A Spider on the Stairs

by Cassandra Chan

  “It would be very helpful, ma’am,” said MacDonald.

  Mrs. Grandidge nodded and, with a reassuring pat on her sister’s shoulder, rose and left the room. Amy Sanderson shivered as she left.

  “So I expect,” said MacDonald, “that anyone could have known you and your daughter would be absent from the house last night?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “But they couldn’t have known where Daddy would be,” said Jessica. “He might have been here in town, or out somewhere. Or even had friends in.”

  “Yes, we believe it to have been a crime of opportunity,” said MacDonald. “Was he planning to do anything in particular whilst you were gone?”

  “He was going to watch the last Manchester United game,” replied Amy. “He had it recorded—it was a very good match, you know.”

  And this recollection started her tears again, silent but copious. Jessica put an arm about her mother.

  “I’m very sorry, ma’am,” said MacDonald. “I didn’t mean to upset you further.”

  Amy nodded her acceptance of this while she buried her face in her handkerchief and her shoulders began to shake. Sylvia, coming back in at that moment, hastened to her side.

  “I think I’ve got everything I need for the moment,” said MacDonald quietly, as Amy’s tears continued to fall.

  “Yes, thank you, Superintendent,” said Sylvia. “I think it might be best if she and Jessica went back upstairs. You know where the pills are, Jessie?”

  Jessica, who was also crying now, nodded and helped her mother to rise and together they left the room.

  “We were shopping on the twelfth,” Sylvia told them. “So Amy would have purchased the tickets on the thirteenth.”

  MacDonald nodded. “I wanted to be sure,” he said. “Almost anybody could have found out about your plans in the course of a fortnight.”

  “Well, yes. There wasn’t any secret about them.”

  “Now, one last thing,” said MacDonald. “Can you think of anyone who would have wanted to kill your brother-in-law?”

  Sylvia made a helpless little gesture. “There were a lot of people who disliked Brian,” she said. “But to go so far as to murder him? No, I can’t think of anyone who would do that.”

  “How did you feel about him yourself?” asked MacDonald.

  Sylvia hesitated. “He could be a bit abrasive sometimes, and he was generally not very sensitive to any kind of nuance—Brian was the sort you had to hit over the head with something to make him notice. But he was a good husband to Amy, and a good father, too. I can’t say he was my favorite person, but, well, he was family.”

  “Of course,” said MacDonald. “And family’s something you don’t get to choose. I understand completely. Thank you, Mrs. Grandidge,” he added. “We appreciate your cooperation at such a difficult time.”

  “We want you to find who did this terrible thing, Superintendent,” replied Sylvia. “Anything we can do to help, anything at all—don’t hesitate to call on us.”

  After Alice had left, Bethancourt was free to let his rage with Marla run free. He spent a little time trying for dignity and resolutely ignoring her sudden appearance, but gave it up in the end.

  It was clear to him that Trudy Fielding had tattled about his flirtation with Catherine Stockton, and that Marla, coming upon him in the company of a blonde woman, had assumed that Alice was she. But why Marla should care enough to come running up to York from her holiday in Kent, he could not imagine.

  “It’s no good,” he said to himself. “I have to have it out with her.”

  He tramped over to The Dean Court Hotel in a fury, barely noticing the rain, and rang Marla’s mobile once he was there. Since Trudy was staying in the hotel, he was relatively certain Marla would be there as well.

  She answered at once in an angry tone, but he cut her off.

  “I’m in the lobby,” he said curtly.

  There was a brief pause, and then she said, “Room 212,” and rang off.

  He took the stairs, mounting them two at a time, and paused when he emerged on the second floor to get his bearings. Almost immediately he saw Trudy coming down the hallway toward him.

  She held up her hands in a gesture of peace. “I’m decamping to leave you two alone,” she said. “Look, I’m sorry, Phillip, but I had to tell her. She’s my friend.”

  “In which case,” said Bethancourt coolly, “I would have thought it incumbent on her to inform you that she had broken up with me just before Christmas.”

  Trudy raised her eyebrows. “Wow,” she said. “You two really do need to talk. Marla doesn’t think you’ve broken up—or at least she didn’t until today. Look,” she added, forestalling any further comment from him, “you go on along and get it all sorted, right?”

  She moved past him, and Bethancourt let her go, continuing on to room 212, where he rapped smartly on the door.

  It swung open at once and Marla stepped back to let him in. Her jade-green eyes were snapping, but he was surprised to see that they were also reddened with tears. It took him aback and gave her the opening move.

  “I don’t know what you could possibly want,” she said, swinging the door closed behind him with unnecessary force. “First you don’t ring me on Christmas, then you won’t answer my calls, and then I hear you’re up here cavorting about with some blonde. My God, Phillip, she’s not even attractive.”

  “Well, now you know how it feels,” retorted Bethancourt. “I see you don’t like hearing third-hand about my goings-on any better than I did about yours.”

  Marla’s eyes narrowed. “Is that it?” she demanded. “Have you been conducting an affair with that woman just to pay me back?”

  “Certainly not,” said Bethancourt. “Whatever I’ve been doing has nothing whatever to do with you. I don’t owe you any kind of accounting because you broke up with me. If you’ve come up here to try to reconcile, I must say you’re going about it in a very bizarre manner.”

  Marla stared at him for a moment. “You’re mad,” she said. “I never called things off. Why the hell would I?”

