Read Aunt Bessie Invites (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 9) for Free Online

for me.   He has a very large farm to run.”
    “Why didn’t you set a specific time?   Surely that would have been more
efficient for both you and Eoin?”
    Bessie smiled to herself.   This was clearly a woman who never made
last-minute plans.   “I wasn’t sure
how the day was going to go,” she explained.   “I didn’t know for certain that Doona
was going to do the driving.   I
don’t drive and Doona usually works on a Monday.   Things might have gone very differently
if I’d had to catch a taxi out here.”
    “And you didn’t mind keeping Eoin waiting
for your arrival?”
    “He didn’t mind leaving the appointment time
vague,” Bessie corrected her.   “I
knew that once I arrived I might have to wait a bit for him to join me, but
that was fine with me.”
    “I seem to recall from your file that you
don’t work,” Anna said.   “Perhaps
that’s why you have such a casual attitude towards time.”
    Bessie simply stared at her for a moment.   She felt as if she’d been insulted, but
she wasn’t sure why.   “Perhaps,” she
murmured eventually.  
    “So you arrived around half one and then
what happened?”
    Anna was silent as Bessie told her about the
drive to the farmhouse, finding it empty, and the subsequent phone call to
Fenella.  
    “Were you surprised that Eoin wasn’t here?”
Anna asked when Bessie paused.
    “I suppose so,” Bessie replied.   “I didn’t really think about it.   Everyone knows about the problems with
his knee, so I wasn’t too shocked to hear that he’d gone across for treatment.”
    “Has he ever been absent when you’ve visited
before?”
    Bessie sat back in the seat and tried to
think.   After a few minutes she
shook her head.   “I have no idea,”
she said.   “For many years, I used
to see Niall about the turkeys.   Sometimes Eoin would be with him, but not every time.   Then when Niall started having health
problems, I started to see Eoin more.   But really, I only visit once a year and I’ve simply never paid that
much attention to who was here or not here.”
    Anna nodded and made another note.   “I don’t suppose you keep any record of
such things,” she said.
    Bessie nearly laughed.   “I don’t,” she said firmly.
    “What happened after you rang Fenella?” Anna
asked.
    Bessie told her about the drive down to the
lower barn and everything that she could remember happening before Anna herself had arrived.
    “What did you and Fenella discuss while you
were waiting for the police to arrive?” Anna asked when she’d finished.
    “I asked her if she had any idea who she’d
found,” Bessie admitted.  
    “And did she?”
    “If she did, she didn’t share it with me,”
Bessie told her.
    “What about you?   Do you have any idea who’s been buried
in that barn for all these years?”
    “I couldn’t begin to guess,” Bessie replied.
    “Surely you know of a missing person or
two?” Anna pressed her.
    “There was little Myrtle Kincaid,” Bessie
said.   “But she was only a child
when she disappeared.”
    Anna nodded.   “I’ve been tidying up old files at the
station,” she said.   “I read through
the one on that case.   I don’t think
that’s who we’ve found.”
    “I can’t think of anyone else it might be,”
Bessie said after a moment.   “Fenella was saying that young men and women often left the island for
across and many weren’t good about staying in touch.   I suppose it could be anyone who said
they were going to go and then were never heard from again.”
    “I know Rockwell spent a lot of time going
through old missing person reports during a recent investigation.   Perhaps he’ll be able to suggest some
likely candidates,” Anna remarked, almost to herself.
    “If the family ever filed a report,” Bessie
said.   “If they thought their loved
one had moved across, they might not have done so, or they might have tried to
file one over there, rather than over here.”
    Anna nodded.