Aunt Bessie Understands

by Diana Xarissa

  They’d only taken a few steps backwards when Bessie heard Dan scream. A second later, he hurled himself out the broken window, landing in a heap on the ground right in front of Bessie and Doona. Before Bessie could react, the alley filled with police officers.

  Pete looked worried as he entered the alley. When he spotted Bessie and Doona, standing to one side, he smiled and nodded. A few minutes later, Dan was taken away on a stretcher.

  “Did you get Oliver?” Bessie asked when Pete finally joined them after half an hour or more.

  “We did. Thanks to Doona, we had constables at every door and window. The first constable opened the door to the room the two men were in just as Dan jumped out the window. Oliver had nowhere to go.”

  “Is Dan going to be okay?” was Bessie’s next question.

  “He managed to knock himself out somehow. He may have hit his head on the window frame or else he banged it when he landed. Whichever, he was pretty groggy when they took him away. I believe he had a broken arm, as well.”

  “Oliver had much worse planned for him,” Doona said with a shiver.

  “It took us longer than it should have to put the operation together,” Pete said. “If it would have been up to me, we’d have interrupted their conversation a good deal earlier.”

  “But this way Doona and I got to hear Oliver’s entire confession,” Bessie pointed out.

  “Yes, I’m going to need statements from both of you,” Pete replied. “At the moment, Oliver is refusing to answer questions.”

  “He’s been helping himself to The Liliana Fund for years,” Bessie said. “I’m sure the auditors will be able to find evidence of it, once they start looking.”

  Pete nodded. “I need a bit more time here, so I’m going to send you two over to the Douglas station. One of my colleagues there will take your statements and then bring you back to Doona’s car. If I have any additional questions, I know where to find you.”

  A few minutes later a very polite young constable escorted them to his car and drove them to the nearby police station. An inspector Bessie had never met before took her statement and then left her in a small waiting room while he spoke with Doona. They were driven back to Doona’s car as soon as Doona was finished.

  “I never got to the bookshop,” Bessie sighed as Doona pulled out of the parking garage.

  “We’ll plan a trip down here next week,” Doona promised. “I still have to do my Christmas shopping.”

  “When you were texting John, was it about Oliver and Dan or about Sue?” Bessie had to ask.

  “Both,” Doona replied. “I let him know what was happening so that he could get the police into position, but he also updated me about Sue.”

  “And?”

  “And she’s still holding on. Harvey was angry because the police came to see him this morning. I don’t think John was at all apologetic.”

  “The police didn’t find anything suspicious?”

  “John hasn’t heard back from them yet. He’s concerned because Harvey said something along the lines of making certain that the police realise with whom they are dealing, and the value of the difficult work that he’s doing in their country.”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “The kids got to speak to Sue again, though. Apparently she was talking about all the things she wants to do with them when she gets home. John said she seemed a bit confused as to how old they are, though. She talked about taking them the park and pushing them on the swings. Amy was very upset afterwards. I’m rather anxious to get over there.”

  Doona dropped Bessie off at Treoghe Bwaane, not even coming inside to check the cottage, something she always insisted on doing.

  “I’m already late for dinner with John and the kids,” she said when she pulled to a stop at the cottage. “Do you mind if I don’t come inside?”

  “Not at all,” Bessie said stoutly. “You know I hate when you fuss.”

  She let herself into the cottage and then waved to Doona to let her know that everything appeared exactly as she’d left it. When her phone rang, she answered it without thinking.

  “Ah, Miss Cubbon, it’s Harrison, Harrison Parker. I’m working on tomorrow’s headline story and I’d love a quote from you. How did you feel when you heard Oliver Preston confess to Phillip Tyler’s murder?”

  “I didn’t, that is, no comment.”

  “Oh, come on, Aunt Bessie. I know you were there, in the alley, listening to Dan’s conversation with Oliver. Give me something.”

  Bessie simply put the phone down. It rang again immediately, but she ignored it. Harrison left four long messages on her answering machine before it ran out of room to record any more. Once she’d turned the ringer off on the phone, the cottage was lovely and quiet. After making herself some dinner, Bessie curled up with a book about Catherine the Great and read until bedtime.

  Chapter 15

  The headline on the local paper the next day screamed at Bessie when she visited the shop at the top of the hill. “Seemingly Dedicated Charity Founder Turned Heartless Killer,” it read. Bessie put a copy in her basket, along with some chocolate and a few other necessities.

  “How are you today?” she asked Sandra.

  “I’m good, thank you. I’ve read about half of the books you lent me. I’ll bring the ones I’m finished with here the next time I work so that I can make sure to get them back to you.”

  “I truly don’t need them back, but I’ll take them if you don’t want them.”

  “If you’re sure, I may keep a few,” Sandra replied, blushing. “I really enjoyed a couple of them.”

  Bessie walked home and then sat down with a cup of tea and the paper. The article didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know, except that Dan was still in Noble’s but was expected to make a full recovery. The article was credited to Harrison Parker, something that Bessie suspected would upset Dan almost as much as nearly being murdered.

