A Spider on the Stairs

by Cassandra Chan

  “Sorry about the confusion, Constable,” said Gibbons. “This is a colleague of mine, Phillip Bethancourt. He’s in York for the holidays, so I asked him to stop by—purely unofficial, of course.”

  Murphy seemed more than willing to accept this explanation.

  “DC Redfern will be coming,” he told Gibbons. “Superintendent MacDonald sent him round to follow up with a witness in that double-murder case, but then he should be over this way. I’m to help in any way I can until he gets here.”

  “Thank you, Constable,” said Gibbons. “Actually, your presence will be very helpful—I imagine it will be reassuring to the arriving employees to see a man in uniform. And if you could keep an eye on things here, I’ll be able to interview them one by one.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Murphy. “I can do that easily enough.”

  “Good man,” said Gibbons. “I think the best plan will be for me to conduct the interviews in the larger room at the very back—that should keep the conversations private enough, and will also enable us to have an eye on that back door.”

  “That makes sense,” agreed Bethancourt.

  “Let’s just have a look at the setup back there then,” said Gibbons.

  He led the way through the warren of narrow rooms and into the open space at the back. Here they switched on the lights and shifted the chairs about to make a conversational grouping rather than one set up for reading and blocking out one’s fellow man.

  That accomplished, they returned to the front room to await the arrival of their witnesses.

  They did not have to wait long. In another ten minutes or so a tall, lanky man with long brown hair and glasses came up to the door, looking considerably startled to find the shop open. He was about thirty, with a slight stoop to his shoulders, and was attractive in a bookish sort of way.

  As Gibbons had predicted, he looked somewhat relieved to see a policeman present as he entered the shop and addressed them anxiously, saying, “Hello, is something wrong? I’m Gareth Rhys-Jones, the manager here.”

  Gibbons exhibited his ID, moving forward to offer his hand.

  “I’m Detective Sergeant Gibbons, sir,” he said. “This is Constable Murphy, and a colleague, Phillip Bethancourt. I’m afraid there was an incident here over the holidays.”

  Rhys-Jones shook their hands automatically, looking bewildered.

  “An incident?” he asked. “Was the shop robbed? I should really notify the owner, Mr. Mittlesdon. . . .”

  “We’ve spoken with Mr. Mittlesdon,” Gibbons assured him. “In fact, it was he who rang us. Perhaps if you could come this way, we could talk.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said Rhys-Jones, letting himself be ushered forward.

  Gibbons led the way through the myriad of book-clogged little rooms, emerging at last into the larger room. Without comment, Rhys-Jones sat in the chair Gibbons indicated.

  “Now, Mr. Rhys-Jones,” said Gibbons, taking his own seat. “I understand you must have a lot of questions—”

  “Yes,” said Rhys-Jones, making an effort to collect himself. “Can I ask exactly what was taken?”

  “But the shop wasn’t robbed, Mr. Rhys-Jones,” said Gibbons. “We were called in to investigate the body of a young woman, found here on Christmas morning.”

  Rhys-Jones looked even more baffled. “A body?” he repeated. “But . . . whose body? Was it one of our employees?”

  “Mr. Mittlesdon did not recognize the deceased,” said Gibbons.

  “Oh.” Rhys-Jones appeared at a loss for a moment. Then he frowned. “Wait a moment,” he said. “Did you say Christmas Day? But the shop wasn’t open then.”

  “No,” agreed Gibbons. “We believe the victim was killed the night before, on Christmas Eve. I understand that you closed the shop with Mr. Mittlesdon on Christmas Eve?”

  “That’s right,” said Rhys-Jones. “But we check, you know, before we lock up, to make sure no one’s left in the shop. There couldn’t have been a body here then.”

  “What time did you close on Christmas Eve?” asked Gibbons.

  “Well, it was supposed to be early closing, but we were late—we always are on Christmas Eve. Let’s see, we let everyone go home as soon as the last customers were out, and Mr. Mittlesdon and I just put the cash in the safe before we left ourselves. It must have been almost teatime by then.”

  “Did you actually lock the doors, or was that Mr. Mittlesdon?” asked Gibbons.

