Aunt Bessie's Holiday

by Diana Xarissa

  Bessie was focussed on her wine when she realised that Doona had turned pale. It only took a second to realise why, as Bessie watched as Mai led Jessica and Herbert Howe to a table not far from theirs.

  Jessica frowned as she looked over at them. She said something to her husband and then walked over to Bessie and Doona’s table.

  “So, you’re Charles’s wife,” she said sneeringly. “He used to tell me such cute little things about you. You were so in love with him.”

  “Charles could be incredibly charming,” Doona replied steadily. “Fortunately it didn’t take me long to see through his superficiality. I only wasted a couple of months on him.”

  Jessica flushed and then shook her head. “But you were getting back together,” she said. “He told me that you were coming here to give him a second chance. That’s why we split up, at least temporarily.”

  “You were misinformed,” Doona said dryly.

  “Charles never lied to me,” Jessica replied angrily.

  “Then you must have misunderstood him,” Doona said with a shrug. “It has nothing to do with me.”

  “Except when you saw him again, you killed him,” Jessica shouted.

  “If we were getting back together, why would I kill him?” Doona asked. Bessie could tell that her friend was working very hard to keep her voice calm.

  “I imagine Charles must have changed his mind,” Jessica said. “Yeah, that’s probably it. You came here to get back with him and then he said he wasn’t interested after all and you killed him.”

  “That’s an interesting theory,” Doona replied. “But it’s wrong on every possible account.”

  “I seem to recall you threatening to kill him if you saw him,” Bessie interjected. “Were you that upset that he’d finished with you?”

  Jessica glared at Bessie and then tossed her head. “I don’t have to answer your questions, you old cow,” she hissed. “Charles and I had something very special that you’ll never understand.”

  “And your husband threatened to kill him as well, didn’t he?” Bessie added. “I’m not sure what his motive was, though.”

  “Herbert wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Jessica said, glancing over at her husband, who was studying the wine list with fierce intensity. “He and I had an understanding about Charles.”

  Mai appeared then, carrying Bessie and Doona’s starters. As she set them on the table, Lawrence arrived, a huge, fake-looking smile plastered on his face.

  “My dear Jessica, you look lovely tonight,” he said smoothly. “But if you leave poor Herbert alone too long he’ll get quite lonely.”

  “He’s fine,” Jessica snapped. “I was just offering my condolences to the devastated widow.” She gave Doona a contemptuous look and then turned and strode back to her own table.

  “You mustn’t mind Jessica,” Lawrence murmured as he sat down across from Doona. “In a weird way she really cared for Charles.”

  “And how did you feel about the man?” Bessie asked.

  Lawrence looked at her and then chuckled softly. “We were business partners in a number of schemes,” he replied. “We weren’t necessarily friends.”

  “So you weren’t surprised that he’d never introduced you to Doona,” Bessie suggested.

  “Actually, I was very surprised,” he said. “I never thought he’d get married. He didn’t like the idea of commitment.”

  Doona laughed bitterly. “No kidding,” she muttered.

  “But he did care about you,” Lawrence said. “He really did invite you up here to try to win you back.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Doona said flatly. “I don’t know what he was up to, but I’ll never believe that he suddenly realised he still had feelings for me. We hadn’t spoken in two years.”

  “He spent a lot of that time travelling on the continent,” Lawrence told her. “He wanted to get away from a lot of things.” He glanced over at Jessica as he spoke.

  “I bet she visited him, wherever he went,” Doona said.

  “It’s difficult,” Lawrence replied. “Herbert is another investor in many of the projects that Charles was involved with or managed. That’s how Charles met Jessica, actually.”

  “So Herbert didn’t mind that she was sleeping with another man?” Doona asked incredulously.

  Lawrence shrugged. “As Jessica said, they had some sort of agreement. Herbert likes having a trophy wife, from what I hear.”

  “I’ll never understand some people,” Doona said, shaking her head.

