Aunt Bessie Solves

by Diana Xarissa

  The drive back across the island seemed to take forever, mostly because Bessie was watching the clock the entire time. As they were heading back to Laxey rather than Ramsey, Bessie had Andrew take the coast road.

  “The scenery is enough to make anyone want to live here,” he sighed as they rounded a bend. The sea seemed to stretch out endlessly in front of them for a moment before the road curved back around.

  “I love it, but I especially love the view from my cottage.”

  “You’re spoiled,” Andrew laughed. “I’ve only been here a day and I’m already madly in love with the view from my cottage. I don’t even want to think about going back to London where I look at other blocks of flats on all sides.”

  “I can’t even imagine,” Bessie sighed. “I know I’m quite spoiled, but I didn’t realise that when I bought my cottage. Would you believe I didn’t even think about the view? The cottage was just about the only thing I could afford because it was tiny and a bit run-down, even then. I probably paid a few pounds extra for the location, being right on the sea, but that wasn’t as much of a thing in those days. Lots of houses and cottages were right on the sea, or so it seemed.”

  “How old were you when you bought it?”

  “Eighteen, and only just eighteen,” Bessie told him. “I’d been forced to leave the man I loved in the US and move back to the island with my parents. When he tried to follow me, he didn’t survive the sea journey. Before he’d left for the island, he’d written out his will, and in it he left me his entire fortune. It wasn’t much, really, but it was enough for me to buy my cottage.”

  “I’m sure we’ve talked about this before,” Andrew said. “You said you’d never held down a paying job, didn’t you?”

  “That’s right. My advocate invested my inheritance for me and somehow managed to generate a small income from what was left after I’d bought Treoghe Bwaane. In the early years, I struggled and I often thought about finding work, but I hadn’t any good qualifications and there weren’t many jobs in Laxey. Not driving was another complication. Anyway, women didn’t really work in those days, especially not once they were married. It all worked out though, over time. Now that I’m getting older, there’s almost too much money. I indulge myself with books and all the expensive chocolate truffles I want, and my advocate assures me that my heirs will still be left with something.”

  “If I’m not being too personal, who are your heirs?”

  “My sister’s family is all in the US. I shall be leaving my money to whoever is still around when I go,” Bessie told him.

  “I hope someone wants your cottage. It should stay in the family.”

  Bessie shrugged. “It will be up to them what they want to do with everything. I don’t worry about it as I won’t be around to know.”

  Andrew pulled into the parking area behind Bessie’s cottage with just a few minutes to spare.

  “Go and ring your friend,” Bessie told him. “I’ll put the kettle on. By the time you’re finished, John should be here with the pizza.”

  “I certainly hope so,” Andrew called over his shoulder as he rushed towards his cottage.

  Bessie let herself into Treoghe Bwaane and looked around her cozy kitchen. Her heirs would be crazy to keep this place, she thought as she refilled the kettle with fresh water.

  Chapter 8

  John and the pizzas arrived first. Bessie gave him a hug with her mouth watering. “I hope the others get here quickly,” she told the man. “I didn’t get much lunch and that smells wonderful.”

  “Doona is bringing pudding,” he replied as he set the pizza boxes on Bessie’s counter.

  “That probably means something chocolate,” Bessie said happily.

  Doona arrived a moment later with a large box of chocolate fairy cakes. “I thought about getting a few other flavours, but you can’t go wrong with chocolate,” she said as she handed Bessie the bakery box.

  Hugh was only a minute behind Doona. Bessie had him bring a chair from the dining room into the kitchen, and then he and John shuffled all of the chairs around the table to make room for it. Bessie found herself studying the young man as he moved things around the small space.

  In her eyes, he didn’t look much older than fifteen, although now that he was married with a child on the way she fancied that he looked more mature. She’d known him for most of his twenty-something years, and as she remembered it, he’d always wanted to be a policeman. He’d had something of a reputation for being lazy when he’d been younger, but under John’s tutelage he was working harder than ever. His brown hair nearly always looked as if it needed cutting, and today was no exception.

