Aunt Bessie Volunteers

by Diana Xarissa

  Bessie stared her friend. The moon was doing its best to illuminate the beach, but it was too dark to see Maggie’s expression.

  “Sit down,” she suggested, patting the rock.

  “I should get home,” Maggie replied.

  “What’s wrong?” Bessie asked softly.

  Maggie took a deep breath and then walked over and sat down next to Bessie. “I’m worried about Thomas,” she said in a whisper. “There, I’ve said it.”

  As Maggie began to sob, Bessie patted her pockets, searching for tissues. “I’m sorry,” she said after a moment. She patted the woman’s back, wondering if Maggie would notice if she dashed up to her cottage for tissues.

  “I’m just tired of being strong all the time,” Maggie said eventually. “He’s been ill for months and he doesn’t seem to be getting better. The doctors keep saying that we need to be patient, that he’s older so it takes longer for his body to heal, but I’m not convinced. What if there’s something more serious wrong? What if he’s dying? I can’t run the business on my own. I can’t live on my own, either.”

  “Just because he’s taking time to recover doesn’t mean he won’t. If the doctors aren’t worried, you shouldn’t be, either.”

  “Doctors don’t know everything. My cousin’s sister went to the doctor on a Monday and he said everything was just fine. She dropped dead on Tuesday without warning.”

  “What killed her?”

  “The doctor said it was just one of those things. Her heart just stopped. It was her time.”

  “That’s terribly sad.”

  “She was ninety-eight, of course, so a good deal older than Thomas, but still.”

  “If you aren’t happy with his doctors, you can always ask to see someone else,” Bessie suggested.

  “I told Thomas that, but he’s happy with his doctors, even if I’m not. He doesn’t realise just how unwell he actually is, of course.”

  “I’m sure the cold weather isn’t helping. Thomas will probably rally in the spring.”

  “He’d better. As I said, I can’t live without him.”

  “You’re stronger than you think you are.”

  “Let’s talk about something else,” Maggie said. “Tell me about the case. Surely there’s something you can talk about to do with the case.”

  “Someone said I should talk to Louise Larkin about Hannah Butler.”

  “That makes sense. Hannah used to work for Louise back in the day. I’m sure, if anyone knows where to find Hannah now, it will be Louise.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know Louise,” Bessie said.

  Maggie laughed. “You do, though. Everyone on the island knows her. You just know her nickname rather than her real name. She’s LouLar.”

  “LouLar?” Bessie echoed. “I never realised that was short for Louise Larkin. I also never realised that she worked in the shop in Kirk Michael. I only know her because of her charity work.”

  “She’s been raising money for the Wildlife Park since it first opened. It’s something of an obsession of hers.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly how I’d describe it,” Bessie chuckled. “I haven’t seen her in years, but the last time I saw her she spent half an hour trying to persuade me to adopt a pelican. We don’t cross paths very often, luckily.”

  “She must be over a hundred years old,” Maggie speculated. “The last time I saw her, which was probably five years ago, she was still working part-time in the shop and still raising money for the animals. She knows everyone on the island, of course, but she doesn’t gossip.”

  Bessie nodded. She’d heard the same about the woman, although she’d have put her age at closer to eighty than a hundred. “I don’t suppose you know when she works at the shop?”

  “Goodness, no. As I said, I haven’t seen her in years. She used to work every morning, but I’m sure she’s cut her hours now. She may even have retired, for all I know. She’s still alive, though. We’d have heard about it if she’d passed away.”

  The pair chatted for a few more minutes about nothing much. Eventually, Maggie got to her feet.

  “I need to get home. Thomas needs his medication and then he needs to be tucked up to bed. I suppose I should get some sleep, too.”

  “Give Thomas my best,” Bessie told her. “Tell him I’m looking forward to seeing him down here one day soon.”

  Maggie nodded. “I’ll tell him, but I wouldn’t count on it being soon, if I were you.”

