Aunt Bessie Goes (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 7) (28 page)

“If you’re not
coming back, I can’t see why you care,” Bessie said.

“Maybe I just
needed to tell someone,” Grant suggested.
 
“Maybe I’m going to kill you before I go.”

Bessie took a
step backwards, trying not to let her fear show on her face.
 
Grant laughed loudly.

“I’m not
serious,” he told her.
 
“Your
friends would be so devastated.
 
Poor little Doona would cry for weeks.”

“Why were you
offering her a job if you knew you were leaving?” Bessie asked, glad that her
voice was strong even though she felt as if she were quivering inside.

“I was hoping
to give Inspector Rockwell a few bad nights,” Grant said with a laugh.
 
“Mary commented once that the inspector
is quite good friends with Doona, and I thought it would be fun to interfere
with that.
 
I’m not very fond of
John Rockwell.
 
Besides,
how better to make it look as if it’s all business as usual than by trying to
hire new staff?
 
I certainly
didn’t want anyone to know that I was planning to leave, now did I?”

“Where does
George fit into all of this?”
 
Bessie decided to keep asking questions.
 
Maybe the police would show up while
they were still talking.

“George?
 
He’s very good at making money,” Grant
told her.
 
“And he’s just a little
bit thick.
 
I invested in George
very early in my career and he’s repaid me a thousand times over.”

“But he was
never involved in anything criminal?” Bessie asked.

“George was
smart enough to figure out that I had more money than I should and even smarter
when he never asked any questions about it.
 
He knows his businesses were funded by
dirty money, but no, he himself never actually got involved in anything
illegal.”

Bessie held
back a sigh.
 
She was disappointed
in George, but not surprised by the revelation.
 
Hopefully, for Mary’s sake, he couldn’t
be held responsible for anything that Grant had done.

A small boat
appeared in the distance and Bessie watched as it drew closer.
 

“Ah, there’s
my ride,” Grant said with a chuckle.
 
“I’ll let you ask one more question and then I really must go.”

“Where will
you go?”

Grant
laughed.
 
“Brilliant question,” he
said.
 
“But if I answered you then I
really would have to push you over the edge.”

Bessie took
another step away from Grant, glancing back towards the house.
 
Mary was walking towards them slowly.

“Oh, look,
Mary’s coming to see me off,” Grant said.
 
“Here’s one other little fact for you, Bessie, my dear.
 
Adam’s death was a tragic accident and
Mark’s was self-defense, but I very nearly murdered someone once.
 
Would you like to guess who?”

“George?
 
Mary?
 
Me?” Bessie guessed, watching the boat
as it drew nearer.

“Mack
Dickson,” Grant told her.
 

“Mack?
 
Why?”
 
Bessie was puzzled.
 
Mack was an archeologist who’d been
murdered in May.
 
As far she knew,
there was little or no connection between him and Grant.

“He was
another one that was always looking for easy ways to make money fast,” Grant
said.
 
“He fabricated evidence to
get funding for an excavation he didn’t intend to actually do.”

“And that made
you want to kill him?”

“Mack had
found himself a graduate student who was interested in researching the history
of the bank,” Grant explained.
 
“Apparently,
Mack had heard the
rumours
about me and he’d decided it
could be profitable to have someone do some digging around.
 
I knew there were always
rumours
, but I kept enough people happy over the years that
no one ever actually investigated properly.
 
I’ve paid off auditors, bank officials,
and policemen to keep everything quiet.
 
Mack was going to oversee the student’s investigation and he meant for
it to be a very thorough one, much like the one your inspector is planning.”

“So you were
going to kill Mack?”

“I thought
about it,” Grant said with a shrug.
 
“Mack would have been happy with a large payoff.
 
That’s what he was angling for.
 
But then someone else took care of the
problem for me.
 
I offered the young
student who was planning to do the research a substantial grant if he changed
his topic to something else, and he was delighted to accept.
 
I took that as a warning, though, and
started making a few changes, even before I knew that Inspector Rockwell was
starting his own investigation.”

“What sort of
changes?” Bessie asked.

“Ah, you’ve
run out of questions and time,” Grant replied.
 
“Let’s just say I started planning for
today and leave it at that.”
 

Mary had
reached them now and she smiled tentatively.
 
“You’ve been back here forever,” she
said softly.

“I’m just
going,” Grant said.
 
“Tell George he
knows what to do.”

Mary’s jaw
dropped as Grant pushed aside the fencing and started down the steps to the
beach.
 
Bessie watched as the boat
came closer and closer to shore.
 
She fancied she
recognised
Nigel Green on the
deck.
 
Nigel and another man jumped
off the boat and into the shallow water, using ropes to pull the boat as close
to shore as possible.

“What’s going
on?” Mary asked.

“Grant’s
leaving by boat,” Bessie answered.

Grant had
disappeared down the steep stairs and now Bessie spotted him on the beach.
 
