Aunt Bessie Invites (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 9)

by Diana Xarissa

  “This is nothing to do with you,” Doona said quietly to her friend. They both glanced over at Fenella, but she was staring off into the distance and didn’t seem to be paying any attention to them.

  “I know. It was just an accident of timing,” Bessie agreed. “But for everyone else on the island, this will be more evidence that I’m cursed or something.”

  Doona shook her head. “Of course you aren’t cursed,” she began. Bessie held up a hand.

  “I know that, but persuading others might be difficult once word of this gets out,” Bessie said. “But frankly I’m more interested in who we’ve found than in my reputation.”

  “I think I was assuming it’s Nicholas Faragher,” Doona said. “He certainly seems most likely, based on everything you’ve told me.”

  “What are you two whispering about?” Fenella demanded suddenly. “I hope you aren’t suggesting that I had anything to do with whatever happened.”

  “Of course not,” Bessie said soothingly. She walked across to where Fenella was sitting.

  “Pull up a stool,” Fenella suggested. “Or a folding chair, whatever you can find.”

  Bessie glanced at Doona. “I’m not sure we should be moving anything out of the barn.”

  “There are more stools right by the door,” Fenella pointed out. “We just put them in there last month when we replaced the ones in the milking barn. They can’t have anything to do with what’s in the back of the barn.”

  “How long has it been since you put anything back there?” Bessie asked as Doona pulled out a couple of stools for them.

  “I haven’t ever been back there,” Fenella told her. “My father put all of my mother’s things in the very back after she died. I never felt like it was the right time to look through them until now.”

  “So the body has been back there since when?” Doona asked.

  “Mum passed in nineteen-forty,” Fenella answered. “But I’m not sure that proves anything. It wouldn’t have been hard to shift the boxes around and put the body under them, I don’t think.”

  “I don’t suppose there could be any innocent explanation for someone being buried back there?” Bessie asked.

  Fenella shrugged. “I suppose there could have been an old cemetery here and the barn was built on top of it, but it would have had to have been a long time ago. There’s been a barn on this site for at least a couple of hundred years, at least that’s what my father always said.”

  “I don’t think the body has been here for that long,” Bessie said thoughtfully.

  “Do you have any idea who it might be?” Doona asked after a long pause.

  “Maybe some vagrant managed to break into the barn and hid in the back, and then died of old age or something,” Fenella suggested.

  “I suppose that’s a possibility,” Bessie said. “The police will have to start going through all of their missing person reports for the last fifty or so years.”

  “Do you remember anyone going missing in the area?” Doona asked.

  Fenella shrugged. “Young men used to disappear all the time,” she said. “We didn’t have mobile phones and the like. If a boy grew up and decided to move across, he would just go. Sometimes he wouldn’t even bother to let anyone know. The next you’d hear would be when he’d made some money and came back to show off, or sometimes if he got arrested, we’d hear about that.”

  Bessie nodded. “Young women sometimes went as well,” she added. “For a lot of people moving across represented all sorts of wonderful opportunities.”

  “But surely their family would miss them eventually,” Doona said.

  “The police might have a big job on their hands figuring out who we’ve found,” Bessie said.

  Doona looked as if she wanted to say something, but she didn’t speak. Bessie was trying to work out how to ask what she knew Doona was thinking.

  “How is your father?” Bessie asked after a moment, choosing to change the subject.

  “He’s okay,” Fenella replied with a shrug. “He doesn’t remember me, mostly, but sometimes he recognises Eoin and gives him jobs to do. Eoin’s really good about visiting him regular, like. It makes me sad when I go to see him and he thinks I’m the nurse or a stranger.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bessie said softly.

  “I should probably ring Eoin,” Fenella said. “Let him know about the body and the police coming. I’m sure half the island will be talking about it before he gets home.”

  “Maybe he’ll have some idea who it is,” Doona suggested.

  “That probably depends on how long it’s been there,” Fenella said. “He didn’t start working here until the mid-fifties, long after my father put my mother’s things in the barn.”

