Aunt Bessie Likes (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 12)

by Diana Xarissa

  “Look at the time,” Doona exclaimed. “I’d better get home myself. I have to work early tomorrow.”

  “As do I,” John said.

  The pair stood up to go, but Bessie held up a hand. “I want to talk to you about one more thing,” she said.

  After John and Doona had sat back down, she told them about the plans she and Mary were making for the surprise honeymoon.

  “If you think it’s a terrible idea, just say so,” she said when she’d finished.

  “I think it’s a great idea,” Doona said quickly. “I wasn’t sure what to get them for a present, but now I know just the thing. I’ll pay for them to have dinner at the restaurant in the Eiffel Tower one night while they’re in Paris. It’s gorgeous and wonderful and dreadfully expensive, but I can tap into my inheritance and pay for their meal and champagne and everything. It’s perfect.”

  Doona’s second husband had named Doona as his heir before his untimely death. While there were a number of complications with the estate, Doona had already received a small windfall from this unexpected source.

  “As I don’t have any inheritance to tap, I’ll have to offer something less extravagant,” John said. “But I do know of a terrific little restaurant in a quiet corner of the city that has some of the best food I’ve ever eaten. I’m more than happy to buy the pair dinner there one night. I have the owner’s number. I’ll ring him up and arrange it.”

  “This might actually all come together,” Bessie said excitedly.

  “I’m sure everyone at the station will be glad to contribute,” Doona said. “We were just having a conversation today about how difficult it is to think of what to get them. I’ll tell them to put in cash, or maybe they can buy advanced tickets for things like the Louvre. I really don’t know.”

  “I think we need a travel agent,” Bessie said. “And I think Karen Kelly’s younger sister just happens to be one.”

  John flipped through the pages that Hugh had given him. “You’re right,” he said. “Kristen Kelly is a travel agent. She works in Douglas. How did you know that?”

  “Mary Quayle uses the agency that she works for once in a while. She mentioned to me recently that one of the girls there came from Lonan. She thought I might know the family,” Bessie explained.

  “What a coincidence,” Doona remarked.

  “It’s a small island,” Bessie reminded her. “Don’t they say that everyone in the world is connected by no more than six degrees of separation? On the island it’s probably more like two or three.”

  John laughed. “Funny, but probably true,” he said. “Take a friend when you see her, too, okay?”

  Bessie nodded. “I’ll take Mary,” she said. “It’s half her surprise anyway.”

  This time, when John and Doona got up to leave, Bessie didn’t try to stop them. It was getting late and Bessie was tired. It had been a long day and Bessie had spent most of it with other people. After all her years of living alone, sometimes she felt extra tired when she had to be around others for long periods. With the house locked up for the night, she made her way upstairs, ready to read for a short while and then sleep. She only managed a single chapter before tiredness took over.

  Chapter Six

  Bessie spent the next morning hard at work on her transcriptions. She’d finished four when she decided she needed to talk to Marjorie.

  “Moghrey mie,” she said when her friend picked up.

  “Ah, Bessie, moghrey mie.” Marjorie followed the greeting with a sentence in Manx that Bessie couldn’t even begin to understand.

  “Pardon?” she asked when Marjorie stopped speaking.

  “Sorry,” the other woman chuckled. “I haven’t had the chance to use my Manx lately. I got a bit carried away.”

  “And here I was thinking you talked in Manx all day, every day,” Bessie laughed.

  “I wish,” Marjorie replied. “I only get to use it occasionally, and at the moment I’ve been giving lots of tours to different groups from across. They prefer English for some reason.”

  “As do I,” Bessie said.

  “But what can I do for you?” Marjorie asked.

  “I’ve been working on transcribing the wills you sent,” Bessie explained. “But I’m not sure what else to do with them.”

  “Are they at all interesting?”

  “I think they’re fascinating, especially compared to the later wills that I usually study.”

  “Then write a paper about that,” Marjorie said.

