Aunt Bessie Solves

by Diana Xarissa

  It was a much larger section, and Bessie could feel her eyes drooping as she tried to work her way through the list of resorts. After a few pages, she gave up and put the book on her bedside table. Switching off the bedside light, she snuggled down under the duvet and fell asleep.

  It was freezing cold and Bessie couldn’t seem to get warm. There was a fire in the corner of the room, but there were too many people between Bessie and the fire for her to feel its warmth. As Bessie tried to push her way through the crowd, she could hear people shouting her name. When she stopped to listen, though, she realised that they were shouting “Betty” and not “Bessie.” She gasped and then sat up in bed. Her clock told her that it was nearly six and time to get up anyway.

  Chapter 6

  Bessie showered and got dressed and then headed out for her morning walk. After a brisk stroll past the holiday cottages to Thie yn Traie and back home again, she made herself a light breakfast. As she reached into the cupboard for some cereal, her hand hovered near the porridge. She really didn’t like it, but she tried to force herself to eat it once in a while, as she knew it was good for her. Pulling the box down, she found that it was now out of date. Sticking it back in the cupboard, she pulled down her favourite cereal and poured it into a bowl. Throwing away the porridge box would have meant adding it to her shopping list, so she simply ignored it for the day.

  All of the curtains at Andrew’s cottage had been tightly closed when she’d walked past. At half eight Bessie began to pace around her kitchen. She was worried about the two meetings that she and Andrew had planned for the day. Pretending to need a loan in order to see Amanda McBride felt wrong, but Bessie didn’t know how else to arrange to see her. Getting into the woman’s office wouldn’t be difficult with their plan, but she couldn’t imagine how Andrew was going to bring the conversation around to Jeanne Stowe’s death without upsetting Amanda and getting them both thrown out of the bank. At least I keep my money elsewhere, Bessie thought.

  She didn’t want to think too much about the café in Port St. Mary, either. Her last visit there had been so unpleasant that she’d vowed never to go back. It was possible that the food had improved since then, but she hadn’t heard anything to suggest that it had. She barely knew Mabel Lloyd, but she was pretty sure that Mabel wasn’t the unpleasant woman who had waited on her all those years ago, at least. Again, Bessie couldn’t imagine how Andrew would bring up the murder case without causing a scene.

  At quarter to nine Bessie checked her hair one more time in the mirror. She didn’t usually put much thought into her appearance, but she did feel as if she should make a little bit of an effort while Andrew was visiting. Chiding herself for being foolish, she picked up her handbag and opened the front door of her cottage. Andrew was nowhere in sight. After a moment’s hesitation, Bessie walked out of the cottage and locked the door behind her.

  There was a large rock on the beach behind Treoghe Bwaane. At high tide the base of the rock was covered in water, but now the tide was out, so Bessie walked to the rock and settled on top of it. From there she could watch the sea and also keep an eye out for Andrew. By nine she was starting to get worried. Maybe he’s usually late, she told herself. He’d been late the previous day, after all. When her mobile phone began to ring, she jumped. Of course, the phone was in the bottom of her handbag and it took her ages to dig it out.

  “Hello?”

  “Ah, Bessie, it’s Andrew. I hope you haven’t decided to take off for Ramsey without me?”

  “No, not at all. I’m just sitting on the rock behind my cottage enjoying the lovely day.”

  “Excellent. I’m sorry to say it, but the incredible sea air did wonders for my insomnia. I slept like a baby, right through my alarm clock. I haven’t slept this well in a great many years, but now I’m afraid I’m terribly late.”

  “I’m glad you slept well. Come over when you’re ready. You are on holiday, after all. You should be allowed to sleep late.”

  “But we have a murder to investigate,” Andrew countered. “I’ll be over as soon as I can get myself through a shower and into something decent.”

  “I’ll be on the rock behind the cottage.”