  “If they had an agreement, what was Herbert so upset with Charles about?” Bessie asked, remembering the man’s threats the first time she’d seen him.

  “I believe the issue was business rather than personal,” Lawrence replied. “Charles was doing a number of things here that were upsetting investors. That’s one of the reasons I came up.”

  “What sorts of things?” Bessie asked.

  “Nothing I’m prepared to discuss right now,” the man replied with an insincere smile. “Everything has been taken care of now and Harold is doing an excellent job keeping things running while we work out what to do next.”

  He looked over at Doona who was nibbling at her food without interest. “That’s where you come in, of course,” he said. Doona’s left hand was on the table and Lawrence picked it up and squeezed it.

  “There’s a very good chance that you’re Charles’s heir,” he told her. “I’d like to talk to you about buying out your shares in the management company. I’m prepared to offer you fair market value plus ten per cent.”

  “I think we need to wait and see what the will says,” Doona replied, pulling her hand away. “And then, if I have inherited anything, you’ll have to deal with my advocate.”

  Lawrence frowned. “I’d much rather deal with you personally,” he said. “You were important to Charles and he was my friend.”

  “I’d be touched by that if you hadn’t said earlier that you were business partners but not friends,” Doona retorted. “Once the will is read, I’ll give you contact details for my advocate, if that’s appropriate.”

  The man looked as if he was going to argue, but Mai reappeared with their entrees. “I’ll leave you to your meal, then,” he said as he stood up. “Enjoy.”

  He turned and walked away. Doona stuck out her tongue at his back, making Bessie laugh.

  “He is rather disagreeable,” she said.

  “If I do inherit anything, I don’t want him to get it,” Doona replied. “Just because he’s horrible.”

  They ate for several minutes in silence. “This is good,” Bessie said eventually.

  “Not as good as the first night, but much better than lunch the other day,” Doona agreed.

  “I do hope you’re enjoying your meal,” Harold’s voice interrupted.

  Bessie smiled up at the man, who returned the look with a matching smile. “It’s very good,” she replied.

  “Excellent,” he said. “I know this hasn’t exactly been the holiday you were hoping for, but I do hope you’re managing to enjoy your stay in spite of the tragedy. You must let me know if I can do anything to make your visit better.”

  “Thank you,” Bessie said.

  “Mrs. Adams,” he said, addressing Doona, “I’ve heard a number of rumours about Charles’s will. It isn’t my place to ask, but, well, I was wondering which ones are true.”

  “First of all, I’m Mrs. Moore, or rather Ms. Moore,” Doona replied. “I never took Charles’s surname and I’m not about to start using it now. Secondly, I have no idea what’s in Charles’s will. I hadn’t spoken to the man in two years and didn’t even know where he was. I understand his solicitor is hoping that the police will complete their investigation before he has to read the will to the interested parties.”

  “Well, if you do inherit some shares in this place, I’d love to buy them from you,” Harold said in a very low voice. “I have a better chance of keeping my job if I actually own a piece of the park, don’t you think?”

 
“I don’t know anything about how the park is run,” Doona said. “Or about Charles’s will. If I do inherit anything, I’ll give you the contact details for my advocate and you can talk to him.”

  “How is everything?” Mai asked brightly as she joined them.

  “Oh, it’s good,” Bessie replied.

  “Excellent,” Mai said. “Harold, Nathan would like a word with you in the kitchen when you’re done out here.”

  She was gone before Harold could reply. He rolled his eyes and then laughed. “Someone always wants something,” he grumbled jokingly. “I’m not quite sure why I ever went into management. You’ll have to excuse me, ladies.”

  He stood up, stared hard at Doona for a moment and then strolled away, smiling and chatting with the other guests scattered around the room as he went.

  “If you have inherited something from Charles, it sounds as if there’s going to be a battle for it,” Bessie remarked.