  Bessie gave her an awkward hug. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Maggie nodded brusquely. “I’m sure I’ll see you around,” she said gruffly before she walked back up the beach.

  It was getting late and growing colder. Bessie got down off the rock and headed inside, feeling chilled. She was snuggled under the duvet for several minutes before she began to feel warm again. Her last waking thoughts were worried ones about both Thomas and Maggie.

  A steady rain was falling when she woke up the next morning. It didn’t seem to improve while she was in the shower. After toast with honey, Bessie pulled on her waterproofs and took herself for a short, brisk walk. When she reached the last of the holiday cottages, she turned back towards home. There were puddles everywhere and walking through the sand was difficult. She got back to Treoghe Bwaane feeling as if she’d walked a good deal further than she actually had. After a brief internal debate, she decided not to ring Anna Lambert right away, telling herself that she’d have more share with her if she spoke to LouLar first.

  Her taxi service promised to have a car at her cottage within an hour, leaving Bessie pacing back and forth while she waited. The driver who knocked on her door forty-three minutes later was a stranger to Bessie. He kept her entertained all the way to Kirk Michael with stories from his days as a London taxi driver.

  “Just leave me at the shop,” she instructed him. “I don’t know how long I’ll be, but I can ring for another car when I’m done here.”

  Chapter 10

  “Elizabeth Cubbon,” a voice said from somewhere as Bessie walked into the shop.

  She looked around and then spotted the woman that everyone called “LouLar” in a chair in a corner of the room. Her grey hair was thin, caught up in a loose bun at the back of her head. As Bessie walked towards her, she decided that Maggie might be right. LouLar might well be close to a hundred years old. She was wearing thick glasses, and when she smiled, there were several gaps in the teeth.

  “LouLar,” Bessie replied. “How are you?”

  “Old,” LouLar replied. “Same as you. At least you’re still getting around, anyway. My knees have both quit working, so I spend all my time stuck in chairs, either here or in my house.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  LouLar shrugged. “I’m still alive, that’s the important thing. I’m still raising money for the animals, too. It’s been my life’s work.”

  “You’ve done a great deal of good, too.”

  “I hope so. I always thought I’d get married and have children, but I never managed to find a husband. I had a near miss when I was nineteen, but then someone better looking came along and he took off.” She laughed. “I think I made a lucky escape with that one, really. Anyway, I’ve had a good long life on my own, working here and helping the Wildlife Park. My doctor reckons I should have passed on years ago, but then he’s my third G.P. because the first two died on me.”

  Bessie smiled. She’d outlived a few doctors herself. “I can’t believe you’re still working.”

  “Oh, I’m not, not really. If you actually want to buy anything, I’ll shout for Clara. She’s in the back, pretending to take stock while she texts her boyfriend. She’s meant to come out when the door buzzer rings, but she ignores it most of the time.”

  “I came to speak to you anyway.”

  “I thought as much. There are plenty of shops between here and Laxey. We don’t carry anything special.”

  “I don’t know that I’ve ever been in here before,” Bessie said as she glanced around the sm
all room. “It’s very well laid out.”

  “It’s tiny, which means we have to make careful use of every inch of space. I used to rearrange everything at least once or twice a year, but no one bothers now. I dare say the customers are happier that way, anyway, even if it’s boring for me.”

  “It’s always good to be able to find what I want easily in a shop.”

  “Yes, but it’s boring for the staff,” LouLar laughed. “I read the local paper every day. I assume you’ve come to talk to me about Hannah Butler.”

  “I have. Janice Smith suggested that you might know where she is now.”

  “Janice Smith? My goodness, I’d completely forgotten about her. Let me think for a minute.”

  Bessie took a short tour of the room as the other woman squeezed her eyes shut, muttering “Janice Smith” under her breath. It didn’t take Bessie long to decide that LouLar had been correct. The shop didn’t stock anything different to what she could find anywhere on the island.

