Aunt Bessie Joins (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 10) (29 page)

“Just not the police,” Natasha giggled.
 
“You won’t repeat what I told you, will
you?
 
I mean, I’ll just deny it all
anyway, so you might as well not bother.”

“There’s someone with a torch coming,”
Doona
said.
 
“Maybe he can get the lights back on.”

“It’s me,” a voice called in the
darkness.
 
Bessie struggled to hear
who was speaking to
Doona
.

“It’s Henry.
 
If I can’t fix the problem, I can switch
on the emergency generator.
 
One way
or another, we’ll have lights in a few minutes.”

“Then I can get to the airport,” Natasha
said.
 

To Bessie it sounded as if she was slightly
slurring her words.

“Or to hospital,”
Doona
suggested.

“Hospitals are too white.
 
I’ve always wanted to redesign a hospital.
 
I’d put
colour
everywhere,” Natasha said.
 
“But not
red.
 
Blood is red and it goes all
over the place when you stab someone.
 
Did you know that?
 
I didn’t
expect it to get all over me.
 
I had
to throw all the clothes I was wearing away, except for the shirt I left with
Michael.
 
It was a really big shirt,
so it could have been his.”

Henry was as good as his word.
 
A moment later, lights began to flicker
on around the castle.
 
Bessie
glanced around at everyone else and then shook her head.
 
They had no idea what she’d been hearing
through her mobile.
 

“Natasha fell down the stairs on the way to
the courtyard,” she told Mark.
 
“She’s just confessed to killing Mr. Hart and Michael.”

Mark was on his mobile as Bessie hurried
from the room.
 
She was still
listening on her mobile as
Doona
began to give
instructions to the newly arrived ambulance team.
 
By the time Bessie reached the bottom of
the stairs, Natasha was on her way out of the castle, safely strapped down to a
stretcher.
 

“Are you okay?” Bessie asked
Doona
as the pair hugged.

“That was horrible,”
Doona
gasped.
 
“She just kept talking and
telling me things I didn’t want to hear.”

“I know,” Bessie said soothingly.

“Yes, I suppose, of all people, you do
understand,”
Doona
said.
 
“I never
realised
how awful it has been for you, though.”

“How badly hurt is she?” Bessie asked.

Doona
shrugged.
 
“Her head had a nasty lump on it and
they seemed to think the ankle was broken.
 
They’ll take her to Noble’s.
 
I rang John and suggested he meet them there.”

“Where she’ll deny everything,” Bessie said
with a sigh.

“At least the police know where to look
now,”
Doona
replied.
 
“I’m sure John and Pete will be able to
find plenty of evidence to support what Natasha told me.”

“I hope so,” Bessie said.
 
“The thought of her getting away with it
is terrifying.”

“But what happened with the lights?”
Doona
asked.

“It looks like the main switch was turned
off,” Henry, who was just passing by, said.
 
“I can’t imagine how that happened.”

Bessie shivered.

“You don’t think Mr. Hart’s ghost…”
Doona
began.

Bessie shook her head.
 
“No, I don’t,” she said firmly.

“Anyway, we’re meant to open in ten minutes,
and everyone is all upset,” Henry said.
 
“Do you think we should cancel the auction?”

“No, I don’t,”
Bessie
said firmly.
 
“Let’s go find Mark
and make sure he isn’t thinking of doing anything silly.”

Back in the banquet room, Mark was pacing
anxiously.
 
“Is Natasha okay?” he
asked.

“She’s on her way to Noble’s,”
Doona
told him.

“Did you actually say that she confessed to
killing Mr. Hart and Michael?” he asked Bessie.

“I did, and she did,” Bessie replied.

“Maybe we should cancel the auction,” Mark
began.

“After all of our hard work?” Bessie
demanded.
 
“Natasha is in hospital
with a police guard.
 
They’ll sort
out that mess.
 
It has nothing to do
with ‘Christmas at the Castle.’”

Mark looked uncertain.
 
“Committee members, we need a quick
decision,” he announced.
 
Everyone
gathered around him.
 
“Natasha has
confessed to killing Mr. Hart and Michael and is on her way to hospital.
 
The question is, do we still go ahead
with the auction?”

For a moment no one spoke, and then a chorus
of “yeses” filled the space.
 
Carolyn sighed deeply and then gave Richard a hug.
 

“I didn’t really think you’d killed anyone,”
she said loudly.

“Of course not,” Richard muttered, patting
her back.

Chapter Fifteen

Ten minutes later the doors opened on the
first annual ‘Christmas at the Castle’ charity auction.
 
Bessie stuck close to
Doona
, who still looked upset.
 
After an hour, and few glasses of wine,
both women were feeling better when
Doona’s
mobile
rang.
 
It was a short conversation.

“John’s tied up at Noble’s, but he sends his
apologies for not being here,” she told Bessie.
 