  “What about Nicholas?” Bessie asked.

  “What about him?” Fenella said, looking confused.

  “He worked here for a while, too, didn’t he? Maybe he’ll have some idea about the body,” Bessie said.

  “He did work here for a short while, just waiting for his eighteenth birthday so he could go across. Eoin had high hopes of convincing him to stay on the island, but Nicholas hated it here. He was something special, was Nicholas.”

  “I seem to remember that he got himself into a lot of trouble when he did go across,” Bessie said.

  “A little bit of trouble,” Fenella corrected her. “He fell in with a bad crowd and they led him astray a bit, but once he did his time, he’d learned his lesson. He turned out just fine, our Nicholas did.”

  “Where is he now?” Bessie asked.

  “He and his wife have a little farm in Derbyshire,” Fenella replied. “Funny that he ended up farming. He couldn’t wait to get away from it here.”

  “Do you see him often?”

  “Farmers are too busy to go visiting. We send cards at Christmas and for birthdays. He’s been suggesting that he and his wife might visit for years, but we haven’t seen them yet.”

  “What’s his wife like?” Bessie wondered.

  “I’ve never met her. Eoin went across for the wedding. That was, oh, thirty-odd years ago. He said, at the time, that she was a pretty little thing, but not very bright. I gather she had a small inheritance and that was what they used to buy their farm.”

  “Do they have children?” Doona asked.

  Bessie smiled to herself. Doona was still strangely worried about who might inherit the farm, it seemed.

  “Aye, they had five, but lost one young. The other four are all over the world now. Only the oldest boy, Ned, he’s called, is at all interested in farming. I hear he runs the place for Nicholas now, at least that’s what Nick says in the letters.”

  “So he and his wife should be able to visit,” Bessie said.

  “I suppose,” Fenella shrugged. “That’s between Eoin and Nick, that is.”

  The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a police car. Bessie smiled as Hugh Watterson emerged from behind the wheel.

  “Good afternoon,” he greeted the trio of women.

  Bessie got up and gave the man a hug. He flushed but returned the affectionate gesture.

  “I do believe you’re taller again,” she told him as she sat back down. He was still blushing as she looked him up and down. Now in his mid-twenties, Hugh should have stopped growing, and Bessie supposed it was just because he was somewhere over six feet tall and towered over her that made her think he hadn’t. The fact that he looked no more than fifteen, at least in Bessie’s opinion, may have also been a factor. His brown hair looked as if it had been recently cut and Bessie noted that it was styled differently to Hugh’s normal, slightly untidy look. Sunglasses hid his brown eyes, but now he slid them off and looked towards the barn.

  “John said you found a body,” he said. “I gather it’s in there?”

  “Yes, in the very back corner.”

  Hugh nodded. “I’ll just take a quick look while we wait for the inspector,” he said.

  Bessie and the others were silent while Hugh was gone. He returned in les
s than a minute.

  “We’re going to have get a crime scene team here,” he said. “There’s an awful lot of stuff to move out of there, as well.”

  “I can have an empty lorry brought down,” Fenella offered. “We can load everything into it and move it to another barn.”

  “That sounds like a good idea,” Hugh said. “Not that we’ll move anything before the inspector arrives, but at least we can be ready.”

  Fenella nodded and then rose to her feet. She pulled her mobile out of her pocket and walked a few steps away from the others.

  “How’s Grace?” Bessie had to ask Hugh while Fenella was occupied. Hugh had been going out with Grace Christian, a pretty blonde primary schoolteacher, for several months now.

  Hugh blushed and looked at the ground. “She’s good,” he said after a minute.

  “Still thinking about proposing at Christmas?” Bessie asked.

  Hugh nodded. “I’m saving up for a ring,” he told her. “I want everything to be just right. I thought maybe I’d ask after I go with her family to midnight mass. Or I might wait until all the presents are opened and then tell her that I have one more thing for her and give her the ring. Or maybe I’ll wait until Christmas night, after dinner when everyone is just relaxing and enjoying themselves.”

