Aunt Bessie Invites (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 9) (17 page)

“It’s my farm,” Fenella told her.
 
“I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve kept in touch with
any of the farmhands you’ve hired over the years,” Bessie said.

“Only a few,” Fenella told her.
 
“Eoin isn’t the least bit sentimental,
but some of them, the ones who stay for a year or more, become almost like
family.
 
I usually insist on getting
a forwarding address for them and I usually write, at least once or twice.
 
If they write back, I keep up the
correspondence.”

“So what’s the longest you’ve kept in touch
with anyone?” Bessie asked.

“Oh, I have one man I write to who worked
here in the forties,” Fenella told her.
 
“He got married and ended up going down the pits in Yorkshire.
 
He and my father were friends and he
used to write every year about how much he missed the island and hated it in
the mine.
 
I still get a card every
Christmas from him.
 
His wife died
about twenty years ago, but his kids are all over there, so he’s never come back.”

“I wonder if anyone you’re still in touch
with would remember Jacob,” Bessie said thoughtfully.

“I didn’t think of that,” Fenella
exclaimed.
 
“I’ll have to go through
my book and see who might have been here at the right time.”

“I don’t know, if I’d killed someone and
hidden the body, if I’d keep in touch or not,” Bessie mused.

“I think I’d simply disappear,” Fenella
said.
 
“You could do that in those
days.”

Bessie didn’t get to reply.
 
A loud buzzing noise interrupted their
talk.
 

“Someone’s at the door,” Fenella said.
 
“You stay here and I’ll go see who it
is.”

Fenella was back a moment later, with
Inspector Anna Lambert following close behind her.
 

“Would you like a cuppa?” Fenella asked the
woman.

“No, thank you,” Anna answered coolly.
 
“I just have a few quick questions.
 
I can wait until Miss Cubbon
leaves.
 
I don’t want to interrupt
your visit.”

“I just came to see my turkeys,” Bessie told
her.
 
“And then Fenella was kind
enough to make me some tea.”

“Indeed,” the woman said, frowning.

Bessie got to her feet.
 
“I’ll just ring for a taxi,” she said,
feeling flustered.
 
She dug out her
mobile.
  
After a short
conversation, she smiled sheepishly at the other women.
 
“It’s going to be a few minutes,” she
said apologetically.
 
“I can wait in
another room or outside, if you’d like.”

“Don’t be silly,” Fenella said.
 
“Sit back down and have another
biscuit.
 
The inspector can ask her
questions in front of you.
 
I
haven’t anything to hide.”

For a moment Bessie thought the policewoman
was going to argue, but after a long pause she smiled tightly.

“If you prefer,” she said.
 
Anna sat down on the edge of one of the
chairs and looked from Fenella to Bessie and back again.
 
“How many farmhands do you have working
here at any given time?” she asked.

“Oh, it varies depending on the time of
year,” Fenella answered.
 
“At
harvest time we have more, but this time of year we only have one or two.
 
Eoin and I do most of the work.”

“So you don’t employ most of them all year
around?” Anna asked.

“No.
 
We only have one or two men that are here all year.
 
They have quarters on the east end of
the farm.”

“And have either of them been here since the
nineteen-fifties?”

Fenella laughed.
 
She sobered quickly under Anna’s icy
stare.
 
“Sorry, but I don’t think
either of them were born in the nineteen-fifties,” she replied.
 
“We hire men who are young and
strong.
 
It’s a tough job and most
of them don’t do it for more than a year or two before they move on.
 
The ones that really love it, they start
saving up and buy their own little plots as soon as they can so that all of their
hard labour goes to their own profits, not someone else’s.”

“Do you still keep in touch with any of your
former farmhands, then?” was Anna’s next question.

Fenella nodded.
 
“That’s just what Bessie and I were discussing
when you arrived,” she exclaimed.

“Really?” Anna said, giving Bessie a hard
look.

“Yes, she was wondering if anyone who used
to work here might remember Jacob,” Fenella said, apparently oblivious to
Anna’s darkening mood.

