Aunt Bessie Finds (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 6) (28 page)

“I know, but so far I haven’t found anything interesting, either,”
Bessie said.
 
“I was hoping for a
really detailed will or an eighteenth-century household inventory, but it’s all
been sheets from the parish register and letters from the bishop so far.”

“I have a researcher who is always excited about new sheets from
the parish registers,” Marjorie said.
 
“She’s working on the demographic history of the island.
 
I’ll have to ring her and let her know
about this box once you’ve finished with it.”

“I’ll be back on Wednesday,” Bessie promised.
 
“Or maybe even tomorrow if I’m bored.”

Marjorie smiled.
 
“Your
move to Douglas could be very good news for the museum.”

Bessie stopped at her postbox and found it empty.
 
After exchanging quick greetings with
Nigel, she headed up to her flat.
 
There she found another note taped to her door.

Got your note.
 
Hope you get this one.

Bessie chuckled.
 
She
recognised
Bahey’s
handwriting,
so it didn’t matter that it was unsigned.

On Tuesday morning Bessie stuck another note on her friend’s door
before heading into town again to do a bit more shopping.
 
Again, she posted several letters to
herself in different postboxes.
 
After
a quick lunch at one of her favourite Douglas cafés, she found herself at a
taxi rank with a burning desire to head for home.

The trip to
Laxey
seemed to take forever
and Bessie found herself wishing she could drive, as the man behind the wheel
of the taxi seemed to be in no particular hurry to get anywhere.

Bessie’s cottage felt abandoned and unloved to her after she’d let
herself in.
 
She frowned as she
walked from room to room, unable to stop herself from touching nearly every
piece of furniture as if she hadn’t seen them in years.
 
After several minutes she gave herself a
mental shake and took herself out for a walk on the beach she knew so
well.
 
By the time she got home,
having had to dodge a dozen flying discs and what seemed like hundreds of small
children, she felt ready to head back to Douglas.
 
The sheer size of Douglas beach meant it
never felt as crowded as
Laxey
beach did today.

She rang her regular service and her favourite driver picked her up
only a few minutes later.

“I guess you won’t be needing me on Friday,” Dave said as he drove
her back to Seaside Terrace.

“No, I did tell them to cancel my regularly scheduled pickup,”
Bessie told him.

“How’s Douglas treating you?”

“It’s okay,” Bessie said thoughtfully.
 
“There are things I like and things I
don’t.
 
I suppose everywhere is like
that.”

Dave laughed.
 
“I think
you’re right,” he agreed.

Back at her building, Bessie checked her postbox.
 
It was still empty.
 

“What time does the post come?” she checked with Nigel on her way
to the lift.

“Oh, he came about an hour ago,” the man replied.
 
“But he comes at different times every
day.
 
You can never be sure.”

“I was expecting something today, you see,” Bessie told him.

“Post can take an extra day here,” Nigel said.
 
“Something about sorting out for the
individual postboxes or something.
 
It will probably arrive tomorrow.”

“I don’t suppose you could check the other boxes, just in case my
friend put the wrong flat number on the letter?” she asked.

“I wish I could,” Nigel told her.
 
“Only the postman has the key to get into
the back room to deliver the post, though.
 
That’s for everyone’s security.”

“I didn’t
realise
that,” Bessie
said.
 
“Interesting.”

She headed up to her flat, wondering if she’d have another note
from Bahey.
 
She did.

Got today’s note
(Tuesday).
 
We’re going for dinner
at six if you want to join us.

Bessie looked at her watch.
 
It was half six, so she’d missed them.
 
It was just as well; she still had some
leftover party food that she should eat.
 
Her phone rang at around eight o’clock.
 
Bessie had brought her answering machine
with her from her cottage this afternoon, but she answered the call anyway.

“Ah, Bessie, I just wanted to let you know that I received your
lovely note today,” Mary Quayle said.
 
“We were so happy to have you, you didn’t need to thank us.”

“I won’t argue about that,” Bessie replied.
 
“But I’m glad the note got there so
quickly.
 
I just posted it
yesterday.”

They chatted for a moment about the two parties before Mary said,
“Are you free for tea one afternoon this week?”

“How about Friday?” Bessie suggested.
 
“I’m going to be working at the museum
on a project, but I’ll definitely need breaks.
 
We could do tea or lunch, whichever
suits you.”

“Oh, let’s do lunch,”
Mary
said with a
laugh.
 
“Shall I meet you in the
museum café at midday?”

“That sounds perfect,” Bessie agreed before finishing the call.

While she had the phone in her hand, she made a quick call to Doona,
as she’d promised.

“Just checking in,” she told her friend.

“No news from there?” Doona asked.

“Nothing, what’s happening in
Laxey
?”

Doona sighed deeply.
 
“John’s extended his holiday by another week,” she told Bessie.
 
“We get to keep Inspector Kelly until
the end of the month.”

“Oh, I am sorry,”
Bessie
told her.

“Not half as sorry as I am,” was
Doona’s
reply before she rang off.

Bessie was certainly sleeping better in her new flat, but she still
wasn’t used to the sounds of doors opening and closing in the night.
 
