Aunt Bessie Goes (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 7) (3 page)

“I just sink
under the water and think about George Clooney,” Doona told Bessie.
 
“He’s ever so wonderful in my
imagination.”

“If only real
men were as wonderful as the imaginary sort,” Bessie said with a sigh.
 
“I’m sure my Matthew was nowhere near as
perfect as I remember him, but sometimes I do try to imagine how my life might
have been if we’d married.”

Bessie had
spent most of her childhood in America and had fallen in love with Matthew
Saunders at the age of seventeen.
 
When her parents decided to return to the island, they insisted that she
come with them and leave Matthew behind.
 
Only a short time later, Matthew had attempted to follow her, but he had
not survived the difficult sea journey.
 

His legacy had
enabled Bessie to buy her small cottage, and thanks to some very careful and
clever investments by her advocate, the money he’d left her had supported her
for her entire life.
 
She’d always
been extremely careful with money, but in the last few years she’d starting
spending more on her
favourite
little luxuries, like
books.

“We’d never
have met if you’ve married him, would we?” Doona asked.

“Probably
not,” Bessie said.
 
“Matthew would
have taken me back to America to live, I’m sure.
 
That was the plan when he set sail for
the island.”

“You’d have
had a very different life.”

“Indeed.
 
I’m sure we would have had children,
possibly a great many children.
 
My
sister had ten, you know.”

“Ten?” Doona
nearly choked on her tea.
 
“I didn’t
realise
that.”

Bessie
smiled.
 
“It was a long time ago,”
Bessie told her.
 
“That’s what women
did in those days.
 
My sister loved
her children and her letters were always full of their adventures.”

“And you love
children,” Doona said.

“I do,” Bessie
agreed.
 
“But I think I’m rather happier
being an
honourary
aunt to the children of Laxey than
I would be as the mother of a large brood of my own.
 
The children who spend the night here
when they’re fighting with their parents go home in the morning, after all.”

Doona
laughed.
 
“I’d have to agree with
you on that,” she told her friend.
 
“I’ve never felt the desire to have children of my own.
 
Maybe if I were happily married, rather
than twice divorced, I’d feel differently.”

“Women are
having children later in life now,” Bessie pointed out.
 
“It isn’t too late for you to have a
baby of your own.”

“First I have
to find a husband,” Doona said.
 
“I’m a bit old-fashioned like that.”

“As I am as
well, I’m glad to hear that,” Bessie told her friend.
 
“I know marriages fall apart for lots of
reasons and many couples are better apart than together, but I do think it’s
best for children if their parents are together.”

“That’s the
sad part of John’s breakup,” Doona said.

“It is
indeed.”

An hour later,
after a second pot of tea and a few more brownies, Doona headed for home.

“I hope you
don’t have to be up too early,” she told Bessie at the door.
 
“I’ve stayed rather later than normal.”

“John’s not
going to be here until nine,” Bessie replied.
 
“But I’ll probably be up at six, as
usual, anyway.”

“Well, I’m
glad I don’t have to be up at six,” Doona laughed as she looked at the
clock.
 
“I probably won’t make it
out of bed before nine.”

Bessie locked
up behind her friend and checked that the kitchen was tidy.
 
Doona had insisted on taking care of the
washing up, so Bessie simply tucked cups back into the cupboard and then headed
for bed.
 

Chapter
Two

By the time
John pulled into the parking area outside her cottage the next morning, Bessie
had been up for three hours.
 
She’d
showered and dressed, patting on the rose-scented dusting powder that had, for
sixty-odd years, reminded her of Matthew.
 
A long walk on the beach had left her feeling serene, and she had waited
patiently with a cup of tea for him to arrive.

“Hello,
Bessie,” he’d called as he emerged from the car.
 
“We’re meeting the estate agent at the
first house, and I already need your help.”
 

Bessie had
locked the door to her cottage as John approached.
 
Now he offered her his arm and escorted
her down the short path to his car.

“I have no
idea where this is,” he confessed as he handed Bessie the sheet of particulars
for the first property.
 
“And I hate
to admit it.”

Bessie laughed
when she saw the address.
 
“I’m not
surprised you don’t know where this is,” she told him.
 
“They’ve only given you the name of the
house, not the street name.”

“I did
wonder,” John said.
 

“I suppose the
listing agent just assumed everyone would know the house,” she said.
 
“It’s sort of a landmark property.”

“If it’s a
landmark, why is it so affordable?” John asked as he turned his car
around.
 

Bessie gave
him quick directions and then read through the details on the house.
 
“I suspect it needs a lot of work,” she
told him.
 
“It’s not a very large
property, either, it’s just been there for a long time.”

