A Spider on the Stairs

by Cassandra Chan

  “I was very fond of Jody,” she told him, in an attractive, husky voice. “We got to be quite close while she was here, and I was sorry to see her go.”

  “When she left, did you see her off yourself?” asked Gibbons on a sudden hunch.

  “Oh, yes. Barney and I drove her to the station and saw her onto her train.”

  “Barney?” repeated Gibbons, thinking this must be Mrs. Haddam’s boyfriend.

  “My dog,” said Mrs. Haddam, gesturing toward the golden retriever curled up on a pillow in the corner.

  “Oh!” said Gibbons. “Of course. Tell me, did she talk to you at all about why she was going back?”

  Mrs. Haddam smiled. “We had long conversations about it,” she said. “It was the culmination of a great deal of thinking she had been doing about herself and her situation over the time she was here.” She paused for a moment. “I expect you’ve already realized that Jody was an unusual person?”

  “Yes indeed,” said Gibbons wryly.

  Mrs. Haddam nodded. “Then it will make sense to you when I say that over the last year or so Jody was coming to a realization that settling down in one place might not be the hell on earth she had always envisioned.”

  “It makes a great deal of sense,” said Gibbons encouragingly.

  “There’s one conversation we had that stands out in my mind,” continued Mrs. Haddam. “She was telling me some anecdote from her days at the bookshop in York, and I remarked that she always referred to York as ‘home.’ That made her stop and think a bit, and then she said—as if it were just dawning on her—that she’d never been happier than when she was in York, either during this last stint or during her childhood. So I asked her why, if that was the case, she kept leaving the place and her friends there. And she said, ‘Reflex, I suppose.’ And then she laughed and said, ‘Not a very good reason, is it?’ It was after that conversation that I noticed she began to talk of possibly returning to York for good.”

  “And when was it she definitely made up her mind to do so?” asked Gibbons.

  “Oh, not until shortly before she left,” answered Mrs. Haddam with a laugh. “Jody was very impulsive—she rarely planned anything out. But, let’s see, she began talking of it sometime in November. Yes, it was after she’d heard from one of her old friends up there.”

  Gibbons noted it down, though he was not sure how much help it would be. Another thought struck him.

  “Do you know where she was planning to stay in York?” he asked.

  “She had a friend named Rachel,” said Mrs. Haddam. “Jody said she would take her in until she could find a place of her own.”

  “I see,” said Gibbons, as neutrally as he could, though he was in fact rather disappointed.

  But Mrs. Haddam had not finished.

  “That would be after the holiday, of course,” she said. “She was going to spend Christmas with another friend—the one she’d heard from in November. He’d just bought a bungalow in a village near York, and he invited her up to spend the holidays there. I think perhaps she took the invitation as some kind of sign, because it was after that, as I said, that she decided to go back.”

  “He?” asked Gibbons, wondering if this could be Rhys-Jones after all.

  “Just a friend,” said Mrs. Haddam hastily. “I think they had gone to school together when they were young.”

  “Ah,” said Gibbons, mentally dismissing Rhys-Jones again. “Do you remember his name?”

  “Not really,” admitted Mrs. Haddam. “Jody very often talked about her friends in York, but never having met any of them, I’m afraid I tended to get them mixed up. Rachel I remember because Jody referred to her more than anyone else, and even suggested she might come to visit at one time, though I gather it never worked out.”

  Gibbons looked so obviously disappointed that Mrs. Haddam added, “But let me think a moment—perhaps I can remember something else.”

  They sat silently for several moments while Mrs. Haddam struggled with her memory and Gibbons awaited the results anxiously. But finally she shook her head.

  “The name’s gone,” she said. “It might have been Bill, but I don’t think that’s right. But the village had a two-word name, something to do with apples.”

  “The village where this fellow had bought a home?” clarified Gibbons.

  “Yes, that’s right. I remember I asked if it was in the Dales and Jody said no, it was only a bit south of York. But I’m afraid that’s the best I can do.”

