A Spider on the Stairs

by Cassandra Chan

  “Oh, I didn’t know that,” said Trudy. “I never go home for the holidays myself—way too much water under that bridge.”

  She wrinkled her nose, while Bethancourt stared at her, struck by the beautiful simplicity of her plan. But then he shook his head.

  “If I didn’t show up for Christmas,” he said, “I would have extra grief every day for the ensuing year. I think I prefer to get all the misery done with in one go.”

  “There’s something to that,” she agreed. “But I get grief no matter what I do—divorced parents, you see.”

  “Ah, I see,” he said. “Yes, there’s no good answer to that, is there?”

  “I avoid the whole situation,” she said firmly. “Look, I’ve got to run, but do come by and visit—we’re here all week, staying at the Dean Court Hotel. Do you know it?”

  “Yes,” answered Bethancourt.

  “Oh, of course, if you grew up here, you would, wouldn’t you?” Trudy laughed at herself, and then leaned forward to air kiss his cheek. “See you later then?”

  “Absolutely,” promised Bethancourt. “I’ll look you up.”

  He watched as she went on toward The Duchess, wondering how long it would be before Trudy spoke to Marla again, and what would be her attitude toward him once she did. It was, in her own words, a situation best avoided.

  Sighing, he turned in the opposite direction to seek out a grocery store.

  Gibbons meanwhile was manfully restraining himself from eliciting stories of Bethancourt’s youth from Alice Knowles. She had spent a blameless holiday with her children at her parents’ house in Scarborough, returning early this morning to hand the boys over to their father for the rest of the week.

  The first sight of the autopsy photograph had nearly made her faint, so it was hardly surprising that she’d failed to identify the victim. When asked if she remembered Jody Farraday, however, she looked thoughtful.

  “Is that who you think it is?” she asked. “Because of the hair, I suppose?”

  She looked a little nauseated at the recollection of those bright tresses surrounding the swollen, discolored face.

  “I don’t know,” answered Gibbons. “It’s been suggested that it might be.”

  Alice sighed. “I do remember her, of course,” she said. “But I really couldn’t tell you if that photograph was of her or not.”

  “What did you think of Miss Farraday?” asked Gibbons.

  “Oh, she was a one.” Alice smiled. “Really, the oddest creature, and yet there was something very appealing about her. One couldn’t help but like her. I do hope it isn’t her.”

  There was not much more to be got out of Alice Knowles, who explained that she worked part-time at the bookshop just to keep herself busy while the boys were at nursery school.

  “I always loved this place,” she said, looking around at the orderly rows of books on their shelves. “And I felt a bit at loose ends after the divorce—you know how it is. It’s better to be useful.”

  Gibbons felt relieved. As long as her story checked out, there was no reason to exclude Bethancourt from the investigation, since Alice could not possibly be a suspect; Scarborough was just far enough away to make it impossible for her to have murdered anyone in York on Christmas Eve.

  Rod was a harder nut to crack. He was painfully shy and awkward in his manner. There was no doubt an intellect of some merit hiding beneath his mop of hair, but the boy seemed intent on hiding all vestiges of it. He had been hired on at the bookshop only in October, so he could not be expected to recognize Jody Farraday, if indeed she was the victim.

  Bemis came from a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Lincolnshire and had not previously lived in York before arriving that fall to study at the university. Since his family did not celebrate Christmas, he had elected to remain in York over the holiday and earn extra money working at Mittlesdon’s. He had spent Christmas night alone in his dorm room, playing a video game.

  “He could have murdered half-a-dozen people,” remarked Redfern, after they had let Bemis go, “but why should he?”

  “Yes, he strikes me as quite harmless,” agreed Gibbons. “But time will tell. Let’s see—we still have four key-holders to interview.” He looked up from his notebook with a rueful smile. “Although everyone is so careless with their keys, nearly any of the employees might have copies of them. Rod there,” he jerked his head in the direction of the doorway through which Bemis had exited, “is probably the least likely, given his short tenure here.”