“I hope it
doesn’t need too much work,” John said.
 
“I don’t really have the time or the skills to do much and I won’t have
the budget to have much done, either.”

Bessie read
through the listing again.
 
“I’m not
sure this is going to be the place for you,” she told the man.
 

“Well, it’s
just the first of many,” John said with a sigh.
 
“It would make life easier if the first
place was perfect, but I suppose I’d still want to see a few other properties,
anyway.”

They chatted
about the weather and the traffic on the short drive into the
centre
of Laxey.
 
John found a convenient parking space and they walked the short distance
to the property that was for sale.
 
John rang the doorbell and after a moment the door swung open.
 
Bessie’s heart sank.

“Ah, Mrs.
Cubbon
, isn’t it?
 
How wonderful to see you again.
 
I didn’t
realise
you would be accompanying Mr.
Rockwell on his tours,” Alan Collins beamed at Bessie.
 
“I’m sure you remember that I don’t
shake hands,” he added.

Bessie did
remember and she was grateful, as she had no interest in touching the man.
 
He was wearing the same ugly brown suit
that he’d worn when he’d shown Bessie around properties in Douglas.
 
His
meagre
supply of hair was once again combed across his nearly
bald
head
and plastered into place.
 
His beady eyes moved from Bessie to John and back.

“I’m sorry,
how is it you two know each other?” he asked.

“I’m sure that
isn’t any of your business,” Bessie replied tartly.
 

John chuckled
softly.
 
“I thought I told you I
didn’t want to see anything that needed a lot of work,” he said to Alan.
 
“This place looks like it needs a
complete remodel.”

Bessie bit
back a deep sigh as she looked into the house from the doorway.
 
Even just the little bit she could see
from there was discouraging.
 
The
carpets were badly stained and torn and the wall behind the estate agent clearly
had water damage.
 
She wrinkled her
nose as a musty and
mouldy
smell reached her.
 
She wasn’t sure if she would rather it
was the house or Alan Collin’s cologne that smelled so awful.

“Give it a
chance,” the man said now.
 
“It does
need some work, but it’s below your budget and it has the right number of
bedrooms.”
 
He gave them both a
cheery but fake-looking smile.
 
“At
least take a quick look.”

John glanced
at Bessie and then shrugged.
 
“After
you,” he told Bessie.
 

The front door
opened into a small foyer that led to a fairly large sitting room.
 
Bessie walked into the sitting room and
shook her head.

“This is in a
terrible state,” she said.
 
“And
there’s water damage on the ceiling.
 
There’s no way you want to take on a project that’s this big.”

Rockwell
glanced around the dark and dingy space.
 
“I’m going to have to agree with Bessie on this one,” he told Alan.
 
“This is far too much work for me.”

Alan looked as
if he wanted to argue, but Bessie gave him a stern look and he snapped his
mouth shut.
 

“It’s a shame
the owners didn’t look after it,” Bessie said as they headed towards the
door.
 
“It was a lovely house in its
day.”

“Apparently
there was some sort of issue with the owner’s will and that led to the house
sitting empty for many years,” Alan said vaguely.

Bessie shrugged.
 
“I guess you could say that,” she
replied.

“I assume you
know the whole story,” John said with a smile.
 
“Do tell.”

“Sam and
Valerie Looney built the house in the nineteen-forties.
 
They had seven children before Sam
passed away suddenly about ten years after they’d built the house, when he was
around fifty years old.
 
Valerie was
many years younger than Sam, and only a few months after his death she
remarried.
 
Her new husband, Gary
Davison, was not only ten years younger than the widow, but he was from across
and no one knew anything about his family.
 
When Valerie died on holiday about a year later, everyone was convinced
that Gary had murdered her.”

“And had he?”
Alan demanded excitedly.

“It was officially
ruled an accident,” Bessie told him.
 
“Valerie had just given birth to a little girl who was very unwell, and
there was some talk about her being quite depressed.
 
Adding to that were hints that young
Gary was cheating on her, as well.
 
We didn’t know as much about post-natal depression in those days, of
course, but the general feeling on the island was that, if it wasn’t murder,
than Gary drove her to suicide.”

“What happened
to her exactly?” John asked.

“She fell down
a flight of stairs at an old castle that they were visiting,” Bessie replied,
trying to remember more details from so long ago.
 
“Gary admitted at the inquest that
they’d been arguing.
 
He said that
he’d gone outside to walk around and calm down while Valerie had another look
around.
 
When she didn’t come back,
he went to look for her and found her body.”

“And there
were no witnesses,” John guessed.

“They were
alone at the site, apparently.
 
I
can’t remember all of the details, but the place was mostly in ruins, and no
one else was visiting that day.
 