  “That’s very helpful indeed,” said Gibbons, thinking to himself that there could not be so very many villages with apples in their names. “In fact, you’ve given me more information than anyone else I’ve talked to all day. Now I’d just like to note down the particular dates. Do you remember what day Miss Farraday left? And did she have much luggage with her, by the way?”

  “No,” answered Mrs. Haddam. “She had a couple of largish bags and that was it. She didn’t leave anything behind, either. Jody believed in traveling light, and she knew how to go about it.”

  But that still, thought Gibbons, left two sizable cases unaccounted for.

  “She took the train to London on the twenty-second,” continued Mrs. Haddam. “She was going to stay the night there because she wanted to do some shopping in town—she fancied bringing Rachel a Christmas present from Harrods. So she fixed up to stay the night at some dreary little B and B, but I don’t remember where it was now.”

  And that painted its own little picture in Gibbons’s mind. It was such an ordinary kind of thing to do, the first really ordinary thing he had heard about Jody Farraday.

  “So she would have taken the train north the next day, on the twenty-third?” he asked.

  “That’s right. She was getting in that evening, I believe.”

  Gibbons wrote down the twenty-third and suddenly realized that was the day Rachel Morrison had left for the Lake District. That, he thought, was rather sad: the two friends had probably missed each other by a matter of hours. No doubt Jody had planned to surprise her friend on her return after the holiday.

  Mrs. Haddam did not have much more to add. Gibbons thanked her for her help, urged her to ring him if she thought of anything else, and took his leave.

  “Should have started with her,” remarked Ogburn as they retraced their steps down the street. “But I never thought she would know so much.”

  “If we’d started with her, she wouldn’t have,” replied Gibbons. “Murphy’s Law, you know.”

  Ogburn laughed. “True enough,” he said. “Here, we’ve just time for a pint and a bite to eat before your flight leaves. I know a little place down this way.”

  “Today’s great thought,” said Gibbons and followed him happily, feeling that the trip to Cornwall had definitely been worth it.

  The day had dawned fair in York, but by eleven o’clock the wind had risen and the clouds were gathering again. By noon, the York plain was engulfed in a steady, drenching downpour that showed no sign of letting up, while water slowly crept up over berms all across the country, spreading in deepening pools along the low places and taking back whole stretches of road. The tarmac at Bradford-Leeds Airport, however, remained navigable throughout the day and into the night; Gibbons’s flight in from Cornwall was late because of delays in Newquay, not on account of the weather in Yorkshire.

  That was not to say that the drive from York had gone smoothly. Bethancourt, driving a Land Rover borrowed from one of his parents’ friends, had had to be quite creative in order to find a way through, but he had managed it at last and now waited just outside the terminal, smoking a cigarette and watching Cerberus nose about on the pavement. He had not heard much from Gibbons during the course of the day and was impatient to see his friend and hear all the news.

  When at last the flight landed and Gibbons emerged, Bethancourt thought his friend looked as if he had spent the brief flight soundly asleep and would like to have stayed that way. Gibbons greeted him with a smile that turned into a yawn.

&nbs
p; “Good morning,” responded Bethancourt, grinning at him. “Had a good sleep?”

  “It was a long day,” admitted Gibbons, making a valiant effort to stifle another yawn and only partially succeeding. “What time is it?”

  Bethancourt clicked on his mobile. “Twelve past ten,” he answered. “And we should get back on the road if we’re to have any hope of reaching York tonight—the roads are bad and getting worse.”

  “By all means,” said Gibbons. “I can fill you in on the way—not that there’s much to tell.”

  “There isn’t?” asked Bethancourt, disappointed. He gestured and began to lead the way back to the car.

  “It’s raining a lot worse here than in Cornwall,” observed Gibbons, quickening his stride.

  “It’s raining more here than it ever has anywhere,” said Bethancourt gloomily. “At least I got a spot close to the terminal—here’s the car.”

  Gibbons looked askance at the muddy Land Rover. “What happened to the Jaguar?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” replied Bethancourt. “I just didn’t fancy getting bogged down in the floods. Throw your kit in the back.”

