1 Aunt Bessie Assumes (12 page)

“What were they fighting about?” Bessie had to
ask.

“I don’t know.
 
Vikky thought Danny was flirting with
Samantha and Danny thought Vikky was flirting with me.”
 
The man ran a hand over his face.
 
“Then Vikky got a text from an ex-boyfriend
who apparently didn’t know she was now married.
 
Unfortunately, Danny had her phone at
the time and he read the text.
 
Apparently it was sort of, um, rude and suggestive.”
 
He shook his head.
 
“I think they both realised that they
had sort of rushed into marrying and they were both regretting it.”

“Surely divorce is a better option than murder,”
Bessie said sensibly.

Donny shrugged.
 
“Vikky wouldn’t have been given much
money in a divorce settlement after only a few days,” he said.
 

Bessie frowned at him.
 
“I thought you said you liked Vikky,”
she said.
 
“It sounds like you’re
ready to put her on trial for murder.”

“I do like Vikky,” Donny insisted.
 
“But if it wasn’t something related to
drugs, I can’t imagine who else could have done it.
 
Obviously, neither my parents or myself
had anything to do with it; Samantha didn’t have any motive,
and
anyway, she spent the night with me.
 
There simply isn’t anyone else.”

Bessie gave him a measured look.
 
“I’m sure the police are considering
every possible option,” she said eventually.
 
“You should tell them everything you’ve
told me and then let them worry about it.”

The man nodded.
 
“I’m really angry at Danny for doing
this to us,” he confessed.

“That’s perfectly normal,” Bessie informed
him.
 
“But you still must want to see
his killer behind bars.”

Donny shrugged and then turned away from
Bessie.
 
“Thanks for the chat,” he
said dismissively.
 
“I suppose I
should round up the girls and head back home.
 
My parents might have noticed by now
that we’re gone.”

“Which way did you say Samantha went?” Bessie
asked.
 
“I’d love to have a quick
chat with her about her Manx ancestry.”

He shrugged again.
 
“I think she was heading towards the
mine.
 
She said something about
wanting to see where the men worked.
 
I think she was just too lazy to bother climbing the steps up the wheel.”

“Thanks.”
 
Bessie thought of a million things to
say, but chose to say nothing further.
 
She turned and slowly headed back down the ninety-six steps.
 
The rain was falling gently but steadily
as she reached the bottom.

Chapter
Seven

As she stepped away from the stairs, Hugh
came up alongside of her and took her arm.
 

“I was starting to get worried about you,”
he told Bessie as they walked slowly away from the Lady Isabella.
 
“Henry, the Manx National Heritage guy,
wasn’t sure how many people were up there, but he was pretty sure none of them
were women.
 
What were you doing up
there all that time?”

Bessie patted his arm, touched by the
obvious concern in his voice.
 
“Samantha wasn’t up there,” she told him,
“but Donny Pierce was, and he had a lot on his mind.”

“Anything you need to tell me right away?”
Hugh asked.
 
“Because I really need
to get back to the office.
 
With
both Inspector Rockwell and Inspector Kelly popping in and out all the time, I
can’t afford to take an extra-long lunch.”

“I’ve told the man that he should go to
the police with his information,” Bessie said.
 
“If he hasn’t come in and talked to
anyone by the end of the day, I’ll fill you in tonight.”

Hugh nodded.
 
“If you’re sure it isn’t anything
urgent, I’ve really got to dash.”

Bessie patted his arm again.
 
“You go and get back to work.
 
I’ll see you tonight.”

Hugh hesitated.
 
“What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to try to find Samantha.
 
I’m guessing she got tired of the cold
and the damp and found her way to a pub somewhere.”

“Be careful and call me if you need me,”
Hugh instructed her.
 
“And don’t go
climbing the Lady Isabella again.”

Bessie smiled.
 
“No worries, I don’t have any desire to
climb all those steps again in a hurry.”

Hugh nodded and then gave her one last
worried glance before he rushed off back to his car.
 
Bessie shook her head.
 
Even with a murderer running around, she
felt safe on her little island.
 
It
was sweet of Hugh to worry about her, but totally unnecessary.

Donny had suggested that Samantha had been
heading towards the mine when they split up.
 
Even though he’d said that at least an
hour had passed since then, the mine seemed as good a starting point as
any.
 

