“I can’t imagine living in London.”
“It was a good career move, if nothing else. I was there for ten years before I moved again, but this time I moved because I was offered a much better job in Birmingham. My next move after Birmingham was to the island. I thought that coming over here, taking the position at the Laxey station, would be a smart move at my age. The job was meant to be mostly administrative, and I thought I’d prefer that now that I’m getting older. I was wrong. Fortunately, a position opened up in Castletown. I didn’t want to think about moving back across.”
“Do you like the island that much?” Bessie asked in surprise.
“I’ve come to love the island, actually. The way of life, the pace of life, the people, the scenery, it’s all very special. I wish I’d moved here years ago. I was offered a job here back in the seventies, but I turned it down.”
“Did you like Castletown?”
Anna gave her a wry smile. “You must have heard by now what happened in Castletown. The island is too small for me to believe that you haven’t.”
“I’ve heard a few things, but I’d rather hear the truth from you.”
“It was simply history repeating itself. I should have known better, really, but I was foolish. I met a man, a handsome, smart, funny man, and I fell in love almost immediately. After Doug, I’d deliberately kept men at arm’s length. I’d focussed on my career, becoming harder and more shut off from my emotions. That was how I coped with my loss. When I met Jacob, for the first time in nearly thirty years I let my guard down. That was stupid.”
“Sometimes we have to take chances in life. If he’d been a better person, you might have been very happy together.”
“If is the right word. I thought I knew what I was doing. I told him about my past, not in this much detail, but that I’d been badly hurt multiple times. He was sympathetic and made all manner of promises. I was dumb enough to think he meant what he said.”
“I’ll never understand men.”
Anna laughed. “I’m not sure I want to understand men. I’m not sure I want to understand how a man could lie about his feelings and deliberately mislead someone just to get her into bed. Whatever, once he’d accomplished his goal, he lost interest very quickly. I was heartbroken.”
“I’m sorry.”
“The chief constable was kind, anyway. He sent me to a place across for an extended holiday. There were people there that I could have talked to, trained counselors and that sort of thing, but it wasn’t required. We were right on the sea, and I took long walks and long naps and just let myself relax. When it was time to leave, I decided that I wanted to come back to the island, even though I knew that people would be talking about me.”
“They aren’t, really, at least not much,” Bessie told her. “I hadn’t heard a single word about any of this before I saw you at Peel Castle. Then I rang a few sources and asked for the skeet. I promise you that I won’t repeat a word you said today, either.”
“I appreciate that. I’m hoping that I can do some good work in Peel. I have no intention of letting another man into my life. Men have always been at the root of my troubles.”
Starting with your father, Bessie thought but didn’t say. “I hope everything works out for you,” Bessie said sincerely, feeling as if she understood Anna Lambert a good deal better now. Whether she could come to like her was another matter, but she had a new level of respect for her after learning about her difficult past.
“I’m just keeping my head down and doing my job. I’ll ring you or come over in a few days to get some more names to investigate. I appreciate your help.”
“You’re more than welcome. I’m always happy to help the police, especially when there’s a dead body involved.”
“I keep hoping that she wasn’t murdered,” Anna admitted. “Although that seems preferable to her being accidentally locked inside the tower while still alive.”
Bessie shivered. “I don’t much like either of those ideas.”
“Let’s just hope we can find a solution. I’d hate to have an unsolved case as the first thing next to my name at my new posting.” Anna got to her feet. “I’ve taken up your entire afternoon. I do apologise. Perhaps I should have taken advantage of the counselors when I was away. It seems I did need someone to talk to after all.”
“You know where to find me if you want to talk again,” Bessie told her.
“I’ve told you my entire life story. I can’t imagine what else we could talk about. I know your story, as well. You’ve had your share of tragedy, haven’t you?”
“I never lost a child,” Bessie countered.
“But you never got to carry one inside of you, either. I don’t regret having my daughter, even though she was only with me for a short while. She was still the best thing that I’ve ever done.” Anna wiped her eyes as she headed for the door. “No one knows about the baby,” she said when she reached it. “I’d rather you didn’t mention it to anyone.”
“As I said, I won’t repeat anything you’ve said here.”
“Thank you,” Anna replied. She opened the door and then took a deep breath and squared her shoulders before marching out.
Bessie watched as Anna climbed into her car and drove away. After shutting and locking the door, she gathered up plates and cups and began to do the washing-up automatically, her mind racing. Clearly, Anna had had a difficult life. That inspector in Castletown should be ashamed of himself for treating her so badly. As she dried the dishes and put them away, she wondered what had ever happened to Doug, Anna’s former husband. For a moment she was tempted to try to find him. Perhaps, if he and Anna were reunited, they would fall in love again. After spinning the fantasy for a minute, Bessie stopped herself. Doug had probably remarried; he may even have passed away, or moved to Canada, or any one of a number of possibilities. Tracking him down might simply cause even more heartache for Anna.
