Aunt Bessie Volunteers

by Diana Xarissa

  Bessie nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “If Sue does recover, I may just kill her,” Doona added.

  “I know you’re kidding, but I understand the sentiment. She’s caused a lot of problems for John and the children.”

  “Yes, she has,” Doona sighed.

  Bessie let Doona out and then finished tidying the kitchen. Tomorrow was another day. Maybe by the end of it they’d know what had happened to Hannah Butler. Anna seemed determined to pursue the case even after that, but Bessie wondered how far she would go to try to identify the castle skeleton. Maybe it would be better for everyone if Anna simply dropped the investigation.

  The wind was slightly less ferocious when Bessie took her walk the next morning. She found herself wandering along the sand, feeling at loose ends. It was frustrating being on the fringes of the investigation. What she really wanted to do was to talk to Daisy, but that was Anna’s job. It wasn’t the first time that Bessie had felt annoyed with the constabulary’s policy on age. She knew she was too old to apply for a job with them, no matter how much she helped John with cases. As a light rain began to fall, she turned for home.

  The day felt long and dull. Intermittent power cuts kept her from getting much of anything done. She tried working on Onnee’s letters, but with the lights going on and off, all she managed to accomplish was getting a headache. She read for a while, when she had power, and did a few household chores. Knowing that she was simply waiting to hear from Anna annoyed her, but there was nothing she could do about the situation. When the phone rang, she grabbed it quickly.

  “It’s Anna Lambert. How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” Bessie replied. “Just impatient to hear what Daisy had to say.”

  “She hasn’t said anything to me, not yet,” Anna sighed. “She never rang this morning, so I rang her after lunch. No one answered. I left a message on her machine, but she hasn’t rung back.”

  “That’s frustrating,” Bessie said.

  “Yes, it is. I don’t know what else we can do at this point, except wait for her to ring me back. If I don’t hear from her tomorrow, I may send someone from the local constabulary to speak with her. I don’t think she’s taking the situation seriously.”

  “You said she seemed distracted when you spoke with her. Maybe she didn’t really comprehend what you told her.”

  “Maybe. Time will tell,” Anna replied.

  Determined not to waste another day worrying about Hannah, Bessie rang her taxi service and arranged for a car to collect her the next morning.

  “Where will you be going?” the dispatcher asked.

  “I’m not sure yet,” Bessie replied.

  “No problem,” she laughed.

  Another grey morning had Bessie cutting her walk short. As she got ready for her taxi, she still hadn’t decided where she wanted it to take her.

  “Aunt Bessie, how are you?” Dave asked when he arrived to collect her.

  “Out of sorts and at loose ends,” she replied. “I need to get away and do something, but I’ve no idea what to do.”

  “It’s a lovely day on the other side of the island,” he told her. “I took someone to Peel Castle this morning and it was beautiful and sunny there.”

  “Really? Maybe a walk on Peel Beach would be good for me,” Bessie said.

  “It’s windy, but sunny,” Dave promised.

  The drive across the island didn’t seem to take long as Dave told Bessie all about his family as they went.

  “Are you sure you want me to leave you just here?” he asked as he pulled to a stop on the promenade.

  “Yes, this will be perfect. I’ll walk from one end to the other and then maybe stop in a café for some lunch. I’ll find a taxi rank when I’m ready to come home.”

  “You can always ring me if you can’t find a taxi,” he told her.

  “Thanks,” Bessie replied. She climbed out of the car and shut the door behind her. The wind was strong, but the sun was shining, so Bessie began her brisk walk. An hour later she was tired of fighting the wind and feeling as if she had sand in her hair and stuck in her teeth. It was too early for lunch, but just the right time for a cup of tea and a toasted teacake, she decided.

  Many of the seaside cafés were shut during the winter months, but Bessie found one that was open and went inside gratefully.

  “Sit anywhere, love,” a voice called from behind the counter at the back of the room. “I’ll be over to get your order in a minute.”

  The room was nearly empty. An older couple were sitting together near the counter, each reading the local paper. At another table, a woman was sitting on her own, staring out the window with tears in her eyes. She looked to be in her sixties, and Bessie wondered if she should speak to her or pretend she hadn’t noticed the tears.

  “Are you okay?” she asked after a moment.

  The woman looked up at her and gave her a shaky smile. “I’m fine, really, just feeling incredibly sad over the loss of a dear friend.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bessie said.

  “I lost her a long time ago, actually, I just didn’t realise it, until a few days ago. Life gets in the way, and then one day you realise that it’s been thirty-two years since you spoke to your friend. I didn’t expect to find out that she was gone, but it’s hardly surprising. We’re all getting older, of course.”

  “Losing someone is never easy under any circumstances.”

  “I’ve lost people who were much more important to me, really. My husband, my parents, close friends and family members. They were all sad, but this feels sadder for some reason. Maybe because of the way she died. I feel as if I could have saved her if I’d been here.”

  “What can I get you?” Bessie hadn’t heard the waitress coming up behind her.

  “Oh, tea and a toasted teacake, please,” she replied.

  “Will you be joining your friend?” the waitress asked.