  Bessie shook her head. “Just don’t wait for Boxing Day,” she said, a little sharply. “The occasion doesn’t matter nearly as much as the question, anyway, remember.”

  “I know,” Hugh nodded. “But I want it to be special for her. I’m hoping I’m the only one who will ever ask her that question, after all.”

  Bessie smiled. “You could always ask her at our big Thanksgiving feast,” she suggested.

  “I won’t have the ring by then,” Hugh replied. “I love my job, but sometimes I do wish it paid a bit better.”

  Hugh’s mobile phone rang, interrupting the chat. He frowned as he turned away from Bessie to answer it. She couldn’t hear anything from his end except monosyllables. After a moment he disconnected and turned back to the women.

  “The inspector should be here in a minute,” he said. “Then we’ll see where we go from there.”

  A moment later a large lorry rumbled down the road. Hugh had a word with the driver, who then drove well past the barn and parked on the side of the road. He handed the keys to the vehicle to Fenella and then headed back up the road on foot. He was just out of site when a plain black car rolled into view. Bessie watched as the driver parked behind Hugh. The passenger door opened, but the person who climbed out was a stranger to Bessie.

  Beside her, Doona gasped. “What’s she doing here?” she whispered.

  Bessie studied the new arrival. She was dressed in a black suit with a long straight skirt. A dark grey shirt was just visible under the jacket. Her low-heeled shoes were black. Grey hair was twisted into a tight bun on the top of her head and her grey eyes were cool and appraising as she approached them.

  “Ms. Moore,” the woman said. “I would have thought you’d have found more pleasant things to do with your day off than finding dead bodies.”

  Bessie could almost see Doona biting her tongue.

  “And you must be Miss Elizabeth Cubbon,” the woman continued. “Of course finding bodies is nothing new for you, is it? Inspector Rockwell has quite an extensive file on you, I must say.”

  Now Bessie found herself swallowing hard before she said something she might regret later.

  “What have you found?” the woman snapped at Hugh.

  “Exactly what was reported,” Hugh said. “In the back of the barn there is a part of a skeletal arm visible on the ground. Not wanting to compromise the crime scene, I did no more than verify the initial report.”

  “So we might have just found someone’s old medical school training skeleton or an old movie prop or something,” the woman said.

  No one spoke. After a moment she sighed deeply. “Let’s see what we have then. Watterson, bring a torch.”

  As the pair disappeared into the barn, Bessie let out a long breath.

  “And now you’ve met Anna Lambert,” Doona said quietly.

  “I thought she was meant to be handling the paperwork while John did all of the investigating,” Bessie whispered.

  Doona shrugged. “I’m not going to ask,” she said.

  “Me, either,” Bessie agreed.

  Hugh and the inspector were back a moment later.

  “Right, who found the, um, remains?” she asked.

  “I did,” Fenella replied.

  “I’ll start by talking to you, then,” Anna told her. “Ms. Moore, Miss Cubbon, if you’d like to wait here, please, I’ll get to you in a few minutes.”

  Bessie exchanged glances with Doona while Anna led Fenella over to the police car.

  “She’s going to interview people in her car?” Bessie asked after the pair climbed into the backseat.

  “I suppose there aren’t a lot of options out here,” Doona replied.

  Bessie looked around. She could just make out another small building in the distance. Besides that, fields surrounded them in every direction.

  “John’s tied up in Douglas at a meeting,” Hugh whispered out of the side of his mouth, his eyes never leaving the car where Anna had gone.

  “He didn’t tell me he was in Douglas when we spoke,” Doona said.

  “I gather he’s going to try to get here soon, but obviously this sort of investigation can’t wait,” Hugh said.

  “Whoever it is has waited a long time already,” Doona replied. “I’m sure they wouldn’t mind waiting another hour or two for a proper investigator.”