  Redfern nodded. “Still,” he said, “we’ve got to start somewhere—it might as well be with the official key-holders.”

  “Right,” said Gibbons, returning to his notes. “According to Mittlesdon, Catherine Stockton is visiting her family in Cornwall and is not expected back until the weekend.”

  “Do you really think a woman could be our killer, sir?” asked Redfern a little hesitantly, as if reluctant to pour cold water on Gibbons’s theories.

  “Not unless she was uncommonly large and strong,” answered Gibbons, unruffled by the criticism. “But since I’ve no idea what our victim was doing here in the first place, or why someone wanted to murder her, I’m not ruling out the possibility that more than one of the people who work here know something about this crime.”

  Redfern was nodding. “I see,” he said. He glanced around the quiet shop, the orderly rows of books marching from one end of the room to the other, disappearing into the shadows at the back of the shop. “It does seem a most unlikely place for a murder,” he said.

  “I thought so, too,” said Gibbons, his eyes following Redfern’s. “It’s almost a pity to have to dig beneath the surface and bring up all the ugliness. But something led to that young woman’s death.” He sighed. “Let’s go look up Mr. Tony Grandidge, shall we? His family lives in York, so presumably he spent the holiday here.”

  “All right, sir,” said Redfern, gathering up his things. “Where’s this Grandidge live then?”

  Gibbons squinted at his notes. “St. Mary’s, off Bootham,” he answered. “Know where that is?”

  Redfern grinned at him. “That’s an easy one,” he said. “Won’t take us but a minute to walk over there—and you’ll get to see some of the sights along the way.”

  The route Redfern took led them directly through the city center, so there were indeed plenty of sights, as well as plenty of crowds.

  “Have you ever heard of a snickelway, Constable?” asked Gibbons as they walked, dodging around the shoppers and gawkers.

  Redfern cast him a slightly startled glance. “Certainly,” he replied. “Did you want to go by the snickelways? It’ll take a bit longer—”

  “No, no,” said Gibbons hastily. He was faintly annoyed to find that Bethancourt had not been making the word up. “Just an idle question, that’s all.”

  They passed beneath Bootham Bar and walked for a little way along the busy thoroughfare. St. Mary’s proved to be a narrow residential street leading off the main street with rows of terraced houses; number 20 was about halfway down. Grandidge had the third-floor flat, and was at home when they rang his bell. He was a thin, wiry young man, not much over twenty, with a shock of dark hair and an attractive, if somewhat dissipated, mien. He looked as if he had not been up for very long.

  “What’s up then?” he asked as he gave a cursory glance at their IDs and motioned them into the sitting room.

  “We’re investigating a crime that took place over the holiday, at Mittlesdon’s Bookshop,” Gibbons told him.

  Grandidge looked alarmed. “At the bookshop?” he repeated. “What happened?”

  “A murder was committed there,” said Gibbons.

  It seemed not to be the answer Grandidge had been expecting. He looked from one to the other of the policemen as if waiting for one of them to tell him it was a joke.

  “A murder?” he said incredulously. “In the bookshop?”

  “Yes,” said Gibbons. “I understand you work there, in inventory?”

  Grandid
ge shoved his hair out of his eyes with an impatient motion and sat down abruptly. “You could say that,” he agreed. “In fact, you could say I am the receiving department—it would be nearer the truth.”

  “And in that capacity, you have the keys to the shop?”

  “Well, yes,” said Grandidge, looking a little puzzled.

  “Can you account for your keys?” asked Gibbons.

  “Of course,” said Grandidge. His tone was confident, but the glance he gave round the flat was uncertain. “I think they must be in the bedroom,” he added, rising and heading for a door on the far side of the room. But he paused on the way, to inspect a side table, and then stopped again to go through a small pile of things on the kitchen counter. “Ah, here they are,” he said triumphantly, turning to hold up three keys on a plain ring. He tossed them to Gibbons, who caught them effortlessly.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said, giving them a brief glance before tucking them into his pocket. “Now, if you could just tell me how you spent Christmas?”

