Aunt Bessie Provides (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 16) Read online

  Aunt Bessie Provides

  An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery

  Diana Xarissa

  Text Copyright © 2018 Diana Xarissa

  Cover Photo Copyright © 2018 Kevin Moughtin

  All Rights Reserved

  Created with Vellum

  For everyone who has ever taken the time to get in touch to share their thoughts on Bessie and her friends. Thank you!

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Glossary of Terms

  Other Notes

  Acknowledgments

  Aunt Bessie Questions

  Also by Diana Xarissa

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  Welcome to book sixteen in the Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Series. I have to admit that when I started the series, I wasn’t sure it would ever get past book two. I’m thrilled to have found an audience for my books and delighted, as ever, to be working on yet another “Aunt Bessie” book.

  If you haven’t read the other fifteen books in the series, this title should stand on its own, but I always suggest reading them all, and in order, so that you can watch the characters grow and develop. Bessie first appeared in my romance, Island Inheritance. She’d recently passed away and the heroine of that title came to the island to sell Bessie’s cottage and settle her estate. Once that book was completed, I found that I couldn’t stop thinking about Bessie. I developed this series for her.

  As the book is set on the Isle of Man, I use British English terms and spelling as much as possible. The longer I’m in the US, the more Americanisms seem to sneak in, though. I apologize for that and try to make changes whenever such things are pointed out to me.

  This is a work of fiction and all of the characters are fictional creations by the author. Any resemblance they may have to any real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The businesses named throughout the book are also fictional and again, if they resemble any real businesses, on the island or elsewhere, that is also coincidental. The historical sites mentioned within the book are all real, but the events that happen within them in the story are fictional.

  I do enjoy hearing from readers. All of my contact details are available on the “About the Author” page at the end of the book. Please feel free to get in touch and share your thoughts.

  Chapter 1

  “What’s wrong?” Bessie Cubbon asked her friend, feeling concerned.

  “Nothing,” Hugh Watterson replied quickly. “Why would you think anything was wrong?”

  Bessie shook her head. “I don’t know. You just seem distracted or something.”

  Hugh laughed. “I’ve only been here for five minutes,” he pointed out. “I’ve not said or done anything yet.”

  “Exactly,” Bessie told him. “You’ve been here for five minutes and you haven’t even noticed the biscuits on the table.”

  Hugh glanced at the table and his eyes lit up. “Biscuits!” he exclaimed. “And homemade ones at that. You spoil me.”

  Bessie switched the kettle on and watched as the young man settled into a chair at the kitchen table. He helped himself to a plate and then piled a handful of biscuits onto it. As he began to work his way through the pile, Bessie relaxed. Maybe she was too quick to imagine that something was bothering the young police constable.

  When the kettle had boiled, Bessie made tea for them both and then sat down across from Hugh, handing him his mug as she did so. “It’s good to see you,” she said, patting his hand.

  “It’s good to see you, too,” Hugh replied. “I’m happy to be back to working days, at least for the most part. My body never seems to properly adjust to the night shift.”

  “I can’t imagine,” Bessie replied. She knew she was hugely fortunate. A small inheritance when she’d been only eighteen had meant that she’d never had to work for a living. Having any job was difficult for her to imagine, and working for the police on overnight shifts seemed even more so.

  “The extra money was nice, though,” Hugh said. “Especially with the summer coming up. Grace won’t be working soon.”

  “How is Grace?” Bessie asked.

  Hugh flushed. “She’s good.”

  Bessie thought there was something off in Hugh’s reply. The young man was in his mid-twenties, although he looked no more than sixteen to Bessie, at least in part because she’d known him quite well throughout his childhood. He and Grace, a pretty blonde schoolteacher, hadn’t been married for long, and Bessie was very fond of both of them. She hated the idea that they might be having difficulties so early in their married life together. “I should ring her and see if she wants to have lunch one day soon,” Bessie suggested.

  “I’m sure she’d like that. She’s still teaching, but only a few days each week. I think she’s a bit bored at home, really.”

  “I’ll ring her tomorrow. I’d love to see her.”

  “I’m sure she’d love to see you, as well,” Hugh replied.

  And if there is anything wrong, she’ll tell me everything, Bessie thought. “How is house-hunting going?” she asked, still wanting to work out what was bothering the man, if she could.

  “We’ve put it on hold until the school year ends. Grace is planning to put all of her time and effort into it once she’s done teaching for the summer. It’s hard right now, as she doesn’t always know when she’s going to be working. She had to cancel several showings in a row, which made our estate agent a bit cross.”

  “I thought she was covering for someone on maternity leave for the rest of the year.”

  “She was, but then another teacher came back from sick leave and took the spot. The other teacher is recovering from something serious, though, and has been taking at least two days off each week, so Grace ends up replacing her own replacement a lot.”