  “Inspector Lambert is an excellent investigator,” Hugh said. “I, well, I rang a friend of mine across who used to work with her. She’s very good at police work, she just isn’t always the easiest person to get along with.”

  “I still don’t know why we got stuck with her,” Doona complained.

  Before Hugh could reply, Anna emerged from the back of the parked car. Fenella came out after her.

  “I have a farm to run,” Fenella was saying angrily.

  “And I have an investigation to conduct,” Anna told her. “It looks as if it might just turn into a murder investigation, at that. I’m sure you can spare a few hours for the sake of the poor man or woman who was buried in your barn, can’t you?”

  Fenella pressed her lips together. Anna turned and said something to the young police officer who had driven Anna to the site. He nodded and walked a few steps away to ring someone on his mobile.

  Anna turned towards the others. “Miss Cubbon, I might as well talk to you next. Ms. Moore won’t mind waiting.”

  Bessie winked at Doona, knowing that her friend normally hated waiting. In this instance, though, the policewoman was probably right. The longer Doona had to wait, the better the chances were that John would arrive in time to take over. Bessie frowned as she climbed into the car. John was going to take over, wasn’t he?

  “I’m not sure I identified myself, but I’m sure Ms. Moore corrected my oversight,” the inspector said after she’d shut the car door. “Please call me Anna. I know you have a good working relationship with John Rockwell and I’d like to think that we’ll be able to work well together as well.”

  Bessie was suspicious of the woman’s friendliness, but she smiled anyway. “You must call me Bessie,” she said. “Everyone does.”

  Anna nodded. “I hope you don’t mind if I record this conversation.” When Bessie shook her head, the woman continued. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”

  Bessie took a deep breath and then launched into an explanation about her traditional Thanksgiving feast. After no more than a sentence, Anna held up a hand.

  “I’m sure there is a lot of very interesting history behind today, but I’m not really interested in that. Can you tell me why you’re here in no more than, say, a dozen words?”

  Bessie swallowed several replies before clearing her throat. “I came to see the turkeys I have o
rdered,” she said succinctly.

  Anna made a note. “You had an appointment?”

  “I did.”

  “With whom?”

  Bessie shrugged. “I’ve always met with Eoin in the past, but I was happy enough to see Fenella or just about anyone, really.”

  “With Eoin, then?”

  “I suppose so,” Bessie agreed, just resisting the urge to sigh.

  “What time did you arrive?”

  “Around half one, I think. I wasn’t really paying close attention.”

  Anna frowned. “What time was your appointment scheduled for?” she demanded.

  “Oh, any time this afternoon,” Bessie said, waving her hand. “I told Eoin that I would be up after lunch.”

  “So he didn’t know exactly when to expect you?”

  “I suppose not,” Bessie said.

  Anna shook her head and Bessie wondered if she lived her entire life to a strict timetable. Clearly the vague nature of Bessie’s appointment bothered her for some reason.

  “Where had you arranged to meet with Eoin?” Anna asked now.

  “We hadn’t really discussed it,” Bessie said. “I’d planned on just stopping at the house. Fenella was always home and she could have rung Eoin and asked him to meet us at the turkey pens.”

  “But you didn’t plan to meet at the turkey pens?” Anna checked.

  “No, because I wasn’t sure when I would get here. I didn’t want Eoin to have to spend the day at the pens waiting for me. He has a very large farm to run.”

  “Why didn’t you set a specific time? Surely that would have been more efficient for both you and Eoin?”

  Bessie smiled to herself. This was clearly a woman who never made last-minute plans. “I wasn’t sure how the day was going to go,” she explained. “I didn’t know for certain that Doona was going to do the driving. I don’t drive and Doona usually works on a Monday. Things might have gone very differently if I’d had to catch a taxi out here.”

  “And you didn’t mind keeping Eoin waiting for your arrival?”

  “He didn’t mind leaving the appointment time vague,” Bessie corrected her. “I knew that once I arrived I might have to wait a bit for him to join me, but that was fine with me.”