  Rhys-Jones frowned, trying to remember. “I’m not entirely certain,” he admitted. “I think it was Mr. Mittlesdon, but we’ve closed the shop so often together, I can’t be sure.”

  Gibbons nodded. “And how did you spend the holiday?” he asked.

  “Oh, I was invited to the Mittlesdons’ for Christmas Eve dinner,” said Rhys-Jones. “And I went to another friend’s for Christmas Day. My family’s in Wales, you see—too far to travel for just the day.”

  “I see,” said Gibbons. “I’d also like to ask about your set of keys to the shop—do you keep them with your house keys or separately?”

  “Separately,” said Rhys-Jones, looking bewildered. “I usually leave the shop keys on my desk at home when I’m not at work.”

  “Do you live alone?” asked Gibbons.

  “No,” answered Rhys-Jones. “My girlfriend moved in with me a few months ago. She was gone over the holidays, though, if that’s what you mean. Her family’s from Essex, and she spent the holiday there.”

  “Oh?” Gibbons asked. “Not with you?”

  Rhys-Jones shook his head ruefully. “Anyone who works in retail isn’t around much during the holidays,” he said. “And there’s certainly no time to plan anything or decorate.”

  Gibbons nodded understanding and asked for the girlfriend’s name.

  Rhys-Jones flushed. “Her name’s Laurel Brooks,” he answered, “but you can’t possibly imagine she had anything to do with this.”

  “Probably not,” said Gibbons soothingly. “At the moment, I’m just trying to track down all the shop keys to eliminate them.”

  Rhys-Jones did not seem much appeased by this, but he nodded.

  “Now,” said Gibbons, “I’d like to ask you to look at a picture of the victim. I must warn you, however, that it was taken at the autopsy and is rather graphic.”

  “You mean you want to know if I can identify her,” said Rhys-Jones.

  “Yes,” said Gibbons. “Though I’ll admit, her face is not in the best shape—I’m hoping to have a sketch of how she might have looked while alive to show people later today, but all I’ve got right now is the autopsy photograph.”

  Rhys-Jones swallowed but nodded. “I’ll have a look,” he said.

  “Excellent, thank you,” said Gibbons, turning to his briefcase. He withdrew a glossy color photo and passed it over to Rhys-Jones.

  “Good Lord,” he said mildly, drawing back a little. Then he frowned and, resettling his glasses more firmly on his nose, bent over the picture.

  In the next moment, a sick look came over his face and he sat back, looking a little pale.

  “I think it’s Jody,” he whispered.

  “Jody?” asked Gibbons. He did not remember the name from the employee list Mittlesdon had given him.

  “I think so,” replied Rhys-Jones, clearly shocked. “Like you said, it’s hard to tell, but, well, that carroty hair—there’s no mistaking that, is there? Dear God, how did this happen?”

  “Is Jody a friend?” asked Gibbons gently.

  “What? Oh, yes. Yes, she is—or was, at any rate.”

  Rhys-Jones pushed his hair impatiently back from his face and Gibbons waited for him to collect himself.

  “She used to work here,” he said in a moment. “Jody Farraday. She left almost a year ago, just after Christmas.”

  “Have you kept in touch?” asked Gibbons.

  Rhys-Jones shook his head. “No, Jody wasn’t like that. She moved away from York when she left the bookshop, no forwarding address or anything, just moving on, as she
put it. God, I can’t believe she’s dead.” He glanced down again at the picture laying in his lap and shuddered. “It might not be her,” he said, but not as if he believed it. “The face is—very disfigured.”

  “I know,” said Gibbons, taking back the photograph. “Thank you for taking the trouble to look at it. We’ll investigate the possibility.”

  “Will you let me know, one way or the other?” asked Rhys-Jones.

  “Certainly,” replied Gibbons, tucking the photo away. “We usually release the identity of the deceased as soon as their people have been informed. Tell me, had you seen Miss Farraday since she left York last year?”

  “No. No, I hadn’t.” Rhys-Jones shook his head as if to clear it. “I still can’t quite believe . . . I mean, if it wasn’t for the hair . . .”

  “It must come as a very great shock,” said Gibbons sympathetically.

  “Yes,” agreed Rhys-Jones simply.

