Aunt Bessie Volunteers

by Diana Xarissa

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Bessie said.

  He grinned. “I’m Harold Newman. I’d be willing to bet that you’ve come in especially to see me.”

  “I wouldn’t mind having a word with you, actually,” Bessie told him. “I’m sure you know that the police are trying to track down Lauren Bell.”

  He nodded and then looked nervously towards the kitchen. “If I suddenly change the subject, it will be because my son is in earshot. If he hears that woman’s name, he’ll ring my wife and she’ll come down.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?” Bessie asked.

  Harold gave her a tight smile. “I’d just rather not upset her again.”

  “What cakes do you have today?” Doona changed the subject.

  Harold rattled off a short list that made Bessie’s stomach growl.

  “I’ll have the chocolate gateau,” Doona said. “It’s a bit early in the day, but it’s never a bad time for chocolate, really. And a cup of tea, too, please.”

  “Victoria sponge for me,” Bessie added, “and tea.”

  Harold nodded. “I’ll get that sorted for you and then we can chat.”

  As the women waited, the couple across the room got up and left.

  “And you were worried it would be busy,” Doona said softly.

  “We’ll just have to talk very quietly so Harold’s son doesn’t ring his mother.”

  “Here we are,” Harold said a moment later, delivering tea and generous slices of cake to the table.

  “This looks lovely,” Bessie exclaimed.

  “I’ve told Herman that you used to be a regular and that I was going to join you for a chat as it isn’t busy,” he said as he sat down between the women.

  “Herman?” Bessie asked.

  “My son. He runs the café. I just work here. We try to treat it as if we aren’t related, so this chat will constitute my official morning break.”

  “Which probably isn’t too long. We should talk fast,” Doona suggested.

  “Oh, Herman won’t care if we talk for hours, as long as there aren’t any other customers in here. He’d do the same with any employee, not just me.”

  “What can you tell us about Lauren Bell, then?” Bessie asked before taking a bite of her cake.

  “She was the biggest mistake of my life,” Harold replied, shaking his head. “I was married to a wonderful woman. We had the chippy and we’d worked really hard together to make it a success. Harold was a baby and we were talking about having another child. Then, one day, Lauren walked into the chippy and I lost my mind.” He stopped speaking and stared off into space.

  “This is very good,” Bessie said after a long pause.

  “The cake? Thank you. My wife bakes them all herself,” Harold said. “She didn’t even know she enjoyed baking until we got rid of the chippy and bought this place. Turns out she’s great at making cakes, and now she’s starting to try her hand at pies.”

  “Pies? Maybe next time,” Doona said.

  “But you were saying,” Bessie said encouragingly.

  “Oh, I was admitting to being an idiot,” he sighed. “I met Lauren and I forgot about everything that matters. It only took her a few weeks to convince me to run away with her. She was just desperate to get off the island, of course. She didn’t really care about me at all.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bessie said.

  “Thank you, but your sympathy is misplaced. I deserved everything I got for leaving Angela and Herman as I did. We went across and I thought we were going to start a new life together, but she wasn’t interested in working. She wanted to keep moving around, living off of the money I’d been saving for other things. Sadly, it took me a few months to realise that I was being used. By that time I’d spent about half of my savings. There was no way I could come back to the island under those conditions, so I found myself a job and I worked every single hour that I could until I’d replaced every penny that Lauren had spent. Then I came back and begged Angela to forgive me.”

  “What happened to Lauren?” Bessie asked.

  “We split up when I realised what she really wanted from me. We were in Milton Keynes at the time and she stayed there for a short while.” He blushed and then leaned forward towards Bessie. “She stayed in the flat I rented for another month or two, but only because she didn’t have anywhere else to go. We weren’t still together by that point.” He sat back and sighed.

  Bessie took a sip of her tea. “Where did she go next?”

  “I’m not sure. One day she came back to the flat and told me she was leaving. She said she’d found herself a real man with real money and that she was off to travel the world. I wished her good luck. I didn’t think I’d ever see her again.”

  “But you did?” Doona asked.

  “When I finally got back to the island, I was surprised to learn that she was already back here. Apparently we moved back within a few days of one another. My wife didn’t want to believe me that we’d split up months before, but in the end, she took me back anyway.”

  “Lauren didn’t stay on the island for long, though,” Bessie remarked.

  Harold shook his head. “She was only here for a few months, maybe not even that long. Then she left again.”

  “Do you know why she left?” Bessie asked.

  He glanced around the room and then shook his head. “I never spoke to her again, not after I got back to the island,” he said in a rush.

  Bessie glanced at Doona. Harold was lying, she was sure of it.

  “Can you imagine how she might have ended up in the tower at Peel Castle?” Bessie asked.

  Harold looked shocked. “I know that’s why you’re looking for her, but there’s no way that skeleton was her.”

  “How can you be so certain?” Bessie wondered.

  “She left of her own accord,” he replied.

  “That may be what you were told, but if you never spoke to her, you can’t be certain. Maybe she got involved with another married man and he killed her and left her body at the castle.”