  “We aren’t friends,” the other woman said. “But you’re welcome to join me anyway.”

  Bessie sat down across from the stranger and smiled. “I’m Elizabeth Cubbon,” she said.

  The woman looked startled. “Your name was in the papers. I read all about the body at Peel Castle on the ferry yesterday. You found the body.”

  “I was at the castle when the body was found. I didn’t actually find it myself,” Bessie replied. The distinction was important to her, even if no one else seemed to think it mattered.

  “Did she look unhappy?” was a question that surprised Bessie.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “The woman that you found, did she look sad?”

  “All that was left was a skeleton,” Bessie said gently. “I only glanced at it. I couldn’t see her head.”

  The other woman nodded and a single tear slid down her cheek. “I wish I knew what she was thinking. I should have known from her last letter what she was planning, but I was too busy with my own life to give it any thought at all.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “I’m not surprised. I doubt I’m making any sense. It’s all been such a shock. I’ve always been one for making plans and sticking to them. I planned my wedding for over two years, so long that my husband very nearly decided not to marry me. I planned all of our holidays and family outings, birthday parties, anniversary dinners, everything for the last thirty years or so. When the police rang and said they thought they’d found Hannah’s body, I did something impulsive. It’s odd and it’s left me feeling off balance, but here I am, babbling to a stranger in a nearly empty café on an island that used to be home.”

  “You’re Daisy Evans,” Bessie said.

  “I was, but I’m Daisy Eckles now. You sound as if you were expecting me.”

  “Not at all, but I’ve spoken to the police at length about who the body could be, and your name came up as the only person who might know what happened to Hannah Butler,” Bessie tried to explain.

  “Hannah was my closest friend on the
island,” Daisy replied. “That isn’t saying much, as I didn’t know very many people here. My father was offered a job over here and my parents thought the change of scenery would be good for all of us. I liked it well enough, but when my father was given a chance to move back to the UK, I decided to go with my parents rather than stay here on my own. It was the sensible thing to do.”

  “Tea and a teacake,” the waitress said, putting them on the table in front of Bessie. “Anyone need anything else?”

  “May I have more tea?” Daisy asked.

  “Sure,” the waitress replied. Bessie waited until Daisy’s cup had been refilled before she spoke again.

  “So you left and Hannah stayed behind?” she asked.

  “I did invite her to come with me. She was so very sad, you see. I thought she needed a fresh start.”

  “Why was she sad?”

  “Her parents both died in a house fire. She was out walking on the beach when they died, otherwise she probably would have been killed as well.”

  “Walking on the beach?”

  “That was what she did when she couldn’t sleep. She’d take long walks, sometimes going many miles. Her favourite place to go was Peel Castle. It was almost something of an obsession with her. She knew how to get in when the castle was closed. Once her parents were gone, she used to go there nearly every night.”

  “It’s a very long walk from Kirk Michael to Peel Castle,” Bessie pointed out.

  “She said it used to take her about two hours each way. She’d started doing it when her parents were still alive. She suffered from insomnia, you see. I believe, in those days, she didn’t walk all that far, just for an hour or so to clear her head before she went to bed. After the fire, though, she found sleeping almost impossible, especially after dark. She worried about getting caught in a fire herself. She sold the house and took a place as a lodger, thinking that might be safer, but it didn’t seem to help her sleep. That was when her obsession with Peel Castle grew stronger.”

  While Daisy sipped her tea, Bessie tried to work out how to put her next question to her. “Was there anything else that made her sad?” she eventually asked.

  “There was a man, too,” Daisy sighed. “There’s always a man, isn’t there? He was kind to her when he was in the shop where she worked. I don’t know that many men had ever been kind to her. She was odd, and her parents had been somewhat overprotective, as well. Anyway, one day he happened to mention that he was getting married. Prior to that, Hannah had always believed that some day he was going to ask her to have a meal with him or something. She was, well, heartbroken when she discovered that he was simply being kind to her.”

  “The poor girl.”

  “When I told her I was leaving, she told me that she thought she should go, too. At first I thought she meant that she was going to come to the UK with me, but then I realised that she was talking about killing herself. Of course, I did everything I could to talk her out of it. I thought I’d succeeded, too.”

  “Did you stay in touch after you left?”

  “For a short while. I’ve brought some of her letters with me, the ones that I kept. I’m not sure why I kept them, really, but in light of what’s happened, they may help the police.”

  “You think she killed herself at Peel Castle?”

  “I’m almost certain of it,” Daisy sighed. “By the time I left, the castle was the only place that felt safe to her. Stone can’t catch fire, you see. She used to sneak in after closing and sleep inside the castle. I’m not sure where, but she said something once about moving around and trying out different locations every evening.”

  “I suppose there are a number of different places she might have tried. In those days, they might not have had locks on most of them, either.”

  “She never mentioned locks. What she did say, in her last letter, was that she’d decided it was time to leave. I thought, at the time, that she was moving. She’d been sounding happier in the last two or three letters I received, so I thought maybe she was feeling better. She told me that she wasn’t certain where she was going, but that she’d write as soon as she was settled. I never heard from her again.” Tears streamed down Daisy’s face as she put her head in her hands.