  “While she was here,” continued Gibbons, “did she make any enemies? Or perhaps leave someone in the lurch when she went?”

  Rhys-Jones was shaking his head before Gibbons finished the question. There was a faint, reminiscent smile on his thin lips.

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “You wouldn’t, of course, not having known her. Jody was everybody’s friend, and even when she said or did something that would ordinarily irk you, well, with Jody one just laughed. Not,” he added, “that I mean to paint her as any kind of angel. She was very eccentric, very much her own person.”

  “I see,” said Gibbons, taking this at face value. “So you can think of no reason someone might want to kill her?”

  Rhys-Jones sighed. “Not specifically,” he said. “But Jody was very inventive—she came up with quite wild schemes sometimes. If anyone wanted to kill her, I can only think it had to do with one of her schemes gone wrong.”

  But when Gibbons asked for an example of such a scheme, Rhys-Jones could not come up with one, though he appeared to be thoroughly ransacking his memory.

  “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I just can’t remember—I never paid much attention to any of them, you see. They were so unrealistic.”

  Gibbons nodded and let him go then, requesting that he not contact his fellow employees until after Gibbons had spoken to them all.

  Rhys-Jones seemed a little startled when asked to leave by the back door.

  “But—” he said, and then, “Oh! I didn’t—I mean, I suppose the shop will have to remain closed today?”

  “I’m afraid so,” answered Gibbons. “We’ll be in contact with Mr. Mittlesdon as to when he can reopen. Hopefully that will be very soon.”

  He had been ushering Rhys-Jones to the door as he spoke and now he held it open, politely but firmly. Clearly confounded by events, Rhys-Jones stepped through without further objection and walked off into the cold.

  Bethancourt was eyeing the rows of shelves in the room.

  “Do you know,” he said, “a bookshop would be an excellent place to hide something. You’d have practically no chance of finding it unless you knew where it was.”

  “Somebody might happen on it accidentally, though,” replied Gibbons. “That would make me think twice about hiding anything I valued here.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” said Bethancourt. “I expect there would be certain sections where it would be worth the risk.” He turned back to Gibbons, abruptly abandoning the subject. “I thought,” he said, “that Mittlesdon didn’t recognize the body?”

  “He claimed not to,” agreed Gibbons placidly.

  “It seems a little odd, since she was one of his employees at one time.”

  “Very odd indeed,” said Gibbons. “Let’s see what the others have to say before we reach any conclusions, though.”

  “I’ve already got lots of conclusions,” volunteered Bethancourt, following his friend back towards the front room. “I’m trying to narrow them down, but they just keep proliferating.”

  “Let me know if one of them starts to stand out from the pack,” said Gibbons dryly.

  Under the watchful eye of PC Murphy, two more employees were sitting in the little reading area, chatting animatedly with each other.

  One was a heavy woman in her mid-to-late twenties with golden hair and pendulous breasts, her face revealing a certain prettiness beneath the fat. The other was much younger, perhaps eighteen, a thin whip of a boy with soft brown hair that fell into his eyes, an aura of geekiness about him.

  They seemed a slightly odd pair, but there was no doubt they were getting on famously. The boy saw Gibbons and Bethancourt first, and broke off the conversation to say, “Look, Alice, here they come.”

  Alice turned round in her chair and her blue eyes widened in surprise.

  “Phillip!” she exclaimed delightedly. “Is that you?”

  Bethancourt looked startled, but in the next instant realization dawned and he said, “Alice, how wonderful to see you again.”

  His expression somewhat belied his words as she embraced him enthusiastically and he patted her back in response.

  “Heavens, I’d no idea you were here,” she said, giving him a last squeeze and then drawing back to look at him. “You look splendid,” she continued. “Hardly changed at all.”

  “You’re looking grand yourself,” said Bethancourt, but his eye had strayed self-consciously toward Gibbons.

  “Are you a policeman, then?” asked Alice brightly. “I hadn’t heard that.”

  “Er, no,” said Bethancourt, intensely aware of Murphy’s scrutiny. “I’m here quite unofficially, just as a favor to a friend. Jack,” he continued, turning hastily to Gibbons, “This is Alice Reynolds, an old school friend.”