  “I expected Andrew to already be here,” John commented as he sat down in one of the chairs.

  “He had to ring someone,” Bessie explained. “Actually, he had to ring his colleague in Switzerland, the one with the cold case that we discussed.”

  “Really? I hope he manages to learn more about the case. I found it fascinating,” John replied.

  While they waited, Bessie quickly told Doona and Hugh about Andrew’s case. “I’m sure I’m leaving things out, but that’s a rough outline of the story, anyway,” she said when she was finished.

  “I’m not sure I understand why it’s a cold case,” Doona said. “Surely if the killer confessed and went to prison, the case is solved.”

  “Andrew’s friend, Lukas, never felt as if the case was properly solved,” Bessie explained. “He always felt as if he’d missed something.”

  “We all have cases like that,” Hugh said. “There isn’t much you can do about them, really. We don’t have time to keep investigating cases that are closed.”

  “Bessie had an interesting theory about Andrew’s case, though,” John said.

  A knock in the door interrupted the conversation. Bessie opened it and Andrew rushed inside. “I’m terribly sorry that I’m so late,” he said. “Lukas simply can’t be brief.”

  “It’s fine, but let’s get our plates filled before anything gets cold,” Bessie suggested. She quickly introduced the man to Hugh before passing around plates.

  A few minutes later the five were sitting around the table with food and cold drinks. After her first few bites, Bessie began to feel more like herself again. “This is really good,” she told John. “Where did it come from?”

  “A new place that just opened across from the station,” he told her. “The constables are going to love it.”

  “Me, too,” Doona said.

  “While we were waiting for you, I told Doona and Hugh about your cold case,” Bessie told Andrew.

  “And I was just going to tell them about Bessie’s theory,” John said. He took a sip of his drink and then told the others what Bessie had suggested.

  “So Betty killed Cindy and then pretended to be her, but we don’t know why,” Doona mused. “There definitely seems to be more to the case than meets the eye.”

  “And I just talked to Lukas. I told Bessie earlier, but he tracked down Abby. She was killed in a skiing accident in Canada about ten years after Betty’s murder. Tonight he told me that he’s found Flora.”

  “I hope she’s okay,” Bessie said.

  Andrew shook his head. “She died in a car crash in Belgium about a year after Abby’s death,” he told her. “Lukas is going to request a copy of the police report, but at the moment he doesn’t have any reason to suspect that it was anything other than an accident.”

  Bessie sat back in her chair and stared at the man.

  “I don’t really like coincidences,” John said. “He hasn’t been able to find Cindy?”

  “No, but he’s stepping up his efforts to locate her. He doesn’t believe in coincidences, not like this, anyway,” Andrew replied.

  “Why would Cindy want to kill the other three women?” Doona asked.

  “Maybe because they’re the only ones who know who she really is?” Hugh suggested.

  “But she went to prison for killing her sister. Would she really be in that
much more trouble for impersonating her?” Bessie wondered.

  “A lot will depend on what was in Betty’s will,” Andrew said. “I have a friend in London working on finding that for me.”

  “I hope he finds Dorothy soon. If she is still alive, maybe she’ll be willing to talk once she finds out the others are all dead,” Bessie said.

  “That’s what Lukas is hoping for, but he isn’t optimistic. He’s going to email me as soon as he learns anything, though,” Andrew replied.

  “And he’s certain there wasn’t a sixth person staying at the chalet and that there wasn’t any way anyone could have managed to sneak in, either?” Hugh asked.

  “He’s fairly sure that there were only five guests and that no one else arrived that evening. If they did, they bypassed the resort and went straight to the chalet, which would have been difficult. The chalet was on the resort’s grounds and the entire complex is fenced. The only way to reach the grounds is by walking through the resort first. After midnight, there was meant to be tight security,” Andrew explained.

  “So maybe someone from one of the other chalets or the resort itself came to visit,” Doona suggested.

