Aunt Bessie Understands

by Diana Xarissa

  “Could they have been working in that last cottage today?” Hugh asked.

  “I didn’t think they were going to do anything else in there until they found out about their planning application,” Bessie replied. After someone had been murdered in one of the bedrooms, Thomas and Maggie had found it difficult to find holidaymakers willing to rent that particular cottage. Eventually, they’d decided that they would be better off tearing it down and building a new, larger cottage in its place. As far as Bessie knew, they were still waiting for a decision from the planning board.

  “We can’t ring them at this hour to find out,” Hugh sighed. “I’m going to check the doors.”

  Bessie followed him closely as he walked up to the sliding doors that faced the beach. They seemed to be securely fastened. The front door, on the other hand, was partly open.

  “I’m too tired for this,” Hugh muttered as he pulled out his phone. As he rang the station to request assistance, Bessie heard a noise from inside the cottage.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  Hugh slipped his phone in his pocket. “We aren’t going in until my backup arrives,” he told her.

  The loud scream that filled the air made him change his mind. “Stay here,” he told Bessie as he pushed open the cottage’s front door.

  “I’ll feel safer with you,” Bessie argued, following Hugh into the building.

  Hugh reached for the light switch right inside the door. “Police!” he shouted.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” someone shouted back. “I didn’t even know he was in here.”

  “Who is that?” Hugh demanded.

  Bessie could hear sirens approaching.

  “I was just looking for a place to get out of the rain,” the voice said.

  Hugh walked further into the house with Bessie on his heels. The lights in the sitting room were already on. “Where are you?” he called.

  “In the bedroom,” the voice replied.

  Hugh looked into the first bedroom, where the body had been found months earlier. It was empty, the large bed having been removed as evidence. The second bedroom was only a few steps away. Hugh pushed the half-closed door open and switched on the light.

  The man standing in the corner stood up with his hands in the air. “It wasn’t me,” he said desperately.

  When Bessie spotted the body on the bed, she gasped. It was a man and he was clearly dead, a large knife still sticking out of his chest. There was a lot of blood on the victim, and also on the other man, who was still holding up his hands. He was shaking and looked terrified.

  “Police!” a loud voice shouted from the front of the house.

  “Back bedroom,” Hugh called. “Ring for a crime scene team and as much backup as you can get. We’ve a murder victim and a very likely suspect.”

  “It wasn’t anything to do with me,” the suspect yelled. He looked around the room and then rushed to the small window. As he struggled with the lock, Hugh took his arm.

  “You’ll only make things worse for yourself if you try to get away,” Hugh said. “I know who you are.”

  The man shuddered. “I was just looking for a place to get out of the rain,” he repeated himself. “I never expected to find, well, that.”

  Hugh nodded. “Do you know the victim?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I didn’t really look at him. I don’t want to look at him.”

  “It’s okay. We’ll work it out later. Just calm down.” Hugh said.

  As the room slowly filled with various police officers, Bessie started to wish that she’d let Hugh drive her home after all. Someone told Bessie to wait in the cottage’s sitting room, and she was asleep sitting up when John Rockwell arrived.

  John was the police inspector who was in change of the Laxey station. Bessie had first met him over a dead body a few years earlier and the two had become good friends in the time since. He was in his forties, and Bessie considered him one of the handsomest men she knew. His beautiful green eyes looked tired as he sat down next to her.

  “Grace had a girl,” she told him.

  “So I heard. I’m going to send Hugh home as soon as I’ve taken his statement. He looks completely exhausted.”

  “He’s not the only one,” Bessie muttered.

  “Which is why I’m sending you home now,” John told her. “Before I do that, though, one question. Did you recognise the victim or the man in the room with him?”

  “Hugh said that he recognised the man in the room. I’m fairly certain it was Callum Sharp, but I haven’t seen Callum in a few years, so I could be mistaken.”

  “You aren’t mistaken. I want to hear everything you know about Mr. Sharp tomorrow. He’s going to be spending a few days with us while we investigate. What about the victim?”

  “I didn’t get a good look at him. Really, I just glanced at the bed. There was so much blood,” Bessie said with a shudder.

  “I may want you to take a look at him, but I’ll leave that for tomorrow after I’m sure we have all the photographs that we need. We’re probably going to need to clean him up before anyone will be able to identify him.”

  Bessie swallowed a lump in her throat. “Oh, dear,” she murmured.

  “Constable Tucker is going to walk you home and check that everything is okay at your cottage. I’ll come and get your statement from you around midday. If you can, sleep until then,” John told her.

  Bessie glanced at her watch. It was nearly time for her internal alarm to wake her for the day, and she hadn’t been to bed yet. “Don’t worry if I don’t answer when you knock. I may well sleep past midday.”

  “I’ll ring before I come.”

  The walk home was something of a blur. When Bessie finally woke up at one o’clock the next afternoon, she couldn’t even remember changing into her nightgown, but clearly she had. Whether she’d brushed her teeth or washed her face seemed inconsequential. Still feeling incredibly tired, she showered until she’d run out of hot water and then started a pot of coffee brewing.