  Bessie swallowed the last of her tea. “Maybe she truly was planning to start over somewhere else. Maybe she just wanted to spend one last night at Peel Castle before she went. There’s no evidence to suggest that she died of anything other than natural causes.”

  “I’d really like to believe that you’re right. I hate the thought of my friend choosing to kill herself in a dark corner of Peel Castle.”

  “You should believe whatever you want to believe,” Bessie told her.

  Daisy sighed. “I’m going to have to think about all of this. When that policewoman rang me, I was so shocked that I nearly cancelled my appointment with my doctor. All while he was telling me about my blood pressure and my medications, I kept thinking about Hannah. As soon as I left the doctor’s surgery, I went home, threw things into a bag, and took the train down to Liverpool. Except the next ferry wasn’t until the next morning, yesterday, so I had to stay in a hotel in Liverpool overnight. That gave me time to do a bit of planning, anyway, so that by the time I arrived yesterday afternoon, I had a hotel for a few nights, at least. I was too tired to do anything yesterday, so I rang for a taxi this morning and had him bring me out to the castle. I thought I would visit Hannah’s last resting place, but the castle is shut.”

  “I might be able to arrange a visit for you,” Bessie said. “You really need to talk to the police, though. Inspector Lambert has been trying to reach you for days.”

  Daisy nodded. “I wasn’t ready to talk about Hannah, not knowing that she’d died all alone in the dark. What you said, about her maybe dying of natural causes, that’s helped a great deal, though. I feel somewhat better about the whole thing now. I just wish I’d written back after I received that last letter. She said she’d be gone before I’d have time to reply, but I should have tried.”

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference,” Bessie told her reassuringly. “You did your best to be a friend to her when you were on the island. I’m sure she appreciated that.”

  “I don’t think she’d had many friends in her life,” Daisy mused. “As I said, her parents were very protective. She should have been relieved when they passed away. It gave her a chance to start living her own life for the first time.”

  “Let me ring Anna Lambert,” Bessie suggested. “I’m sure she’ll send a car for you.”

  “And you’ll see about arranging a visit to Peel Castle?” Daisy asked.

  Bessie nodded and then pulled out her mobile. “Inspector Lambert? It’s Bessie Cubbon. I’m at a café in Peel having a lovely chat with Daisy Eckles. I’m sure you’ll be interested in what she has to tell you.”

  There was a long pause and then Bessie could hear the inspector counting to ten. When she kept going on to eleven and twelve, Bessie laughed. “It was just a chance meeting,” she explained.

  “Of course it was,” Anna sighed. “I have a car on the way now. She’ll be brought to my office, where she can explain her disappearing act before she tells me all about Hannah.”

  “Once you’re finished speaking with her, she’d very much like to visit Peel Castle, to pay her respects to Hannah.”

  “She’s that certain that we’ve found Hannah, then?”

  “Indeed.”

  “I’m sure you can arrange that with your friends at Manx National Heritage. I can have her delivered to the castle at three, if that works for everyone.”

  “I’ll make it work,” Bessie promised.

  “If I’ve not finished questioning her, she may need to return to the station with me after the castle tour.”

  “I’m sure that will be fine.”

  Bessie put her phone down on the table and smiled at Daisy. “Someone will be here in a few minutes to take you to see the inspector. I’m to try to arrange a tour of Peel Castle for th
ree o’clock. The inspector has promised to bring you to the castle, even if she hasn’t finished questioning you.”

  “Thank you so much,” Daisy said, grasping Bessie’s hand. “You’ve been wonderful.”

  The uniformed constable who arrived a short time later was a stranger to Bessie.

  “Miss Cubbon?” he greeted her. “Inspector Lambert sent me.”

  “This is Mrs. Daisy Eckles,” Bessie replied. “The inspector is waiting to talk to her.”

  “And how,” the young man muttered under his breath.

  Daisy let the constable escort her out of the café. As soon as they were gone, Bessie rang Mark. It only took her a moment to persuade him to arrange to have the castle open for their tour that afternoon.

  “I may well be there myself,” he said. “Having found the body, I’d like to know what happened to the woman.”

  “I’m not sure we’ll ever know the answer to that, but at least we may know her identity now.”

  Bessie paid for her tea and for Daisy’s. With nothing else to do, she set off towards Peel Castle. When she reached the House of Mannanan, she stopped for a rest. She had a hot and filling lunch at the café next door to the museum and then walked the rest of the way to the castle down the long causeway.

  “You look as if you’ve been walking for miles,” Mark greeted her at the gate.

  “I walked up from the beach,” Bessie explained. “I stopped for lunch and a quick tour of the House of Mannanan along the way, but it was still a very windy walk.”

  “You should have told me where you were when you rang. I would have been happy to collect you on my way here.”

  “I needed the walk. I’ve heard too many sad stories in the past few days. I needed to clear my head and let the wind blow through me.”

  “It appears to have done just that.”

  Bessie went into the small staff loo and ran a comb through her hair. It was pointless, really, as she was just going to be back out in the wind in a short while, but it made her feel better. She and Mark were talking quietly when Daisy and Anna arrived.