  Bessie chuckled. “It sounds rather obvious when you put it that way,” she said.

  “I’ve already penciled you into the schedule for the conference,” Marjorie told her. “I’ll put the paperwork into the post for you in the next few days. The call for papers goes out tomorrow.”

  “If you get lots of great papers, you know you can leave me off the schedule,” Bessie said.

  “We’ll see what we get. Personally, I find the research you’re doing fascinating. I’m looking forward to hearing what you’re finding.”

  “Yes, well, don’t turn down any proper researchers on my behalf,” Bessie said.

  “You are a proper researcher,” Marjorie said firmly. “Having a bunch of degrees doesn’t mean someone is good at research. And you’re especially good at making what you’ve found relevant and interesting. Some of the best historians in the world can make the most exciting subjects sound deadly dull.”

  “I won’t argue with that,” Bessie said. “I’ve been to enough conferences to know exactly what you mean.”

  “And who I mean,” Marjorie laughed.

  Feeling like she had some direction now, Bessie returned to her transcriptions with enthusiasm. She was lucky she’d taken the time to set an alarm, because it rang what felt to her like only a few minutes later.

  “Lunch with Grace will be fun,” she told herself as she brushed her hair. “The wills will wait.”

  Grace was right on time and she greeted Bessie with a hug when Bessie opened the cottage door.

  “It’s so good to see you,” Grace said, her face flushed with happiness. “I’m hoping you can take my mind off the wedding for an hour. I’m feeling quite overwhelmed by the whole thing.”

  Bessie smiled at the pretty young woman. Grace’s blonde hair was pulled up into a messy ponytail that suited her. She was wearing a heavy winter coat but she’d obviously buttoned it in a hurry and misaligned the buttons and their holes. Grace was usually calm and collected; clearly planning a wedding was taking a toll on the girl.

  “I think your buttons are out of order,” Bessie said gently as she gathered up her handbag.

  Grace blushed and then undid and refastened her coat. “I’m all at sea,” she told Bessie. “I can’t focus on anything and I’m sure I’ve forgotten a dozen very important things for the wedding, but I simply don’t know what they are.”

  “Are you marrying the right man?” Bessie asked.

  Grace sighed and stood very still for a moment. “Yes, I absolutely am,” she said decisively.

  Bessie nodded. “Everything else is just window dressing. Keep your focus on Hugh and the rest will fall into place.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Grace said.

  “Even if it doesn’t, you still end up married to Hugh, so what difference does it make?” Bessie reasoned.

  “I know you’re right, but I do so want everything to be perfect.”

  “It won’t be perfect, but it will be wonderful,” Bessie said. “I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it, not for the food or the entertainment or the cake. I’m looking forward to watching two people I quite like agree to spend the rest of their lives together.”

  Grace nodded. “Quite a few people are looking forward to the food, though, including the groom.”

  Bessie laughed and then she and Grace made their way out of the cottage to Grace’s small car.

  “Hugh said you wanted to eat at the Cat and Longtail,” she said as she turned the car onto the road.
r />   “Yes, if you don’t mind,” Bessie replied.

  “He also said I’m not to let you question the poor woman behind the bar,” she added. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “She’s married to one of the suspects in the case Hugh is investigating,” Bessie explained. “I really just wanted to meet her. That’s why I want to have lunch there.”

  “Hugh doesn’t talk about his work with me very much, but I read about the Kelly girls in the local paper yesterday. What a horrible thing to happen, three teenaged girls just disappearing like that. I hope Hugh can work out what happened to them.”

  “I hope so, too. Their families deserve answers.”

  The small car park for the pub was mostly empty when Grace pulled in a moment later. They climbed out of the car and Grace gave Bessie a doubtful look.

  “It’s rather, um, unprepossessing,” she said.

  “That’s a very nice way to put it,” Bessie said, looking up at the old building that had been a pub for more years than Bessie could remember. It still looked exactly the same as it always had, tired and in need of a facelift. “But the food used to be good, anyway.”