  “I don’t want anything from Charles,” Doona said bitterly. “It isn’t like we were married for any length of time. I don’t even feel as if I deserve to inherit from him.”

  “Let’s not worry about it for tonight,” Bessie suggested. “Let’s try to enjoy dinner.”

  Mai cleared their empty plates and brought a second round of drinks for them. They were just considering having pudding when Nathan wandered out of the kitchen. Bessie watched as he looked around the room. When he spotted them, he headed towards them.

  “Ah, good evening, ladies. I’m so pleased that you allowed me another chance to feed you after that dismal lunch the other day.”

  “It was a strange day in many ways,” Bessie said.

  “Yes, well, I hope you enjoyed your meal more tonight?”

  “It was very good,” Bessie assured him.

  “And you, Mrs. Moore?” Nathan asked.

  “Oh, it was good, thanks,” Doona answered.

  “I understand you may soon own shares in our little park,” he said to Doona. “I do hope you’ll be as supportive of my work as Charles was.”

  “How’s Monique?” Bessie asked, trying to spare Doona from having to come up with a suitable response.

  “Monique? She’s fine,” he replied. “She gets homesick sometimes and then she doesn’t feel like working. Charles was always very understanding about it.”

  “Seems a bit hard on Mai, though,” Bessie suggested. “Since she’s the one who has to cover for her.”

  Nathan shrugged. “Mai always seems to enjoy helping out here,” he said. “She’s a really sweet girl.”

  “But she’s the manager of guest services and teaches classes as well,” Bessie replied. “Having to work in the evenings after working all day seems like too much.”

  “Charles got rid of a lot of the staff,” Nathan replied. “We used to have enough waitresses to cover when one was off. Charles more or less halved the number of wait staff in every restaurant.”

  “I’d heard he was doing a lot of cost cutting,” Bessie replied.

  “Anyway, I’d better get back to the kitchen,” Nathan said. Bessie saw that Mai was beckoning for him in the kitchen doorway. “I’ll send out something special for you both.”

  He was gone before the women could argue. Bessie watched as he and Mai had a whispered conversation in the doorway before Nathan walked through it. Mai looked upset for a moment but she had a smile back on her face as she walked around the room, talking to various guests. A few minutes later, she brought plates with huge slices of chocolate gateau on them to Bessie and Doona.

  “Enjoy,” she said after she’d set them down.

  Bessie stared at the delicious looking cake for a brief moment before diving it. It was almost tastier than it looked, and even Doona seemed to have found some enthusiasm for it as she ate.

  “That was wonderful,” Bessie said as she pushed her empty plate towards the centre of the table.

  “It truly was,” Doona agreed. “I wasn’t even hungry.”

  Bessie glanced at her friend’s empty plate and smiled. “Good thing,” she remarked.

  “Would it be terrible to get small ice cream cones for the walk home?” Bessie asked as they exited the restaurant.

  “Yes,” Doona replied. “But let’s do it anyway.”

  There was, as always, a queue, but it was moving fairly quickly and the pair didn’t mind. This time they both ordered only a single scoop of ice cream from the stand.

  “Pardon me, Ms. Moore, isn’t it?” the deep voice carried through the small crowd around the ice cream counter.

  Bessie looked over at Herbert Howe and frowned. She felt as if Doona had had quite enough chatting with suspects for one day.

  “Mr. Howe, isn’t it?” Doona said politely.

  “It is, yes,” he replied, bowing slightly. “I won’t keep you, but I wanted to let you know that I’m very interested in purchasing any business interests you might inherit from Charles Adams. I didn’t realise he was married, or that you were his wife, until yesterday.”

  “If I inherit anything, and I consider it highly unlikely that I will, you’ll have to deal with my advocate on the Isle of Man,” Doona replied.

  “Excellent, I’d rather deal with professionals,” he told her. “They generally appreciate financial gains over sentimental value.”

  “As your wife seems to have had some sort of relationship with the man, perhaps Charles made her his heir,” Bessie suggested, feeling brave about confronting him with a small crowd surrounded them.