Within seconds he was on board the
boat.
 
The other two men quickly
pushed it back out into the water and climbed aboard.
 
Within minutes it was speeding away from
the shore.

“I need to
ring John,” Bessie told Mary.

Chapter Fifteen

After a short phone
conversation, John told Bessie that he would come to the Quayle mansion to
speak to her.
 
Mary had her wait for
him in the library, Bessie’s
favourite
room in the
house.
 
By the time John arrived,
Bessie was several chapters into an Agatha Christie novel she’d been thrilled
to find that she’d never read before.

“Bessie, we
had a police boat in the water within half an hour of your call,” John told
her.
 
“But as we have no idea what
direction Grant was headed, they haven’t found him yet.”

“I’m sure he
was counting on that,” Bessie said.
 
“He has to have a plan.
 
And
he has plenty of money to carry it out, as I understand.”

“We’re just
starting to uncover exactly how much money,” John said.
 
“The auditors are going to be busy for a
very long time, I reckon.”

“But how could
he get away with so much?” Bessie asked.
 
“I mean, I know there have always been
rumours
,
but surely someone should have noticed all the missing money?”

“One of the
auditors tried to explain it to me,” John told her.
 
“But he sort of lost me.
 
What they’ve discovered so far, and
they’ve only just started looking, is that, basically, he only took a tiny bit
from any one person or company, but all those little bits added up over years
and years.
 
He also found a way to
skim a rather larger portion of money from dormant accounts that was,
apparently, very clever.”

Bessie shook
her head.
 
“I gather at least some
of the plans were Frederick King’s,” she told John.
 
She’d only told him a few key things on
the phone earlier.
 
Now she took him
through the entire conversation with Grant.

When she’d
finished, John sighed deeply.
 
“You
know I have to report all of this,” he told Bessie.
 
“I don’t relish putting in the parts
about the Chief Constable.”

“But some of
this is his fault,” Bessie said.
 
“He never should have told Grant that you were investigating him.”

“No, you’re
right about that, but he is still my boss,” John replied.

“Well, maybe
he shouldn’t be,”
Bessie
said grumpily.

John had her
repeat the conversation a second time.
 
“It’s all hearsay,” he said when she’d finished.
 
“We don’t have any proof of anything and
he’s just sailed away with the only real witness.”

“Do you think
he’ll kill Nigel?” Bessie asked.

“He might,
once he’s done using him,” John said.
 
“I’m told killing people gets easier as you go along.”

Bessie
shuddered.
 
“I’m sort of surprised
he didn’t push me off the edge,” she told John.

“He might
have,” John said.
 
“You should have
insisted on talking somewhere else.”

“He was
watching for his boat,” Bessie replied.
 
“I didn’t know that at the time, of course, but every time I took a step
away, he just stood still and laughed at me.”

“You should
have gone back to the house,” John said.

“He wouldn’t
have followed me and then we wouldn’t know everything he told me,” Bessie
countered.

“But you would
have been safe,” John replied.

“It was fine,”
Bessie said, waving a hand.

“If you want
to wait here for a little while, I need to talk to both George and Mary,” John
told her, dropping the argument.
 
“Then I’ll take you home.”

“Sure,” Bessie
agreed.
 

She found her
place in the book, eager to get back to the fictional world where murders are
neatly solved and the bad guys always get caught.
 
An hour later, John reappeared, just as
Bessie finished the story.

“Let’s get you
home, then,” John said.

Mary was
waiting near the door to say goodbye, and Bessie gave her a big hug before she
left.

“I’ll ring you
tomorrow,” Bessie whispered to her friend.

John was very
quiet on the drive, and Bessie was lost in her own thoughts.
 
Back at home she felt restless, but a
long walk along the beach helped to settle her mind.
 
She fixed herself a light evening meal
and then read until bedtime.
 
She
slept well and woke up feeling refreshed.

After breakfast
and her morning walk, she made some phone calls.

“Doona?
 
Are you okay?” she asked her friend,
whom she’d reached at home.

“I’m fine,”
Doona assured her.
 
“I couldn’t have
worked for him, really, even if I was terribly tempted by the money.
 
So I’ve given up on my dream of paying
off my mortgage any time soon and I’m moving on.”

They agreed
that Doona should come over that evening, and then Bessie rang Mary.

“How are you?”
she asked.

“I’m okay, but
George is quite upset,” Mary answered.
 
“It seems Grant left a huge number of half-finished projects behind and
he cleared out his bank accounts as well.
 
George is going to have to find the money to
honour
the agreements that he and Grant made all by himself now.”

“Oh, dear,”
Bessie said.
 
“Are you going to be
able to manage?”

“We aren’t
certain exactly what we’re going to do,” Mary replied.
 
“By far my
favourite
idea is to sell the house, but George is resisting that at the moment.”

“George loves
your house,” Bessie said.

