“Just make sure you’re still eating healthily,” Bessie said.
“I am,” Doona told her. “Tea and cake for lunch and fish and chips for dinner. What could be healthier than that?”
The two women laughed together as they walked back to Doona’s car. The drive to Bessie’s cottage was a short one.
“I won’t come in, as you’re expecting Hugh shortly,” Doona told her friend.
“Today was fun,” Bessie said. “And you’re going to look wonderful at the wedding.” Bessie climbed out of the car and walked into her cottage, pausing to run her fingers over the plaque at the door.
“Treoghe Bwaaue,” she murmured. The Manx words meant widow’s cottage, which had felt particularly apt when she’d purchased the property at age eighteen. She wasn’t a widow, but she’d felt like one. While she’d been born on the island, she’d spent nearly all of her childhood in America. She’d been surprised and angry when her parents had insisted that she move back to the island with them when she was seventeen. Leaving Matthew, her first love, behind had been difficult, but he’d promised to follow her. She’d been planning for their future together, back in the US, when she was told he’d succumbed to illness on the difficult sea crossing.
Inside the small kitchen of her cottage, Bessie put down her handbag and looked out the window at the beach and the sea. She’d spent many hours sitting in this room, watching the waves and wishing she could change the past. Now, so many years later, she was content that everything had happened for a reason. She felt as if she was exactly where she was meant to be in her little home by the sea. If she had married Matthew, her life would have been very different, and she loved the life she’d built for herself.
She shook her head to clear away the memories and then looked at the clock. Hugh would be there any minute, and knowing Hugh, he’d be hungry. She needed to get the kettle on and start piling biscuits onto a plate.
A few minutes later, just as she was adding a few fancy chocolate biscuits to the pile, Bessie heard a car pull up outside her cottage. The kettle began to boil as she headed for the door.
“Hugh, you look wonderful,” she exclaimed as the man bounced out of his car and crossed the short distance to Bessie.
“Ah, thanks, Aunt Bessie,” he said, blushing brightly.
While Hugh was in his mid-twenties and engaged to be married, to Bessie he still looked like the awkward teenager who had frequently taken refuge in her spare bedroom after disagreements with his parents. He was over six feet tall now, but even though he towered over Bessie, who was only a few inches over five feet, she still found herself wanting to treat him like a child.
He enveloped Bessie in a hug before following her into the cottage. Bessie laughed as she watched his eyes light up when they spotted the plate full of biscuits.
“You did have dinner, didn’t you?” she asked before she put the plate on the small kitchen table.
“Oh, yes,” Hugh assured her. “A bunch of us who were working until six had sandwiches delivered from the shop across the road.”
Bessie nodded and handed him a small plate to put his selections on. While he was busy stacking as many biscuits as he could onto it, Bessie prepared tea for them both.
“How are you?” she asked after she’d joined him at the table, her own plate, with only a few biscuits on it, in front of her.
“I’m mostly good,” Hugh replied, quickly sipping some tea to wash down the mouthful of biscuit he’d spoken around. “I’m really happy most of the time, and then I start to worry about, oh, everything and my mood crashes. Getting married is scary.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Bessie said. “But from what I’ve heard, your feelings are perfectly normal. You’re making a big life change, after all.”
“I love Grace so much,” Hugh said, reddening slightly. “I’m really worried that I won’t make her happy.”
“And you won’t, at least some of the time,” Bessie replied. “As long as you’re both happy most of the time, you’re doing well.”
Hugh chuckled. “That sounds closer to achievable,” he said.
“I think you two are just right for each other and that you’ll have a wonderful life together. You do have to remember that it won’t always be easy, though.”
“After what we went through last month, it should feel easy, at least for a while,” Hugh said.
Bessie nodded. “The events at Thie yn Traie were difficult for you both. I do hope you’ve learned something about communication from them.”
“I have,” Hugh told her. “We both have, really. We’ve talked a lot since then and I know we understand each other better. In a strange way, I’m almost glad we had that trouble, because it’s helped us both learn a lot.”
“Good, just make sure you keep learning, about each other and yourselves. I think you’re going to live happily ever after for sure.”
Hugh grinned. “I hope you’re right,” he said. “I just wish I could afford to spoil Grace as much as I’d like.”
“Grace isn’t marrying you because she wants to be spoiled.”
“I know,” Hugh sighed. “I saved up for months to buy her the perfect ring, but now I think I should have saved up for our honeymoon instead. When I bought the ring, I was thinking we’d wait a year or two to get married, but once she said ‘yes’ I simply couldn’t bear the thought of waiting.”
“Doona tells me your going to spend a week at the Seaview in Ramsey,” Bessie said.
“Yes,” Hugh shrugged. “It’s a really nice place, but it isn’t exactly a romantic getaway. I investigated a theft there not long ago and the owner was really pleased with how the investigation went, so he’s giving me a great rate for the honeymoon suite, but I’d still rather take her to Paris or New York City or something.”
“Never mind, you’ll be together and that’s what matters.”