Feeling too restless to do anything productive, Bessie took a long walk on the beach, not getting home until well past her normal dinner hour. After tea, biscuits, and cake with Anna, she wasn’t particularly hungry anyway. She heated a tin of soup and ate that with a slice of toast. Still feeling emotionally drained by the conversation with Anna, Bessie didn’t feel up to working with Onnee’s letters again. Instead, she curled up with a few magazines that she’d purchased months earlier and never read. They were filled with celebrity gossip that was now well out of date, but as Bessie didn’t recognise any of the so-called celebrities in the articles, it didn’t really matter. She forced herself to read until she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer before taking herself to bed.
She woke up the next morning with a sense of purpose. Determined to do everything she could to help Anna, she started by digging out her diaries for the relevant years. With a cup of tea at her elbow, she opened the first book and began to read.
Chapter 5
An hour later, Bessie shut her last diary from the early seventies and dropped it back into the box where she’d found it. “What was I thinking?” she demanded loudly. One of these days, she’d have to have a big bonfire and burn all of the books, she decided. Her heirs would wonder about her sanity if they read some of the things she’d written.
After a cup of tea, once she’d recovered from the disappointment of not finding anything that might help Anna, she was able to laugh at her former self. What she’d found in her diaries was a mixed bag of both too much information and not nearly enough. On one page she could find an almost hour-by-hour account of a single day when nothing much had happened. She’d recorded what she’d eaten, what book she’d been reading, how far she’d gone on each of the three walks she’d taken, and a dozen other bits of minutiae that wouldn’t have been interesting at the time and certainly weren’t thirty-odd years later.
Then there were pages and pages with only the minimum of notes, some of which were intriguing and frustrating in equal measure. “Man missing from ferry,” one note read. Try as she might, Bessie couldn’
t remember anything else about the incident. Who was the missing man? Had he ever been found? Bessie had no idea and her diary was no help. The incident was never mentioned again, at least not in the books that Bessie had pulled out from the back of her wardrobe. She’d read the books dated from the late fifties through to the early seventies and hadn’t found a single mention of any women who had gone missing. Even Emma Gibson didn’t rate a note, although the turkey sandwich that Bessie had eaten on the twenty-fourth of April 1957 was recorded.
The entire exercise had been a waste of time, but it had filled the morning. Now, as the local paper was being delivered around the island, Bessie could start ringing her friends. Wanting to be certain that she wasn’t getting ahead of herself, once she’d eaten lunch she walked up to the shop at the top of the hill to get herself a copy of the paper. The young man behind the till was a stranger to Bessie.
“Hello,” she said brightly as she walked into the shop.
“Yeah,” he replied, glancing up from his phone for a second.
Bessie frowned and then quickly made her way through the aisles, grabbing a few things she needed. When she got to the till, the shop assistant rang up her purchases without saying a word.
“How much, then?” Bessie asked when he was done putting everything into a bag.
“It’s there,” he grunted, pointing to the total displayed on the till.
“It’s polite to tell the customer anyway,” Bessie replied.
He blinked at her and then shrugged and read out the numbers. Bessie handed him a twenty pound note and waited for her change. When he gave it to her without speaking, she thought about requesting that he count it back to her, but decided it wasn’t worth the bother. In the future, she’d try to avoid the shop and the disagreeable young man.
Back at home, she read through the entire paper. While she learned a few things about some recent government initiatives and found out all of the local sports scores, there was nothing different in the article about the skeleton in Peel from what Anna had told her. Dan Ross quoted the inspector as saying that the investigation was “active and ongoing,” which sounded fairly meaningless to Bessie.
With that out of the way, Bessie settled in to get comfortable and picked up her phone. When she finally put it down several hours later, she had a list of four women who were possibilities. It didn’t seem much for the amount of time and effort Bessie felt she’d put in, but it was the best she could do. She’d spoken to nearly all of her closest friends and acquaintances, including a few women who’d done nothing much with their lives beyond gossip. While she was tempted to start asking questions about the women herself, she knew that was a job for the police. Sighing deeply, she stood up and stretched slowly. What she needed now was a walk on the beach.
It was sunny but cold as she walked briskly away from Treoghe Bwaane. Having spent so many hours sitting down, her legs seemed to want to walk forever. She sped past the holiday cottages and Thie yn Traie, determined to keep going until she felt less restless. A short while later, the new houses that had been built less than a year earlier came into view. Bessie continued past them, not stopping until she’d reached the stretch of beach where another row of houses was about to be built.
The sign on the sand told her that only three plots remained unsold of the ten that were proposed. From where Bessie was standing, the site didn’t look big enough to hold ten houses, but someone must have measured everything before the plans had been submitted. While the houses were meant to be detached, Bessie was certain that they’d end up being very close together, maybe even more so than the new houses that she’d just walked past.
While she was tempted to walk further, Bessie was starting to get tired. Taking a deep breath of sea air, she turned and began to stroll back towards home. There were only a few signs of life in the new houses as Bessie approached them. She smiled and then waved when she spotted Grace at the sliding door at the back of the house she shared with Hugh and the baby.
“Aunt Bessie, how are you?” Grace called, having slid open the large glass door.