“Apparently, Natasha started out by
denying everything and now she demanding that they stop questioning her because
of her head injury.
 
They’re going
to search
Thie
yn
Traie
next.
 
Apparently, Mary has already given them permission.”

Carolyn’s mood seemed to have improved
dramatically after Natasha’s confession, and Bessie watched happily as the
other woman coaxed her wealthy friends into bidding outrageously on the various
items up for auction.
 
Mary had her
own group of wealthy friends to bid against them.
 
By the time the doors closed behind the
last of the guests, the event had raised at least twice as much as they’d hoped
for MNH and the various charities, and Bessie found herself the proud owner of
the mystery box of books.

“That was a huge success, in spite of the
power failure,” Mark told everyone as they gathered for one last time in the
banquet room.

“Did Natasha really confess to murdering Mr.
Hart and Michael?” Liz asked.

“I think we’ll have to wait and see what the
police say about that,”
Doona
told her.
 
“She hit her head when she fell.
 
It’s possible she was just confused.”

Bessie didn’t speak, but there was no doubt
in her mind that Natasha had been telling the truth when she’d told
Doona
what she’d done.
 

“Everyone should go home and have a very happy
Christmas,” Mark told them.
 
“As for
our lovely charity volunteers, your work here is done.
 
The committee is responsible for packing
up your rooms and delivering their contents to the winning bidders from
tonight’s auction.
 
Please make sure
that you haven’t left any personal belongings in your room.
 
MNH will be sending out
cheques
to each of you once the numbers are
finalised
.”

“When can we apply for a space for next
year?” Agnes asked.
 
“I definitely
want to do it again.
 
It was a lot
of work, but if we raised what you’ve suggested, it was worth it.”

“I’ll be talking to my supervisor about that
in the next few weeks, once we’ve finished up here and
finalised
all of the numbers,” Mark replied.
 
“I’m sure if we do it again, we’ll start planning much earlier in the
year.
 
I’ll definitely be in touch
with you all, one way or another.”

The committee members agreed to meet in
early January to start clearing out the castle.
 
There was a flurry of hugs, and calls of
“Happy Christmas” and “Happy New Year” filled the air as everyone gathered
their things and headed for home.
 
Doona
offered to take Bessie home, to save Mark the trip,
and he was happy to agree.

“I’m totally exhausted,” he admitted to
Bessie.
 
“I think I might just sleep
through Christmas.”

“I’ll come over around one tomorrow, if
that’s okay,”
Doona
told Bessie on the drive back to
Laxey
.
 
“I plan
to have a very lazy start to the day.”

“That’s fine,” Bessie agreed.
 
“I’ll plan our Christmas lunch for two.”

“Perfect.”

At Bessie’s cottage,
Doona
insisted on coming inside to make sure everything was okay.
 
“Don’t argue,” she told Bessie as she
took the box of books from her boot.

Bessie bit her tongue and let her friend
into the cottage.
 
She hung up her
coat and slipped out of her shoes while she waited for
Doona
to finish her inspection.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,”
Doona
said as she hugged Bessie in the doorway.
 
“Happy Christmas.”

“Happy Christmas,” Bessie replied.

She locked the door and then checked that
all the doors and windows were shut and secure.
 
After tucking the box of books into a
corner to inspect later, she headed up to bed.

Upstairs, she changed into the new nightgown
that she’d bought herself earlier in the month.
 
When she was a child, every Christmas
Eve she’d been given a new nightgown by her grandmother, and that always made
the night feel even more special.
 
Bessie didn’t buy one for herself every year, but this year she’d needed
something new, and Christmas was the perfect time to get it.
 
Now she snuggled down under her duvet
feeling almost as if she were a small child again.
 
When she woke up it would be Christmas,
and she felt as if she were almost too excited to sleep.

It felt as if only minutes had passed when
she next opened her eyes, but it was already just past six.
 
Bessie got up and showered and
dressed.
 
After a short walk on the
beach, she fixed herself an extra-special breakfast with pancakes dripping in
the maple syrup that she had loved since childhood.
 
For years she’d been unable to get maple
syrup on the island, but increasingly exotic foodstuffs were being imported
regularly now.
 
After she put the
turkey in the oven, she filled a large platter with Christmas cookies and
filled the kettle with water.
 
Now
she just had to wait for friends to arrive.
 
She didn’t have long to wait.
 
John Rockwell was the first to knock on
her door.

“I hope I’m not too early,” he said as he
gave her a hug.
 
“I have to get to
Ronaldsway
for my flight.”

“You know I’m always up early,” Bessie told
him, switching on the kettle.

“You are,” he agreed.
 
“I’m afraid I woke
Doona
.”

Bessie laughed.
 
“She did say she was going to have a
slow start today.”

“I wish I’d known,” John said.
 