Bessie walked carefully along the uneven
ground, heading for the entrance to the old mine shaft.
 
On arriving, she stopped at the opening
and read the sign that was partially blocking it.
 

“Manx National Heritage welcomes you to
the old Laxey Mine.
 
Only a small
portion of the tunnel leading to the old mine is visible, but you are welcome
to walk inside and see for yourself where the miners would have begun their day
in the short tunnel that remains accessible.
 
Because there is always a risk of rock
fall, all visitors must wear hard hats.
 
Please be careful and enjoy your visit.”

Bessie glanced at the rack of ugly white
hard hats that sat next to the sign.
 
She kept her gray hair short and neatly trimmed; the hat would make
little difference to her style.
 
That didn’t mean that she wanted to wear it, however.
 
The hats were ugly and
uncomfortable.
 
For a moment she
debated simply ignoring them and heading into the tunnel.
 
Then she sighed deeply and grabbed the
nearest one.
 
Plopping it on her
head, she made her way to the mouth of the tunnel.

It would have been just her luck, if she’d
left it off, to find Mark Blake or some other Manx National Heritage bigwig
inside the tunnel when she got there.
 
She’d never hear the end of the teasing if he’d spotted her.
 
The last thing she wanted a reputation
for was rule breaking.
 
She sighed
as she stepped into the dimly lit tunnel.
 
It was empty.
 
She took a
couple of steps forward and then shrugged.
 
She would have to look for Samantha elsewhere.

The sound of a mobile phone ringing
stopped her as she was turning around.
 
She glanced around the narrow tunnel, trying to figure out where the
annoying notes were coming from.
 
Someone
must have dropped their phone in the tunnel when they were sightseeing, she
decided.
 
She might as well play
Good Samaritan and find it for them.
 

The sound was coming from deeper into the
space and she walked forward quickly, hoping to find the phone before it
stopped ringing.
 
At the end of the
tunnel, just in front of the locked doors that led into the actual mine shaft,
sat an old-fashioned mine cart, part of the display.
 
As Bessie walked towards it, she decided
that it must be where the sound was coming from.

She stopped in front of the cart and
glanced down into it, hoping that the phone would be lit up enough help her
find it in the near-darkness.
 
She
took a sharp step backwards as the phone’s light revealed far more than just
the ringing phone.
 
As her mind
tried to process what she had seen, her feet were carrying her backwards,
towards the mouth of the tunnel.
 

As Bessie stepped outside, she took
several deep breaths and then pulled her phone from her pocket.
 
She frowned as she punched the third
number on her speed-dial list.

“This is Hugh.”
 
The voice on the other end helped steady
Bessie’s nerves, at least a little bit.

“Hugh, it’s Aunt Bessie,” she began.
 
She heard the quaver in her voice and
took another deep breath.

“What can I do for you, Bessie?” Hugh
asked politely.

“It’s Samantha; I’ve found her,” Bessie
replied.

“Great, did she have anything interesting
to say?”

“No,” Bessie shuddered.
 
“She’s dead.”

Bessie pulled the phone from her ear as
she heard a huge crashing noise.
 
A
moment later, she cautiously put it back.

“Aunt Bessie?” Hugh sounded terribly
flustered.
 
“Sorry, I, uh, I dropped
the phone.
 
I’m sure I didn’t
understand you.
 
What did you just
say?”

“I said Samantha is dead,” Bessie answered
sharply.
 
“You really should be
paying more attention.”

She heard Hugh take a deep breath.
 
“Where did you find her?” he asked after
a moment.

“In the Laxey Mine,” Bessie said.
 
“She’s in the mine cart, all curled
up.
 
Her phone was ringing.”
 
Bessie was annoyed to hear tears in her
voice as she spoke.
 
She cleared her
throat in an effort to stem them.

“Okay, I’m on my way,” Hugh told her.
 
“I was just pulling out of the car park
by the wheel when my phone rang, so I won’t be long.
 
Just wait there for me and don’t let
anyone in or out of the mine until I get there.”

He hung up before Bessie could
protest.
  
“How exactly am I
supposed to do that?” she muttered at the phone.
 
In the end, it didn’t matter, as no one
approached the mine in the five or so minutes that it took for Hugh to turn up.

She watched his car’s arrival, his lights
blazing and siren blasting, with a frown.
 