  “I’m sure she got involved with another married man, but they left the island together,” Harold said.

  “How can you be sure? Do you know the man’s name or where they went?” Bessie challenged.

  Harold flushed. “No, of course not. That was just Lauren, though. She hated the island and she was oddly attracted to married men.”

  “Maybe she chose the wrong one to get involved with this time,” Doona said. “If the man she was having the affair with didn’t kill her, maybe his wife did.”

  “I don’t think so,” Harold said stiffly. “I’m sure she’s absolutely fine, living somewhere in the UK with whomever she ran away with all those years ago.”

  “Given her track record with relationships, I’d be very surprised if she’s still with the same man,” Bessie said dryly. “If she was absolutely fine, why hasn’t she stayed in touch with her family?”

  “They disowned her because of me,” Harold said sadly. “They were very religious, her mother and father. When she came back, they wouldn’t see her or even speak to her on the telephone. She ended up staying with some distant cousins for a short while until she left again.”

  “If she left again,” Bessie said softly.

  Harold opened his mouth and then snapped it shut. “I should go and see if Herman needs any help in the kitchen,” he said, getting to his feet.

  “He’s hiding something,” Doona said as the kitchen door swung shut behind him.

  “He stayed in touch with Lauren after their relationship ended. That’s the only thing that makes sense,” Bessie replied.

  “He knew all about what happened to her once she got back to the island, even though he claimed he didn’t even know she was here.”

  “Exactly, and he’s far too confident that she’s alive and well. He must know where she is now.”

  “We just have to find a way to get him to tell us,” Doona sighed.

  “Maybe not. Maybe we can get him to get Lauren to ri
ng Anna. That might be easier for everyone.”

  “Maybe. The cake is wonderful, anyway.”

  “It’s excellent. I’m going to have to start coming in here more often.”

  “It’s just a bit too far from home to be convenient, and I don’t often visit Onchan.”

  “No, I don’t, either,” Bessie agreed.

  “The park is nice. I brought the kids down for a round of crazy golf the other day. We had fun.”

  Bessie nodded. She opened her mouth to reply, but stopped when the outside door swung open. The woman who walked into the café glanced around and then frowned at Bessie. She crossed the room and then dropped into the chair that Harold had vacated.

  She looked to be of a similar age to Harold. Her grey hair was pulled into a tight bun on the top of her head, and her eyes were red-rimmed as if she’d been crying. She stared at Bessie for a moment and then sighed.

  “I’m Angela Newman. I understand you’ve been talking to Harold about that woman I shall not name.”

  Chapter 12

  Bessie nodded slowly. “The police are trying to determine if she might be the woman whose skeleton was found at Peel Castle.”

  “I should be so lucky,” Angela snapped. “There’s no way that woman is dead. Evil doesn’t die.”

  “Angela? What are you doing here?” Harold demanded as he walked out of the kitchen.

  “Herman rang me. He said you were talking about that woman again.”

  “You know how Aunt Bessie is always getting involved in these things. She came in especially to ask me about Lauren.”

  Angela stiffened. “We had an agreement.”

  “I’m sorry,” he replied quickly. “I didn’t mean to say her name. I was just discussing her with Bessie, that’s all.”

  “You’re Laxey’s Aunt Bessie?” Angela asked.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You look older in your photographs.”

  Bessie wasn’t certain how to reply to that remark.

  “What has Harold told you, then?” Angela asked after a moment.

  “I told them the whole miserable story,” Harold replied. “They were really only interested in where she is now, though. Of course, I couldn’t help them.”

  “Couldn’t? Or wouldn’t?” Angela shot back. “You know exactly where she is, don’t you?”

  Harold flushed. “You know I haven’t spoken to her since we split up thirty-odd years ago.”

  “It was thirty-three years, three months, four days, and,” she glanced at her watch, “four hours ago, based on what you told me when you came back to the island.”

  “There you are, then,” Harold said, staring at the ground.

  Angela looked over at Bessie. “You never married, did you?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “What about you?” she asked Doona.

  “I’ve been married twice, but I’m single now,” Doona replied.

  “You’re both smarter than I am,” Angela said. “I was foolish to get married in the first place. I had a bit of money. My parents both passed away in the same year and they left me a small house and a few bank accounts. I suddenly found that I was considerably more attractive to men.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Harold protested.

  “He was the most persistent,” Angela said, nodding at Harold. “I thought he meant all the pretty words he said. We used my inheritance to buy the chippy. He didn’t have a penny to his name when we met.”

  “That’s not fair. I’d worked hard and I’d saved some money before I met you. I spent most of my savings courting you, remember?”

  Angela laughed harshly. “And I spent every penny I had setting you up in business.” She glanced at Bessie. “I fell pregnant almost immediately. That hadn’t been in the plans, but I was pleased. He wasn’t.”

  “I wanted to get the business up and running before we started our family. That was what we agreed on when we got married,” Harold said.