  “She was a teacher,” LouLar said triumphantly. “She came over from across, Birmingham, maybe. This was in the late sixties, if I remember rightly. She took a room in Kirk Michael without seeing it and then discovered it wasn’t at all convenient.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with your memory.”

  “She stayed in Kirk Michael for about six weeks, maybe eight. She used to come in nearly every day. I think she simply needed to talk to another adult after a day spent with small children. I was sorry to see her go when she moved, but I knew it would be better for her to be somewhere else.”

  “What can you remember about Hannah Butler, then?” Bessie asked.

  LouLar sighed. “I’ve been thinking about her ever since I saw her name in the paper. I never would have thought of her as a possibility for what you found at Peel Castle, but once I read her name, it made sense.”

  “Why wouldn’t you have thought of her?”

  “I don’t know. She was quiet and shy and I suppose I simply couldn’t imagine her getting herself killed and hidden at Peel Castle.”

  “It might not have been murder. The police haven’t determined what happened to her yet.”

  “Really? Dan Ross made it sound as if it was a murder investigation.”

  “Yes, well, you can’t believe Dan Ross about anything.”

  LouLar laughed. “Don’t I know it. He’s all about eye-catching headlines. The articles themselves are usually incredibly disappointing, though. He never seems to know very much and he seems to speculate a great deal. I thought that Harrison Parker did a better job, but I understand he’s moved back across already.”

  “That’s what I’ve heard, as well. He wasn’t here for very long.”

  “No, but his articles were much more interesting than Dan’s usually are. Harrison always made everything sound exciting, even things like council meetings and business mergers.”

  “Apparently he did such a good job of it that he was offered a job across.”

  “And now we’re stuck with just Dan again,” LouLar sighed. “He actually comes in here fairly regularly to try to get information from me about anything that happens in this part of the island. I never tell him anything, of course.”

  “Has he been in to ask you about Hannah?”

  “Not yet, but I’m sure he will be soon, unless he doesn’t realise she used to work here.”

  “How was she to work with?”

  “As I said, she was quiet. I always thought she was shy and not very happy, either. She only worked a few hours a week, maybe ten or fifteen during the busier times of the year. That was all that she needed, as first she lived with her parents and then she inherited the house and some money when they died.”

  “Was the house here, in Kirk Michael?”

  “It was a few miles up the road, sort of in the middle of nowhere. She sold it after a while and then moved into a room in a house in the village here.”

  “Which house? Does it still have the same owners?”

  LouLar laughed and then gave her the address. “You could probably walk there from here, actually. It isn’t far. It’s been in the Quayle family for generations. That’s the Kirk Michael branch of the family, of course. Rosemary will probably remember Hannah, if she’s having a good day. Her memory comes and goes a bit these days.”

  “Is that the same Rosemary Quayle who used to have a stall at the farmers’ market in Laxey?”

  “Sure is. The family has farm acreage all over the island. George and Agatha had four boys and their wives used to take things to all the different markets, including Laxey. Rosemary didn’t like farming much, so she lived in the house here rather than staying on one of the farms. That didn’t get her out of helping out, though.”

  “She would have been living there when Hannah lodged there, then?”

  “Probably. George passed suddenly, and money became an issue for a while. That was why they took in lodgers, just for a few years. I’m pretty sure Rosemary and Junior were married before George passed. She may even have had a few babies by that time.”

  “Do you remember when Hannah left? Did she say anything about where she was going?”

  LouLar shook her head. “She just came in one day and said she wouldn’t be back. I asked a lot of questions, but she wouldn’t answer any of them. She was polite about it, but distant, if you know what I mean. Now that I think about it, I didn’t ask that many questions. I asked a few and she made it clear that she didn’t think it was any of my business, so I let it drop. We didn’t discuss it again.”

  “I don’t suppose you remember the date?”

