Aunt Bessie Solves Read online

  “Maybe there wasn’t any row. Maybe Albert called and they talked and everything was fine,” Bessie suggested.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m not sure that I do, but Albert said he didn’t talk to his fiancée after midnight, right?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Maybe he rang back later, after midnight but before the storm brought the phone lines down. Maybe he talked to Cindy instead of Betty.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “You said Cindy had a wild reputation, that Betty and Albert were practically living together, and that Cindy stayed with her sister whenever she was in London. It doesn’t seem much of a stretch to consider that perhaps Cindy was having an affair with Albert.”

  “He was her sister’s fiancé.”

  “I’m sure she wouldn’t have been the first woman to sleep with her sister’s fiancé,” Bessie said.

  Andrew shook his head. “I’m feeling rather overwhelmed,” he admitted. “I never questioned the identity of the body and now that you’ve mentioned it, it seems almost too obvious. The parents were away and unreachable. By the time they were contacted, their one daughter had confessed to killing the other. As I understand it, they refused to visit Cindy once she went to prison.”

  “So if she did switch places with her sister, no one ever found out.”

  “Why would she switch places with her sister, though?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that, but she must have had a reason. Was one sister worth more than the other?”

  “That’s an interesting question, actually. And the answer is yes. Cindy was more successful in her career, but their grandmother didn’t approve of some of the work she’d done. Apparently, she’d done a few lingerie shoots that Grandmum had felt were too racy. When she passed away, about a year before the skiing holiday, she left the bulk of her fortune to Betty.”

  “So Betty was wealthier,” Bessie frowned. “That seems to contradict my theory.”

  “Betty left her fortune to Cindy, but she was deemed ineligible to inherit because she’d murdered Betty. The contingency in Betty’s will stated that if Cindy was unable to inherit, the money would all go to charity. There was a bit of a court battle where Albert attempted to get his hands on the estate, but the will had actually been drawn up after he and Betty had become engaged, so he lost his fight.”

  “What charity?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what charity was the beneficiary of the will? Is it possible that Betty set it all up somehow so that she could inherit her own fortune back?”

  Andrew frowned. “I’m going to have to talk to my colleague about that,” he said. “But that suggests that considerable planning went into all of this.”

  “You said the pair hadn’t been engaged for very long, which made me wonder about her rewriting her will so quickly. Surely she’d have wanted to write another one after she and Albert were wed, so as to make her husband her heir.”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

  “What happened to Cindy, then? I assume she went to prison for murder.”

  “She went to prison on a lesser charge. The courts took into consideration her insistence that it was Betty who’d brought the knife outside and her testimony about the struggle. She was also very convincing when she told the courts that she couldn’t possibly have had any reason for wanting her sister dead. I believe she tried to sell them the idea that Betty was suicidal after her fight with Albert and that she was simply trying to get the knife away from her sister rather than trying to stab her.”

  “And the courts believed her?”

  “She went to prison for seven years in the end.”

  “But she was barred from inheriting her sister’s estate?”

  “Yes, although I’m going to have to check on that. I seem to recall my colleague saying something about her voluntarily refusing the estate considering the circumstances.”

  “I’m really curious about the charity now.”

  “And if it’s legitimate, we’ll both be disappointed.”

  “I may be completely wrong, though,” Bessie reminded him. “When you talk to your colleague, he may say that he confirmed the corpse’s identity and it was really Betty.”

  “I’m still curious about the charity, and also what happened to Cindy after she left prison. She had a considerable amount of her own money anyway. I’m not sure our version of events explains why everyone lied, though.”

  “Perhaps the original plan didn’t include the confession,” Bessie suggested. “If Cindy hadn’t confessed, she might never have been caught.”

  “So why did she confess?”

  “Guilt? Or maybe she felt as if she had to for some reason. Maybe she felt that was the best way to keep her parents away?”

  “I’m not sure if we’re getting any closer to solving this or just adding to the confusion,” Andrew sighed. “You’ve certainly given me something completely different to consider, anyway.” He glanced at the clock. “And on that note, I think I shall head for home, or for what passes for home at the moment. I won’t go to bed before I’ve sent a quick email to my colleague, though. I wasn’t going to bring my laptop, but my daughter insisted that I have it. Now I’m glad I do.”

  “Find out what happened to the other women, too,” Bessie suggested. “I’m curious now about all of them.”

  Bessie let the man out and then shut the door behind him. She didn’t really think that she’d solved his thirty-year-old cold case for him, but it had been an interesting puzzle and she was quite pleased with the idea that she’d offered. At least Andrew hadn’t laughed in her face when she’d suggested it.

  Although her mind was racing, Bessie fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow, and she slept soundly until four minutes past six. She allowed her internal alarm five minutes on either side of the hour, so she was satisfied with that. The sun was coming up after she’d showered, dressed, and had a light breakfast, and it looked as if it was going to be a lovely day.