  “According to Lukas, the possibility of that is remote,” Andrew told her. “He’s going back through all the statements, though, just in case he missed something. Remember that the storm came in very quickly and didn’t let up for many hours. If someone else was visiting the chalet, he or she probably would have been stuck there until the chalet was dug out.”

  “Bessie, you’re going to have to ring all of us every time Andrew hears anything,” Doona said.

  “I think I can manage that,” Bessie laughed.

  When everyone was stuffed full of pizza and garlic bread, Doona cleared the table and then brought out the box of fairy cakes. Bessie made tea to go with pudding and then they all settled in again.

  “Time to talk about my case,” John said. “The one I’m not officially investigating.”

  “You need to tell Dan Ross that,” Bessie said, referring to the reporter with the local paper. “I haven’t actually seen today’s paper yet, but apparently there’s an article in it about the case being reopened.”

  “Is there?” John said, sounding not at all surprised. “I wonder how that happened.”

  Bessie narrowed her eyes at him. “You didn’t give the story to Dan Ross, did you?” she demanded.

  “As I’ve been specifically told not to reinvestigate the case, that wouldn’t have been wise, would it?” John asked.

  “You didn’t answer the question,” Bessie pointed out. “You told Dan about the case to see if you could start people talking, didn’t you?”

  John shrugged. “As I’m not officially investigating anything, putting a story like that into the local papers might help to get the case a bit of attention. I can assure you that I haven’t spoken to Dan Ross in weeks, however.”

  Bessie considering the carefully worded denial and then shrugged. “You’re right about the story getting some attention,” she told him. “We talked to Amanda and Mabel today and they were both wound up about the whole thing.”

  “Tell me everything from today,” John replied.

  Bessie took John back through the day, having Andrew help her as she tried to remember everything that was said. When she was finished, she took a sip of tea and then ate her fairy cake, feeling she’d earned it.

  “You’ve already learned things that don’t appear in Inspector Kelly’s notes,” John said. “Under the circumstances, it might be wise for me to speak to both women myself, and to Howard, although I may have to do so with Carl’s cooperation. I must say, they’ve painted a rather different picture of Jeanne than I got from Inspector Kelly’s notes.”

  “Was Howard mentioned anywhere in the case file?” Andrew asked.

  “I’m going to have to have Carl go through it and check. I believe there was a brief mention of the man as Mabel’s boyfriend. I don’t think there was anything there to suggest that he was someone who made frequent visits to Jeanne’s flat, either with or without his wife,” John replied.

  “I think a chat with Max Rogers could be instructive,” Andrew said, “and with Jeanne’s two former boyfriends, if they can be found.”

  “Ron is still in Peel,” John told him. “I’m working on tracking down James Poole.”

  “We were going to go to Peel tomorrow, weren’t we?” Andrew asked Bessie. “Where does Ron work?”

  “He’s an estate agent,” John replied.

  “Maybe I should be looking at houses, then,” Andrew suggested. “The island is truly lovely, and I’d love to live here, really.”

  “We can visit Ron and then go around Peel Castle,” Bessie suggested.

  “We seem to have a plan,” Andrew nodded.

  “You’ll never guess who just found a job with Manx National Heritage,” John said.

  “Who?” Bessie asked.

  “Sandra Oliver,” John replied. “As I understand it, she’s currently working in the gift shop at Peel Castle.”

  “How incredibly convenient,” Bessie said.

  “Is the island truly this small or are we just having good luck?” Andrew asked.

  “It’s a bit of both, I think,” Bessie replied.

  “When you told me about the case, you said everyone had the means and the opportunity,” Hugh said. “Should we try talking about motive, then?”

  “That’s the problem,” John told him. “From what everyone has said, no one seems to have had any motive for killing the woman.”

  “Kenny did,” Doona suggested. “Everyone has agreed that Jeanne used to ring him up and get him to do little jobs around her flat. Maybe he simply grew tired of the demands.”

  Bessie found a piece of paper and wrote Kenny’s name at the top of it. “It seems a fairly flimsy reason for killing someone. I mean, why couldn’t he simply refuse to keep helping?”