  Grace followed Bessie into the building. The bar was to the left and the dining room was to the right. While Bessie would have preferred the dining room, she was more likely to find Joanna in the bar. She turned left.

  “Bessie Cubbon? What brings you here?” the man behind the bar shouted across the empty room.

  “Peter Yates, I thought you’d long since made enough money to leave the hard work to the hired help,” Bessie told him in reply when she and Grace reached the bar.

  “Oh, aye, you’d think so, wouldn’t you,” he replied. “But you can’t get good help, that’s the problem. Half the kids I have working for me only turn up on payday, you know?”

  “Peter, meet my friend, Grace,” Bessie performed the introductions. “Grace is getting married soon and she needed a break from all the planning. I thought a nice pub lunch would be good for her.”

  “You’d be right,” he said. “Grab some menus and sit anywhere. We’ve fish and chips on special today, as well. I’ll send Joanna over with your drinks once you tell me what you want.”

  The women both ordered soft drinks and then crossed to a table in the corner.

  “Is Joanna the woman you wanted to talk to?” Grace asked.

  “She is, yes,” Bessie replied.

  The pair had only just started looking at the menu when Joanna appeared.

  “Here you are,” she said as she put their drinks on the table. “We usually have you order at the bar, but it’s quiet so I can take your order now if you’d like.”

  “Oh, dear, I haven’t any idea what I want,” Grace exclaimed.

  “How are you?” Bessie asked the woman. “I’m not sure if you remember me, but I used to come in a bit more often.”

  The woman nodded. “Everyone in Laxey knows Aunt Bessie,” she said. “I assumed you came in today to ask me about Matthew and those girls that went missing all those years ago.”

  Bessie flushed. “That’s a job for the police,” she said.

  Joanna let out a shout of laughter. “We all know how you keep getting yourself in the middle of police investigations,” she told Bessie. “They must have you on the payroll by now, right?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Bessie replied tartly. “I think I’d make a good police officer, actually, but they have rules about age, apparently.”

  “Let me get your food order and then I’ll come back and chat,” the woman told her with a grin. “Maybe, if you can solve this case, they’ll reconsider their rules.”

  Joanna was only gone for a moment after the women ordered. When she came back, she was carrying a glass of wine. She put it on the table and then pulled up a chair. After taking a healthy sip, she looked at Bessie.

  “So, what do you want to know?” she asked.

  “I can’t imagine you know anything about the case,” Bessie said. “You and Matthew weren’t together all those years ago. You’ve only been married a couple of years, right?”

  “We’ve been married for two years, and I don’t think we’ll make three,” the woman replied.

  “I am sorry,” Bessie said.

  “Don’t be,” Joanna told her. “It’s my second marriage and his third. The odds were against us from the very beginning. It was fun at first, but Matthew has a temper and so do I. This police investigation is just the last straw, really. Matthew is impossible to live with now. He’s convinced that the police are going to frame him if they can’t work out what really happened.”

  “That’s crazy,” Grace snapped.

  “Maybe,” Joanna shrugged. “But the case has already received a ton of publicity. It’s would be pretty embarrassing if they had to announce that they’d not actually found anything, wouldn’t it? Matthew reckons he’ll be arrested in the next few days, just to create new headlines, if nothing else breaks.”

  “He should be trying to help, then,” Bessie suggested. “He was a teenaged boy when it happened. There must have been things he didn’t tell the police at the time.”

  “If there were, he hasn’t told me,” Joanna said.

  Bessie nodded. If the man had kept secrets from the police, he’d probably kept them from his third wife, too. “Do you remember when the girls went missing?” she asked.

  Joanna shrugged. “I was around the same age as the girls,” she said. “My mum went mad for a few months and wouldn’t let me go out anywhere without her, but I didn’t know any of them or anything.”

  “You didn’t go to school together?” Bessie asked.

  “Oh, aye, we were all at Ramsey Grammar School together, but I didn’t go to school very often, if I’m honest. Anyway, it was a big school and I wasn’t interested in making friends with the other girls. I was far more interested in the boys,” Joanna replied.