  “He nearly left me when I told him about the baby. I should have let him go. I had the idea, though, that I needed him,” Angela sighed.

  “I needed you,” Harold said.

  Angela looked at him for a minute and then shook her head. “He needed my money and he needed me working at the chippy so that he didn’t have to hire anyone else. I worked there until the week before Herman was born and went back to work when Herman was ten days old. We had a cot in the corner and I used to feed him in between customers.”

  “I did try to find someone to take your place so you could stay home with Herman,” Harold protested.

  “But you never did. Instead, you left,” Angela retorted.

  “How many times do I have to apologise for that?” Harold asked. “I’m sorry. Laur, er, that woman mesmerised me, put me under some sort of spell or something. I’ve told you a million times that I’m sorry and that she was the biggest mistake of my life. I’m sorry.”

  “We never talk about her,” Angela told Bessie. “I hadn’t even thought about her in years, really. Now, with the body at Peel Castle, she’s all over the papers and I can’t stop thinking about her.”

  “If the police can find her, they’ll cross her off the list and she’ll fade back to obscurity,” Bessie suggested.

  “I know Harold knows where she is now. He’s been lying to me for years, but I know he’s kept in touch with her. Tell them,” she said to Harold.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered, staring at the wall.

  “Look at me,” Angela commanded. After a moment, he looked up and met her cold stare. “You lied to the police, just the same as you’ve been lying to me for all these years. If you tell Bessie what you know, at least I won’t have to see her name in the papers any longer.”

  “I told you I haven’t spoken to her in years,” he protested.

  “That’s a conversation we can have later,” she replied. “I’m looking forward to listening to you try to explain why you’ve kept in touch with her and why you’ve lied to me about it for over thirty years.”

  “I haven’t kept in touch, exactly,” Harold said slowly. “I truly haven’t spoken to her in many years, but I do know a bit about where she went and where she might be now.”

  “Tell Bessie,” Angela said.

  “She left the island with a man called Liam Pearce. He was over here on a short-term work contract, just for six weeks or so. It wasn’t long enough for him to bring his wife and their three children along.”

  Angela inhaled sharply. “She took a man with three children away from his wife?” she asked angrily.

  “Yes,” Harold replied softly. “I don’t know the whole story, just bits of it, really. I did my best to avoid Lau, er, that woman, but sometimes she’d come into the chippy when she knew that I would be alone there.”

  Angela made a noise. “The nerve,” she snapped.

  “Yes, I told her not to come in, but she never listened to me. She used to bring Liam in with her. I think she wanted to flaunt him in front of me for some reason. He was a very senior executive with his company. He had a fancy car and expensive suits, where I always smelled of fish and chips.”

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Angela interjected.

  Harold shrugged. “She came in alone one day to tell me she was leaving. She said that she didn’t have anyone else on the island to tell, as her family wouldn’t talk to her anymore, but she wanted someone to know where she’d gone. I believe she thought that, in spite of everything, that she might inherit her parents’ money one day. She wanted to be sure that someone would be able to find her if she did.”

  “She could have left an address with her parents’ advocate,” Angela said.

  “She could have, but she didn’t,” Harold shrugged. “She told me that she was going with Liam and that he was going to set her up with a flat in London.”

  “Behind his wife’s back, of course,” Angela interjected.

  “I believe so,” Harold replied.

  “Have you
heard from her since?” Bessie asked.

  “She sends odd notes and postcards,” Harold admitted, glancing at Angela and then looking away, his face beetroot red.

  “To where?” Angela demanded.

  “To the chippy,” he replied. “I haven’t had any in a while, but the new owners used to ring me whenever anything turned up.”

  “The police will want to see the notes and postcards,” Bessie said.

  “I don’t keep them,” Harold said quickly. “I can remember the address she gave me, though, where she said I could write back to her.” He gave Bessie an address in London. She wrote it down carefully.

  “How often do you write to her?” Angela demanded.

  “I don’t write to her,” he replied.

  “You have the address memorised,” she said. “That only happens if you use it repeatedly.”

  He flushed. “I sent her a note now and then, years ago,” he said after a moment. “It seemed rude not reply when she was writing to me, you see.”

  “I don’t see. You promised me that you wouldn’t have anything to do with that woman ever again.”

  “I never meant to hurt you. As I said before, she cast a spell on me, one that still affects me even now,” he replied sadly.

  Angela nodded and got to her feet. “Tell the police what Harold has told you,” she said to Bessie. “I hope they find her alive and desperately unwell.” She turned and swept out of the café. Bessie and Doona watched the door close behind her.

  “How was everything?” Harold asked after a minute.

  “Good,” Bessie replied. She took out her wallet and pulled out a twenty pound note. “This should cover it, I hope,” she said.

  “Let me get you some change,” Harold replied.

  “Not necessary,” Bessie said. She got to her feet and walked to the door, with Doona on her heels. They were back in the car before Bessie spoke again.

  “I’m sorry about rushing out in that way, but I didn’t want to spend another minute with that man. I’m not certain I could have been polite to him.”