“I know you’re right,” Hugh said with a small frown. “But I feel like I’m letting Grace down.”
“But what have you brought tonight?” Bessie asked, changing the subject before Hugh got too miserable.
“You know I’ve been going through the cold cases,” Hugh replied. “John’s letting me reopen the investigations on a couple of them and we’ve agreed that I should start with this one.”
Hugh pulled a large folder from the bag he’d brought with him and opened it carefully. As Bessie watched, he pulled out a few old photographs and laid them on the table in front of her.
“The missing Kelly girls from Lonan,” Bessie said as she looked at the top photo. “I haven’t thought about them in years.”
Hugh nodded. “From what I’ve learned so far, no one has thought about them in years,” he told her. “Please tell me everything you can about the girls in these pictures.”
Bessie studied the pretty young girl who was laughing in the top photograph. “Susan Kelly was sixteen when she’d disappeared one night in the spring of nineteen-seventy,” Bessie recalled. The photo was black and white, but Bessie could remember the girl’s beautiful red hair and sparkling green eyes clearly.
“She was beautiful, was Susan Kelly,” Bessie said to Hugh. “The photo doesn’t do her justice.” She slid Susan’s picture to one side and looked at the next snapshot.
“Karen Kelly,” she murmured. “She was about a year younger than her cousin, Susan, and had a very different personality.”
“Tell me more,” Hugh said. “The information in the files is dry and dull. You’re already bringing the girls to life for me.”
“Susan was a very sweet child and she’d turned into an equally sweet teenager,” Bessie said, casting her mind back over the years. “Her father had a market stall here in Laxey in those days and she used to help out once in while. She’s the only one I really knew, as they all lived in Lonan.”
“Lonan isn’t that far away,” Hugh pointed out.
“No, but I don’t drive,” Bessie said. “And even if I did, there isn’t much in Lonan. I rarely went there in those days a
nd I only go there now to eat at that gorgeous restaurant that opened last autumn.”
“Just tell me whatever you can, then,” Hugh suggested.
“As I said, Susan was sweet and sometimes helped out with her father’s market stall. Karen was younger, but even at fifteen she had a bit of a reputation. I don’t know that I ever met her, but she was talked about quite a lot after she disappeared.”
Bessie turned Karen’s photo over and looked at the last picture. “And Helen Kelly,” she said with a sigh. “She was talked about even more than the other two, even before she disappeared.”
“Why?”
“She was the oldest of the three cousins and she had a wild streak in her,” Bessie replied. “It was nineteen-seventy and she got a lot of ideas from watching what was going in America. She wanted to be a flower child and live in a commune or something like that.” Bessie shook her head. “It was a long time ago. I can’t really remember all of the details.”
“What about the man with her in the photo?” Hugh asked.
“Matthew Kelly,” Bessie said, grinning at the common surname. “He was another cousin, although once or twice removed or some such thing. I think he was eighteen or nineteen at the time, and he and Helen were a couple or had been. I remember the police held him for questioning for a while. Some people were convinced he had something to do with the disappearances.”
“Tell me what happened,” Hugh said.
“Surely you’ve read the files,” Bessie replied. “You must know the story better than I do.”
“I’ve read the police reports and the newspaper clippings from the time. Now I want to hear your account of the events,” Hugh said.
Bessie nodded and closed her eyes. Then she opened them and took a sip of tea before closing them again. “It was spring, maybe May,” she began. “The year was nineteen-seventy, I’m quite sure of that. As I recall, it was a quite ordinary spring before the disappearances, which were quite out of the ordinary, of course.”
“Susan disappeared first,” Hugh said as he flipped through his notes on the case.
“She did. Her parents didn’t report her missing right away, as they assumed she was just staying with friends. As I recall, the papers afterwards said that she often spent nights and weekends at her best friend’s house, and at first her parents simply assumed that was what she was doing. It was a different time then, of course. And they were a farming family with six or seven children. Susan was the youngest and she was quite capable of looking after herself.”
“How long was it before the parents started to worry?”
Bessie thought for a moment and then shook her head. “It was too long ago,” she said. “I can’t remember all of the details. I think Susan did spend one night with her friend, whose name I can’t quite recall, but the pair had a falling out and Susan left the next morning. Her parents reported her missing a day or two later.”
“You’re right,” Hugh told her. “She stayed with her friend, Margot Lane, on the Friday night, and then, according to Margot, decided to go home. Her parents reported her missing when she didn’t come home by Sunday evening.”
“And the next weekend Karen disappeared,” Bessie said. “She’d been grounded for the weekend because of some transgression or another, but she snuck out some time on the Friday evening. Her parents didn’t realise she was gone until Saturday morning.”
“They reported her missing right away, but that didn’t seem to make any difference,” Hugh said.
“And that same Saturday night Helen vanished as well,” Bessie added. “Just about the whole village of Lonan was out searching for Susan and Karen. When it got too dark to continue, everyone gathered at the church, but Helen never reappeared.”
“I have pages and pages of notes on the investigation,” Hugh said. “But I can sum them all up by saying that no trace of the girls was ever found.”