  Gibbons obeyed and then scrambled into the passenger seat while Bethancourt, having let Cerberus into the backseat, settled himself behind the wheel. He took off his glasses to wipe them dry and asked, “So did you find out anything at all?”

  “Oh, yes,” answered Gibbons. “Benny Ogburn—the Devon and Cornwall sergeant—was incredibly helpful. He had nearly everyone lined up for me and we went through them one after another like a dose of salts. Employer, co-workers, landlord, boyfriend.”

  “Boyfriend?” asked Bethancourt, a little surprised. He replaced his glasses and looked at Gibbons.

  “Well, in a manner of speaking,” said Gibbons. “More of a casual liaison—an affair of convenience, you might say. This chap—Dick Smale—didn’t seem too upset that Jody had decided to go back to Yorkshire and certainly never considered going with her. He looked positively startled when I suggested it.”

  “She was moving back here?” said Bethancourt, sounding surprised as he started up the car. “This wasn’t just a visit?”

  “That’s right,” answered Gibbons. He had pulled out his notebook and was riffling through the pages by the dim lights of the dashboard. “Here we are,” he said, and read off the gist of his interview with Irene Haddam.

  “There’s a map in the glove box,” said Bethancourt when he had finished. “I seem to remember there being a pair of villages, Appleton-this and Appleton-that.”

  “I thought you might know,” said Gibbons, leaning forward to dig out the map. “South of York, like Mrs. Haddam said?”

  “Yes, and not too far south, if memory serves,” answered Bethancourt.

  Gibbons unfolded the map, spreading it in his lap, and studied it for a moment.

  “Here we are,” he said, marking the spot with his finger. “Appleton Roebuck and Nun Appleton. Look like quite small places.”

  “They probably are,” said Bethancourt. “All the same, it will be quite a job to go knocking on all the doors until we find a fellow who knew Jody.”

  “Not a bit of it,” said Gibbons. “Mrs. Haddam said he bought a house there in November. All I have to do is have Andy Rowett look up the home sales for both villages—I doubt there were that many in the relevant time period.”

  “Aren’t you clever,” said Bethancourt admiringly. “It helps to be associated with the police, I must say.”

  “In fact,” said Gibbons, ignoring this jibe, “Andy is most likely still at his computer at this hour—if I ring him now, he’ll have it ready for me in the morning.”

  He pulled out his mobile and began scrolling through the contacts while Bethancourt merged into the traffic on the A road and accelerated cautiously into the rain.

  “There we are,” said Gibbons, pressing TALK. “Andy? It’s Jack Gibbons. . . . No, I’m back. On the way in from Leeds . . . Yes, that’s right. Look here, Andy, do you have time to do me a favor? . . . Oh, good. I just need the records of the home sales in a couple of villages for the last two months. Appleton Roebuck and Nun Appleton—they’re both about ten miles south of York. Can you e-mail me the results when you’re done? . . . Perfect. Ta very much.” He rang off and looked back at Bethancourt. “Andy says it won’t take any time at all,” he announced.

  “So we can be off bright and early tomorrow to see this chap,” said Bethancourt. “If he did kill her, I still wonder why they were in Mittlesdon’s on Christmas Eve.”

  Gibbon shrugged. “There’s a lot we don’t know,” he said. “I think the killer is someone with a secret, and so far we haven’t found many secrets in this case.”

  “Perhaps Mittlesdon was having an affair,” suggested Bethancourt. “Or perhaps his son was cooking the books.”

  “Or that clerk—what’s his name, Dominic Bartlett—has a dark past.”

  “If he does, it’s well hidden,” remarked Gibbons, settling himself more comfortably in his seat. “Sergeant Rowett has already run background checks on all the Mittlesdon employees, even those who weren’t present over the holidays. They’re all perfectly blameless individuals. But of course,” he added, “it needn’t have been anyone who works at Mittlesdon’s.”

  Bethancourt considered this for a moment as he guided the car through the rain.