  “I had the impression it was because I had the temerity to demand that you be more discreet about your infidelities,” said Bethancourt. “But you would know best.”

  They glared at each other.

  “So this is still about that stupid thing with Jason,” said Marla at last. “I was right—you’re trying to get back at me.”

  “No, I’m not,” contradicted Bethancourt. “I’m trying to move on without you.”

  “I apologized for the Jason business,” Marla shouted at him.

  “You did no such thing,” said Bethancourt. “You called me an offensive bounder and said you hoped you never set eyes on me again. I remember it quite distinctly. There was no apology involved, unless your definition of the word includes calling people names.”

  “I may have said that,” Marla admitted, “but you know perfectly well I never meant it.”

  Bethancourt raised a brow. “And how, exactly, do I know that? Look here, Marla, this situation is entirely of your own making and I refuse to either take the blame for it or jolly you out of your temper.”

  “Oh, so now it’s my fault you wouldn’t answer your bloody phone?” she demanded.

  At this, Bethancourt lost his temper altogether. “Let’s recap, shall we?” he said with an edge in his voice. “Not only did you sleep with that photographer, you went off with him in full view of the rest of the shoot, thereby making sure everyone would be gossiping about it. Then, instead of coming to me and explaining what had happened, you let me hear about it from some woman whose name I can’t even remember. And when I asked you—quite politely, I think—to have a little more care for my feelings, you told me you never wanted to see me again. Until you’re ready to take some responsibility for all that, I don’t think I want anything more to do with you.”

  Marla had tried at several points to interrupt this narrative, but Bethancourt had shouted her down, and now, while
she was continuing to argue, he simply turned and left the room. He heard her shouting something after him as he strode down the hall, but he ignored her and went down the stairs.

  He was still furious as he returned to the house, never even noticing that the rain had picked up and he was getting drenched. He was even ready to take on his aunt if she should cross his path, but thankfully she had taken the children back out for more shopping, and the house was empty. He stormed upstairs and discarded his wet things, abruptly feeling very chilled and tired. Once he was dry and dressed in a pair of jeans and a heavy jumper, he sought out the kitchen and made a coffee, his temper now spent but his mind still turning the argument with Marla over and over, even though another part of him was thoroughly sick of it.

  He suddenly wished he were at home, in London, where distractions beckoned at every corner and where he had a large collection of friends, as well as a local pub, a favorite bookshop, and a club.

  “This really won’t do,” he told himself. “The point of being in York is to solve this murder, and you’re no forwarder with that than you were this morning.”

  But there were now two murders, or three, if one counted Ashdon’s latest victim. Or, if Ashdon had killed Sanderson as well as the girl in the accessory shop, there would only be two cases, though of course there would still be three deaths. It all made Bethancourt’s head hurt. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes and remembered that he had had a bare three hours’ sleep the night before. Perhaps his thinking would be clearer if he had a nap, not to mention that being unconscious would no doubt do away with troubling thoughts of temperamental redheads.

  He was just heading for the bedroom when he heard the front door. Expecting it was Evelyn and the children, he was hastening his pace when he realized it was a single pair of heavy footsteps on the stairs. He peered over the landing.

  “Jack!” he said, surprised. “I didn’t think you’d be back yet.”

  Gibbons raised a pale face and gave him a weak smile. “I’ve been sent off home,” he said. “Apparently, I look like death, and MacDonald rather abruptly remembered I’d been shot recently.”

  “Good man,” said Bethancourt, looking a trifle anxiously at the labored way in which Gibbons was climbing the stairs. “Do you want anything? I’ll make some lunch or bring something in if you like.”

  Gibbons shook his head as he finally stepped off the stairs. “I don’t think I could stay awake long enough to eat it,” he confessed. “I’m all in, Phillip.”

  “You look it,” said Bethancourt frankly. “I’ll let you rest then. In fact, I was about ready for a nap myself.”

  Still, he hovered in the hallway after Gibbons had gone in and closed his door, just to be sure his friend did not discover some need to be fulfilled. But, as all in the bedroom remained quiet, eventually his own weariness got the better of him, and he sought his bed.

  It was early evening when he woke again, and already dark outside. The darkness confused him momentarily, but he sorted himself out soon enough and switched on the bedside lamp while he sat up and shook his head in an effort to banish the heavy, dull feeling a long afternoon nap sometimes leaves behind. From downstairs, he heard voices and sounds of activity—Evelyn and the children had returned, then.

  He yawned hugely and then rolled out of bed, squinting as he felt for his glasses on the nightstand. As he splashed water on his face in the bathroom, he found that things had fallen into place in his mind while he’d slept. Or perhaps, he admitted ruefully, he had just been too tired to think productively.

  In any case, it was now clear to him that if Sanderson had not been killed by Ashdon, then the usual rules applied: i.e., the first and most obvious suspect would be the spouse. Amy Sanderson, however, had been out in public with her daughter and her sister when her husband had died, leaving the second-most-obvious suspects: either a mistress or someone who would benefit monetarily from Sanderson’s death. Bethancourt could hardly hope to discover anything pertinent about the man’s finances, but gossip was easy to come by.

  Downstairs, he found his aunt trying to make dinner whilst simultaneously arbitrating a dispute that had arisen between the boys. Bethancourt lent a hand and was rewarded with dinner, a portion of which was set aside for Gibbons. After he had helped Evelyn clear up after the meal, he returned upstairs to check on his friend, opening the bedroom door very quietly and peeking in. