Aunt Bessie Goes (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 7) (11 page)

“Aunt Bessie,
it’s Spencer Cannon.
 
I was hoping
maybe you were free for dinner tomorrow night?
 
I’d love to treat you to
La
Terrazza
,
if you can make it.
 
Please ring me
back.”

Bessie jotted
down the number he’d recited and then
dialled
.
 

“Thanks for
ringing back,” the man said.
 
“Are
you free for dinner tomorrow, then?”

“I suppose so,
although there’s no need for you to treat me.
 
I can pay for my own meal.”

Spencer
laughed.
 
“I want you to be my
guest,” he said firmly.
 
“I still
feel as if I owe you so much for helping me get the job here.”

“Nonsense,”
Bessie replied.
 
“I just pointed you
in the right direction.”

“Let’s not
argue,” Spencer said.
 
“I’ll collect
you at six.
 
I suppose I should warn
you that I’ve been to see your friend Inspector Rockwell today.
 
I’d very much like to talk to you about
Adam, if that’s okay.”

“It’s fine,”
Bessie assured him before disconnecting.

Having eaten a
very generous lunch, Bessie took herself for a long walk before fixing a light
evening meal.
 
Then she curled up
with a new book by one of her
favourite
authors and
enjoyed losing herself in someone’s fictional universe.
 
By bedtime she’d finished and she shut
the book and sighed.
 
If only real
life were as neat and tidy as fiction, where the detective figured everything
out and all the loose ends were tied up in seventy thousand words or less.

She slept
better than she thought she might.
 
The next morning the rain was coming down in sheets.
  
After she’d showered and breakfasted
she pulled on her waterproofs and her Wellington boots and headed out for her
walk.
 
She didn’t bother with an
umbrella because of the strong wind.
 
Not surprisingly, she had the beach to herself again this morning and
she walked briskly and purposefully past the holiday cottages to the stairs to
Thie
yn
Traie
,
where she turned around and marched home.

It took the
best part of half an hour for her change out of her sodden clothes and dry off.
 
Waterproofs could only do so much and
Bessie was pretty much soaked through.
 
In anticipation of her dinner plans, she had a light lunch and then dug
out another new book.
 
This one had
been sent by the bookstore in Ramsey as a recommendation.
 
She’d never heard of the author, but it
was the first in a series of the sort of books she loved.
 
As it was a paperback, it wasn’t
terribly expensive, but Bessie knew she could return it if it didn’t suit her.

By the time
Bessie needed to get ready for dinner, she was still undecided.
 
She was about halfway through the book
and she was caught up in the story, but she wasn’t sure it was really for
her.
 
There was a bit too much sex,
violence and swearing for her to feel totally comfortable with it.
 
She slid a bookmark into it.
 
When she got home from dinner, she’d see
if she felt like finishing it or not.

On her first
floor, she changed into a pretty skirt and jumper.
 
She brushed her hair and applied a light
dusting of makeup.
 
You’ll have to
do, she told her reflection.
 
Her
reflection stuck its tongue out at her.
 
Laughing at her own foolishness, Bessie headed back downstairs to wait
for Spencer.
 
She didn’t have to
wait long, as the man pulled into the small parking area beside her cottage
only a minute or two later.

He met her at
her door, and after she’d locked up, escorted her to his car.
 
Spencer was around fifty.
 
He was bald and plump and he reminded
Bessie of his father, Henry,
who’d
died in the
seventies.
 

“I asked for
the quietest corner they could give us,” he told Bessie after they’d been
seated in the very back of the half-full restaurant.
 

“It’s nice and
quiet in here tonight,” Bessie remarked.
 
“It’s usually pretty busy.”

“I guess no
one goes out for a nice meal on a Wednesday,” Spencer replied.

They both ate
there often enough that they were able to make quick decisions as to what they
wanted.
 
Once their orders had been
placed, Spencer sat back and frowned at Bessie.

“I don’t want
to upset you,” he told her.
 
“If
you’d rather not talk about Adam, that’s okay with me.”

Bessie shook
her head.
 
“I don’t want to talk
about Adam particularly,” she admitted.
 
“But if we can help the police figure out what happened, it’s well worth
talking about him.
 
I hate the idea
of never knowing the truth about his fate.”

“I feel the
same,” Spencer told her.
 
“Although
we weren’t exactly friendly.”

“I thought all
the jam ladies’ kids were friends,” Bessie said.

“We all played
together, for sure,” he replied.
 
“And I guess we were friends when we were quite young.
 
But Adam, well, he wasn’t very
nice
as he got older.
 
We were never very close and by the time he was fourteen or fifteen, we
were actively avoiding each other.”

“Really?”
Bessie asked.

Spencer
shrugged.
 
“Actually, that may not
be totally accurate.
 
I was
certainly actively avoiding him, but I don’t think he cared enough about me to
avoid me.”

“So who
was he friends
with?”

“As I recall,
just Mark Carr, once he hit his teens.
 
They were very close in age and also in, well, temperament may be the
right word.”

“Did you know
about any girlfriends?” Bessie asked, the idea just occurring to her.

“I think he
might have dated Mark’s sister,” Spencer replied.
 
“In fact, I’m sure he did, for a while
anyway.”

“Why are all
the relevant people dead?”
Bessie asked, feeling frustrated.

Spencer patted
her hand and then leaned back to allow the waiter to deliver the starters.
 
Once he’d gone, Spencer patted her hand
again.

“I know, it
does seem as if everyone who could help has passed,” he said.
 