  “I was at my uncle’s house in Upper Poppleton,” Grandidge answered, swiping at his hair again as he rejoined them. “I went out there on Christmas Eve and didn’t get back here till yesterday. Or no, wait—I did just run over on Christmas Day for a moment. I’d forgotten my dress shoes, you see. And of course we were all in to midnight service at the Minster.”

  “Of course,” said Gibbons, slightly amused by these exceptions. “If I could just have your uncle’s name and address?”

  “Brian Sanderson, the Old Farm, Upper Poppleton,” Grandidge rattled off.

  Gibbons nodded, making note of the information in his notebook. Then, after giving his usual warning, he asked Grandidge to look at the autopsy picture of the victim.

  Grandidge paled when he got his first eyeful of it, but he studied it intently nonetheless, finally handing it back with a little shudder and the words, “I don’t think it’s anyone I know.”

  Gibbons accepted this statement, but asked, “Do you remember a woman called Jody Farraday?”

  “Jody? Oh, yes, I remember her—” Grandidge broke off, frowning. “It is like her hair in the picture,” he said slowly. “It might—yes, I think it could be her. But . . .”

  Gibbons raised a brow. “But?” he asked.

  “Well, it’s just that Jody hasn’t been around for months,” explained Grandidge. “She left York about this time last year, and I haven’t seen her since. I can’t imagine what she’d be doing back at the bookshop.”

  “Well, the identification isn’t certain yet,” said Gibbons. “You said you hadn’t seen her since she left—would you have expected her to get in touch with you if she were back in town?”

  “We were friends,” admitted Grandidge. “I don’t say I would have been her first call, but if she was here for any length of time, I think I’d hear from her. For that matter, I’d expect her to stop by the bookshop, too. We all liked her there and she was fond of the place.”

  “But she hadn’t done so lately?”

  Grandidge shook his head.

  They took their leave of him after that.

  “I wonder if our victim really is this Jody Farraday,” said Gibbons as they emerged once again into the cold. “No one except the shop manager has come up with the identification on their own.”

  “On the other hand,” said Redfern, “none of the others have had anything else to suggest.”

  “True,” said Gibbons. “I wonder—”

  He broke off as Redfern’s mobile began to ring, and the constable, glancing at it, said, “It’s the super,” and answered it.

  The conversation was brief: on Redfern’s end it consisted of saying, “Yes, sir,” twice and then sighing as he rang off.

  “I’m awfully sorry, sir,” he said to Gibbons, “but I’ve got to go. A bit of trouble has broken out over at Coppergate, and the super says I’m to go get it sorted—he’s still on that double-murder himself.”

  “That’s fine, Constable,” said Gibbons, who really did not mind. “I’ve got your number if I need anything badly, and anyway I wanted some lunch about now.”

  Redfern looked as if he would have appreciated some lunch as well, but he only sighed again and took himself off at a rapid pace. Gibbons, following more slowly, pulled out his mobile and dialed Bethancourt’s number.

  “I want some lunch,” he announced when Bethancourt answered.

  “Really?” said Bethancourt. “I was planning on drinking mine.”

  “Have lunch with me instead,” suggested Gibbons. “Afterward you could take me round to Libby Alston’s place in—let me see here—Holgate.”

  Silence.

  “I thought I was off the case,” said Bethancourt, a cautious note in his voice, as if he did not want to raise his hopes.

  “I can’t see why,” replied Gibbons. “It’s true that I have yet to confirm Mrs. Knowles’ alibi, but it seems unlikely that it won’t hold up.”

  “Alice has an alibi?” asked Bethancourt, brightening. “That’s a piece of luck. What was she doing?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but whatever it was, she was doing it in Scarborough.”

  “That’s right,” said Bethancourt thoughtfully. “Her people are from Scarborough. I’d forgotten that.”

  “So do you want to meet me for lunch?” asked Gibbons.

  “Yes,” answered Bethancourt. “Where are you?”

  “On Bootham, headed back toward Bootham Bar.”

  “All right. Just continue on as you are, past the Bar, and The Dean Court Hotel will be down the street to your right. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Right,” said Gibbons. “I’ll find it.”

