Aunt Bessie Joins (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 10) (12 page)

“You’re really pretty,” Michael told
her.
 
“I hope your husband knows how
lucky he is.”
 
He poured himself a
cup of wine and took a large drink.

Carolyn blushed.
 
“Thank you.
 
I’m sure he does.”

“I doubt it,” Michael replied.
 
“You don’t seem happy.
 
I don’t think your husband appreciates
you at all.
 
I’d appreciate you,
lots.”

Bessie watched, appalled, as the man leered
at Carolyn.
 
“I don’t think this is
the time or the place for this conversation,” she said, walking over to join
the pair.
 
She glanced around the
room, fully aware that everyone watching the scene with keen interest.

“Maybe we should take a short break,”
Michael suggested to Carolyn.
 
“Care
for a walk?”

Before Carolyn answered, her mobile
rang.
 
She glanced at the display
and then shook her head.
 
“I have to
answer this,” she said, walking quickly from the room.

“You don’t think the tree is too bad, do
you?” Michael asked Bessie.
 

Bessie sighed.
 
“Maybe you should go and get a cup of
coffee,” she suggested to the man.
 

“Nah, I’m having way too much fun,” he told
her.
 
He grabbed a string of tinsel
and rolled it into a ball.
 
Taking a
step back from the crooked tree, he squinted at it and then threw the ball at
the top of it.
 
He laughed as the
tinsel rolled down the tree, catching on a low branch and then hanging half on
and half off the tree.

“It’s how Picasso would have done it,” he
told Bessie.
 

“I think we need to straighten things up,”
Natasha said.
 
She quickly pulled
the tree apart and snapped it together again, this time correctly.

“You should have wine,” Michael told Natasha.
 
He found another paper cup, splashed
wine into it, and then handed it to the woman.

“Gee, thanks,” Natasha said.
 
She put the cup to her lips, but Bessie
could see that she didn’t actually drink anything.
 
“Maybe we should have a quick stroll,”
she suggested to Michael.

“Yes, let’s,” Michael agreed.
 
He picked up his backpack, but Natasha
shook her head.
 

“Leave that here.
 
We won’t be gone long,” she told him.

Michael hesitated and then dropped the
pack.
 
Bessie heard several bottles
clink together as the pack hit the ground.
 

“I’ll try to get him to have some coffee and
sober up a bit before I bring him back,” Natasha whispered to Bessie.
 
“I’m sorry I won’t be here to help,
though.”

“Getting rid of him for a little while is a
big help,” Bessie said quietly.

A couple of hours later the little group had
the trees just about done.
 

“All of the charity volunteers are supposed
to be the press conference in ten minutes,” Henry reminded everyone from the
doorway.
 
Agnes, Harriet, Margaret
and Liz quickly finished what they were doing and headed out.
 

Bessie exchanged glances with Mary, who was
now the only other person in the room, the men from MNH having hung the crepe
and departed.

“Well, I suppose it’s just us to finish
everything,” Bessie said with a sigh.

“I don’t mind,” Mary told her.
 
“I love feeling useful, really.”

“I like being useful,” Bessie agreed.
 
“But I’d much rather Carolyn was doing
the bulk of the work, seeing as it’s her room.”

“Well, yes, you make a good point,” Mary
said.

“Once you’ve finished that one, we’ve done
the trees,” Bessie said as she hung the last ornament on the tree she was
decorating.
 
“I suppose I should
start on the horsemen.”

Bessie began to unpack the box that Carolyn
had left on the table in the
centre
of the room.
 
The four men were clearly meant to be wise
men, although it appeared that they had each come from a different nativity
set.
 
Bessie unpacked the first
horse and began to laugh.

“Is that a plastic toy horse?” Mary asked as
she walked over to join Bessie.

“It is,” Bessie told her.

The four horses were also all different, and
different sizes.
 
“This one is
smaller than the wise men,” Mary said as she unwrapped the last horse.

“How are we meant to make this look like
anything other than a mess?” Bessie demanded.

“We need Natasha,” Mary replied.
 
She pulled out her mobile and had a
short conversation.
 
“She’s on her
way,” she told Bessie after the call ended.

Natasha walked in a moment later.
 
“This is meant to be the four horsemen
of the apocalypse?” she demanded as she looked at the figurines.
 
“I’m not sure even I can fix this mess.”

Bessie turned back to the trees, giving them
all a careful inspection and rearranging a few ornaments here and there.
 
By the time she got back to the
centre
of the room, Natasha was finished.

“There.
 
I’ve done my best,” the woman muttered.

“It’s better than I imagined,” Bessie told
her, surprised at what Natasha had accomplished.
 

Natasha had used several small boxes to
create a multi-dimensional display.
 
After covering the entire table in black cloth, she’d staggered the wise
men and horses and arranged them in such a way that their height differences
were less noticeable.
 
By swirling
the black cloth around them, she managed to give the whole scene a somewhat
menacing look that felt more apocalyptic than Bessie had expected.
 

“It’s really very good,” Bessie said.

“It is,” Mary agreed.
 
“It’s creepy and I don’t like it at
all.”

“The whole room is creepy,” Natasha
said.
 
“I think Christopher Hart
would have loved it.”