Surely there was no need for so much rush; the woman was dead, after
all.
 
She sighed.
 
Boys and their toys, she decided.
 
Hugh probably loved having an excuse to
flash his lights and blare his siren.
 
She was impressed to see him hurrying from the car towards her, though.
 
It was the fastest she’d ever seen the
man move.

“Is there anyone else in there?” he asked
as reached her side.

“No, the place was empty when I got
here.
 
I only went in a few steps
and I was going to leave when I saw it was empty.
 
Then a mobile phone started to ring and
I figured I might as well find it and rescue it.”
 
Bessie shook her head.
 
Sometimes it didn’t pay to try to be
helpful.

Hugh nodded and then disappeared into the
mine tunnel.
 
Only a few seconds
later he was back, pulling out his phone and making calls.
 
Bessie watched for a few minutes and
then, when he’d just finished one call and was about to begin another,
interrupted him.

“I’ll be in the pub if you want me,” she
told him, pointing to the end of “Ham and Egg Terrace.”
 

“You probably should stay until the
inspectors get here,” Hugh told her.

“Sorry, I need to get out of the rain and
have a cup of tea,” Bessie said stoutly.
 
“The inspectors can find me there whenever they want to chat.”

Bessie turned her back on the still protesting
Hugh and stomped away through puddles that were growing larger by the
minute.
 
A cup of tea and a piece of
cake, she decided.
 
Or maybe a hot
pudding, like jam roly-poly with lots of custard; that would good.
 
She completely blocked everything from her
mind except her immediate plans.
 
Behind her, a new crime scene investigation began.

Bessie was happy to put her heavy shopping
bag on an empty chair and settle into another.
 
She drank her tea and ate her sticky
toffee pudding with extra custard while, around her, the entire room buzzed
with excited chatter.
 
By the time
she finished, six police cars were dotted throughout the small car park near
the mine and two ambulances were vying for space near its entrance.

“I wonder what’s going on at the mine,” the
girl clearing the dishes from Bessie’s table remarked idly.

“I couldn’t possibly guess,”
Bessie
answered, unwilling to discuss what she had seen with
anyone if she didn’t have to.
 
The
girl walked away and Bessie shut her eyes and drew a breath.
 
The tea and sugary treat hadn’t been
enough to erase the image that seemed burned into her brain.

Finding Daniel Pierce’s body had been a
somewhat upsetting experience for her, but this was in a different league.
 
For one thing, she had immediately
assumed that Danny had died of natural causes.
 
Perhaps more importantly, he had been
lying in such a way that she couldn’t see his face.
 
That had given Bessie the chance to feel
somewhat detached from his death.
 
Besides, the man had been a relative stranger to her.
 
She was vaguely aware that he had been
present on Laxey Beach in years gone by, but she didn’t think she’d ever spoken
to the man.

Samantha’s death was completely
different.
 
Bessie
shut her eyes tightly and then opened them quickly as, once again
,
the ghastly image haunted her
.
 
Samantha had been curled up in the mine
cart with the phone resting near her head.
 
In the eerie blue light that the phone emitted, Bessie had just been
able to make out the surprised look on Samantha’s lifeless face.
 
The only other thing that really
registered in Bessie’s split-second look was the knife that was sticking out of
Samantha’s chest.
 
She found it
impossible to reconcile the body she had seen with the vivacious and beautiful
woman she had spoken with only twenty-four hours earlier.

Bessie ordered herself another cup of
tea.
 
She was thinking seriously
about getting herself a second pudding as well when Inspector Kelly walked into
the room.
 
He quickly spotted her
and made his way to her table.

“You should have stayed at the crime
scene,” he barked as he sat down next to her uninvited.

“It was so cold and rainy,” Bessie said in
a weak voice.
 
“I just felt like I
needed to sit down.
 
I think I was
in shock.”

The inspector looked at her like he didn’t
believe a word she had said, but he didn’t argue.
 
“I need you to run me through finding
the body,” he told Bessie.
 

A crashing noise behind him had him
jumping to his feet.
 
The startled
waitress was staring down at Bessie’s second cup of tea, which she had
dropped.
 

“Oh, I am sorry,” she stammered.
 
“I just, that is, you said, oh
my.…”

Inspector Kelly frowned.
 
“Is
there
an
office or another room that I can use for a few minutes?” he asked the
waitress.