  Bessie dropped her phone back into her bag with relief. She hadn’t realised how worried she’d been about the man until he’d rung to say he was okay. And he’d had a good night’s sleep, which was great news. If only she could say the same.

  Less than half an hour later, Bessie spotted Andrew rushing towards her. She climbed down off the rock and walked up the beach to meet him.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said as he swept her into a hug.

  “It’s fine,” she assured him. “We didn’t make an appointment or anything, after all.”

  “But we did. I told you that I would collect you at quarter to nine. Now it’s nearly ten. I’m embarrassed.”

  “You shouldn’t be. It’s all the fault of the sea air.”

  Andrew laughed. “You could be right about that. I’m feeling incredibly energetic today. Let’s go and question some suspects.”

  “You know we aren’t allowed to question them, exactly,” Bessie said as they walked towards the man’s car.

  “Oh, I know. I shall be incredibly discreet, even as you discuss a loan or some such thing,” he assured her. “Have you decided what you’re going to say?”

  “I was hoping that you might have some suggestions.”

  “I was a police inspector. I never had to justify why I was asking questions,” Andrew said with a grin. “This is going to be quite interesting, I think.”

  The drive into Ramsey didn’t take nearly long enough for Bessie. She was still trying to make up her mind about what she was going to say as Andrew pulled his car into the car park.

  “Ready?” he asked, looking over at Bessie.

  Bessie shook her head. “I’ve no idea what I’m going to say.”

  “Let’s go. You can make it up as we go along.”

  Feeling entirely out of her element, Bessie followed the man out of the car. They were crossing the car park when the door to the bank swung open. Bessie recognised the woman who walked out the door.

  “Amanda?” she called.

  The tall, thin woman stopped and stared at Bessie. “Yes?” she said.

  “It’s Bessie Cubbon,” Bessie said as she stopped in front of Amanda. “I was just coming in to see you. Are you having a break?”

  “I’m, yes, er, I mean, sort of,” the woman stammered. “Why did you want to see me?”

  “Oh, I was just thinking about adding another addition to my cottage, but I wasn’t sure about financing. You seem upset. Is everything okay?” Bessie asked.

  “Not really, but it isn’t anything you need to worry about. If you go inside and talk to Bev, she’ll make you an appointment to see me. I’m afraid it will have to be later in the week, though,” Amanda told her.

  “That’s fine. There’s no rush,” Bessie replied. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Amanda shook her head. “You’ve been involved in a lot of murder investigations, haven’t you? When does it stop? When I can I finally stop thinking about it? When will they finally arrest someone so that I can sleep at night?”

  Bessie patted the woman’s arm. “What’s happened?”

  “The local paper today had an article about Jeanne in it,” Amanda told her. “It was just delivered to the bank and everyone made sure to point it out to me. According to the paper, the police are thinking of reopening the investigation. The woman has been dead for five years. They never should have closed the investigation, should they?”

  “They haven’t,” Bessie assured her. “Unsolved murders are never closed, but sometimes they reinvestigate cold cases. Maybe they’ll try talking to the witnesses again, hoping that someone might remember something more this time around.”

  “I don’t remember anything more,” Amanda said, her eyes filling with tears. “I didn’t know anything last time, anyway. I barely knew the woman.”

&
nbsp; “Would you like to go somewhere and talk about it?” Bessie asked.

  “No, I mean, I don’t want, that is, maybe,” the woman replied. “If I can just talk and not have to answer any questions.”

  “Whatever you want,” Bessie said soothingly.

  Andrew put a hand on her arm. Bessie looked at him and then shrugged. “This is my friend Andrew,” she told Amanda. “He’s just visiting the island from across.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Amanda replied unenthusiastically. “There’s a café across the road that does tea and coffee and biscuits. Let’s go there. I won’t promise that I’ll say anything, but I think I’d like some company right now.”

  “I can go and find something else to do for a while,” Andrew offered.

