Aunt Bessie Goes (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 7) (17 page)

“Did you
recognise
him, then?”

“No,” Bessie
said.
 
“At least, not exactly.”

“What do you
mean?”

“I don’t know
who he is, but I’ve seen him before,” Bessie explained.
 
“At least I think I have.”

“Where?” John
asked.

“Lying on the
carpet in a ground-floor flat in the building on Seaside Terrace,” Bessie said.

John looked as
surprised as Bessie had felt when she’d seen the body.

“I think it’s
time you tell me every last detail about last month and the things that went on
at Seaside Terrace,” John said.
 

A young
officer approached tentatively.
 
“Um, Inspector?
 
Sir?
 
We were just wondering what you wanted
us to do next.”

John frowned
and shook his head.
 
“I’ll be there
in a minute,” he told the young woman.
 
She walked away before he spoke to Bessie again.

“I’m going to
have one of the constables take you home,” he told her.
 
“I’m not sure what’s going on, but I
would rather you don’t talk to Mary Quayle anymore for the moment.
 
If you’re right about seeing the man on
Seaside Terrace, that complicates things.”

“Can I say
goodbye to Mary?” Bessie asked.

“Yes, but
nothing more,” he replied.
 
He stood
next to her as she talked to Mary through the car window.

“John’s going
to have me taken home,” she said.
 
“I’ll ring you tomorrow.”

“That’s
silly.
 
I can run you home,” Mary
replied.

“Actually,
Mrs. Quayle, I’d rather you stayed here for the moment.
 
I need you to go through the unit now
that the body has been removed and tell me if anything is missing,” John
interjected.

Mary
frowned.
 
“I suppose I can do that,”
she said, clearly reluctant.

“Is there
anyone I can ring that you’d like to have with you while you do so?” John
asked.

“I’d really
like to keep Bessie,” Mary answered.

John
frowned.
 
“I’m sorry, but Bessie is
feeling a bit worn out by events,” he said.
  
“I’d really like to send her
home.”

Bessie did her
best to look tired as Mary looked at her.
 
“I’m sorry,” Mary said.
 
“I
didn’t think.
 
This has to have been
a terrible strain on you.”

“I’m fine,
really,” Bessie said.
 
“But I would
like to go home.”
 
That wasn’t
strictly true.
 
She really wanted to
stay and watch the investigation unfold, but John wouldn’t allow that and he
clearly didn’t want her talking to Mary at the moment.

John walked
Bessie over to one of the young officers and introduced them.
 
“Can you please take Miss
Cubbon
home and then sit with her until I get there?” he
asked the man.

“Certainly,
sir,” the man replied smartly.

Bessie bit
back a sigh.
 
Clearly John didn’t
want her talking to anyone if he was leaving an officer with her.

Feeling rather
dissatisfied with the whole thing, Bessie climbed into the passenger seat of
the man’s police car and buckled up.
 
She glanced at her watch and shook her head.
 
It wasn’t quite midday; it felt much
later.

The drive back
to Laxey seemed to take forever.
 
Bessie tried to make conversation with the young constable, but he gave
only polite but mostly monosyllabic answers to her questions.
 
She finally gave up and watched the
scenery go by.
 
When they reached
the outskirts of the village, Bessie had to give him directions to her
cottage.
 
As he parked in the small parking
area outside it, he spoke.

“You have a
wonderful view, don’t you?”

“I do indeed,”
Bessie answered.
 
“But come inside
and let’s have some tea.”

In the small
kitchen, Bessie pointed him to a seat at the table and then put the kettle on.

“It’s midday,
I suppose we should think about lunch,” she mused.

“I’m fine,”
the young man told her.

“Well, I’m
hungry and I hate the thought of eating in front of you.
 
At least have a little something,” she
suggested.
 
She found some cold
turkey in the refrigerator and sliced a loaf of bread that she’d picked up at
the local shop the previous day.
 
She added a block of cheese and a jar of pickle to the collection and
then turned to the man.

“Make yourself
a sandwich,” she suggested.
 
“Or
two, even.”
 

While he put
together a couple of very generous sandwiches, Bessie poured crisps into a
bowl.
 
She didn’t usually have them
in the house, but they’d been on offer in
ShopFast
a
few weeks ago and she’d been hungry while she was doing her shopping.
 
She was grateful now to have someone to
offer them to, as she knew she’d never eat more than a handful.

The kettle
boiled and Bessie poured out two cups of tea before making her own
sandwich.
 
She added a few crisps to
her plate and then sat down across from the man.

“I’m afraid I’ve
forgotten your name,” she said after she’d taken a few bites.
 
“As it looks like you might be stuck
here for some time, I feel I ought to know it.”

The man
smiled.
 
“I’m Gary Harper,” he
replied.

“It’s nice to
meet you, Constable Harper,” Bessie said.
 
“Did you grow up on the island or are you a more recent resident?”

“Please call
me Gary,” he said.
 
“I grew up in Liverpool,
mostly, but I started dating a girl and she was offered a job over here.
 
I came with her, but I had trouble
finding work, and then there were some openings on the police and I was lucky
enough to get the job.”

“How long ago
was that?” Bessie asked.

“Oh, I’ve been
a constable for nine years,” the man replied.
 

Bessie hoped
she didn’t look as shocked as she felt.
 
The man looked, at least to her, as if he were no more than eighteen.

Gary
laughed.
 
“I know I don’t look it,
but I’m thirty-two,” he told her.
 

“You really
don’t look it,” Bessie said.
 
“What
happened to the girl you came over with?”