  “Jody seems to have been a rather solitary person,” he said at last. “She had friends, but few who were very close to her, and she doesn’t seem to have belonged to any particular group, either here in York or in Cornwall.”

  “But she was welcome in several,” said Gibbons. “Rachel’s group of friends in York, the bookshop’s little coterie, and there’s the set Dick Smale hangs out with in Cornwall. And from what we’ve gathered of her character, she probably knew secrets about people in all of them.”

  “And about their friends and relations,” said Bethancourt gloomily. “It makes for a very wide field of suspects.”

  “Ah, well, we’ll narrow it down in time,” said Gibbons.

  “I can’t see what you’re so bloody optimistic about,” said Bethancourt. “Half of York could have had reason to murder the woman.”

  “But not that many people have secrets worth killing to protect,” pointed out Gibbons. “Tomorrow we’ll have a go at the fellow she was staying with—it all may end right there. But if not, I think I shall begin to dig a little deeper into everybody’s closets, starting with Rachel and the Mittlesdon lot. By the way, have you heard anything more from Alice?”

  “Aside from the fact that she still fancies me?” asked Bethancourt, and, when Gibbons laughed, he added, “Well, it’s damned awkward, Jack. I don’t know how I got out of lunch alive yesterday, and this morning was a minor disaster.”

  “This morning?” asked Gibbons, still amused. “Don’t tell me you actually slept with her to get information. Phillip, how devoted of you!”

  “Of course I didn’t,” said Bethancourt with an air of wounded dignity. “I asked her to ring me if she thought of any little piece of gossip or anything about her co-workers. So she rang this morning to tell me—of all things—that she thought Dominic Bartlett might be gay.”

  Gibbons laughed outright. “Figured that out all on her own, did she?”

  “Apparently,” replied Bethancourt. “Really, I don’t know how the woman became so parochial—I swear she wasn’t like that at school.”

  “So,” said Gibbons, “her theory of the case is that Bartlett murdered Jody to keep her from spreading the word about his homosexuality? That’s rich, that is.”

  Bethancourt laughed, too. “I don’t think Alice took it quite that far. She was just obeying instructions to pass on any little thing she could think of. And, of course, to woo me further.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Gibbons. “You left out the bit about the minor disaster.”

  “Well, you remember that girl I met at the club the other night?” said Bethancourt. “I happened to meet up with her again last nigh
t after you’d gone. And her number is rather similar to Alice’s, so when Alice rang this morning, I thought it was Catherine and answered accordingly.”

  “Catherine, eh?” Gibbons shot his friend a sharp glance. “That’s quick work, I must say. How long has it been since you and Marla broke it off?”

  “Nearly a fortnight,” replied Bethancourt indignantly. “And I don’t see how an innocent bit of flirting is cause for indictment on that account.”

  “Your flirting is never innocent,” said Gibbons, dismissing this argument out of hand. “Has Marla rung you again?”

  “Several times,” admitted Bethancourt.

  “But you haven’t spoken to her?”

  “There is absolutely nothing to say,” replied Bethancourt.

  “She doesn’t seem to feel that way,” pointed out Gibbons.

  And to this Bethancourt had no reply.

  It was still raining in the morning. Bethancourt and Gibbons were up early, Gibbons quite chipper, having slept most of the way home from the airport; Bethancourt was far less so, as it had been left to him to spend two hours finding an unflooded route back to York. They sat at the breakfast table, Gibbons wolfing down eggs and toast, Bethancourt with only coffee, both with their attention fixed on Gibbons’s laptop. Andy Rowett had been as good as his word, and the home-sale records from Appleton Roebuck and Nun Appleton had been in Gibbons’s e-mail when he woke up.

  “There’s not much here,” said Gibbons, taking a mouthful of eggs while he ran his eyes down the list.

  “We’re probably not looking for anything too expensive,” said Bethancourt, adjusting his glasses. “Mrs. Haddam referred to it as a ‘bungalow,’ and in general people’s first houses aren’t big ones.”

  “Mmm,” said Gibbons.

  They were both silent while they scanned the list.