  “No, you’re more than welcome,” Amanda said. “It isn’t as if you’ll even know who or what we’re talking about, anyway.”

  Bessie and Andrew exchanged glances as they followed Amanda across the road. The café was small and badly lit, but it was also empty, something for which Bessie was grateful. They settled at a table near the window that gave them a little bit more light.

  “What can I get you?” a woman shouted from behind the counter at the back of the room.

  “Tea for three, and a plate of biscuits,” Andrew called back.

  “It’ll be a minute or two,” the voice replied.

  “Or ten or twenty,” Amanda said under her breath.

  “I haven’t seen you in years,” Bessie said, wondering if she’d met the woman more than once or twice before. “How have you been?”

  “Not good,” Amanda replied with a shrug. “I feel as if I haven’t slept or eaten properly since Jeanne’s death. I feel as if I’m constantly waiting for the police to arrest someone, but they never do.”

  “Who do you think killed her?” Bessie asked bluntly.

  Amanda blinked and then sighed. “That’s the question, isn’t it? I’d always thought it was Nick, but the police didn’t stop him from moving away, so I’m probably wrong.”

  “Why Nick?” was Bessie’s next question.

  “Because he didn’t want me to ring the police. He kept saying that Jeanne was just being irresponsible, even though she was usually very good about letting me know if she was going to be late. I only rang the police on the Tuesday because Nick wasn’t at the bank. He had a meeting in Douglas, so I went ahead and rang the police before he got into Ramsey. He was quite cross with me when he found out, but by that time the police had found Jeanne’s body.” Amanda shuddered and then blinked back tears.

  Bessie dug around in her handbag for a tissue and passed it to the other woman. “If it wasn’t Nick, who else might have killed her?” she asked after a minute.

  “Kenny, maybe,” Amanda suggested. “There was no love lost between those two. When Jeanne first started working at the bank, she was furious with the man. That mellowed slightly over the years, but she was still terribly bitter about their split.”

  “But why would he have killed her?” Bessie wondered.

  “Maybe he got tired of her harassing him.”

  “She was harassing him?” Bessie was surprised.

  “Oh, not to the point where the police were involved or anything, but she kept doing little things that I’m sure were making his life miserable.”

  “Like what?” Bessie demanded.

  “She’d ring him and ask him to come over and help her with things around her flat, like changing light bulbs or repairing dripping taps. He always did it, too, because he felt guilty about keeping what had been their home together.”

  Bessie frowned. John hadn’t mentioned any of this. “I’m surprised his second wife didn’t complain.”

  “Sandra? I met her a couple of times. Back then she still thought Kenny was the best thing that had ever happened to her. I think if you talk to her today, you’ll get a different answer, but at the time she was head over heels in love. I remember her telling me that she thought it was sweet that he was still looking after Jeanne. I know she felt guilty about coming between them, as well, even though she didn’t even know Jeanne existed until after she’d fallen pregnant.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Bessie exclaimed.

  “Oh yeah, Kenny was a real prince. He started seeing Sandra behind Jeanne’s back and never bothered to tell Sandra that he was married. Goodness knows how long that might have gone on if Sandra hadn’t fallen pregnant and forced the issue.”

  “But Jeanne was still getting Kenny to help her around her flat?” Bessie checked.

  “Yeah, when she was between men, at least,” Amanda said.

  Before Bessie could reply, the waitress walked over with her tray and unloaded their tea and biscuits. Andrew was quick to help himself and settle back while Bessie took a sip of tea and tried to think of her next question.

  “Jeanne had other boyfriends after Kenny, then?” was what she finally came up with.

  “Oh, yes. Jeanne didn’t like being on her own. She was with some guy called Ron almost immediately until he got tired of her demands and moved himself to Peel to get away from her.”

  Bessie was starting to think that Amanda hadn’t like Jeanne very much. “And after Ron?”

  “After Ron was someone called James. He stuck around for about a year before he managed to find an excuse to move back to the UK.”