“I wish I
could say that we’re married now with a couple of kids, but our relationship
didn’t last much past police training.
 
She decided she didn’t really want to stay on the island, and I felt
like I had too good of an opportunity to pass up with the police, so she went
back to Liverpool and I stayed here.”

“I’m sorry,”
Bessie said.

Gary laughed
again.
 
“Don’t be,” he told
her.
 
“She’s currently on her third
husband and I’m still very happily single.
 
The only good thing that came out of that relationship was my moving
here.
 
I love this little island,
even if I am stationed in the wilds of
Jurby
.”

Bessie settled
back in her chair and marveled at the difference in the young man.
 
He’d been so quiet on the
drive,
she’d been worried about having him in the cottage
for any length of time.
 
Instead, he
turned out to be bright and interesting and full of lots of entertaining
anecdotes about policing.

“You should
write a book,” Bessie told him after he finished a long story about a
drunk
man, a stolen wheelchair, and a lamp post that had
Bessie laughing out loud.

“Ah, maybe
some day,” Gary told her.

A knock on the
door interrupted.
 
Bessie smiled at
Hugh when she opened it.
 

“This is a
nice surprise,” she told him as she let him in.
 

Hugh smiled
and nodded.
 
“Inspector Rockwell has
asked me to come and relieve Constable Harper,” he explained.
 
“Apparently he’s needed back in
Jurby
.”

“I suppose
it’s good to be needed,” the young man said with a laugh.
 
“It was very nice to meet you,” he told
Bessie politely.
 
“And I really
appreciated the lunch and the tea and biscuits.”

Bessie quickly
packed a dozen biscuits into a bag for him for the journey back to
Jurby
.
 
After a
moment of token protest, the man thanked her profusely and then headed
out.
 
Bessie shut the door behind
him and smiled at Hugh.

“I suppose you
need some tea and biscuits as well,” she teased.

“I wouldn’t
mind,” Hugh told her with a sheepish grin.

Bessie
refilled the kettle and set it to boil.
 
While she waited, she opened a new box of biscuits and filled the plate
in the
centre
of the table.
 
Hugh took the offered small plate and
put a few biscuits onto it.
 
They
were gone by the time Bessie poured the tea.

“It’s already
four o’clock,” Bessie told him.
 
“You don’t want to eat too many biscuits.
 
You’ll spoil your dinner.”

Hugh’s hand,
reaching towards the large plate, stopped short.
 
“I suppose you’re right,” he said sadly.

“A few more
probably wouldn’t hurt, though,” Bessie added, laughing to herself as Hugh’s
face lit up.
 
Really, he was still
so like the teenaged boy who used to visit it was shocking, she thought.

“So, why
exactly are you sitting with me?” Bessie asked after she’d drunk some tea and
nibbled her way through a biscuit of her own.

“I’m not
sure,” Hugh said with a shrug.
 
“John just rang and told me to come over here and sit with you until he
gets here.”

He looked
around the small room, as if afraid someone might be listening, and then leaned
in towards her.
 
“He did say that I’m
to, well, politely request that you not make or answer any phone calls.”
 

Bessie looked
at his flushed face and smiled.
 
“So
you’re here to keep me from ringing people and gossiping about what I saw this
morning,” she said.

Hugh looked
down at the table.
 
“I’m not sure
what’s going on,” he muttered.

“I would have
thought that John could trust me,” Bessie said, beginning to feel a bit
annoyed.
 
“If he told me not to ring
anyone, I wouldn’t.”

“I think he’s
really worried about this because of the, well, rather important people
involved,” Hugh told her.
 
“I gather
George Quayle has turned up, with his advocate in tow, and they’re not very
happy that Mary wasn’t allowed to ring George right away.”

“John just
asked her to wait, that’s all,”
Bessie
said, eager to
defend John, even if she wasn’t happy with how he was treating her.

Hugh held up a
hand.
 
“I’m just telling you what I
heard.
 
John didn’t tell me
anything, but he wouldn’t.”

Bessie
nodded.
 
The senior policeman
usually kept as much as he could to himself.
 

A faint
clicking noise had Hugh looking around.
 
“What was that?” he asked.

“It’s the
answering machine,” Bessie explained.
 
“I’ve the volume all the way down, so it just clicks when it takes a
call.
 
It’s been clicking away all
afternoon.”

Hugh
nodded.
 
“I suppose, all things
considered, we’d better just leave it clicking,” he told Bessie.
 

“Am I allowed
out of the cottage?” Bessie asked.

“Where did you
want to go?”

“Just for a
stroll up the beach,” Bessie replied.

“I guess we
could do that,” Hugh told her.
 

Bessie bit
back a sigh.
 
She’d thought she
could have a walk on her own.
 
She
hadn’t expected Hugh to join her.
 
She had no intention of taking her mobile with her, so it wasn’t like
she could ring anyone while she was out there.

There was a
strong breeze blowing in off the sea and Bessie was glad she’d grabbed a
jacket.
 
She set off along the beach
at a brisk pace, smiling to herself as Hugh seemed to struggle a little bit to
keep up.
 
She walked as far as
Thie
yn
Traie
before turning back towards home.
 
Hugh was a good many paces behind her and she enjoyed feeling alone for
a few moments as she walked back towards him.
 
She was used to living and being on her
own, and a day like today, spending nearly all of it in the company of others,
was difficult for her.
 

She’d only
just reached Hugh when she heard her name.

“Bessie?
 
Bessie
Cubbon
?
 
There you are,” the voice shouted.

Bessie turned
around and saw Maggie
Shimmin
coming out of one of
the rental cottages.