  “Guilt,” Doona said. “He felt terrible for the way he’d treated her, so he felt as if he had to keep helping her, until it all finally got to be too much and he killed her.”

  “If he felt guilty about leaving her, surely he’d have felt even worse about killing her,” Hugh suggested.

  “Maybe he didn’t mean to kill her, maybe he just wanted her to leave him alone for a short while. Maybe he was hoping she’d sleep for a few days or something,” Doona said.

  “I think, having looked at the lab report, that whoever drugged her wanted her dead. They didn’t just slip her a few extra sleeping tablets. They gave her a whole chemist’s shop full of medications,” John said.

  “I think Kenny should be at the top of the suspect list,” Doona said firmly.

  “He is, at least on the top of my list,” Bessie said, holding up the sheet of paper with only one name on it.

  Everyone laughed. “More fairy cakes, anyone?” Doona asked. It didn’t take her long to persuade them all to have a second cake.

  “I’d add Sandra to the list, and put her fairly high up,’ Hugh said once Doona had sat back down. “If anything, she had more reason for wanting Jeanne dead than Kenny did. She was at home with two small children while Kenny was running over to Jeanne’s to change light bulbs.”

  “Who doesn’t change their own light bulbs?” Doona asked. “I mean, I’m not any good at DIY, but I can change a light bulb. I can’t imagine ringing an ex and asking him to come over and do it for me.”

  “Maybe the light bulb thing was an exaggeration,” Bessie said.

  “I certainly hope so. If it wasn’t, I can certainly see Sandra wanting to kill the woman,” Doona replied.

  “I’m going to reserve judgment on her until after we’ve met her tomorrow,” Andrew said. “I’d say she definitely belongs on the list, though.”

  Bessie added the woman’s name under Kenny’s.

  “What about Amanda McBride? She sounded as if she didn’t like Jeanne,” Hugh said.

  “I got the feeling that she didn’t like Jeanne much, but that she app
reciated that Jeanne worked hard,” Andrew said. “At least when her car was running, she did.”

  “Maybe Amanda had a secret crush on Kenny or some other guy with whom Jeanne was involved,” Doona suggested.

  “I got the impression that Amanda doesn’t have much time for men, generally,” Bessie told her. “I may have misread her, of course.”

  “I’d agree with Bessie on that, actually. If Amanda killed Jeanne, it wasn’t over a man,” Andrew said.

  “Does she go on the list or not?” Hugh asked.

  “Everyone needs to go on the list,” Andrew told him. “She should probably go near the bottom, though.”

  Bessie added the woman’s name about halfway down the sheet of paper. “What about Mabel?” she asked.

  “Mabel was harder to read,” Andrew said with a frown. “I think if she’d found out that her husband was having an affair with Jeanne, she would have killed her, but she didn’t seem to have had any suspicions in that area.”

  “Which was odd, really, as she told us that Jeanne attracted men easily and that her husband was often at Jeanne’s flat, ostensibly helping her out. Surely she must have put two and two together at some point,” Bessie said.

  “Perhaps she simply trusts her husband,” Hugh suggested.

  “Having met him, I wouldn’t trust him,” Bessie said. “He struck me as the kind of man who would cheat if he thought he could get away with it.”

  “Again, I’d have to agree with Bessie. Howard seemed untrustworthy in every way,” Andrew said.

  “Do you really think that she’d kill her closest friend over a man?” Hugh asked.

  Bessie looked at Andrew and then nodded. “Howard is her third husband. She said something about finally finding one that was worth keeping. I’m not sure how far she’d go to keep him, but I think it’s a possibility.”

  “If I were her, I’d have killed Howard,” Doona said.

  “But Jeanne had something of a reputation for being almost irresistible to men,” Bessie pointed out. “He could have insisted that it wasn’t his fault.”

  “If you knew your friend was irresistible to men, would you let your husband go and spend time alone with her?” Doona demanded.