Aunt Bessie Finds (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 6) (23 page)

“Shall I be mother?” Bahey asked as Howard came in and sank into
one of the chairs.

“Please do,” Bessie said.
 
She carried the plate of biscuits over to the table, along with small
plates for each of them.
 
Bahey
poured the tea and everyone ate and drank quietly for a moment.

“I needed that,” Bessie said, after she’d finished her tea.

“I did as well,” Howard told her.
 
“Shopping is very tiring.”

“Especially when you have to carry in the shopping for three
people,” Bessie suggested.

“I didn’t mind a bit,” Howard insisted.
 
“I’m always happy to help.”

“Well, I’m hugely grateful,”
Bessie
replied.
 
“I wasn’t sure how I was
going to get all that shopping bought and into the flat.
 
I’m far less worried about tomorrow
now.”

“What’s the plan for tomorrow?” Bahey asked.

“I’m hoping to talk to all of the
neighbours
,”
Bessie told her.
 
“I want to see if
anyone else has noticed anything strange.”

“I don’t know,” Bahey said.
 
“Now that I’ve dragged you down here and made you move house and
everything, I’m starting to think that I’m imagining things after all.”

“Well, the mirror outside my flat isn’t imaginary,”
Bessie
told her.
 
“And I didn’t put it there.
 
And I’m certain someone turned my welcome mat around as well.
 
They’re harmless enough things, but
they’re strange.”

“I’m relieved it isn’t just me that’s seeing these things,” Bahey
told Bessie.
 
“But now I’m worried
that I’ve invited you into some sort of trouble.”

“I’m only going to ask a few questions,” Bessie said.
 
“If I think there’s anything other than
a few odd pranks going on, I’ll be straight on to the police.”

Before they could talk further, Bessie’s phone rang.
 
She hadn’t brought her answering machine
with her, so she felt she had little choice but to answer it.

“Ah, Bessie, it’s Mary.
 
I don’t suppose you were just sitting around feeling bored and would
like nothing better than to come and spend the afternoon with me?” Mary Quayle
said in answer to Bessie’s tentative hello.

“I thought you’d be busy getting ready for the barbeque,” Bessie
said, trying to give
herself
some time to think before
answering.

“George’s assistant hired some sort of party planning person and
she’s done all of the work.
 
All I
have to do is turn up at four, ready to play at being the hostess,” Mary said.

Bessie could hear dissatisfaction in her friend’s voice.
 
“That makes it nice and easy for you,”
she said.

“Yes, easy and boring and makes me rather unnecessary,” Mary
retorted.

“I’m just in the middle of putting away some shopping,” Bessie
said.
 
“Give me a few minutes to
finish that and I’ll grab a taxi and head over.”

“Don’t do that,” Mary said.
 
“I’ll send a car.
 
He’ll be
there in fifteen minutes or so.”

Mary hung up before Bessie could reply.
 
She looked at the receiver in her hand
and sighed deeply.
 
She liked Mary a
lot, but sometimes the woman could be a little bit too high-handed.

“Are you going out now, then?” Bahey asked.

Bessie sighed again.
 
“I
guess so,” she said with a frown.
 
“Mary and George Quayle are having a barbeque later this afternoon and I
guess Mary is a bit bored waiting for it to start.
 
She’s sending a car to collect me.”

“How very posh,” Bahey said with a laugh.

“She’s very wealthy,” Bessie said, “but I don’t think she’s very
happy.”

Bahey nodded.
 
“We both
know money can’t buy happiness,” she said.
 
“When I think about the Pierces, well, it’s just very sad, that’s all.”

Bessie nodded.
 
“It does
often seem as if the wealthiest of families are the least happy,” she said as
Howard and Bahey helped her tidy up the tea things.

“I guess I should be grateful I’ve never had to worry about having
money,” Bahey laughed.

“My sister married into a quite wealthy family,” Howard
interjected.
 
“They all hate each
other and most of them haven’t spoken in at least a decade.
 
All over money, of course.”

After she’d let Bahey and Howard out, Bessie changed into a summery
dress and added a touch of makeup to her face.
 
After combing her hair, she rang Doona
at the police station in
Laxey
to let her know about
the change in plans.

“I don’t need you to pick me up,” she told her friend.
 
“You can just go straight to the Quayle
mansion after work.
 
I’ll already be
there.”

“I was going to ring you anyway,” Doona replied.
 
“It looks like I might have to work
later than I’d planned.
 
I should be
at the barbeque by half five, but probably not any earlier.”

Bessie made sure that her friend knew exactly where she was going,
and then rang off.
 
She was going to
check her hair again when someone knocked on her door.
 

The uniformed chauffeur made Bessie feel slightly uncomfortable,
but she quickly had him chatting about his childhood and his family as he drove
her to the Quayle mansion.
 
He’d
grown up in Port Erin, and Bessie ran through a list of everyone she knew in
the south of the island until they found a few mutual acquaintances.

“Thank you kindly for collecting me,” she told him when he pulled
up to the front door of the enormous home.

“Happy to do it,” the man replied with a bow.
 
He helped Bessie from the car and then
escorted her up the handful of steps to the front door.
 
“Enjoy your evening,” he said, winking
at her before he headed back to the car.
 

The front door was pulled open by Mary herself
.
 