  It was not a long walk, but the wind had picked up and he was very glad to reach the hotel and get in out of the cold. Bethancourt had not yet arrived, and upon inspection he found that there were two restaurants, so he sat down in the lobby to wait. Bethancourt was picky about his meals, and it wouldn’t do to choose the wrong place.

  In about ten more minutes Bethancourt appeared, pausing just inside the door to remove his glasses, which had fogged up.

  “There you are,” said Gibbons, tucking away his notebook and rising from his seat.

  Bethancourt blinked at him. “Didn’t you get a table?” he asked, polishing his glasses against his sleeve. “I thought you were hungry.”

  “I’m near starving, but I didn’t know which restaurant you meant to eat at,” replied Gibbons.

  “Oh, the bistro,” said Bethancourt, as if there could hardly be any doubt. “Here, let’s go in.”

  The restaurant was crowded, but it was a large enough establishment to still have a few tables free, and the two young men were soon settled comfortably. They sipped hot coffee while Gibbons brought Bethancourt up-to-date.

  “I want to interview all the employees that I can today,” he finished. “A few of them aren’t back from their holiday yet and will have to wait.”

  “How many more are there?” asked Bethancourt.

  “Only three, I think,” said Gibbons, pulling out his notebook and consulting a list. “Well, four if you count the assistant manager I want to talk to next.”

  “The one in Holgate,” said Bethancourt.

  “That’s right. Where is that, anyway?”

  “Not too far,” answered Bethancourt. “West of the city center.”

  Gibbons nodded, sipped his coffee, and then, meeting his friend’s eyes, he rested his chin in his hand and said, “So, it’s full-disclosure time. Who is Alice Knowles and what is she to you?”

  “Nothing anymore,” replied Bethancourt. “She was my girlfriend at St. Peter’s my last two years there. She was very pretty then,” he added, looking a little depressed over Alice’s fall from grace in that regard.

  “You didn’t continue to see each other after you left for Oxford?” asked Gibbons.

  “Well, as I recollect, we meant to,” said Bethancourt. “Best intentions and all that. But of course it didn’t work out. I was soon h
ead over heels for somebody else and feeling horribly guilty every time I came home. Until I found out Alice was seeing another chap, of course.” He smiled in recollection.

  Gibbons shook his head. “I don’t know why your personal life is always so complicated,” he said.

  Bethancourt looked mildly affronted. “That’s not complicated,” he said. “That’s perfectly normal. Hardly anybody actually ends up with their girlfriend from school.”

  “I suppose not,” admitted Gibbons, “but your affairs always seem to be rife with drama.”

  Bethancourt opened his mouth to retort, but remembered in time that Gibbons’s own tragic love affair was a little too fresh to be casually remarked upon.

  “Well, anyway, I haven’t seen Alice since my first year at Oxford,” he said. “I didn’t even know she was living in York.”

  Gibbons grinned at him. “And judging by looks, you wish you’d never found out.”

  “Well, I like the past to stay in the past,” said Bethancourt. “I don’t see what’s wrong with that.”

  “Nothing, I suppose,” said Gibbons with a shrug.

  The food arrived then and they dug in with a good appetite, their conversation turning to York and its history and Bethancourt’s history in the old city.

  When the plates had been cleared away and they were sipping coffee, Bethancourt’s mobile rang; looking at the ID, he frowned and switched it off, looking somewhat discomfited.

  Gibbons raised an eyebrow.

  “Marla,” said Bethancourt. “She’s got a bloody nerve.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Gibbons. “You never did tell me what happened. I take it this is a more serious breakup than usual?”

  “What?” Bethancourt frowned. “What on earth do you mean by that? We’ve never broken up before.”

  Gibbons winced in the manner of a man who has committed a faux pas. Marla Tate was as renowned for her mercurial temper as she was for her beauty, and she and Bethancourt were always rowing, and almost as frequently claiming to break up. It never lasted.

  “I meant, a more serious row than usual,” Gibbons amended hastily.