“I would have left her present on her
doorstep and not knocked.”

“I’m sure she was happy to see you anyway,”
Bessie said.

“I’m not,” John laughed.

“I’m so glad you’re getting to go
across.
 
I was worried that
Natasha’s confession might complicate your getting away.”

“Actually, it’s made things much easier,”
John replied.
 
“Pete’s taking care
of wrapping everything up, but we found the clothes she was wearing when she
killed Mr. Hart in plastic bags at
Thie
yn
Traie
.
 
I suppose she didn’t
realise
that Mary isn’t having the rubbish collected at the moment.”

Bessie sighed.
 
“And she really just killed him to
advance her career?” she asked.
 
“It
seems a strange motive.”

“She was already on our short list, because
we spent some time looking into her past.
 
There were a few accidents that happened to rivals of hers over the
years that made her one of our chief suspects.
 
She wouldn’t have been allowed to get on
that plane.
 
Anyway, I’ll be taking
a closer look at all of that once I’m back.”

“Oh, goodness,” Bessie exclaimed.

“No one else ever died,” John told her.
 
“But one man in particular had some very
serious injuries that put him out of work for many years.”

“How awful,” Bessie said.

“Let’s talk about happier things,” John
suggested.
 
“What have you asked
Father Christmas for this year?”

Bessie laughed as the kettle boiled.
 
She fixed tea and offered John
cookies.
 
The pair chatted happily
for a few minutes, until he glanced at his watch.

“I’m going to have to go,” he said.
 
“But I do have a small present for
you.”
 
He handed Bessie a wrapped
box.

“I’d like to save it for later, if I may,”
Bessie told him.
 
“
Doona
is coming for lunch and I thought that I’d wait and
open all of my presents once she’s gone and I’m settled in for the night.”

“You may do whatever you like with it,” John
assured her.

“Your gifts are under my tree,” Bessie told
him.
 
The pair walked into the
sitting room and Bessie found the small pile of things for John.
 
“There are some book tokens there for
the children,” she told him as she handed everything to him.
 

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he
protested.

“It’s books.
 
Everyone should get books for
Christmas,” Bessie said firmly.

John laughed.
 
“If you insist.”

A knock on the door sent Bessie back to the
kitchen.
 
She was greeting and
hugging another friend when John walked back through.
 

“I’d better go,” he said.
 
He gave Bessie another hug before he
left.

From there it felt to Bessie as if a steady
stream of visitors flowed through her cottage.
 
The stack of presents she’d purchased went
down slowly as the pile of gifts for her grew.
 
By the time
Doona
arrived, Bessie was feeling as if Christmas couldn’t get much better.

Doona
brought her own pile of gifts for
Bessie.
 
They settled in the sitting
room with their gifts to one another at once.
 
Bessie wanted to save everything else
for after she was done having visitors for the day.
 

She was delighted to see that her friend had
had the same idea she’d had.
 
“What
a beautiful gift basket,” Bessie said, examining bottles of wine and bubble
bath and expensive chocolate.

“Oh, snap,”
Doona
laughed as she opened her own basket of
treats.
 
“I have something else for
you,”
Doona
told her.
 
“And I don’t want any objections from
you about it.”

Bessie frowned.
 
“What have you done?” she asked
nervously.

Doona
laughed.
 
“I’ve bought you something I know you
want, but I also know you’ll think it was too expensive.”

“If it was expensive, I don’t want it,”
Bessie said firmly.

“I used some of my inheritance,”
Doona
explained.
 
“It thought it would be nice to put it to good use.
 
You’ve no idea how grateful I am for
your friendship.
 
Please let me give
this to you.”

“What is it?” Bessie asked suspiciously.

Doona
laughed.
 
“It would be easier to discuss it if you
knew what I was on about,” she said.
 
She left the room and Bessie listened as her front door opened and
closed and then opened and closed again.
 
When
Doona
came back, she was carrying a huge
parcel that looked familiar to Bessie.

“I can’t accept that,” Bessie said before
she’d even opened it.

“You don’t even know what it is,”
Doona
argued.

“It’s the painting that Grant Robertson
tried to give me, isn’t it?”

“Yes,”
Doona
admitted.
 
“I bought it at the
auction.”

“It sold for a lot of money,” Bessie
recalled.

“Not that much.
 
I can afford it,”
Doona
said.
 
“All of the money raised went
to repaying the people Grant stole from, so it’s good that it sold for a lot.”

“But you want to pay off your mortgage and
remodel your bathroom,” Bessie argued.

“I should have enough to do both those
things once the estate is finally settled,”
Doona
told her.
 
“Please, let me give you
this one thing to thank you for supporting me when my marriage fell apart and
again when Charles died.”

Bessie felt torn.
 
She hated that her friend had spent so
much money on her, but she loved the painting very much.
 
While she was thinking,
Doona
spoke.