Aunt Bessie Goes (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 7) (8 page)

“I suppose
that sounds logical,” Bessie said.

“It wasn’t,
though,” Sarah said, shaking her head.
 
“He covered up the only window in the room and shrank the space noticeably.
 
I even asked him, at the time, why he
was building the new wall so far out rather than right over top the old wall,
but he made up some excuse about leaving space for the walls to breathe or
something.
 
Even I knew that the
walls didn’t need two feet of space for ‘breathing.’”
 
Sarah made air quotes around the last
word.

“You couldn’t
possibly have guessed why he built it the way he did,” Bessie said soothingly.

“I should have
known something wasn’t right about their story,” Sarah argued.
 
“Adam never would have left without
saying goodbye.”

“You couldn’t
have known,” Bessie said.

“No, but I
should have guessed.”

“I can’t see
how,” Mike said.

“Not that
they’d killed him, but that something was wrong,” Sarah explained.
 
“I kept visiting, expecting mum to need
my support, but she didn’t seem sad at all.
 
Even though I knew she didn’t really
like her children, I still expected her to be a little upset when he left so
suddenly and went so far away.
 
She
didn’t like George or Fred either, but she was a little sad, at least for a
while, when they each moved across.”

“There wasn’t
anything you could have done,” Bessie told her firmly.
 

“I wish I’d
looked behind the wall while dad was building it,” Sarah replied.
 
“At least if I’d found the body, my
parents could have been punished.
 
I
wish my mum were still alive so she could go to prison for what she did.”

“You’re
getting rather ahead of things,” Mike said, patting her hand.
 
“The police haven’t determined if it’s
Adam or not and they don’t know how the man died, either.”

“I offered to
help dad with the wall,” Sarah said, continuing as if she hadn’t heard what
Mike had said.
 
“He didn’t think
women could handle tools.
 
He did
complain, though, that Adam had gone.
 
He actually said that it was a shame that Adam had moved away just when
he could have been the most helpful.”
 

Sarah began to
cry again, softly but steadily.
 
Mike shook his head and pushed back his chair.
 
He stood up and pulled Sarah up into his
arms.
 
He stroked her back for a few
minutes, before tipping her chin up and staring into her eyes.

“You have to
stop this,” he said firmly.
 
“This
isn’t helping.”

Sarah
nodded.
 
“I know, and I’m
sorry.”
 
She sat back down and took
a sip of tea.
 
After a moment she
pulled her plate towards her and picked up her scone.
 
She finished it with several large bites
and then washed it down with the rest of her tea.

“Can I have
another scone?” she asked Mike, giving him a forced smile.

“Of course you
can.”
 
Mike jumped up and fixed her
another plate, carrying the teapot back with him as well to refill her
cup.
 
He also topped up Bessie’s
drink before he sat back down.

“I didn’t
invite you over to watch me cry,” Sarah said to Bessie once she’d taken another
sip of tea.
 
“I really want your
help in figuring out what happened to Adam.”

“That’s what
the police are for,” Bessie reminded her.

Sarah waved a
hand.
 
“I’m sure they’ll try, but
the nice inspector that came to talk to me said that it was highly unlikely
that they’ll even be able to be sure what killed Adam after all these
years.
 
Mum and dad are both dead,
so even if it was murder, and I’m sure it was, they’ve no reason to pursue the
case, have they?
 
But I need to know
what happened.”

“Tell me what
you can remember about Adam’s disappearance,” Bessie suggested.
 
While she had no intention of
investigating anything, talking about the past should help Sarah come to terms
with it.
 
At least that was what
Bessie was hoping.

Sarah picked
up a biscuit and nibbled on it, her brain clearly occupied.
 
After a moment, she sighed.
 
“I was so busy with my own life,” she
said.
 
“I wasn’t paying enough
attention to Adam.”

“You were,
what, twenty, and no longer living at home.
 
You were perfectly entitled to live your
own life,” Bessie told her.

“Thank you,”
Sarah said softly.
 
“Anyway, I tried
to visit Adam at least once a week or so.
 
He was working for dad at the bank and he hated it.
 
Adam was smart, but he was also lazy and
easily influenced.
 
He and Mark Carr
were best friends, and Mark was nothing but trouble.”

Bessie
nodded.
 
“I remember the pair of
them getting into all sorts of mischief,” she said.
 
“I seem to recall them starting out
quite small, swiping sweets from the corner shop and that sort of thing, but I
remember Joan Carr telling me that nothing she did to punish Mark ever seemed
to make any impression on him.”

“Adam was much
the same,” Sarah said with a sigh.
 
“Mum did try to discipline him, but he never seemed to care.
 
I don’t think mum tried all that hard,
mind you, and dad wasn’t really interested in Adam at all.
 
He was an accident that dad saw as
nothing but a burden, really.”

“And yet your
father got Adam a job at the bank,” Bessie pointed out.

“That always
puzzled me,” Sarah replied.
 
“I
applied for a dozen jobs there from the time I turned sixteen until I left home.
 
Dad never even considered me for a job
there.
 
Then, one day, he just up
and gave a job to Adam.”

“What was Adam
doing at the bank?”

“He was an
errand boy, really,” Sarah said.
 
“He used to deliver the post to the different offices, go out and collect
sandwiches at lunchtime and help with the filing, that sort of thing.”

“But he didn’t
enjoy it?”

“He hated
it.
 
Like I said, he was really
smart.
 
He was just bored and he
hated the fact that he had to answer to everyone else there, even though he
knew he was smarter than most of them.
 
He kept telling me he was going to leave one day, but I thought it was
just talk.”