Bessie nodded. “I think everyone assumed they’d turn up eventually, at least at first,” she said. “We all hoped that they’d just decided to run away for an adventure and that they’d be back one day.”
“And they may have run away,” Hugh said. “But it seems odd that none of them ever contacted anyone on the island again.”
“There was a lot of speculation when it first happened as to why they might have left,” Bessie said. “There may be reasons why they went, and why they never came back.”
“What sort of reasons?”
“The most popular idea was that one or more of them had fallen pregnant,” Bessie said. “Abortion was legal in England, but not here. It wasn’t exactly unheard of for girls to go across to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.”
“But then they’d come back,” Hugh suggested.
“Usually,” Bessie agreed. “Or at least ring home to let everyone know they were okay.”
“Tell me about Matthew Kelly, please,” Hugh asked.
“He was in and out of trouble quite a bit,” Bessie said. “Nothing major, but lots of little things. I seem to remember him stealing cars quite regularly, which is funny as he now works in the garage in Lonan.”
“According to the police reports, he was interviewed at least a dozen times about the disappearances,” Hugh said. “Some of the transcripts from those interviews are missing, though.”
“Is that suspicious?”
Hugh shrugged. “Not really. It’s been what, nearly thirty years? Bits of paper go missing as files get moved from station to station and office to office. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say when I talk to him, though.”
“You’re reopening the missing persons cases?” Bessie asked.
“Yes, and I’ll be investigating them as probable homicides,” Hugh replied.
Chapter Two
Bessie blinked and then took a sip of tea. “Homicide?” she said after a moment. “That seems, well, excessive.”
“Three girls disappeared without a trace. It’s been almost thirty years and all three have been declared legally dead by their families. I think looking at the case as a murder investigation is long overdue.”
“I didn’t realise they’d all been declared dead,” Bessie said sadly.
“As I understand it, it had something to do with the death of one the grandparents and his will. Apparently the rest of the cousins in the family weren’t happy that three shares of his estate were essentially being held in limbo for the three missing girls. By having them declared dead, they were able to split the shares amongst themselves.”
“Horrible,” Bessie said with a shudder. “I suppose I can understand it, especially after all of this time, but it’s awfully sad.”
“All of our cold cases get an annual review, but it doesn’t seem as if anything has really been done with this investigation since the early seventies. The inspector who was originally in charge of the investigation retired a year after the disappearances and no one seems to have taken much interest in the case after that,” Hugh told Bessie.
“I don’t suppose he’s still around to discuss things with?” Bessie asked.
“No, he passed away in the late seventies and his wife died not long after. I have his personal notes on the case, which made for interesting reading, though.”
“Personal notes?”
“You know how John always takes lots of notes during an investigation? Well, this Robert Harris seems to have done the same thing. About eighty per cent of what he wrote in his notebooks seems to have made it into his official reports. The rest is mostly lists of other areas to explore and his speculation on what happened. He had a short list of suspects that he thought might have been involved and one person in particular that he seems to have been certain knew more than he was admitting, but it seems Inspector Harris could never prove anything.”
“And you’re hoping to have better luck?”
“I don’t know,” Hugh said with a shrug. “Some of the witnesses have passed away. I’m hoping that might be an advantage, that people might be more willing to talk now,
maybe tell me things they were unable or unwilling to say all those years ago.”
“I won’t ask who Inspector Harris suspected, but is that person still alive and on the island?”
“He is,” Hugh said with a frown. “And I’m not looking forward to talking with him. From what I’ve read in the files, he won’t be happy about the case being reopened, even if he didn’t have anything to do with the disappearances.”
“I suspect a lot of people won’t want the case reopened,” Bessie mused. “Although I’m sure the girls’ parents will welcome the chance to maybe finally find out what happened to their daughters.”
“I’m meeting with them tomorrow,” Hugh said. “Please tell me everything you can about all of them.”
Bessie refilled her teacup and added a few more biscuits to her plate before she spoke again. “As I said, they all live in Lonan, so I don’t know any of them well. Susan’s father, I think his name is James, had that market stall here in Laxey, so I knew him more than anyone else. I don’t know that I can tell you anything about him really, though. He was a hard-working farmer. I can’t remember ever having a conversation with him, although I’m sure I must have said something sympathetic when his daughter disappeared.”
“What about Susan’s mother?” Hugh asked.
Bessie shrugged. “Her name was Sarah, if I’m remembering correctly. She helped out on the stall once or twice a year, if none of the children were available.” Bessie closed her eyes and thought for a moment. “I remember her being there more after Susan’s disappearance. As I said, Susan was the youngest and her brothers and sisters were mostly off starting their own lives by the time Susan vanished.”
“What can you remember about her reaction to her daughter’s disappearance?”
Bessie shook her head. “Nothing,” she admitted. “I’m sure she was upset, but as I said, at least for a while we all assumed the girls would be back. Susan’s disappearance was something of a surprise. If Karen or Helen had gone first, I’m not sure anyone would have rung the police.”
Aunt Bessie Likes (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 12) Page 2