“Oh, there you are,”
she said, sounding anxious.
 
“I’m
just a bundle of frizzled nerves for some reason.”

Bessie gave her a hug and then followed her into the house.
 
“Let’s have a walk in the garden and
chat,” she suggested.
 
“Maybe a
glass of wine would help as well.”

Mary laughed uncertainly.
 
“That sounds great,” she said.
 
She led Bessie through the foyer and down a long hallway, ducking into a
huge kitchen that was full of gleaming appliances.
 
Bessie couldn’t imagine what some of
them were even for.

“Can we open a bottle of wine, please?” Mary asked one of the
kitchen staff.

“Of course, ma’am,” the woman said smartly.
 
“What would you like?”

Mary shrugged and looked at Bessie, who laughed.
 
“White?” Bessie asked.
 
“I don’t know anything about wine,
really, but generally I prefer white to red.”

Mary smiled and then had a short conversation with the woman about
wine types that Bessie didn’t understand.
 
After a moment the woman nodded and disappeared.
 
She was back only a few seconds later
with a bottle of wine in her hand.

“Would you like to taste it before I pour?” the woman asked Mary.

“Oh, good heavens, no,” Mary laughed.
 
“We’re going to take a walk around the
grounds, so maybe you should put it into large glasses.”

The woman nodded and then poured the entire bottle of wine into two
huge glasses.
 
Mary picked them both
up off the counter and handed one to Bessie.
 

“It isn’t the most elegant way of serving it,” she admitted after
her first sip.
 
“But this way we
don’t have to worry about topping up our drinks.”

Bessie took her glass gingerly.
 
She’d never been given half a bottle of
wine in one glass before and she wasn’t sure how much of it she actually wanted
to drink.
 
She took a cautious sip
and then smiled at Mary. “This is delicious,” she said, surprised at how crisp
and refreshing it tasted.

“Let’s walk,” Mary said, leading Bessie back into the
corridor.
 
At the very far end of
it, there was a door to the outside.
 
Mary pulled it open and Bessie followed her out into the huge
garden.
 
It was meticulously
manicured and felt almost too perfect to be natural.
 

“It’s lovely,” Bessie said.

“It’s overdone,” Mary said with a sigh.
 
“George pays a small army of men a
fortune to make sure that every leaf and flower grows in exactly the right
place.
 
Nothing is allowed to just
go crazy and grow as it pleases.”

Bessie made her way down the brick path that meandered through the
shrubs and flowers.
 
She sipped her
wine and sighed.
 
Maybe being very
rich did have its advantages, she thought, as she wound around into another
section of the grounds.
 
Here
everything was flowering and as Bessie looked from left to right, the
colours
moved from white, though the lightest of pinks,
darker and darker until, at the walled edge of the section, dark red flowers
bloomed.

“The next section does something similar in shades of blue and
purple,” Mary told her in a bored voice.
 
“And then there’s a rainbow section.
 
That’s where the barbeque is being
held.”

“How wonderful,” Bessie said, feeling slightly breathless.

Mary laughed.
 
“I
suppose it is,” she said.
 
“I’m
rather jaded by now, I’m afraid.
 
When George and I were first married, we lived in a little house and I
did all of the gardening.
 
My
efforts were amateurish, at best, but I loved our little garden and our little
house.
 
This house and these
grounds, they suit George, but they aren’t really me.”

Bessie smiled sympathetically at her friend.
 
“They are rather grand,” she said.
 
“I feel as if I’m visiting a stately
home in England, rather than a family home where real people live.”

Mary nodded.
 
“That’s
exactly it,” she said sadly.

The pair sipped their wine and walked slowly around the beautiful
grounds of the estate.
 
Mary seemed
lost in her own thoughts and Bessie was happy to let her own mind wander as
well.
 

“Oh, goodness,” Mary said suddenly.
 
“It’s nearly time for things to get
started.
 
I’d better get inside and
finish getting ready.”

Bessie looked at her friend’s gorgeous dress and perfectly done
hair and makeup.
 
“You look
fabulous,” she told Mary.

“I’m sure I need a fresh coat of lipstick, and my hair will need
combing,” Mary said, running her hand over her hair.
 
“I’ll just leave you in the library for
a few minutes, if that’s okay?”

“It’s more than okay,” Bessie said with a laugh.
 
“You know that.”

Mary showed Bessie to the library and then rushed away.
 
Bessie sighed happily as she made a slow
circuit of the room, pulling out books at random for inspection.
 

“Ah, Bessie, tucked up in the library again?” George’s voice boomed
from the doorway.
 

Bessie slid the book she’d been looking at back into place and
turned to greet the man.
 
She smiled
brightly at him so that he wouldn’t know how annoyed she was at being disturbed
yet again.

“Good afternoon,” she said.
 
“Are you all ready for your barbeque?”

“I think so,” George replied.
 
“The
staff are
handling everything, of
course.
 
I just sign the
cheques
.”

Bessie smiled, noting that George was carrying a glass with some
amber-
coloured
liquid in it.
 
He took a sip and then shrugged at
Bessie.

“It’s a party,” he said.
 
“I thought a drink was appropriate.”

“Mary and I have been drinking wine all afternoon,” Bessie replied.
 

“I’m glad you were able to spend some time with her,” George
said.
 
“She’s ever so worked up
about this party for some reason.”