  Christmas at the Castle kept Bessie busy for the next few days. Doona rang her with regular updates on Sue, telling her each day that there was no change. Bessie was pleased to see John’s car parked next to her cottage one afternoon when she arrived home from Castletown.

  “Do you know the owner of that car?” Mark asked.

  “It’s Inspector Rockwell’s car,” she told him.

  “In that case, I won’t worry,” Mark laughed.

  Before Bessie could open the door, John had emerged from his car and crossed to Mark’s. He opened her door for her and helped her out.

  “I rang to let you know that I was coming, but you weren’t at home,” he told Bessie after she’d thanked Mark for the ride.

  “Christmas at the Castle opens tomorrow. I thought I was going to be in Castletown all evening, but everything is ready. We actually ran out of things to do.”

  “That’s good news, right?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. Last year things were considerably more difficult.”

  John nodded as Bessie let them both into the cottage. “I won’t stay long,” he said. “I just wanted to have a quick chat with you about Oliver Preston.”

  “Let me put the kettle on,” Bessie suggested. “I’ve been baking American Christmas cookies all week, in between trips down south. You’ll have to take some home to the children, too.”

  “I’m sure they’d love that.”

  “How are they?” Bessie asked as she filled the kettle.

  “As good as can be expected, I suppose. Harvey rings daily, but never says much. In his opinion, Sue could hang on for weeks or even months, but he doesn’t expect her to recover. I suggested bringing her home, but he reckons she’s too ill to travel.”

  “Are the police still investigating?”

  “They are, which is making things increasingly tense between Harvey and myself. He’s insulted that I consulted them, and I see his point, but I still have my suspicions.”

  “Why would he want to hurt her?”

  “Maybe he realised that he really isn’t ready to be a st
epfather, or maybe he decided that he wanted to stay in Africa and Sue argued with him. Maybe he simply got bored with her or got tired of her nagging or hated the way she laughed.” John sighed. “Maybe he didn’t have anything to do with whatever is wrong with her. My line of work tends to make me see things that aren’t always there.”

  “What’s actually wrong with her?”

  “An unspecified fever,” John said. “She had all of the required vaccinations before she went, but Harvey administered them. None of them given one hundred per cent protection, of course.”

  “It’s all very odd.”

  “Yes, it is exactly that. I’d really like to fly down there and get to the bottom of what’s happening myself, but I can’t leave the children or my job to go on some wild quest just because I have unanswered questions.”

  “Do you think Sue will recover?”

  “I convinced the police to insist that she be seen by a local doctor. Harvey is furious about that, too, of course. I haven’t had the doctor’s report yet. The children are holding on to hope that Harvey is wrong and the local doctor will be able to cure their mother. I’m trying very hard to temper their expectations.”

  “Those poor kids.”

  “This close to Christmas it’s especially difficult. They’ll be on their school holidays soon and I’m afraid they’ll spend far too much time sitting around and worrying about Sue when they’ve no distractions.”

  “They can come here one day. We can bake cookies and walk on the beach.”

  “I’ll suggest it to them. I’m not making any plans for them as I want them to feel as if they have some say in what’s happening in their lives right now.”

  Bessie nodded. “But you wanted to talk about Oliver Preston,” she said as she put teacups for each of them on the table. While they’d been talking, she’d filled a plate with Christmas cookies. She put that in the centre of the table and then sat down across from John. “Why?”

  “I’ve read your statement and Doona’s. It’s almost uncanny how closely they match one another.”

  “We’ve had a lot of practice with this sort of thing.”

  “Yes, I suppose you have. Dan Ross’s statement is broadly similar, but in his Oliver actually confesses to murdering Phillip. That isn’t in your statement.”

  Bessie thought back. “It was clear, from what he said, that he’d killed Phillip, but he never actually said that he had. He was about to, I think, when Dan said something about someone else killing Phillip and that rather changed the subject.”

  John nodded. “Oliver is denying everything, of course, and Dan is insisting that he confessed. You and Doona may need to testify when the whole thing goes to trial.”

  “You’ve found evidence of Oliver’s fraud, though, right?”

  “We’ve found evidence of something not right with The Liliana Fund. Oliver is insisting that he’s the victim, that unscrupulous men and women were requesting funding and he was naïve enough to believe their stories. It may take a while to pin the whole thing down.”

  “He’s very clever.”

  “He is, which is why he managed to get away with what he was doing for so long. If Phillip had stuck to looking for the people that Oliver told him to look for, Oliver might never have been caught.”

  “I feel sorry for all of the people who requested funding and were turned down so that Oliver could drive a new car and have holidays. I can’t imagine cheating cancer patients out of money. Is there any evidence that Dylan knew what was happening?”

  “Nothing we can prove, yet, but we believe that he was fully aware of the situation. He was being paid an incredibly generous salary for what he did, far more than Phillip had been paid, and from what I’ve been told, he didn’t do much of anything to earn that salary.”

  “So he was being paid to keep his mouth shut, if nothing else.”

  “It certainly appears that way.”