“Yes, well, I
hate it, so if we have to move, that wouldn’t bother me a bit,” Mary
replied.
 
“Anyway, we’ll have to
see, once we’ve gone through everything with our advocate and Grant’s, just
where we are.”

“I hope it all
works out,” Bessie replied.
 
“Please
let me know if I can help.”

“I’d love to
do lunch tomorrow,” Mary replied.
 
“Maybe up in
Lonan
?”
 

“That sounds
good.”

“I’d like to
hear from you exactly what Grant said about George’s involvement in
everything,” Mary continued.
 
“George claims that he had no idea that Grant was doing anything
criminal, but I’m wondering how true that is.”

Bessie thought
for a bit before she answered.
 
“Grant told me that George wasn’t involved in anything criminal,” she
told her friend.
 
“But we can talk
about it over lunch.”

“I’ll pick you
up at half eleven,” Mary said.

Bessie hung up
and fixed herself a cup of tea.
 
She
wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted to tell Mary.
 
Grant had said that George had
deliberately turned a blind eye to what was happening.
 
Now Bessie wondered if there would be
any criminal charges filed against George as things were investigated further.

Doona arrived
at six with John and Hugh, and enough food for an army.

“I hope you
don’t mind that we all came,” John said, handing Bessie a bakery box.
 
“We brought a selection of Italian
dishes, and tiramisu for pudding.”

“You’d be
welcome even if you came empty-handed,” Bessie told him.
 
“But everything smells delicious, so I’m
glad you brought it.”

The foursome
ate for some time before John spoke up.

“I have some news,”
he told Bessie.
 
“We found the boat
that Grant left on.”

“Where?”
Bessie asked.

“It was
drifting at sea between here and Liverpool,” John said.

“No one was on
board?” Bessie asked.

“We found a
body,” John said solemnly.
 
“It’s
been identified as Nigel Green.”

Bessie put her
fork down, suddenly far less hungry.
 
“What happened to him?”

“He’d been
shot at close range,” John told her.
 
“There was no sign of Grant or the second man you saw on the boat when
it collected him.”

“Where could
they have gone?” Bessie asked.

“That’s what
we’d all like to know,” John replied.

 
“How do you get off a boat in the middle
of the sea?” Doona asked.

“We’re
guessing that they got picked up by another boat,” John said.
 
“One of the life rafts was missing.
 
We suspect Grant had everything arranged
in advance, including the second boat.”

As it seemed
like there was nothing else to say on that subject, they ate their tiramisu and
talked about far more pleasant topics.
 

When John was leaving, Bessie had to mention
the painting that was still sitting in her spare room.
 
“I don’t know what I should do with it,”
she told him.

“Hang on it for now,” John told her.
 
“It will all get sorted out eventually.”

Early the next
morning Bessie received a phone call from one of the staff at the Quayle’s
home, informing her that Mary had decided to go and spend some time with
relatives across and wouldn’t be able to have lunch with Bessie as planned.
 

A few days
later, on Wednesday afternoon Bessie and
Doona
made
their way into the small chapel in Port St. Mary where Adam’s memorial service
was being held.
 
The service itself
was fairly short, although both of Adam’s brothers said a few words.
 
Sarah didn’t speak and Bessie felt very
sad as she watched the woman cry in her husband’s arms the entire time.

The family
invited everyone to gather at the nearby café for tea and coffee after the
service.
 
It seemed to Bessie that
everyone there was whispering about Grant and George.

“I heard
George Quayle has been arrested,” one woman whispered loudly.

“They’re
saying he stole millions and is trying to shift the blame on to poor Grant Robertson
now that he’s disappeared.”

“Maybe George
killed Grant so he wouldn’t get found out,” the first woman said excitedly.

Bessie bit her
tongue as
Doona
deliberately steered her away from
the women.

“Poor Mary,”
Bessie whispered to her friend.
 
“But has George been arrested?”

Doona
shrugged.
 
“I gather he’s being questioned extensively,” she told Bessie.
 
“But I think they have far too much
digging to do to start making any arrests yet.”

“Thank you for
coming,” Sarah interrupted them.
 
“I, well, that is, thank you for coming.”

Bessie smiled
and took the woman’s hands in hers.
 
“I’m so sorry,” she said softly.
 
“I hope it helps to know it was an accident.”

“Nothing helps
right now, but I’m sure it will help in the future,” Sarah said sadly.

“For what’s it
worth, I believed Grant, at least as far as Adam’s death was concerned,” Bessie
told her.

Sarah
nodded.
 
“I suppose he had no reason
to lie.
 
It was all so long
ago.
 
I am grateful that we finally
know what happened to Adam, anyway.
 
He’s going to be buried down here, in Port St. Mary, so I can be close
to him.”

Bessie hugged
her tightly and they agreed that they should get together soon.
 

“Thank you for
everything,” Sarah whispered to Bessie.
 
“I did decide to keep Mr. Hiccup, after all.”