rather desperately,” Doona sighed. “I fought it for a long time. He was married and then he was going through an ugly divorce. When the kids came to stay, I thought that might push us apart, but mostly, it’s brought us together. Or rather, it was bringing us together until Sue fell ill. That’s driving us apart.”

  “All you can do now is wait,” Bessie told her. “John has to work through his feelings himself. It’s difficult for me to imagine how he must feel.”

  “I know. I keep reminding myself that this must be almost unbearable for him, but that just makes me want to do more to help. The more I try to help, the more he pushes me away, though.”

  “I wish I had wise words of advice for you, but I truly don’t know what to tell you, except I’m sure it will all work out for the best in the end.”

  “I may end up owning half of a holiday park,” Doona told her. “Maybe we should go for another visit.”

  “I wouldn’t mind going to Lakeview again, actually. I quite enjoyed some aspects of the holiday.”

  “There were a few bright spots in between the murder and my spending a night in prison and all of that.”

  Bessie grinned. “The ice cream was good.”

  “And we played crazy golf,” Doona replied. “The painting and drawing classes were good fun, too.”

  “I thought you were going to start taking some art classes,” Bessie remembered.

  “I was, but then I decided I wasn’t ready yet. Maybe another round of classes at Lakeview will be just what I need.”

  “We should book something, rather than just talk about it.”

  “I agree, but I don’t want to leave until this mess with Sue is resolved, one way or another.”

  Bessie nodded. “That’s understandable.”

  They walked for a bit longer, but Bessie could tell that Doona’s mind was elsewhere. “Let’s turn around,” she suggested when they reached the stairs to Thie yn Traie.

  “I should get home and do that laundry I was talking about,” Doona said a few minutes later. “I feel odd about not knowing anything about the Peel Castle case, though. I don’t even know any of the names of the possible victims.”

  “Don’t worry about it for tonight. If we get a chance, maybe we can have one of our gatherings in a day or two to discuss the case. A lot will depend on John’s schedule, though.”

  “If we do get together, he’ll probably want to invite Inspector Lambert to attend. It is her case, after all.”

  “Yes, well, I suppose I could live with that.”

  “I’m not sure I could,” Doona muttered. She insisted on checking Bessie’s cottage before she left.

  “We’ve only been a few paces away. No one had time to break-in and if they’d tried, we would have seen them, anyway,” Bessie told her empty kitchen as Doona stomped around above her head.

  “I’ll ring you soon,” Doona told her when she reappeared in the kitchen. “Maybe, if things don’t get resolved with Sue, we should have a holiday regardless.”

  Bessie nodded, suspecting that Doona would never actually agree to leave the island until the circumstances changed. Feeling slightly at loose ends, she looked through her bookshelves, searching for some old favourite that might fill an hour or two before bedtime. The phone rang before she could find just the right thing.

  “Miss Cubbon? It’s Emma Gibson again. I hope it isn’t too late to ring.”

  “It’s only half eight,” Bessie laughed.

  “Yes, I know, but Mum always taught me that ringing anyone after eight was rude.”

  “I think you’re fine until nine.”

  “Good. I was going to wait until tomorrow, but Janice and I are catching an early flight to Barcelona in the morning. We both feel as if we need to get away so we booked a last-minute holiday there. We’ll be gone for a fortnight.”

  “How lovely for you. I hope you have a wonderful time.”

  “Thank you. I was ringing because I’d promised that I would. Janice and I had a long talk about the skeleton and who it might have been.”

  “Did you come up with any ideas?”

  “I remembered a woman called Lauren Bell. Her nephew was in my class and some of the other children teased him about his aunt running away with the owner of the local chippy. He was married and his wife worked at the chippy with him. I remember them better than I remember Lauren, if I’m honest.”

  “Her name has been mentioned before.”

  “As I recall, they left and then came back. He went back to his wife, and she got her own little flat because her parents disowned her, or very nearly. She left again not long after that, but I don’t remember anything else about her.”

  “Someone suggested that she left with a different married man.”

  “If she did, I certainly don’t remember who he was,” Emma replied. “Anything is possible, though.”

  “The police are looking for her.”

  “I hope they find her. Janice wondered about Hannah Butler.”

  “Her name has come up before, too. What does Janice remember about her?”

  “She worked at the shop in Kirk Michael. Janice rented a room in Kirk Michael when she first came to the island. She’d taken the room, sight unseen, when she’d taken the position, without knowing anything about the island. Once she moved across, she discovered that Kirk Michael was a bit remote for her purposes and she relocated to Douglas. She was only in Kirk Michael for about two months, but she remembers Hannah quite clearly.”

  “What does she remember about her?”

  “She was quiet and Janice thought she seemed depressed. Janice’s mother battled depression her entire life, so Janice knows what she’s talking about on that front. Anyway, she says she tried to talk to Hannah whenever she was in the shop, but she said Hannah was always monosyllabic and monotone. When Janice knew she was moving, she tried to suggest that Hannah talk to a doctor about how she was feeling, but she doesn’t believe that Hannah was really listening.”

  “I wonder if anyone in Kirk Michael remembers any more about her,” Bessie said, mostly to herself.

  “Janice reckons that Louise Larkin will remember her, if she’s still alive.”

  “Louise Larkin?”

  “She runs the shop in Kirk Michael. If you’ve ever been in there, you’ll probably have met her.”

  “Strange as it might sound, I don’t believe I have ever been to that shop,” Bessie said. “I don’t know that I’ve ever done more than simply ride through Kirk Michael. If Janice knew Ms. Larkin, she may not still be working.”

  “If she is, she’ll be able to tell you all about Hannah.”

  “I may have to try to track her down, then,” Bessie said.

  “If you do, tell he
r that Janice sends her best. According to Janice, Louise took a maternal interest in everyone who came into the shop, even if they only came in once or twice. She was nearly always there and she used to tell Janice to buy more vegetables and fewer chocolate bars whenever she saw her.”

  Bessie chuckled. “Now I’m looking forward to meeting her.”

  “Janice told me that she nearly decided to stay in Kirk Michael just because Louise made her feel so welcome. She didn’t because one of the other lodgers at the house where she was staying wouldn’t leave her alone, though.”

  “That’s unfortunate.”

  “She was happier when she moved, anyway, and it was all a very long time ago.”

  “It was, at that,” Bessie agreed.

  She put the phone down and then paced back and forth across the kitchen floor. It seemed odd that she’d never heard of Louise Larkin if she’d been living on the island for so many years.

  Feeling too restless to try to sleep, Bessie went out and sat on the rock behind her cottage. Breathing deeply, she let the sea air calm her spirit. When someone said her name, she jumped.

  “Maggie? What are you doing down here so late?” she demanded, after her heart rate had returned to something closer to normal.

  “The police rang that there were lights on in the last cottage again,” Maggie sighed. “I don’t know how, but the lights in one of the bedrooms had been switched on again. There wasn’t any sign of a break-in, at least. I’m starting to believe that the cottage is haunted, though.”

  “It seems more likely that kids are getting in somehow,” Bessie replied. “Whatever, it must be annoying for you.”

  “It is, rather, but I suppose it comes with the job,” Maggie sighed. “Any more information on any of our missing people?”

  “I spoke to Emma Gibson recently.”

  “Did you? Let me guess. She’s alive and well and you can’t tell me any more than that.”

  Bessie shrugged. “She’s alive and well, yes. I don’t know much beyond that, really.”

  Maggie sighed. “I’m too tired to push you for more information tonight,” she said.

  “Are you all right?” Bessie asked.

  “I’m fine.”