It
was cold and rainy and not really a day for sightseeing, as I recall.”

“That doesn’t
explain why the house has been sitting empty for so long,” Alan said.

“Valerie left
everything to Gary, at least according to the will that he produced.
 
It had only been prepared a few days
before the accident, by a London solicitor.
 
The will she’d written previously,
through her advocate on the island, left everything in trust for her children
from her first marriage, but it predated the London one, so it was no longer valid.
 
Of course Sam’s family challenged the
second will on behalf of the children, who were still young, and it dragged
through the courts for many, many years.”

“So who won in
the end?” Alan asked.

“The advocates,”
Bessie said dryly.
 
“Both sides
spent far more money than they could afford fighting through the courts.
 
Eventually Sam’s family agreed to drop
the case because they couldn’t afford to fight any longer.
 
They had seven children to support,
after all.
 
By that time Gary was
settled somewhere in the Lake District with his second wife.
 
The baby girl didn’t survive long after
her mother.
 
Anyway, Gary had no
interest in coming back to the island, so he rented out the house for a
while.
 
As time went on and the
house began to need work, he found it more and more difficult to find people
willing to rent it, so he just left it empty.
 
I gather he died about a year ago and
his children from his second marriage are now trying to get it sold.”

“Why didn’t he
sell it years ago?” Alan asked.
 
“Surely that would have been easier.”

Bessie
shrugged.
 
“I’ve no idea,” she told
him.
 
“It’s hardly worth the effort
to speculate.”

At the front
door the trio took another look around the dilapidated foyer.
   
“I hope whoever buys it has
the necessary resources to bring it back to its former glory,” Bessie
said.
 
“It was a beautiful home in
its day.”

Back in their
cars, John followed Alan through Laxey towards the coast.
 
Alan pulled into the car park of a
modern development of luxury flats.
 

“I know you
said you’d prefer a single family home,” he told John as John and Bessie joined
the estate agent on the pavement in front of the property.
 
“But this is a large flat and it’s in
your price range.
 
You should take a
look so that you know all of your options.”

John exchanged
glances with Bessie and then the pair followed Alan into the building.

“There’s a
twenty-four hour doorman,” Alan said brightly as they entered the large
foyer.
 
He waved a hand at a desk
that ran along one wall, but unfortunately for him there was no one actually
sitting behind it. “I can’t imagine where he is,” Alan muttered, crossing to
the desk.
 

Bessie
followed, curious as well.
 
On the
desk was a note that read “
Press buzzer
for assistance
.”
 
It was posted
above a small button that looked like a doorbell.
 
Alan pressed the button twice and then,
after glancing around, pressed it again.

Bessie looked
at John, who was standing in the middle of the space that was furnished with a
couple of uncomfortable-looking couches and a large coffee table.
 
She shrugged.
 

“Maybe we
should just skip this one,” John suggested.
 

“He probably
just had to step away for a moment,” Alan said, his voice tense.
 
He pressed the button again and then pressed
it once more, this time holding it down.

After another
minute the only interior door that opened off the foyer swung open and an
elderly man came out.

“He’ll be in
the back having a quick smoke,” he told Alan as he headed towards the front
door.
 
“No good ringing, the bell
doesn’t work.”

Alan smiled
grimly at Bessie and John.
 
“I’m
sure he’ll be back any minute now,” he said through clenched teeth.
 

“No doubt,”
Bessie murmured, feeling almost guilty, as she was enjoying watching Alan’s
discomfort.
 
She hadn’t liked the
man when she’d first met him and nothing that had happened so far today had
changed her opinion.

John sat down
on one of the couches and made a face.
 
Bessie crossed to him.
 
“Not
terribly comfortable?” she asked quietly.

“Hard as a rock,”
he whispered.

The interior
door swung open again.
 
The man who
rushed into the foyer now was much younger than the last man, probably
somewhere in his forties, and he looked at them with a horrified expression on
his face.

“I wasn’t
expecting you for another hour,” he said defensively.

“We spent less
time than expected at the previous viewing,” Alan told him.

“I was just,
um, doing a security patrol,” the man replied.
 
“I walk around the whole building at
least once an hour.”

Bessie’s nose
wrinkled.
 
She could smell cigarette
smoke and she had a very good idea where it was coming from.

“Never mind,
I’ll just have the keys to number sixteen, please,” Alan said.

The man
unlocked the desk, dug out a key ring, and handed it to Alan.
 
“It’s a lovely flat in a wonderful
building,” he said brightly to Bessie and John.
 
“I’m sure you’ll fit right in,
ma’am.
 
Most of the residents are,
um, well, older ladies and gentlemen.”