Aunt Bessie Goes (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 7) (15 page)

“Of course I
can,” Bessie agreed.
 
“I didn’t
think you’d want to take advantage of the offer,” she found herself adding.

“I don’t
intend to take advantage of the offer,” John replied.
 
“But I quite fancy having a little and
very informal chat with Mrs. Quayle, preferably when her husband and her
advocate aren’t around.”

“Oh, I see,”
Bessie
said, feeling somehow even more surprised.
 
“I’ll see if I can get that arranged,
then.”

“I’d
appreciate that,” John told her.
 
“Other than that, I guess we just need to wait for either the DNA
results or Mark Carr to turn up.”

Bessie hung up
and spent a minute thinking about the call she was about to make.
 
She just wanted to feel certain that she
wasn’t being disloyal to her friend Mary in helping out her friend John.
 
Knowing that Mary couldn’t possibly have
anything to hide helped Bessie decide that it was fine.

Mary was home
and happy to agree to the arrangements.
 
“I told you, I have to be there anyway.
 
I’m starting in Tuesday morning with
sorting things out.
 
A man from the
auction company should be there around ten, so nine is perfect.
 
You can have a quick look before he gets
there.”

With that
agreed, Bessie fixed herself something from the freezer and ate it while reading
the book that had already been abandoned so many times.
 
An hour later she put it aside to clean
up the kitchen.
 
Once done, she left
that book on the table and went into the sitting room in search of something
different.
 

While she’d
really enjoyed the previous books in that particular series, the author seemed
to have decided to take the series in a different direction and Bessie wasn’t
at all happy with his choice.
 
She’d
probably finish this book eventually, but she was going to cross him off her
list of
favourite
authors unless the second half of
it improved dramatically.

She settled in
with a history of Victorian England that she’d read dozens of times
before.
 
It was exactly what her
brain was craving, apparently, because the next time she looked up it was past
her bedtime.
 

Sunday and
Monday felt oddly normal to Bessie.
 
There was a part of her that felt as if she should be doing something,
anything, to help John figure out what had happened to the young man hidden in
the King house and where Mark Carr was, but she simply couldn’t imagine what
she could do.
 
So, she walked and
cooked and ate and cleaned and tidied and drank tea, all the while feeling as
if something important was being missed.

Tuesday
morning was the first dry morning for several days and Bessie was disappointed
when she had to cut her walk short.
 
John was collecting her shortly after eight for the fairly long drive to
Jurby
.
 
The distance wasn’t that great as the
crow flies, but the roads didn’t exactly take a direct route.

John was right
on
time
, and Bessie was quick to lock up and join him
at his car.
 
He held the door for
her and then climbed back into the driver’s seat.

“How are you
this morning?” John asked as they drove out of Laxey.

“I’m fed up
and frustrated,” Bessie said, surprising John with her honest answer to the
standard question.

“We should
have the DNA results by the end of the week,” John told her.
 
“That should help focus our
investigation.”

“Why does it
take so long?” Bessie demanded.

John
shrugged.
 
“You’d have to ask one of
the experts,” he told her.
 
“But
once we get the results, if it is Adam, the older two King brothers will be
coming across.
 
They’ve been
questioned already by their local forces, but I really want to talk to them
myself.”

“They were
both living across by the time Adam left,” Bessie said.
 
“What do you think they’ll be able to
add?”

“I’m not
sure,” John admitted.
 
“It’s all
about filling in pieces of the puzzle.”

“Mark Carr
could probably put the whole thing together,” Bessie muttered.
 

“We’re looking
for him,” John told her.
 
“In the
meantime, we’ve heard back from immigration control in Australia and there’s no
record of Adam King ever entering the country.”

“They have
records going back that far?” Bessie asked.

“Yes, although
a lot of it is on paper and not centrally located.
 
That’s why it took so long for them to
get back to us.
 
They’ve checked
from September 1967 through January 1969 for us.
 
He could have taken a very scenic route,
I suppose, and arrived there after that date, but we couldn’t very well ask
them to check every record up to yesterday, now could we?”

“Weren’t you
tempted to do just that?” Bessie asked.

“I was,” John
told her.
 
“But I know they’re just
as overworked there as we are here.
 
I was pushing it in asking for as much as I did.
 
They could have told me to wait until
the body was identified before asking.
 
If it is Adam, they wasted their time.”

The pair
discussed island politics and the weather as they made
their
way north.
 
John had a map of the
island on the dashboard, but he didn’t need it until the last few miles.

“Okay, I give
up,” he said as they drove down a seemingly endless road in the middle of
nowhere.
 
“I thought I had the route
memorised
, but I must have missed a turning.”

He pulled over
and looked at the map for a moment and then smiled at Bessie.
 
“Or we just haven’t quite reached the
turning yet.”

Bessie smiled
at him.
 
“I came up here once with
Mary, when I was looking to furnish the flat in Douglas, but I haven’t the
slightest idea which way she went.
 
There’s never been anything in
Jurby
to tempt
me to visit.”

John
nodded.
 
“It’s my first trip up
here,” he told her.
 
“And I won’t
rush back, I don’t think.”

“I’ve known
people who live up here, over the years,” Bessie told him.
 
“And those that do, seem to really love
it.”

“It’s just a
little too remote for my liking,” John replied.