“Yes, I was just wondering the same thing
myself,” Anna said.
 
“I’d appreciate
it if you could make me a list of everyone who was here in the fifties, with
their contact information.”

“Of course I can,” Fenella agreed.

When she didn’t move, Anna spoke again.
 
“Now,” she said in a commanding voice.

“Oh, I didn’t, that is, of course.”
 
Fenella got up from the table.
 
“I’ll just go and get my book,” she
said.

Bessie grabbed a biscuit and took a huge
bite, focussing all of her attention on the crumbly treat.
 
She could feel Anna’s eyes on her, but
she wasn’t brave enough to look up.
 
After only a moment, Fenella was back.

“Here we are,” she said brightly.
 
“Now, let me see.”
 

The doorbell sounded, and Bessie sighed with
relief.
 
Her taxi had arrived.
 
She said a quick good-bye to Fenella who
was now busily turning pages in her address book.
 
She gave Bessie a distracted wave as
Bessie rushed from the room.
 
At the
front door, Bessie picked up her handbag.

“I know John is rather fond of you.”
 
Anna’s icy voice stopped Bessie as she
reached for the door handle.
 
“But
I’ll thank you to stay out of my investigation.”

Bessie glanced over at the woman and
nodded.
 
“Of course,” she
muttered.
 
She pulled the door open
and nearly tripped over her own feet in her eagerness to get out of the house.
 

“Steady on,” Dave laughed, taking her
arm.
 
“I do hope you haven’t seen a
ghost.”

“Oh, no,” Bessie told him. “Although I think
that might have been less scary.”

Chapter Nine

Dave drove Bessie home, and she immediately
fixed herself a cup of tea to calm her nerves.
 
It took two cups of tea and a fancy
chocolate biscuit to finally make her feel better.

“And I haven’t even done anything wrong,”
Bessie said to her mirror image as she washed the chocolate off her
fingers.
 
“I might have been
snooping a little bit, but I didn’t ask Fenella any questions about the
body.
 
It’s only natural that she
wanted to talk about it, anyway.”
 

She made a face at herself.
 
“That woman has me talking to myself,”
she muttered as she walked back into the kitchen.
 
“This will never do.”
 
She looked out the window at the
beach.
 
A bit of sea air and
exercise were exactly what she needed.

November was always cool and there was a
light wind blowing in across the sea, so Bessie put on a warm coat before she
ventured out.
 
She put her head down
and marched steadily across the sand, trying to clear her mind.
 
She’d reached Thie yn Traie before she
began to feel soothed by the sounds of the sea.
 
Stopping at the bottom of the stairs,
she looked up the cliff at the house perched above her.
 
There were lights on inside and she
found herself wanting to climb the stairs to see what was going on.
 
She shook her head and forced herself to
turn away from temptation.
 

After walking a short distance farther,
Bessie decided to head for home.
 
She turned around and then gasped.
 
There were two people descending the stairs from Thie yn Traie to the
beach.
 
Bessie stopped and watched
as they made their way down the steep steps.
 
There was something familiar about the
couple, but Bessie was too far away to be certain who they were.
 
When they reached the ground, they
turned and began to walk towards Bessie.

“Mary?” Bessie called as she watched their
approach.
 
“George?
 
What are you two doing down here?”

George and Mary Quayle were both smiling brightly
when they reached Bessie’s side.
 
Everyone
exchanged hugs.

George had been partners with Grant
Robertson and had been questioned by the police for many weeks as they
investigated Grant’s businesses.
 
He’d
never been formally arrested, and eventually the police had determined that he
hadn’t been involved in Grant’s illegal activities.
 
While George had been busy with the
police, Mary had gone across to stay with family and friends.
 
Bessie hadn’t realised that the woman had
returned to the island.

“I was going to ring you later,” Mary
said.
 
“I just got back to the
island last night.”

“I’m so glad you’re back,” Bessie
replied.
 
“I wanted to invite you
and George to my Thanksgiving feast, but I wasn’t sure if you would be here.”