  As Bessie headed out for her morning walk, she tried to decide how to casually walk past Andrew’s cottage. She didn’t want to stare at the windows as if she were trying to spot the man, but equally, she didn’t want to be looking at the sea, which might make him think she was ignoring him. She was relieved to see all of the cottage’s curtains were tightly drawn as she crossed the beach. Walking briskly, she reached Thie yn Traie quickly and continued on for a short while. She was meant to be meeting Andrew at half eight, which gave her plenty of time for a long walk.

  Mindful that she and Andrew were planning to walk around Ramsey before lunch, Bessie headed for home before she felt tired. Andrew’s curtains were still drawn, which saved her from having to worry about looking or not looking, but also made her worry that he’d overslept. She decided to shelve her worries and read a book. As was typical, she quickly found herself lost in the story, and when Andrew knocked on her door around nine, she was surprised to see how late it was.

  “I was miles away,” she said apologetically as she let the man in.

  “And here I was, worried about being a few minutes late,” he laughed.

  Bessie grabbed her handbag and quickly checked that she had everything. “I’m ready to go,” she told him.

  “Excellent. I know just what we can talk about while I drive.”

  Bessie locked up her cottage and followed the man to his hire car. Surely it was too soon for him to have heard back from his colleague about the cold case? It didn’t take long for Bessie to direct Andrew onto the main road. “You haven’t heard back from your colleague already, have you?” she asked once they were properly underway.

  “I have, actually. As I said, the case has been bothering him for years. I sent an email last night before I went to bed and I had a reply this morning.”

  “And?” Bessie demanded when Andrew fell silent.

  “Sorry,” he chuckled, “and he was startled by your sug
gestion, but he couldn’t immediately refute it. He admitted that he never questioned the dead woman’s identity as he had four witnesses identify the body. I believe he’s rather annoyed with himself now, seeing as how he knew the women were lying about other things, but he never gave it any thought.”

  “What about the cook or the maid? Didn’t either of them say anything?”

  “I gather the women hadn’t been there long enough for the cook and the maid to know which woman was which. The two sisters also looked very similar. My colleague sent me copies of their passport photos and I don’t think I would have been able to tell them apart.”

  “And neither had ever had her fingerprints taken for any reason or anything like that, I suppose.”

  “Not that my colleague was aware of, anyway. He’s going to go back through all of his case notes again for what he reckons will be the millionth time and see if he can find anything that disproves your theory. He’s also going to start trying to locate the four women. He’d really like to question them again. It’s always possible that they would be more honest with him now that so much time has passed.”

  “I don’t know about that, but it would be interesting to know what they’re all doing now.”

  Bessie directed Andrew into the small car park near the large bookshop. “This is the best place to park for shopping,” she told him.

  “Where shall we start?” he asked after they’d climbed out of the car.

  “Are we shopping for anything special?”

  “Not really,” Andrew laughed. “Unless you need something?”

  “Not at all, but I always like to visit the bookshop.”

  “Bookshop it is,” he said. He offered his arm and Bessie took it with a grin. Inside the shop she stopped to inhale. It smelled of paper and ink, with some hint of scented candles from the gift section of the shop mixed in. Bessie loved the scent.

  “It’s bigger than it looked from the outside,” Andrew said.

  “They have a wonderful selection.”

  “Just point me towards the nonfiction and look for me in half an hour.”

  Bessie laughed and then did as he’d asked. She wandered off to the mystery and thriller shelves and immediately began making a small pile of titles she couldn’t resist.

  “We really should be going,” Andrew said about an hour later.

  Bessie jumped and looked up at him. She was sitting on the floor going through the books on the very bottom shelf. “What time is it?”

  “It’s gone ten and we still have the rest of the town to explore,” he told her.

  “My goodness, the day is getting away from us, isn’t it?” Bessie exclaimed. She got to her feet and then brushed off her trousers. “I’ve found several books for my collection, though.”

  “I found four or five myself. There were several others that looked interesting as well. I had to force myself to put some of them back, though. I don’t have room in my suitcase to take back more than a handful of titles.”

  They made their way to the tills and then dropped their bags of books in Andrew’s car. “And now where?” Andrew asked.

  “Let’s just wander up the main shopping street,” Bessie suggested. “We can pop into any shop that looks interesting.”

  Bessie was surprised when Andrew pulled her into the toyshop. “I need to bring back a few things for the grandchildren, well, the younger grandchildren, and my great-grandchildren as well,” he explained.

  Nothing on the shelves looked anything like what Bessie remembered playing with in her childhood. Everything in the shop seemed to be made of brightly coloured plastic. It was only after she’d looked around for some time that she finally found a box of wooden blocks. They were painted lurid colours, but at least they were made of wood.

  She shook her head and then went in search of Andrew. He was standing in front of a huge display with a sign that read “Fashion Dolls” above it.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to buy one of these,” Andrew told her as she approached. “Which one do you think is the prettiest?”

  Bessie looked at the dolls, with their implausible figures and their inflated lips, and sighed. “I don’t think any of them are pretty. Maybe a cuddly toy instead?”