  Her answering machine light was flashing frantically. As she sipped her coffee, she listened to a dozen messages from friends who were excited about Hugh and Grace’s new baby. At some point, the messages changed. The later callers wanted to know about the body that had been found in the holiday cottage and about the man standing over it who may or may not have been the killer.

  Bessie deleted all of the messages and then poured more coffee into her cup. She had to make a difficult phone call.

  “Mark? It’s Bessie. I’m not going to be able to make it to the committee meeting today,” she said.

  “From what I’ve been hearing, I’m not surprised,” he replied. “Did you really find a dead body last night?”

  Bessie sighed. “Not exactly. I was with Hugh Watterson. He found the body.”

  “I’m going to reschedule today’s meeting to tomorrow. We have a few important things to discuss, and we need everyone to be here. Will two o’clock tomorrow work for you?”

  “Of course. I’m sorry to make you reschedule, though.”

  “It’s fine. Mary couldn’t make it today, either. I was already considering rescheduling.”

  Bessie put the phone down feeling guilty. She’d never missed a committee meeting, ever. The phone rang a moment later.

  “Hello?”

  “You’re awake,” John said. “I’m at the holiday cottage. I’d like to come over and take your statement, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all. Although I don’t know how much I’ll remember. I was awfully tired last night.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do your best. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Bessie hadn’t had breakfast and it was past time for lunch. Not feeling at all hungry, she piled biscuits onto a plate for John. He knocked on the door as she refilled her cup again.

  “I’m sure you need the coffee, but if you can spare a cup, I’d be grateful,” John told her as he sat down at the kitchen table.

  “I’m going to st
art another pot as soon as this one is empty. Have as much as you like.” Bessie poured him a large mugful of coffee and then added the last little bit from the pot to her cup. John was silent as she refilled the coffee maker and set it going again. Once Bessie sat down across from him, he reached over and patted her hand.

  “How are you?”

  “Tired and sad. Too many bad things keep happening on the island.”

  “I know. When I applied for the job over here, I was told that drugs were the island’s biggest issue, but that hasn’t been the case here in Laxey since I’ve been here.”

  “In all the years I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen anything like this,” Bessie sighed.

  John patted her hand again and then sat back and pulled out a notebook. “Start by telling me everything that you did yesterday. What time did you wake up?”

  “It feels a long time ago,” Bessie began. She told John everything that she could remember, from breakfast through the sitting at Noble’s waiting for news on the baby.

  “Amy wouldn’t go to bed until we’d heard,” John interjected once Bessie had recounted Hugh’s announcement. Amy was his teenaged daughter. “She’s thrilled that they had a girl.”

  “So am I,” Bessie admitted. “I’d probably have been just as happy for them if they’d had a boy, though.”

  “Then Hugh brought you home?” John asked.

  “Hugh offered me a ride home, but then he forgot I was in the car and drove back to his house instead of here. Knowing how tired he was, I insisted he not drive any further and he agreed to walk me home.” Bessie told John about seeing the light on inside the last holiday cottage and did her best to remember everything that had happened from there.

  “Tell me about Callum Sharp.”

  “Where do I start? He’s from Laxey. In fact, he grew up not far from where you live now. His parents owned one of the little bungalows on the next road over from you. He went to the local schools and then got a job in Douglas at the ShopFast in the town centre.”

  “How old is he?”

  Bessie thought for a minute. “Around twenty-five, I believe. He worked for ShopFast for a year or so and then moved on to a job with one of the smaller shops in Onchan. From there, I believe he changed jobs fairly regularly, never quite finding something that he truly enjoyed.”

  “Do you know where he’s working now?”

  “I don’t think he is working right now. Last I heard, he was sort of drifting from job to job and from flat to flat, staying with friends until they tired of him and then moving on to the next friend. His parents sold the house and moved to Rugby about three years ago. I’ve no idea why he didn’t go with them, really.”

  “So he’s unemployed and has no permanent address,” John sighed.

  “For what it’s worth, I rather liked him when he was a child. He isn’t terribly bright, but he was always kind. I remember him coming to my door one day to ask for a biscuit. When I gave it to him, he ran back down the beach to hand it to a little girl who’d dropped her ice cream and was crying. That was the sort of child that he was then, anyway. He may have changed, of course.”

  “What about drugs or drinking?”

  “I’ve never heard his name in connection with any illegal drug issues, although I don’t hear as much as I used to these days. With everything else that’s happened in the past few years, I don’t often get teenagers staying at my cottage any longer. As for drink, I’m sure he was in trouble for drink-driving at least once, but that was years ago now. Hopefully, he learned a lesson from the experience. I don’t believe he has a car at the moment, so that would help.”

  “Known associates?”

  Bessie gave John a few names. “I believe Callum was most recently staying with the last man I named. I suspect he’d worn out his welcome and decided to let himself into a holiday cottage for the night. He probably didn’t see any harm in it. He may have been staying there for a while, actually. I’m surprised there aren’t more break-ins during the winter months, now that I’m giving the matter some thought.”

  John nodded. “Thomas and Maggie have been very fortunate thus far. The locks on the cottages aren’t the best and they rarely have them changed. Callum had a key to that last cottage in his pocket.”