  Gibbons, no less taken aback than Bethancourt, was frowning, but before he could say anything, Alice interrupted.

  “Not Reynolds anymore, I’m afraid,” she said. “It’s Alice Knowles now. How do you do, Inspector.”

  “Ah,” said Bethancourt, looking unaccountably relieved. “I didn’t know.”

  “Detective Sergeant Gibbons, ma’am,” said Gibbons, shaking hands. “And this is . . . ?”

  “Oh, excuse me,” said Alice, turning back to her companion. “Rod Bemis, Sergeant Gibbons and Phillip Bethancourt. Rod works here part-time, like me. He’s a student at York University.”

  Rod rose silently and shook hands with both men, muttering something like “hello” in an undertone.

  “Well,” said Bethancourt with false brightness, “this is unexpected. I think—”

  He was interrupted by a knock on the door, and they all turned to see Redfern peering through the glass at them.

  “I locked it after Mrs. Knowles and Mr. Bemis arrived,” said Murphy apologetically, moving to let Redfern in.

  Gibbons smiled at his witnesses. “That’s Detective Constable Redfern,” he told them. “He was delayed with another case, but he’ll be helping with my interviews. Good morning, Constable,” he added to Redfern as the young man came in, tugging off his gloves.

  “Morning, sir,” said Redfern. “Chilly out there today, isn’t it?”

  He was taking stock of everyone as he came forward, smiling genially at Alice, nodding at Bethancourt, and endeavoring to make eye contact with Bemis, who was staring at his feet.

  Gibbons introduced everyone, ending with Bethancourt and mentioning his status as a colleague.

  “I’m very glad you’ve come, Constable,” he continued, addressing himself to Redfern, “as we’ve just run into an unexpected glitch. It seems that Mrs. Knowles here,” he bestowed a smile on her, “actually went to school with Mr. Bethancourt.”

  “Yes, so obviously I must recuse myself,” said Bethancourt rapidly, before anyone else could point it out. “I leave it all in your competent hands, gentlemen.” He nodded a good-bye at the policemen. “Good to have met you both.”

  “We must get together and catch up,” interposed Alice before Bethancourt could make his escape.

  “Yes, we must,” agreed Bethancourt without a s
cintilla of sincerity. “I’ll speak to you later, Sergeant.”

  He beamed at them all and, motioning his dog to his side, swept out.

  “Good grief,” he groaned once he was outside. “I might have known any case in York was bound to turn on me. Hell, I might as well go and get some groceries in.”

  He strode up the street with his dog at his heels, huddling into his jacket against the cold, and muttering imprecations against York, Yorkshire, and the Christmas season. And what on earth, he thought, possessed Alice to let herself go in that fashion? He remembered her distinctly from their days at school: a lithe, pretty girl with long, shapely legs and dancing blue eyes. He found he rather resented not being able to remember her that way anymore.

  Still fuming, he emerged onto the Stonebow and suddenly realized the shop he was making for was one that he had been accustomed to stop at on his way back to St. Peter’s from the bookshop and which had ceased to exist several years ago.

  “Damn,” he said, and had to stop and think for a moment about where the nearest grocer’s was.

  “Phillip!” said a female voice behind him. “Is that you?”

  He really could not believe it. Surely fate had given him enough blasts from the past to deal with this season.

  Pasting a smile on his face, he turned and beheld not some old girlfriend, nor yet some ghost from his childhood past, but Trudy Fielding, one of Marla’s model friends from London. But she was smiling as if pleased to see him, so perhaps she had not yet heard of the breakup.

  “Trudy,” he said, greeting her as cheerfully as he could. “What the devil are you doing in this godforsaken town?”

  She laughed at him. “I think York’s a wonderful place to spend Christmas,” she said. “I may make a habit of it—I’ve been having a brilliant time. But I’m only here because of Jake—the band’s playing The Duchess this weekend.”

  “Oh, of course,” said Bethancourt, remembering that Trudy’s current boyfriend was Jake Torrington, lead singer for the Idle Toads.

  “A better question is what you’re doing here, and why you think the place is the ninth circle of hell,” said Trudy.

  Bethancourt smiled sheepishly. “I went to school here,” he answered. “My family has a house in the Dales.”