  “Did anyone you know have any theories about what might have happened to the girls?” Bessie continued.

  “We all assumed one of them needed a termination,” Joanna replied. “That was the main reason girls went across suddenly like that.”

  “But surely they wouldn’t go without telling someone?” Grace broke in.

  “Maybe, but maybe not. It’s easier to get forgiveness than permission, you know? If it was Susan, there’s no way she’d have told anyone. Everyone thought she was a good girl. If she’d have found herself in trouble, she’s have snuck away and taken care of it without anyone knowing.”

  “But that doesn’t explain what happened to Karen and Helen,” Bessie said.

  “No, and I don’t really think Susan found herself in trouble, either,” Joanna said.

  “It looks as if I have to do all of the work around here,” Peter grumbled as he delivered two very full plates of food to the table.

  “Won’t do you any harm,” Joanna told him.

  He chuckled and went back behind the bar before Bessie could thank him. The food looked delicious, but she didn’t want to start eating until she got Joanna to continue.

  “So if Susan didn’t find herself in trouble, what do you think did happen?” Bessie asked.

  “I had an idea at the time,” the woman said. “I suppose it could still be possible, but no one wanted to listen to me back then.”

  “I’d like to hear your idea,” Bessie told her.

  “I always thought one of the other girls got into trouble,” Joanna replied. “You could flip a coin as to which one, really. I think they sent Susan over to find a place and the other two followed the next weekend.”

  “Would Susan have done that?” Bessie wondered.

  “Oh, yeah, she’d have done anything for her cousins,” Joanna said emphatically. “They weren’t really friends, but they were family, if that makes sense? Ramsey Grammar was a big school and people tended to hang out together in small groups. Their group was kind of anyone with the surname Kelly, really. They were all related in some way to one another and they all looked out for
each other.”

  Bessie’s mouth was full when Joanna stopped. Bessie glanced at Grace, who seemed to read the unspoken thought in Bessie’s eyes.

  “Surely one of the other girls would have said something when she saw how worried everyone was about Susan, though,” Grace said.

  “Not when they needed to get away the next weekend,” Joanna said. “If they told everyone where Susan was, they’d have had to explain everything, and they couldn’t do that.”

  “I can’t imagine worrying their parents like that,” Grace murmured.

  “They were young,” Joanna pointed out. “I’m sure they were like all teenaged girls, too self-absorbed to realise what they were doing to other people. Karen and Helen were like that, I’m sure. Knowing them, they thought it was funny, everyone looking everywhere for Susan when she’d only gone across.”

  “Your solution makes perfect sense,” Bessie said. “Except for the ending. If that’s what happened, why didn’t they just come back after it was all over?”

  “Maybe they decided they liked it better over there,” Joanna said. “I’ve often thought that if I ever went across, I wouldn’t want to come back. I think I’d love living in a big city where you can be totally anonymous and live your life however you please.”

  “Oh, not me,” Grace said. “I love our island. And, having grown up in Douglas, I really love Laxey. Douglas feels like a big city to me. Laxey is just about perfect.”

  “I’ve always felt that way,” Bessie told the girl.

  “Ha, I’d go tomorrow if I could,” Joanna said. “Nothing ever happens here.”

  “I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that,” Bessie said dryly.

  The other woman shrugged. “I know you’ve stumbled across a murder or two in the last year, but that isn’t exactly the sort of excitement I’m looking for.”

  “I should hope not,” Bessie said.

  “Anyway, you wanted to know what I thought; there you are.” The woman got up to go.

  “I still don’t see why none of them have been in touch after all these years,” Bessie said.

  “If they wanted to be found, they’d get in touch,” Joanna told her. “You’ll never convince me anything bad happened to them, not unless you find the bodies. “Lonan is even smaller than Laxey. If someone murdered three girls and hid the bodies, we’d all have known about it before dawn.”