On Wednesday morning she headed out for
her walk and stopped.
 
The mirror
was gone and her welcome mat had been turned around again.
 
Apparently the prankster was back.
 
She fixed her mat and walked quickly up
and down the corridor.
 
The mirror
was nowhere to be seen.
 

She enjoyed her walk along the promenade, but her mind was
racing.
 
She thought about a spy
novel she’d read recently.
 
What she
really needed was the sort of equipment the man in the book had had at his
disposal.
 
A tiny hidden camera that
could record everything that happened in the corridor would quickly identify
who was moving things around in the public spaces.
 
Another one on the ground floor would
let Bessie know who was using flat number five.

Back at
home,
she stuck a new note on
Bahey’s
door, telling her about the mirror and the
mat.
 
On her way out to the museum,
she took a detour down the ground floor corridor, but the mirror wasn’t anywhere
visible there, either.

Once she reached the museum, she put Seaside Terrace out of her
mind and
focussed
on her job of indexing the box
Marjorie had given her.
 
Even though
she only took a very short break for lunch, she wasn’t even halfway through the
box at the end of the day.
 

“I’ll be back on Friday,” she told Marjorie when she returned the
box to her.

“I’ll be getting spoiled,” Marjorie replied.

Back at the building, Bessie checked her postbox.
 
A flyer from the nearby Chinese
restaurant addressed to “Occupant” was all she’d received.
 
Bahey had left another note on her door.

“I haven’t seen the mirror.
 
My mat hasn’t moved since it came back.”

Bessie let herself into her flat and fixed herself some
dinner.
 
She poured herself a glass
of wine and nibbled her way through a couple of the chocolates from her
box.
 
It suddenly occurred to her
that she hadn’t actually baked anything in her new flat.
 
Back in
Laxey
,
she baked regularly and almost always had homemade goodies available.
 

As such treats were primarily for the young visitors that used
Bessie’s cottage as a hideaway from parents who didn’t seem to understand them,
Bessie supposed she didn’t need to worry about baking here.
 
While she was
an
honourary
auntie to most of the school-aged children
of
Laxey
, she was more or less unknown to the
children of Douglas.

That didn’t mean that she didn’t feel like a homemade treat,
though.
 
She dug through her
cupboards,
looking to see what ingredients she had available.
 
There wasn’t much, but she found what
she needed for flapjack.
 
Not much
over an hour later, she settled into her chair with a book, a cup of tea, and a
freshly baked flapjack.

It had begun to rain, a heavy soaking rain that had Bessie feeling
grateful for her snug little flat.
 
While it might not feel totally like home, she felt comfortable and
settled.
 
An hour later, she’d
finished the book and was ready for bed.
 
For the first time since she’d moved in, she didn’t wake up in the
night.

Thursday morning she walked to the nearest grocery store and did
her weekly shop.
 
Having filled her
trolley, she took a taxi back to her flat.
 
Perhaps she’d try the building’s service one of these days, but there
was something about food shopping that felt almost too personal to trust to a
stranger.
 
Once everything was put
away, she decided to take a short stroll on the beach.
 
Again, she posted letters to herself,
and others, from several different boxes.
 

As she walked past one of the fish and chips shops along the
promenade, Bessie impulsively bought herself some lunch.
 
She sat on a bench, watching the
families that were spread across the beach.
 
Small children were building sandcastles
and burying one another in the sand.
 
Mothers were fussing and trying to feed their offspring, while fathers
seemed to be mostly napping.
 

For a moment Bessie wondered how different her life might have been
if she’d married and had children of her own.
 
A small screaming boy with a dirty face
quickly distracted her from her reverie.
  
She laughed at herself as she got
back up and headed towards her flat.
 
She passed the postman as he was leaving.

When she opened her box, she was surprised to find letters
inside.
 
She tucked them into her
bag and headed up to her flat.
 
When
she went through her post, she shook her head.
 
All of the letters she’d received were
the ones she’d posted on Wednesday.
 
She still hadn’t received the ones she’d posted on Monday or
Tuesday.
 

Doona rang a short time later.
 
“Just wanted to let you know that I got the note from you,” Doona
said.
 
“It says Wednesday at the
top.”

“Thanks,” Bessie replied.
 
“You should get another one tomorrow, I think.”

“I’ll let you know,” Doona promised.
 

They agreed to do something together on Saturday, but left making the
final arrangements until later.
 
After
a light tea and some reading, Bessie headed to bed with the building’s
prankster on her mind.
 
She dreamt
of welcome mats that turned themselves around and around, the word welcome
reflected back at her in a dozen mirrors.
 
When six o’clock rolled around she still felt groggy and out of sorts.

A cup of tea did wonders for her disquieted nerves and she got
ready for her walk with her usual enthusiasm.
 
Outside her flat, nothing seemed to have
changed from the day before.
 
The
day was already warm, but overcast, and Bessie wondered if they were due rain
again.
 
She felt as if it had been a
rather wet summer, but since she enjoyed being outdoors so much, she nearly
always noticed the rain more than the sun.