  “I’m under strict orders to stop buying cuddly toys. I tend to give them to the kids for everything.” He picked up a doll in a tiny red swimsuit. “This is the one my daughter said to get. Apparently it’s very popular with the under-sixes.”

  “Why?”

  Andrew laughed. “I have no idea, but I should probably do as I’m told anyway.”

  Bessie watched as Andrew selected sets of plastic bricks, more dolls, and some sort of electronic block that made a range of annoying sounds whenever anyone touched it. The total at the till shocked her.

  “That didn’t come to as much as I’d feared,” Andrew said as they walked back out into the sunshine.

  “It didn’t?”

  “Toys are very expensive, especially the popular ones.”

  “Again, I’m glad I never had children.”

  “Maybe we should get some lunch,” Andrew suggested a short time later. “We want to make sure we’re back in Laxey in plenty of time for our meeting with John.”

  There were a number of small cafés along the street. The pair chose one at random and were shown to a table right away.

  “They do excellent soups,” Bessie told Andrew.

  “It’s too nice a day for soup,” he replied. A moment later he put his menu down with a sigh. “I’m going to try some soup. It just sounds too good to pass up.”

  With lunch ordered, the pair sipped their drinks and chatted about nothing much while they waited for the food to be delivered. After a few bites, Andrew put down his spoon.

  “You were absolutely right. This is delicious,” he told Bessie. “Thank you for suggesting soup.”

  “I’ve never had one here that wasn’t good. I think the leek and potato is my favourite, though.”

  “I should have asked you that, shouldn’t I?” Andrew laughed. “But if it’s your favourite, why am I having leek and potato while you’re having tomato?”

  “Because tomato sounded good today.”

  “Would you like a bite?” he offered.

  Bessie hesitated. “Would you like to try mine?”

  “That’s why I offered,” Andrew admitted.

  When both bowls were completely empty, Andrew insisted on paying the bill. As the soup wasn’t terribly expensive, Bessie didn’t argue. At some point she’d have to take a stand against the man’s insistence on paying for everything, but that was a discussion to have at home, not in the centre of Ramsey.

  They made their way back towards Andrew’s car, but he stopped in front of an ice cream shop before they’d reached the car. “How about a scoop or two for pudding?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Bessie said.

  “I’m having some. I’m on holiday, after all,” Andrew told her. “You may as well have a small scoop. It will help cool down the soup in your tummy.”

  Bessie laughed and then followed the man into the shop. She ended up with two scoops, one vanilla and one strawberry. They sat together on a bench and ate their ice cream before walking back to the car.

  “That was a real treat,” Bessie told Andrew as he started the engine. “I never get ice cream like that.”

  “You should. Life’s too short to walk past an ice cream shop without stopping,” he told her.

  “I’d weigh twenty stone if I stopped at every ice cream shop I saw,” Bessie argued.

  “But it would be worth it.”

  Bessie laughed and then shook her head. She’d never had a problem with maintaining her slender figure, but perhaps that was because she rarely ate ice cream and never got it from an ice cream shop in the middle of the day.

  Chapter 4

  “Inspector Cheatham, it’s nice to see you again,” John Rockwell said when he opened the door to them a short while later. “Please come in.”
/>   Andrew stepped back and let Bessie enter first. John’s house was a remodelled fifties bungalow. It wasn’t huge, but it was comfortable. It had been a while since Bessie had been there and she was surprised to see how much John’s children had taken over the place. There were piles of things everywhere and none of them seemed to be John’s things.

  “I’m sorry about the mess,” John said, looking slightly embarrassed. “The kids seem to just leave everything wherever it falls.”

  “I remember it well,” Andrew laughed, “and then they grow up and leave home and you actually miss the mess.”

  “I can believe that,” John said.

  Bessie knew that the children were due to move back to Manchester later in the month. When she’d first met John, he and his family had just moved to the island, where he’d been offered his job with the CID. His wife, Sue, hadn’t liked the island, and she’d recently been reunited with a former boyfriend, one she’d never stopped loving. While Sue and John had tried to find a way to make their marriage work, after a year on the island Sue had returned to Manchester and filed for divorce. With John’s consent, she’d taken the children with her, but now they were having an extended visit to the island while Sue was honeymooning with her second husband, the man she’d left John to be with.

  “When are Sue and Harvey back?” Bessie asked.

  “It’s now going to be mid-October,” John sighed. “The kids are staying in school here until she’s back and we can talk everything through. I’m already arguing that she should let them stay here for the rest of the school year. I hate the thought of them having to go back and forth so much.”

  “What do Thomas and Amy think?” was Bessie’s next question.

  “At the moment, they both want to stay here, too, but they are both struggling a little bit with school since things are different here to Manchester. I wish, I mean, it’s really…” John trailed off and looked at the ground.

  “I know. It’s really hard, but it will all work out in the end,” Bessie said soothingly.

  “How old are the children?” Andrew asked.