  “Phillip would never have been bought off in that way.”

  “I suspect you’re right. I wish he’d rung the police instead of confronting Oliver on his own.”

  “That would have been the sensible thing to do.”

  “While we’re talking about being sensible,” John said, catching Bessie’s eye. “Walking into that alley was a very dangerous thing to do. If Oliver had looked out that window or opened that door, he would have spotted you immediately. He would have killed you without hesitation, you know that.”

  Bessie nodded. “At the time it didn’t feel dangerous. We were on a public street in the middle of the afternoon.”

  “You were in a rarely used alley well off the main road. I’m sure Oliver chose it because he was confident that he and Dan wouldn’t be interrupted there. The buildings on either side of the alley are both mostly empty at the moment, although someone does live in one of the first-floor flats in one of the buildings. He wasn’t at home while all of this was happening, though.”

  “I’ll be more careful next time,” Bessie promised.

  “I hope there won’t be a next time. You’ve been involved in far too many murder investigations lately. Maybe this was the last one, at least for a while.”

  “That would be fine with me.”

  The pair talked about Christmas and Thomas and Amy for a short while before John glanced at the clock and sighed.

  “I need to get home. Doona took the children to a movie tonight, but they’ll be getting back soon. I don’t want them coming back to an empty house. We’re trying to act as if everything is perfectly normal, even though it isn’t anything like normal.”

  Bessie nodded and then walked John to the door. “I hope Sue recovers and comes home soon.”

  “I’m more afraid that she’ll recover and decide to stay out there,” John replied. “She’s not acting at all like the woman I knew and loved. That woman always put Thomas and Amy first.”

  “I’m still not sure how Dan got into the town centre so quickly,” Bessie said as John reached for the door.

  “Apparently, after he spoke with you, he rang Oliver. Oliver suggested that they needed to meet in person immediately. I gather he promised Dan the biggest story of his life if he could be in Douglas quickly enough. Dan was in a taxi five minutes later.”

  “I hope he’s recovering from his injuries.”

  “As I understand it, he’s doing well physically. He’s more than a little upset about everything that happened with Harrison, though.”

  “Has something happened with Harrison?”

  “You know he got the byline for the article on Oliver’s attempt to murder Dan. Oliver is threatening to sue the paper over that, by the way, but Harrison only reported exactly what happened, even if the headline was a bit misleading.”

  “He called Oliver a murderer.”

  “Yes, but in the article he made sure to use words like ‘suspected’ and ‘alleged.’ Whatever, one of the national papers in the UK picked up the story and let Harrison write a series of articles for them. By the end of the week, he had a job offer from them. He’s moving to London in the new year.”

  “I won’t be sorry to see him leave the island.”

  “No, neither will Dan, but apparently Dan thinks the job should be his, as he should have been the one to write the article. The problem was that Dan was drifting in and out of consciousness while Harrison was writing the story.”

  “How did Harrison even get the story?”

  “Ah, apparently he was following you.”

  “Me?” Bessie asked angrily.

  “Yes, but when he saw you in the alley, he went around to the front of the building and let himself in with some handy lock-picking tools. They’ve been confiscated now, after the police found him hiding in an otherwise empty airing cupboard in the hallway outside the room where Oliver and Dan were talking. Luckily for Harrison, the walls in the building were thin and he managed to hear every word that was said.”

  “Does his version agree with mine and Doona’s?”

  “His had a few, w
ell, let’s call them creative flairs,” John said dryly.

  Bessie laughed. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “No, but it makes his statement far less useful.” John opened the door and then turned back around and pulled Bessie into a hug. “I want you to be more careful next time,” he told her. “You’re important to me.”

  “I will,” she promised. “Let me know if you want me to have the children here for a few hours or even a few days.”

  “I’ll ring you,” he replied before he walked back out to his car. Bessie watched as he drove away and then shut and locked the door. She’d forgotten to pack up cookies for the children, she realised, when she saw the still full plate on the table. Instead of putting them away immediately, Bessie sat down and nibbled her way through a cookie, sipping her tea and letting herself relax. It had been a long day and Christmas at the Castle was going to make for a busy weekend.

  Glossary of Terms

  House Names – Manx to English

  Thie yn Traie - Beach House

  Treoghe Bwaane - Widow’s Cottage

  English to American Terms

  advocate - Manx title for a lawyer (solicitor)

  aye - yes

  bin - garbage can

  biscuits - cookies

  bonnet (car) - hood

  boot (car) - trunk

  car park - parking lot

  chemist - pharmacist

  chips - french fries

  cuppa - cup of tea (informally)

  dear - expensive

  estate agent - real estate agent (realtor)

  fairy cakes - cupcakes

  fancy dress - costume

  fizzy drink - soda (pop)

  fortnight - two weeks

  holiday - vacation

  jumper - sweater

  lie in - sleep late

  midday - noon

  pavement - sidewalk

  plait (hair) - braid

  primary school - elementary school

  pudding - dessert

  skeet - gossip

  starters - appetizers

  supply teacher - substitute teacher