  “How difficult for Grace. It must be impossible for her to plan anything.”

  “That’s the problem with being a supply teacher. She’s really hoping for a permanent position in the autumn, but we’ll have to see.”

  “I hope she finds something,” Bessie said.

  “Yeah, me, too,” Hugh told her.

  “So what brings you here today?”

  Hugh grinned. “Another cold case. After you helped me solve the last one, John keeps suggesting that I have another look through the files. He’d like to see a lot more cold cases solved.”

  Inspector John Rockwell was in charge of the Laxey Constabulary and was Hugh’s immediate supervisor. He was also a good friend to both Bessie and Hugh. Although Bessie had only met the man not much more than a year earlier, they’d been through a lot together, and Bessie considered the man one of her closest friends.

  “I’m sure John would like to see every cold case solved,” Bessie said.

  “Well, yes, but that’s probably not possible. Anyway, he gave me another pile of files to go through and I found one that really intrigues me.”

  “Go on. then, let’s see if I remember the case.”

  “I hope you do. It’s from twenty years ago, though, and from what I’ve found, it didn’t get a lot of mention in the papers.”

  “You know I don’t get much of my news from the papers,” Bessie said with a grin.

  Hugh la
ughed. “Oh, I know,” he agreed. “The island runs on rain and skeet.”

  Bessie got up and refilled the biscuit plate and their teacups. “Right, so tell me about the case,” she told Hugh as she sat back down.

  “About twenty years ago, actually, almost exactly twenty years ago, in June, 1979, a body washed up on the beach a short distance from here,” he replied. “It was the body of a man in his thirties, and he’d drowned. He was never identified.”

  Bessie took a sip of her tea and a long deep breath. She could feel faint stirrings in her memory, but she needed time to think. After a minute, she put her cup down and nodded. “Yes, I remember it, but only vaguely. You’re right, the papers barely mentioned it, and if I remember rightly, there wasn’t a lot of skeet about it, either.”

  Hugh looked disappointed. “What can you remember?”

  “Let me think for a minute,” Bessie replied. She drank some tea and nibbled on a biscuit while she let her mind wander back through time. After a minute, she shut her eyes and tried to focus, feeling Hugh’s eyes on her as she did so. When he began to tap his foot impatiently, she opened her eyes. “I’m trying,” she said.

  “I know. I’m sorry. Do you want me to come back tomorrow? You could think about it and maybe check your diaries or something,” Hugh offered.

  Bessie shook her head. “I will try to find my diaries from that time, but I doubt there will be anything useful in them. As I recall, a body washed up on the beach some distance from here. It was probably about where the new houses are actually, wasn’t it?”

  Hugh nodded. A developer had built a row of houses along Laxey Beach, some distance beyond the holiday cottages that started not far from Bessie’s own little cottage. Although Bessie tried to walk along the beach every day, feeling that fresh sea air and exercise were responsible for keeping her fit and healthy, she rarely walked as far as the new homes. The last time she’d walked that far, she and some friends had discovered a dead body in one of the properties. Bessie didn’t like to admit it to herself, but that experience had made her even less likely to walk that far since.

  “I’m almost sorry to reinvestigate the case, actually,” Hugh said. “The developer has enough problems at the moment without everyone being reminded that a dead man washed up on the beach there.”

  “I haven’t heard that there are any problems.”

  “Apparently, more than one buyer has tried to get out of his or her contract,” Hugh told her. “I gather people are upset about the murder and don’t feel safe there, or at least that’s what they’re claiming.”

  “Poor Peter,” Bessie said, thinking of the man whose company had built the homes. “He’s had a bad time of it lately, hasn’t he?”

  “He has,” Hugh agreed.

  “With house prices the way they are at the moment, surely he won’t have trouble finding new buyers?”

  “I suspect he’ll find them, but he may have to drop his prices, at least a little bit. Grace and I are keeping an eye on things. I don’t think the prices will ever drop enough for us to be able to afford one, but we’re watching anyway.”

  “Maybe Doona should have another think about buying one,” Bessie said thoughtfully.

  “She’d probably get a good deal.”

  “I don’t really remember much else about your case, though,” Bessie told him. “Everything you’ve said sounds familiar. I’m sure his description didn’t match anyone who had been reported missing, though, either here or across.”

  “Yes, that’s right, unfortunately.”

  “If I remember rightly, the body had been in the water for a while, at least too long for the police to be able to publish any photographs of him. There might have been a sketch done, though.”

  “Well remembered. Yes, a police artist did a sketch of what he thought the man might have looked like, based on the, er, remains.”

  “But no one ever came forward to identify him.”

  “No, and after all these years, it seems impossible that we’ll be able to work out who he was.”

  “So why reopen the investigation?”