  Herbert just laughed. “Jessica was nothing to Charles,” he said firmly. “She and I have a very volatile relationship, but she’d never leave me, certainly not for a man like Charles.”

  “Meaning what?” Bessie asked.

  “Jessica likes money more than anything,” he replied. “Charles was a very successful businessman and he was good at investing wisely, as well. He’d managed to build up a decent-sized share in the management company that owns this park and the chain of hotels he worked for, but he wasn’t wealthy, at least not by Jessica’s standards. She enjoyed his company, but he was never more than a diversion.”

  Bessie bit her tongue as a dozen different replies sprang to her lips.

  “I was all wrong for Charles, then,” Doona said. “I actually expected him to be faithful.”

  “Monogamy isn’t part of my marriage,” he said with a shrug. “On either side. I don’t expect you to understand,” he added, presumably reading the look on Bessie’s face correctly. “And I’m not going to try to explain, either. All I wanted to do was make sure you knew I was interested in buying up Charles’s shares in the company. No doubt Harold and Lawrence have also made offers. I’ll happily outbid them both, once we know exactly what’s at stake.”

  He nodded at both of them and the walked off, without waiting for a reply.

  “Maybe, if Charles did leave me something, I should just keep it and watch them all beg for a while,” Doona said with a sigh.

  “Eat your ice cream,” Bessie told her. “It will make you feel better.”

  The pair walked in silence back to their cabin, enjoying their frozen treat. Bessie was lost in thought, wondering if everyone’s eagerness to get their hands on Charles’s shares in the company might give any of them a motive for murder.

  Just across the small bridge, Doona sank down on a bench. Bessie joined her and they sat and watched the tiny waves rippling on the miniature lake for a moment.

  “I need to find out more about this company,” Doona said eventually. “It seems as if Charles owned a fairly large piece of it, from what everyone is saying.”

  “We know that Lawrence and Herbert were also shareholders. I wonder how many others there are?”

  “Maybe thousands,” Doona said. “It could be a huge publicly traded company for all I know.”

  “But it doesn’t sound like it,” Bessie replied.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Doona agreed.

  They sat for a few minutes longer before Bessie spoke again. “Am I th
e only one who thinks it’s strange that Herbert didn’t mind his wife cheating on him?” she asked. “I know I’m old-fashioned about such things, but he isn’t all that much younger than me.”

  “But if you were jealous of the relationship and then the man suddenly ended up murdered, wouldn’t you start going around telling everyone how you didn’t mind at all?” Doona asked.

  “Of course I would,” Bessie agreed. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “You know, I’m afraid Margaret Hopkins is waiting back at Foxglove Close to arrest me,” Doona said.

  “If she does, John will be on the next flight across,” Bessie told her.

  “While that makes me feel a bit better, I’d still rather not be arrested,” Doona replied.

  Bessie shook her head. “Inspector Hopkins is probably at home tucked up in bed, watching something inane on the telly.”

  “Maybe,” Doona said doubtfully.

  “Pardon me?” a voice whispered. “May I join you?”

  Bessie recognised the soft French accent before she spotted Monique in the fading light.

  “Of course,” she said, sliding over to make more space for the girl.

  “The police, they are waiting at your lodge for you,” Monique said intently to Doona. “But I had to talk to you. I have to know if it’s true that you’re Charles’s wife.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Doona glanced at Bessie and then looked at Monique. “Charles and I were married,” she said slowly. “But we’d been separated for two years when he died, and I’d applied for a divorce.”

  “You aren’t what I expected,” Monique said sadly. “He told me about you.”

  “Really?” Doona asked.

  “Yes, he was sorry for how he treated you,” she said. “He still cared about you.”

  “At least that’s what he told you,” Doona said sourly.

  “He didn’t lie to me,” Monique replied.

  “I thought that once,” Doona told her. “But I was wrong.”