  “I wish I did. I can narrow it down to a year and within a few months, but that’s the best I can do. It was after TT, the summer of sixty-eight, I believe. She’d been staying at the Quayle place for about three months by that time.”

  “What about friends or boyfriends? Did she have a man in her life?”

  “If she did, she kept very quiet about it. During TT, when we had extra staff on, she worked with some of the other younger girls. They were always talking about men, but I don’t remember Hannah ever joining in the conversation. I don’t know if she was shy or simply didn’t have anything to add.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t interested in men,” Bessie mused.

  “I think she was, actually. There was a man who used to shop here in those days who was very kind to her. She used to blush and stammer when he spoke to her. I suspect she was quite infatuated, really.”

  “What happened to him? Is he still on the island?”

  “I’ve no idea. He didn’t live in Kirk Michael. I believe he actually lived in Douglas, but whatever he did for a job used to bring him out this way once or twice a week. He used to come in here for cold drinks in the summer and tea in the winter. His name was Robert. I’m not certain I ever heard his surname.”

  “And you never asked?”

  LouLar laughed. “I wasn’t as nosy in those days. I talked to everyone, but I rarely asked questions. Besides, I always used to try to let Hannah take care of him when he was here. I thought it would be good for her.”

  “When did he stop coming into the shop?”

  “Oh, before Hannah left. Maybe three or four months before. I remember him telling me that we wouldn’t be seeing him again for a while, actually. He was getting married and moving to the south of the island. His fiancée’s family had a business down there, if I’m remembering correctly.”

  “What did Hannah say when she found out he was getting married?”

  “Not much, as I recall. She wasn’t here the day he told me. I mentioned it to her the next time I saw her and she just kind of shrugged.”

  “Did he come in again after that when Hannah was working?”

  LouLar stared at her for a minute. “You can’t actually expect me to remember that,” she protested. “I thought I was doing well with what I’ve told you so far.”

  “You’ve done brilliantly well. I suppose what I was really asking was whether you remember any sort of u
pset the next time Hannah saw him.”

  “I would remember if there had been any upset, so that suggests that there wasn’t, at least not when I was in the shop. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not here every minute that the shop is open, and I wasn’t in those days, either. In fact, I used to come and go even more frequently in those days, what with my fundraising efforts and time spent with friends and whatnot.”

  “If there had been any unpleasantness, you would have heard about it, though,” Bessie suggested.

  “Yes, definitely. I was in charge of the shop assistants in those days. Anything that upset any of our staff would have been reported to me.”

  “And he stopped coming in months before Hannah left?”

  “That’s how I remember it. It was a long time ago, though. You don’t think he killed her, do you?”

  “I’ve no idea. I’d like to find him and talk to him about Hannah, though, if he’s still alive.”

  “Hannah would be close to sixty now, and he wasn’t much older than she was, so he’s probably still alive. I’m not sure how you’ll find him without a surname.”

  “Did Hannah have any female friends?”

  “She was friendly with a few of the other girls in the shop, at least superficially, but she never really talked about her life. There was a girl, let me think for a minute.” LouLar shut her eyes again and began to mutter under her breath. “Abigail, Anne, Agatha, Bertha, Betty, Barbara, Claire, Candy, Darlene, Denise, Debby, no, it was a flower, I think. Aster, Rose, Daisy. It was Daisy,” she told Bessie. “Daisy Evans. Her parents had a cottage in the village and young Daisy used to come in nearly every day for odds and sods. She was another quiet one, but she and Hannah struck up a friendship. They used to go for long walks together.”

  “Does Daisy still live on the island?”

  “Oh, no, her parents moved across right around the same time we’re talking about, maybe a bit before. Daisy wasn’t going to go with them, but in the end she decided she didn’t want to stay on the island on her own.”

  “So Hannah’s parents were killed in a fire and less than a year after that a man she may have had feelings for married someone else. At the same time, her only friend moved across. Do I have that all right?”