“And that’s the whole idea,” Carolyn said
grandly from the doorway.
 
“Oh, it’s
just about perfect,” she exclaimed, turning slowly to take it all in.
 

“We weren’t sure how you wanted the figures
on the
centre
table,” Bessie said.

Carolyn looked over the display.
 
“That’s very good,” she said.
 
“I was worried because I couldn’t get
the exact pieces I wanted, but in the end they work really well.”

“Because Natasha spent a lot of time and
effort on them,” Bessie said.

“Oh, did she?” Carolyn said idly.
 

“We all put a lot of time and effort in,”
Bessie added.
 
“While you were
talking to your husband.”

“He’s very demanding just now,” Carolyn
replied.
 
“I think we both need a
little holiday.
 
Maybe we’ll go away
for Christmas.”

Bessie didn’t bother to reply.
 
If they did go and that got them into
trouble with Pete
Corkill
, it wasn’t her
problem.
 

“Where’s Michael?” Bessie asked Natasha.

“He said something about a press
conference,” she replied.
 
“He
wasn’t in any fit state to talk to the press, but he wouldn’t listen when I
told him that.”

“Where’s Michael?” Henry asked from the
doorway.

“Wasn’t he at the press conference?” Bessie
asked.

“No, he never turned up,” Henry replied.

Bessie looked at Natasha, who shrugged.
 
“He told me he had to get back for the
press conference and left me watching the sea.
 
I wasn’t in any hurry to get back here.”
 
She glanced around and then
frowned.
 
“That didn’t come out
right.
 
I love helping out here, but
I was enjoying the fresh sea air and the break, that’s all.
 
Michael and I talked for a while and
then he said he needed to get back and I told him I’d see him later.”

“Well, he never made it to the press
conference,” Henry said.
 
“Which
means he missed out on some publicity.”

“The board at the Alzheimer’s Research Fund
isn’t going to be happy about that,” Mary said.

“I’m on the board,” Carolyn said
airily.
 
“I’ll make certain they
don’t fire the poor man.”

“Maybe we should go and look for him,”
Bessie said, a worried feeling growing inside her.
 
“It isn’t like him to forget about work
responsibilities.”

Henry stared at her for a moment and then
sighed.
 
“Here we go again,” he
muttered as he turned and left the room.

Bessie pulled out her mobile and rang
Mark.
 
“I’m sorry to interrupt.
 
I know you’re really busy, but Michael
seems to have wandered off and we’re all a bit worried about him.”

“How’s Carolyn’s room coming?” Mark asked.

“It’s finished,” Bessie told him.

“Excellent.
 
Why don’t you all come down to the
courtyard and we’ll work out what we need to do next.”

In the courtyard, the press were still
milling around with glasses of wine and canapés.
 
Bessie said hello to a few people she
knew as she crossed the space.
 
Mark
was talking to Henry.

“I don’t think we need to involve the
police,” Mark was saying as Bessie joined them.
 

“I wouldn’t normally, but after the murder
and all,” Henry argued.

“What do you think, Bessie?” Mark asked.

“I think we should look for him, at least a
little bit, before we bother the police,” Bessie said.
 
“He might have just sat down on a bench
and forgotten all about the press conference.
 
I dare say he might have even fallen
asleep.”

“Was he that drunk?” Mark asked.

“He was still drinking while he was helping
with the decorating,” Bessie replied.

Mark sighed.
 
“Where did Natasha see him last?”

Mark quickly
organised
the castle staff into a search party.
 
Natasha and Henry headed back towards where she had last seen the man
and the others spread out to cover the small
centre
of the town.
 
Half an hour later,
everyone was back.

“How could he have just disappeared?” Mark
demanded.

“Maybe he decided to head home for a short
while before the party tonight,” Mary suggested.

“He didn’t have his car,” Bessie reminded
her.
 
“Not that he should have been
driving if he had, but he did say he wasn’t going to take a taxi again.”

Mark tried ringing both Michael’s home and
mobile phones, but no one answered.

“Now I’m starting to worry,” Bessie admitted
as the search party headed out to do a second turn through town.

“Maybe we should ring the police,” Mary
said.

“That seems extreme,” Carolyn said.
 
“He’s only been missing for what, an
hour or two?
 
I’m sure he’ll turn
up.”

When the search party returned again, having
had no more success, Mark rang the
Castletown
police.
 
After a short conversation,
he hung up and turned to the group.

“The police aren’t really interested,” he
told them.
 
“Michael is a grown man
and he’s only been missing for a very short time.
 
They’ve said I should ring again in the
morning if he hasn’t turned up.”

“And look at the time,” Mary gasped.
 
“I have to get changed.”

Bessie glanced at her watch and sighed.
 
She needed to change and get herself
ready for the grand opening party.
 
With Michael missing, she wasn’t in the mood for a party, even this one
that she’d been anticipating for weeks.

“I’ve taken a room at the
Castletown
Hotel,” Carolyn said.
 
“That way I have plenty of space to get
ready.”
 
She was quickly on her way
out of the castle, leaving Bessie shaking her head.

“You’re welcome,” she muttered.
 
“We all really enjoyed doing all of the
work getting your room ready for you.”