“I’m back now and not thinking of going away
again anytime soon,” Mary said emphatically.

“I don’t plan on letting her go away again,”
George added in his booming voice.

Bessie smiled at the pair.
 
George looked exactly the same.
 
He was a large man with a loud voice who
always sounded like he was selling something, a relic of his years working in
sales.
 
Mary was tiny, and after the
stresses of the previous weeks, she looked even thinner and more fragile than
ever.
 
Bessie knew that the woman’s
delicate exterior hid a steel core, but she worried about her friend
nevertheless.

“We’d love to come,” Mary told Bessie.

“But what brings you to Laxey Beach on a
cold November afternoon?” Bessie asked.

“We’re looking at Thie yn Traie,” Mary
replied.
 

“You are?” Bessie exclaimed.
 

“The house in Douglas is too large for just
us,” Mary told her.
 
“Thie yn Traie
is huge, too, of course, but it’s smaller than our current home.
 
George is ready to retire properly now
and we thought maybe we should downsize a bit.”

Only someone very rich would consider Thie yn
Traie, with its many sprawling wings, downsizing, Bessie mused.
 
She had to admit that the mansion on the
beach above them was somewhat smaller than the huge estate the couple owned on
the outskirts of Douglas, though.

“We could be neighbours,” Bessie said.

“I have to say, that’s one of the reasons I
wanted to look at the place,” Mary told her.

“I’ve only seen a few rooms inside; is it
nice?” Bessie asked.

Mary looked at George.
 
He laughed.
 
“I’m not sure I’d describe it that way,”
he said.
 
“The previous owners are
selling it fully furnished, but their taste isn’t anything like ours, which
complicates things.
 
The first thing
we’d need to do, if we do buy the house, is clear it all out.”

“It’s very cold,” Mary said.
 
“It doesn’t feel like home at all.”

“The previous owners only used it as a
summer home,” Bessie said.
  
“It never was a proper family house.”

“Well, it will be if we buy it,” Mary said
firmly.
 
“We’ve had my favourite
designer through twice now and she has many good ideas that will help warm up
the spaces.
 
Once we get our own
furniture in there and paint and decorate, it won’t be the same house at all.”

“I do hope you’ll invite me over to have a
look,” Bessie said.

“We haven’t bought it yet,” George
said.
 
“And I’m not convinced it’s
our best move.”

“I still have to talk him into it,” Mary
told Bessie with a wink.
 
“He loves
that monstrosity we live in now.”

“It’s a wonderful house,” George said
defensively.

“It is, dear,” Mary said, patting his
arm.
 
“But the children are all grown
up and on their own, well, except for Elizabeth.
 
We don’t need all that space and we
don’t need to be in Douglas, either, since you won’t be working anymore.”

“I’m still going to have a few little
investments to manage,” George grumbled.

“But you can manage them from Laxey just as
well,” Mary said.

“Yes, I know, but we worked so hard to get
the Douglas house done just the way we want it,” George argued.

“And it still isn’t done,” Mary reminded
him.
 
“You’ve redone our suite three
times and you still aren’t happy with it because the spaces just aren’t
right.
 
You have to admit that the
master suite here is pretty perfect.”

“I love the layout of the suite and the
views from the windows,” George admitted.

“If it gets a fresh coat of paint, some new
carpets, and we change out the furniture, it will be perfect,” Mary said
happily.

“We’ll see,” George said.

Mary smiled at Bessie.
 
“I think it will be perfect,” she told
her.
 
“And there’s a huge wing for
Elizabeth on the opposite side of the house that will be just right for her
until she works out what she wants to do next.”

Bessie wondered to herself if the girl might
make up her mind a bit faster if her parents stopped letting her live at home
without any responsibilities.

“Are you looking at any other properties?”
Bessie asked.

“There’s a small estate in the middle of the
island, near the Wildlife Park, that’s just come on the market,” Mary told
her.
 
“But I really want to be near
the sea.”

“We did see a gorgeous home, right on the
beach, in Port Erin,” George interjected.