“If it makes you feel better, I’m pretty
sure they’d broken up long before Adam left.
 
She was dating one of the Porter boys
during that summer.”

“Are you
sure?” Bessie asked.

“Pretty sure,”
Spencer replied.
 
“I know it was a
long time ago, but I remember thinking, when I’d heard that Adam had gone, that
he was probably trying to get away from Mary Carr.
 
I thought at the time that she’d pretty
much broken his heart.”

“Did you tell
John Rockwell this?”

“No, I didn’t
think of it,” Spencer said, shaking his head.
 
“I’ll ring him tomorrow.”

“Right, so he
dated Mary Carr, but that was over before he left.
 
And his only friend was Mark Carr.
 
The police are looking for him.
 
Hopefully they’ll find him soon and
he’ll be able to answer some questions.”

“I hope so,”
Spencer said.
 
“Even though we
weren’t friends, it’s upsetting, especially after everything else that has happened.”

“You haven’t
heard from Mark lately, then?” Bessie asked.

“Not in thirty
years or more,” Spencer told her.
 
“We were never really friends.
 
He and Adam kept to themselves, really.
 
They were always planning something,
usually something they knew they shouldn’t do.
 
When Mark went across, not long after
Adam left, I wasn’t sorry to see him go, or Adam either, for that matter.”

“And you don’t
know anyone who is still on the island that Mark would have contacted once he
got out of prison?”

“I can’t
imagine any of the old group would have even taken his call,” he told
Bessie.
 
“I might have said Sarah,
before all of this happened.
 
Mark
might have rung her and asked her for help, and she might have agreed as a
favour
to Adam.
 
Under the circumstances, though, I think it’s unlikely.”

“Yes, I’d have
to agree with that,” Bessie said, thinking of what Sarah had told her about how
she felt about Mark.
 
It seemed
unlikely that the woman would have agreed to help him in any way, even if he
tried to play on her sentimentality for her missing brother.

“I’d guess
that he said he was coming here and then went somewhere else altogether,”
Spencer continued.
 
“He hated the
island.
 
He thought it was too
boring and small for someone with his brains and ambition.”

Bessie nodded
and moved the conversation on.
 
“Did
you know anything about Adam’s job?” she asked.

“I was across
at school for most of the year,” he told her.
 
“I came home for summer break and some
of us that had grown up together had a little party on the beach.
 
We didn’t invite Mark or Adam, or Nathan
for that matter, but you’ll understand that.”

Bessie
nodded.
 
Nathan Lewis had had some
sort of learning difficulties that were never, as far as Bessie knew, formally
diagnosed.
 
He had been a difficult
child who’d grown into a stubborn and spoiled young man.
 
Bessie wasn’t surprised that they hadn’t
invited him, especially since if they had, there was no doubt
Elinor
would have insisted on coming along to keep an eye
on her much beloved son.

“Anyway, we
just had a few beers and talked about what we were all doing and whatever.
 
I remember someone telling me that Mark
was shoplifting all around the island and that Adam was trying to do the same
thing, but at his father’s bank.”

Bessie
sighed.
 
“He was stealing from the
bank?”

“I can’t
remember who said it, but whoever it was, they clearly thought so.
 
I can’t say that any of us were
surprised.
 
Well, I was surprised
his father had given him a job there, but not surprised that he was trying to
steal from them.”

The main
courses arrived then and for a short time the pair
focussed
on eating.
 

“I love the
food here,” Bessie said after a while.

“Me, too.
 
I brought Beverly here last weekend and
she loved it as well.”

“Are you still
seeing Beverly?” Bessie asked.
 
“I
was wondering.”

Spencer
flushed.
 
“Yeah, we’re still
together.
 
We really enjoy each
other company, but she’s only recently divorced, so we’re taking things slow.”

“That’s
probably wise,” Bessie said.

“Yeah, well,
she’s smarter than me when it comes to relationships, so I’m letting her set
the pace.
 
It seems to be working.”

After the
waiter had cleared their plates and taken their orders for pudding, Bessie
dragged the conversation back to Adam.

“What did you
think of Frederick and Nancy King?” she asked.

Spencer
frowned.
 
“They were adults,” he
replied.
 
“I don’t know that I even
saw Mr. King more than once or twice, aside from at the bank when my mother
went in to do her banking and dragged me along.
 
He had that big office, behind the
teller windows, with the glass walls, and I remember staring at him, wondering
what he did all day.”

Bessie
laughed.
 
“I used to wonder the same
thing,” she said.
 
“It seemed to me
that he was always on his phone, shouting at someone.
 
I did think that maybe there was no one
there and he was just shouting to look important.”

“He always
seemed to be flipping through piles of paper when I saw him,” Spencer said with
a chuckle.
 
“I used to think he
should have been more
organised
so he could find what
he wanted more quickly.”

“What about
Nancy?”

“None of the
jam ladies were overly friendly with us kids,” Spencer said.
 
“When we were very small we used to
rotate through their houses every week, all of us dumped at one place for an
afternoon.
 
I think they all hated
when it was their turn to have us, really.
 
There were quite a lot of us and, well, there were some real troublemakers
in the group.”

“Mark and Adam
again?” Bessie asked.

“And Nathan,”
Spencer added.
 
“Anyway, once we got
a bit older, we quickly reached the stage where we all tried to avoid parents,
our own and everyone else’s.”

Bessie
nodded.
 
“I’m sure you’ve been going
over all of this in your head since the body was found, but can you think of
anyone else it might have been?”