“You need to
head up to the Point of
Ayre
,” Bessie said, referring
to the northernmost point on the island.
 
“If you want to feel like you’re at the end of the world, that’s the
place to do it.”

John
nodded.
 
“Someone else suggested
that I should go up there,” he told her.
 
“Just so I can say I saw it, I guess.”

“It’s
beautiful in its own way,” Bessie told him.

“Maybe one
day,” John replied.
 
He slowed down
now as he approached the junction with the side road he thought he’d
missed.
 
He made a careful left turn
and Bessie smiled.

“I remember
this part,” she told him.
 
“If you
keep going straight, you’ll eventually come to the storage units.”

“That’s good
to know, because right now it looks like there’s nothing but fields out here.”

A few moments
later, Bessie could see the large garage-like structures in the distance.
 
It took them several minutes to cover
that distance.

“I remember
Mary’s units are over there,” Bessie directed John.

He pulled up
next to the row of units that Bessie remembered as belonging to the
Quayles
.
 
They
appeared to be the only people there.

“We’re a
little bit early,” John remarked.

“I think I’ll
stretch my legs,” Bessie said.
 
The
long drive had left her feeling stiff.
 
John helped her from the car and she took a few cautious steps, before
walking more purposefully past the row of storage units.
 
At the far end, she spun around and
marched back to John, who was checking his mobile.

“I just have to
ring someone back,” he told Bessie, frowning at the tiny screen.
 
He took a few steps away from Bessie,
who turned and walked back down the row.
 
She made several circuits of the row of units while he was busy on his
phone.

“I hope
nothing’s wrong,” she said politely when he’d finished.

“No, just a
few little things back at the office,” John replied.
 
He glanced at his watch.
 
“
It’s
nine
now.
 
Is Mary usually late?”

“No, actually,
she’s nearly always early,”
Bessie
told him.

She turned to
make another circuit, and this time John fell into step beside her.
 
They reached the end of the strip of six
units and turned back around.
 
After
a few steps, John stopped.

“What’s that
smell?” he asked, frowning.

Bessie sniffed
the air.
 
“It certainly isn’t
pleasant,” she replied.
 
“I figured
it was something from one of the farms nearby.”

“I suppose
that could be it,” John said.
 
They
walked back to his car and then turned and walked the row another time.
 
This time, John walked over to the
garage-style door at the last unit.
 

“The smell
seems stronger here,” he told Bessie.
 

She joined
him, reluctantly.
 
“You’re right, it
does,” she told him.
 
“I hope some
poor creature hasn’t made his or her way into the unit and died.
 
That would be a nightmare for poor
Mary.”

The sound of a
car approaching interrupted their conversation.
 
They made their way back to where John’s
car was parked.
 
Bessie
recognised
Mary’s car as it came into view.
 
A second car that was following hers had
a sticker on the front bumper identifying it as coming from one of the island’s
hire car companies.

“I’m so sorry
we’re late,” Mary began as soon as she was out of her car.
 
“Fiona was following me and then she
took a wrong turning and I had to go back to find her,” she explained in a
rush.
 
“I still don’t understand how
it happened.”

Bessie took an
instant dislike to the woman who now joined them.
 
Her blonde hair was piled on her head in
a complicated-looking twist.
 
Every
single hair was perfectly in place and her heavy makeup was expertly
applied.
 
She looked to be around
thirty and her black business suit was perfectly tailored to her slender
figure.
 
She was frowning as she
joined them.

“Where are we
again?” she asked in cultured tones, waving a manicured hand in the air.
 
“I feel like we’ve driven right off the
end of the island.”

“I told you
the storage units were some distance away,” Mary said patiently.
 
“I did offer to drive so you didn’t have
to.”

“I thought I
might want to slip away for some lunch or something,” the woman replied.
 
“I didn’t
realise
there wouldn’t be anywhere to go.”

Mary
introduced Fiona Partridge to the others.
 
Fiona’s eyes lit up when they settled on the handsome police inspector.

“Well, well,
aren’t you gorgeous,” she cooed.
 
“Maybe you’ll be able to help me find somewhere to get some lunch
later,” she suggested.

“Unfortunately,
I have to have a quick look around and then get to work,” John told her.
 

“What do you do?”

“I’m a police
inspector,” John replied.

“
Ooooh
, how interesting,” Fiona burbled.
 
“I’d love to hear all about it, maybe
over dinner tonight?”

“I’m sorry,
but I have plans for tonight,” John said, shooting Bessie a desperate look.

“I thought you
said the auction people were coming up later,” Bessie said to Mary.

“That was the
original plan,” Mary said with a sigh.
 
“We had to, well, rearrange things slightly.”

“You really
didn’t expect me to find this place by myself, did you?” Fiona demanded.
 
“I barely found it anyway, and I was
following you.”

Mary opened
her mouth and then snapped it shut.
 
Bessie could almost see her counting to ten before she spoke.
 

“Thank you
again for lunch last week,” Bessie said, changing the subject to give Mary time
to gather her thoughts.

“I really
enjoyed it,” Mary replied, giving Bessie a smile.
 
“Anyway, shall we get started?”

“I’d like to
start at the far end,” John told her.
 
“There’s a peculiar smell coming from the last unit and I think we
should check and make sure that everything is okay in there.”

Mary
frowned.
 
“I hope nothing furry has
crawled in there and died,” she said.