  “She sounds as if she’s a difficult person,” Bessie said, trying to sound diplomatic.

  “She was very difficult, but she worked hard and that was all that I cared about, really. I didn’t enjoy listening to her talk about the men in her life, but she did enjoy telling me about them.”

  “What about after James?” Bessie asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m sure there was someone because she wasn’t ringing Kenny every few days to change her light bulbs, but whoever it was, she didn’t talk about him.”

  “Do you know why not?” Bessie wondered.

  “At the time I assumed he was married. At first I thought maybe she’d gone back to Kenny and was seeing him behind Sandra’s back, but I think she’d have told me if that were the case. After her murder, I started to think that maybe she was seeing Nick and that he’d grown tired of her demands and killed her.”

  “I suppose that’s one possibility,” Bessie said.

  “It’s the only one that makes sense, although the police didn’t see it that way. They never arrested anyone.”

  “If it wasn’t Nick that she was involved with, who else might it have been?” Bessie asked.

  Amanda shrugged. “Jeanne could meet men anywhere. If she were here now, she probably would have found a man in this empty room. I never quite understood how she did it, but we’d be sitting somewhere having a cuppa and suddenly a man would start talking to her. Even when she was married to Kenny, she seemed to have men trying to talk her into going out with them all the time. They never seemed to last very long once they got to know her, but that was another matter.”

  Bessie glanced at Andrew. They were certainly finding out a lot about Jeanne Stowe. “But you don’t know if she was actually involved with someone when she died or not?”

  “Like I said, I’m sure she was, but I don’t know who. Jeanne didn’t like being single. I could never understand that. I’m very happy on my own.”

  The woman didn’t look particularly happy, but Bessie didn’t comment. “And you still think Nick had something to do with Jeanne’s death?” she asked instead.

  “Who knows?” Amanda sighed. “Five years ago I would have said yes, definitely, but the police never arrested him, so there mustn’t have been any evidence against him. Maybe it was a random stranger. That happens sometimes.”

  “Did Jeanne take random strangers home with her?” Andrew asked.

  Amanda looked startled at the question and then took a sip of tea. “Maybe, once in a while. I’m not actually certain. We weren’t all that close, really. I mean, she told me about the various men in her life, the ones that she was with for any leng
th of time, but whether she participated in one-night stands, well, I simply don’t know the answer to that.”

  “Was she the type to do so?” was Andrew’s next question.

  Again Amanda took a sip of tea before she replied. Clearly something about this line of questioning was making her think about her answers. “I don’t like to speak ill of the dead,” she said after a moment. “As I said, Jeanne was a hard worker. She had some car trouble once in a while, which made her late, but beyond that she was reliable. Having seen how men behaved around her, yes, I do think that she might have participated in one-night stands from time to time, though. She had a different moral code to mine, I’m sure of that.”

  Andrew nodded and looked at Bessie. “If you think of anything that might help with the investigation, you should ring Inspector John Rockwell at the Laxey station,” Bessie told the woman. “I don’t know if the case is being reexamined or not, but John is very good at his job.”

  “I thought Inspector Kelly was in charge of the investigation,” Amanda said.

  “He’s working in Douglas now in the drugs and alcohol unit. Inspector Clague in Ramsey is officially in charge of Jeanne’s case. You could talk to him if you’d prefer. John is a friend of mine, that’s all,” Bessie explained.

  “I know who he is and I know about your connection with him,” Amanda replied. “It’s been all over the papers for the past year.”

  Bessie flushed. “They don’t always get everything right,” she said softly.

  Amanda shrugged. “The whole idea of the case being reopened upset me when I first heard about it, but it would be wonderful if someone could actually find the man or woman who killed Jeanne. As I said, I haven’t slept properly since her death. I even thought about moving away, maybe to Peel or even up north, just to get away from it all.”

  “Remember anything you can tell the police would help,” Bessie said.