“It was lovely,” Mary agreed.
 
“But Port Erin feels so far away, and
there wasn’t a separate wing for Elizabeth, either.”

“Yes, dear,” George said.
 
He’d obviously lost interest in the
conversation and now he stared out at the sea.

“Well, I hope we buy Thie yn Traie,” Mary
told Bessie.
 
“Once we redecorate, I
think it will be perfect for us.
 
I’m so looking forward to getting out of Douglas.”

“I’m going to go back up and look at the
master suite again,” George told Mary.
 
“You take your time with Bessie, though.”

The women watched as George made his way
back to the stairs.
 
As he began his
ascent, Mary sighed deeply.

“All of this has been very hard on him,” she
said quietly.

“I’m sure it’s been difficult for both of
you,” Bessie replied.

“Oh, I just went and stayed with some
friends across.
 
It was almost like
an extended holiday for me.
 
George
had to stay here and deal with all the questions and suspicions.”

“I understand he’s been cleared of any
wrongdoing,” Bessie said.

“He has,” Mary nodded.
 
“But many people still seem to think
he’s guilty of something, even if the police don’t.”

“That’s awful,” Bessie said.

“What’s worse is that many of the men and
women that run the businesses that George and Grant have invested in over the
years have been the first to want to cut all of their ties with George.”

“I imagine they don’t want any connections
with Grant,” Bessie mused.

“But George had nothing to do with Grant’s
schemes, not the illegal ones, anyway.”
 
She shook her head.
 
“I’m
glad that George is working less, as the various projects get cancelled or
taken over by other investors, but George is devastated.”

Bessie gave Mary a hug.
 
“If I can do anything, please let me
know,” she murmured.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to start a small
company and would like George to invest in it?” Mary said teasingly.

“Not really,” Bessie laughed.
 
“But if I hear of anyone else who might
be, I will let you know.”

“I was almost afraid to talk to you,” Mary
told her, confidingly.
 
“So many of
our friends are no longer speaking to us.”

“Really?
 
That’s horrible as well.”

“In a way, it feels worse,”
Mary
said.
 
“With
the businesses, we can tell ourselves that it’s just good business practice for
them to distance themselves from Grant, which means from George by association.
 
But with friends, it’s simply personal.”

“Well, I don’t abandon my friends when they
find themselves having difficulties,” Bessie said stoutly.
 
She could see tears in Mary’s eyes.

“Thank you,” Mary said.
 
“That’s just one more reason why I hope
we buy Thie yn Traie.
 
I’d love to
have you close by.
 
I could come and
visit you when George starts complaining about how bored he is being home all
the time.
 
He thrives on social
contact and he hasn’t been invited anywhere in weeks.”

Bessie knew that Mary was shy and preferred
to stay home; she was always surprised at how often opposites really did
attract.
 
Still, the pair seemed to
have a successful marriage, in spite of their differences.

“Well, I’ve invited you to Thanksgiving,”
Bessie said.

“And I didn’t even have to check our
availability,” Mary said sadly.
 
“We’re always available at the moment.”

“I can’t believe this little bit of bother
is going to defeat George,” Bessie said.
 
“Given a bit of time, I’m sure he’ll bounce back.”

“I think so, too,” Mary agreed.
 
“He’s very resilient, really.
 
And he still has plenty of money to
throw around.
 
It won’t be long
before people start asking for his help again, I think.
 
As for our friends, well, I’m happy to
make new ones.
 
Most of the old ones
were only interested in George’s money, anyway.”

“I hope you can enjoy some time together
before he gets busy again,” Bessie told her friend.

“I’ve only been back a day and he’s already
making me crazy,” Mary said with a laugh.
 
“I used to complain because he never had time for me, but now I’m
miserable because he’s constantly underfoot.”

“Maybe you’ll be able to find a better
balance, once he starts to get busy again,” Bessie said.

“I do hope so,” Mary told her.
 
“I must say I’m feeling as if I’m
awfully hard to please.”