“You didn’t
think he was planning to move to Australia, then?”

“No, I don’t
think he ever even mentioned Australia,” Sarah said.
 
“Why didn’t I hear alarm bells when mum
said that was where he’d gone?”

“Do you
remember exactly what she said?” Bessie asked.

“I went up to
see them on a Saturday morning.
 
I
was going to take Adam to lunch.
 
He’d been really upset the week before.
 
Apparently one of the big bosses from
the bank had been in the Laxey branch and he’d snapped at Adam to get him tea
or something.
 
I remember Adam saying
something about Grant Robertson not being anywhere near as smart as he thought
he was.”

Bessie gasped
when she heard the name.
 
“Grant
Robertson?” she echoed.

“Yeah, he was
already a junior vice president or something and Adam was always complaining about
how he threw his weight around when he visited the Laxey branch.”

“I didn’t
realise
,” Bessie said softly.
 

Grant had, of
course, continued to rise up through the ranks at the bank, eventually taking
early retirement as one of their most senior executives.
 
Bessie had only spoken to him a few
times, but she hadn’t been very impressed with him as a person.
 
He was close friends and business
partners with George Quayle, and Bessie was becoming increasingly friendly with
George’s wife, Mary.
 
Mary disliked
Grant, which did nothing to improve Bessie’s opinion of him.

“Anyway, I was
going to take Adam to lunch, but when I got to the house, no one was home.
 
That was unusual, but not worryingly
so.
 
I just turned around and went
back to
Castletown
.
 
When I rang that evening, mum told me
that they’d been taking Adam to the airport, that he’d persuaded dad to pay for
a one-way ticket to Australia.”

“And you had
no reason to doubt her,” Bessie said.

Sarah shook
her head.
 
“I had every reason to
doubt her,” she said too loudly.
 
“I
just didn’t, and I don’t know why.”

“You had no
reason to think she’d lie to you,” Bessie countered.

“But Adam had
never mentioned Australia to me.
 
He
was forever talking about leaving the island, but he always talked about going
to London to live with Fred or going to America.
 
As far as I know, he never even thought
about Australia.”

“But he might
have,” Mike interjected.
 
“The
skeleton could be someone else altogether and Adam might be living in
Australia, having a cold beer right now.”

Sarah smiled
sadly.
 
“I wish I could believe
that,” she said, squeezing her husband’s hand.
 
“Dad would never have paid for his
flights, anyway,” she added.
 
“Dad
was a big believer in kids earning their own way and finding their own
opportunities.
 
That’s why I was
surprised he gave Adam a job in the first place, but he never would have funded
a move to another country.
 
I should
have challenged mum on that at the time, but I hated arguing with her.”

“Was there
anything else that felt wrong to you?” Bessie asked.

“He didn’t
ring to say goodbye,” Sarah replied.
 
“Mum said it was all last-minute and once dad agreed, Adam was so eager
to get away that he just took off, but Adam would have found time to ring me to
say goodbye, I know he would have.
 
That’s why I’m so sure it’s him that they found.
 
It’s the first thing that’s made sense
since Adam disappeared.”

Bessie
nodded.
 
She’d known the whole
family for many years and she knew that Sarah and Adam were close.
 
Even if the trip was arranged at the
last minute, she couldn’t imagine Adam going without telling his much-loved big
sister all about it.

“And he never
got in touch,” Sarah added.
 
“I
lived at the same address in
Castletown
for more than
ten years after he left and he never sent a single postcard or Christmas card
or anything.
 
Mum said she never
heard from him either, but that was less surprising to me.
 
She and Adam weren’t close, but he and I
were.
 
If he did move to Australia,
even if he went at the last minute and didn’t have time to say goodbye, he
would have written later to let me know he was okay.”

“You couldn’t
have ever guessed what had happened,” Bessie said.

“I know, but I
should have guessed something was wrong,” Sarah replied, shaking her head.

“Did your
mother ever tell you anything more?” Bessie asked.

“I did try to
find out more,” Sarah said.
 
“I used
to ask about Adam every time I rang or visited.
 
For years I was sure he was going to get
in touch soon or that mum had to know more.
 
She hinted once, when I was particularly
persistent, that he’d found himself in some trouble at the bank and that dad
sent him away and hushed everything up.
 
When I tried to get her to tell me more, though, she wouldn’t and the
next time I mentioned it she told me I’d misunderstood her.”

“Is it
possible that she was telling the truth about the trouble at the bank?”

Sarah
shrugged.
 
“Before she died, I would
have said that my mother, for all her faults, never lied to me.
 
She was sometimes painfully, brutally
honest with me.
 
But now I find
myself doubting everything she ever said to me.
 
There’s no way she didn’t know about
what was behind that wall.
 
Whether
it’s Adam or not, that’s one heck of a secret to keep for thirty years.”

“It is, at
that,” Bessie agreed.

“Sarah’s
brothers, Fred and George, are going to be coming across later this week or
early next,” Mike told her.
 
“I
don’t know if they’ll be able to answer any questions, though.
 
They were both already living in the UK
when Adam, um, left.”

“Still, it
will be nice for you both to have them here, right?” Bessie asked.

“I suppose,”
Sarah said.

“That wasn’t
terribly enthusiastic,” Bessie told her.

“They weren’t
close to Adam,” Sarah explained.
 
“In fact, I think they both thought he was a terrible pest.
 
He was quite a bit younger than them, of
course, and they all shared a room, which was very tough on all three of
them.
 
Anyway, they were both too
busy to come to mum’s memorial service.
 
It wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t actually come now, either.”