  “I just have a feeling about it, that’s all,” Hugh said, flushing. “It doesn’t seem possible that no one knew who he was. I’m hoping that someone is still looking for him.”

  “You said he drowned?”

  “Yes, it could have been an accident or it could have been murder. The coroner wasn’t able to be sure.”

  “Maybe he fell off the ferry or a fishing boat,” Bessie suggested.

  “Both possibilities. There are a huge number of possibilities, of course.”

  “Where do you even start?”

  “Thanks to the Internet, I have better access to missing person reports from around the world than they did twenty years ago. I’m going to start by contacting every police jurisdiction I can find and asking them to check their records to see if they are missing our man.”

  “Could he have fallen in the sea in Liverpool or even further afield?”

  “The coroner wasn’t sure how long he’d been in the water or how far he’d travelled. I’m not discounting anything at this point, but I can’t help but feel as if the answer is less complicated than that.”

  “You think he was from the island?”

  “Or visiting someone on the island, maybe. I think he died here and I think someone has been keeping his death a secret for twenty years.”

  Bessie sat back in her chair. “If you’re right, that person is going to want to continue to keep that secret. You could be putting yourself in danger, going after that person after all these years.”

  “I’m going to be making a lot of noise about the investigation. I’m hoping that someone will come forward. The man’s death could have been an accident. If someone comes to me with a believable story about the man and how he died, I’m prepared to believe it. I just want the man identified and the case closed.”

  “If it was an accident, why would anyone keep quiet about it for twenty years? Surely it’s more likely he was murdered.”

  Hugh grinned. “I know you’ve been involved in a lot of murder investigations in the past year or more, but not every unexplained death is murder.”

  “Then why didn’t anyone ring the police when he died?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he and his wife were having a fight on the quayside and he slipped and fell into the water. Maybe she ran off crying and didn’t even realise it had happened. When the body washed ashore a few days later, maybe she felt so guilty about the fight that she didn’t say anything.”

  “But surely her friends and neighbours would have realised that the man had disappeared and asked her about it, wouldn’t they? And wouldn’t they have recognised the drawing from the paper?”

  “We don’t have any idea how good the drawing is,” Hugh said. “It may not look anything like the dead man. Until we find out who he was, we can’t be sure.”

  “What do you want me to do to help?”

  “What I really need is a list of men who would have been around the right age and who left the island around the right time. It’s possible that no one missed the dead man because he’d told everyone he was going across or moving abroad.”

  “There must be dozens of men in their thirties who left the island in the late seventies,” Bessie speculated. “Of course, most of them will have come back or at least stayed in touch with their families.”

  “I’m hoping we’ll be able to come up with a list and that the list isn’t too long. Then I’ll try to track down all of the missing men. If I can’t find a person on the list, maybe we’ll have found our man.”

  “I’ll ring around and see what I can find out. Maybe I won’t mention why I’m really ringing, though, not if you think someone is hiding something.”

  “I’m almost certain someone somewhere is hiding something. They may not be on the island, though. All we can do is try our best.”

  Bessie nodded. “I’ll give the matter some thought and then start ringing friends,” she
told the man. “If the man fell off a fishing boat from Liverpool, you’ll struggle to find him, though.”

  “I’ve been talking to John about that. I’m going across for a day to talk to a colleague in Liverpool and one in Heysham. We’re hoping they might be willing to conduct investigations on their end as well.”

  The pair chatted about Hugh’s parents and the lovely mid-June weather for a while before Hugh glanced at his watch. “I suppose I must get back to work,” he said with a sigh. “Your kitchen is still one of my favourite places in the world. I did spend a lot of time during my teens here, and I sometimes feel as if I never want to leave.”

  Bessie had never been blessed with children herself, having never married. Instead, she’d been happy to act as an honourary aunt to the boys and girls who grew up in Laxey. Over the years, many troubled teenagers had “run away” to Bessie’s cottage for a few hours or a few days after fights with their parents. Bessie was always willing to listen to their troubles, feed them biscuits and cake, and then offer a few words of wisdom that usually helped set them straight. Hugh had been a frequent visitor during his late teens, often clashing with his father who wasn’t happy with Hugh’s plan to join the police.

  They both stood up and Bessie gave the man a tight hug. “But you have your lovely wife waiting for you at home,” she reminded the man.

  Hugh’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, Grace didn’t have to work today so she’ll have dinner ready for me when I get home. I just hope she hasn’t been experimenting again.”

  “Experimenting?”

  “She’s decided that we both need to eat healthier and she keeps making all sorts of weird things that are mostly vegetables trying to look like they aren’t. I shouldn’t complain because she’s doing it because she cares, but I do miss pizza and pasta and Chinese food and…” he trailed off and sighed. “As much as I hate to say it, we could do with a good murder to investigate. I always eat so much better when we’re meeting here every other day to talk about murder.”