  “Do you think he killed the dead man?”

  “I don’t, actually, although it would certainly simplify things if he had. He was drinking at the Cat and Longtail until closing time. Walking from there to the holiday cottages would have taken him some time. The coroner hasn’t determined the time of death yet, but I believe it was some hours before Callum stumbled over the body.”

  “Unless he killed the victim and then came back for some reason,” Bessie said.

  John nodded. “Of course that’s a possibility we’re considering. I’ve only spoken to Callum briefly. I want him sober before I question him more extensively.”

  Bessie nibbled her way through a biscuit, her mind racing. “Who was the victim, then?” she asked.

  “We haven’t identified the body yet. Callum insisted that he didn’t know the victim and no one on the scene was able to recognise him. I’d like to show you some photographs of the body to see if you know him, but it’s possible, maybe even likely, that he’s from elsewhere on the island or from further afield.”

  “How bad are the pictures?” Bessie asking, regretting the biscuit that suddenly felt like a hard lump in her tummy.

  “They aren’t good,” John admitted. “I’ll just show you one unless you think you might know him.”

  Bessie took a deep breath and then nodded. John opened the folder he’d brought in with him and flipped through a few photos. He pulled one out and put it in front of Bessie.

  The face was pale, and at first glance Bessie felt relieved that she didn’t know him. As she studied the photo, though, something stirred in her memory.

  “I may know who it is,” she said sadly.

  “Let me show you another photo.”

  The slightly different angle made the victim look rather different. “This looks more like the man I think it is,” Bessie sighed. “He isn’t from Laxey, which is probably why no one recognised him last night, but he is from the island.”

  “Name?”

  “I could be wrong, as I haven’t seen him for at least three years, but it might be Phillip Tyler.” Bessie spelled both names for John.

  “Tell me everything about him.”

  After turning the photographs face down, Bessie took a long drink of her coffee before she replied. “Phillip grew up in Port Erin, but his mother was from Laxey. She met her husband at university in Liverpool and they moved back to the island after they’d both finished school, buying a small house in Port St. Mary. They moved to Port Erin right after Phillip was born.”

  “What was his mother’s name?”

  “She was Rebecca Palmer before she got married. Her parents had a house in the village. I used to see her mother fairly regularly, often at the Laxey Market. She was always happy to tell me all about Rebecca and her family. They had a little girl, too, called Madison.”

  John looked up from his notebook. “Do Rebecca’s parents still live in Laxey?”

  “No, sadly, they both passed away a few years ago.” Bessie sat back and took a sip of her coffee. “It may have been as many as ten years ago, now that I think about it. Her mother had some sort of aggressive cancer. She was only given months to live when they diagnosed it, and unfortunately, the doctors were right. Her husband just seemed to fade away very quickly once she was gone. If I remember correctly, he was at least ten years older than his wife. I don’t think either of them ever expected her to go first.”

  “What else can you tell me about the family?”

  “Not much. Rebecca stayed home with the children for many years and then went back to work. I believe she works for one of the banks. Her husband works for an international shipping company and travels a lot, or at least he did years ago.”

  “Do you know his Christi
an name?”

  Bessie frowned. “I think it’s Peter, but I could be mistaken. I’m almost certain it begins with a P, anyway.”

  “Tell me more about Phillip, then.”

  “According to Rebecca’s mother, he was a model baby who achieved all of his milestones right on schedule. He did well at school and then went to the same university across where his parents had met. While he was there, he developed a passion for helping others. That led him to pursue a career working for a series of different charities, mostly to do with cancer research. I think that may have been motived by his grandmother’s untimely death.”

  “So he didn’t return to the island?”

  “He did return to the island for a while. He worked with a few different charities here, including Cancer Care IOM. I believe he was working for The Liliana Fund before he was offered a job across.”

  “The Liliana Fund?”

  “It’s a local charity that supports cancer patients on an individual basis. They provide support for all manner of things to individuals who apply through their grant programme. While they do help island residents, they also accept grants from people in the UK and even further afield, which is why they haven’t been invited to participate in Christmas at the Castle, at least not yet.”

  “Oh?”

  “We have limited space at the moment, although we are using more rooms than last year. After the success we had with the first event, we had two dozen charities apply for the ten rooms we’d planned to include this year. The Liliana Fund was one that we turned down, primarily because so much of their funding goes to people outside of the island.”

  John nodded. “So that was Phillip’s last job on the island. Were they sorry to see him go?”

  “I believe so. As I understand it, he was a hard worker and very good at what he did. He did a little bit of everything, too, from fundraising to event planning to courting donors. I can ask a few friends about him, though. I know a few people who are a good deal more involved in the island’s charity circles than I am.”

  “Let’s make sure the body is his before you start asking questions,” John replied. “Tell me about Phillip’s friends.”

  Bessie shrugged. “I knew his grandmother and had a nodding acquaintance with Rebecca. I haven’t seen Rebecca in a great many years. She used to make odd visits to Laxey Beach with the children when they were small, but that was some years ago. Her mother told me about Phillip’s achievements, but not about friends, or the women in his life, either.”