“I’m fine, but don’t let the baby get a chill,” Bessie replied.
“She’s well wrapped up. We were just coming outside for a bit of fresh air,” Grace explained. She stepped outside and then pushed the door shut behind herself. “I try to get her out every day, at least for a short while. Sea air is good for everyone.”
“It’s been good for me, anyway,” Bessie laughed.
“I’m sure it’s good for Aalish as well. She’s getting so big so quickly.”
Bessie looked at the baby. As far as Bessie could tell, Aalish didn’t look all that different from the last time Bessie had seen her, but she didn’t say that to Grace. “How are you doing, then?”
“We’re doing well. I loved having Mum here, but I think it’s better for all of us that she’s back in Douglas now. She still visits nearly every day, but she isn’t usually here when Hugh gets home from work.”
“Do Hugh’s parents visit much?” Bessie had to ask.
“His mum comes over at least once a week. I think she’d come more often, but she doesn’t feel entirely comfortable here, even when Hugh is at home, and he isn’t always able to be here when she visits. His father came once, but he didn’t seem all that interested in Aalish.”
“That’s probably typical for men of that generation. What about your father?”
“Oh, Dad loves Aalish to bits, but he’s busy with work and all of his other things. He comes up most Saturdays to spend a few minutes with us, but then he usually has plans to golf or has some sort of committee meeting or something.”
“So you and Hugh are having to cope on your own for the most part.”
“Which is how it should be, as Aalish is our baby. I’m really happy that I can stay home with her for now, but I have been thinking about going back to work, too. Staying home is, well, not quite what I expected.”
“I imagine it’s rather dull, really, even though Aalish is hard work.”
“It is rather dull, if I’m honest. I love every minute with Aalish, but the cooking, cleaning, laundry, and whatever that take up all the rest of my time isn’t any fun at all.”
“Maybe you could do supply teaching and only work a few days a week come September. That might be the best of both worlds.”
“I’d like that. I was talking to the head of the primary school here in Laxey about doing just that, actually, but he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to use me all that much. He did say that a bad tummy bug went through the school a few years ago and he ended up having to bring in a supply teacher for two days each week as just about each teacher fell ill in turn. Am I a terrible person if I wish for another, similar bug?”
Bessie laughed. “Perhaps you could wish for something like a training scheme that takes each teacher out of school for a few days, one after another. That would be nicer than a tummy bug.”
“You’re right, of course, and I’m not actually certain that I want to go back to work anyway. In theory, it sounds good, but I’m afraid I’ll miss Aalish too much if I actually try.”
“Perhaps you should start by going out for a meal with Hugh. I’m sure he’d love an hour or two of your undivided attention.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Not at all. I’m not sure if the idea has even crossed his mind.”
Grace made a face. “I have been neglecting him, of course, but Aalish is incredibly demanding.”
Bessie looked at the tiny bundle curled up in her mother’s arms. “I’m sure you’re right, but at the moment she doesn’t seem at all demanding.”
“I fed her, changed her nappy, and put her in clean clothes just before we walked out of the house. I probably have another half an hour before she’ll start wanting something again.”
“She seems fascinated by everything.”
“Yes, Mum reckons she doesn’t sleep as much as other babies. Of course, Mum is convinced that she’s going to be a genius, but she thou
ght the same about me and my siblings, and we’re all sadly normal.”
“Normal can be quite a good thing.”
“Oh, yes, of course. One of my friends just had a baby who has had all manner of complications. I’m ever so thankful that Aalish seems completely normal, at least so far. From my years of teaching, I’m well aware of the many differences between children and their abilities, many of which are invisible and some of which are difficult to diagnose. All Hugh and I can do is try our best to give Aalish the best possible start in life.”
“I think you’re doing a wonderful job so far,” Bessie told her.
Aalish picked that moment to wrinkle up her tiny face. A second later, she began to cry, quietly at first, but with rapidly increasing volume.
“My goodness, what’s wrong?” Bessie asked.
“She’s probably just bored. She could be hungry, or she could need a new nappy. Maybe she’s a bit cold or a bit hot or just ready for a nap,” Grace replied with a sigh. “I do wish she’d hurry up and learn to talk.”
Bessie chuckled. “You’ve a while to go yet before that will happen,” she said. “I’m going to leave you to it. Good luck.”
Grace nodded. “Come on then, pet,” she said to Aalish. “Let’s go back inside and see if we can work out what’s bothering you.”
Aalish’s sobs got quieter as Grace turned and opened the door into the house. “She just doesn’t want any less than one hundred per cent of my attention,” Grace muttered as she stepped into the house.
Bessie grinned and continued on her way. As she reached the stairs to Thie yn Traie, she saw Maggie going into the last cottage in the row of holiday cottages. Maggie was the one person she hadn’t yet rung about the missing women. Now was probably a good time to try to speak to her, actually.
“Hello?” she called as she approached the last cottage. Maggie had left the cottage’s door wide open. “Maggie?”
“Who’s that?” Maggie demanded, sounding nervous.
Aunt Bessie Volunteers Page 7
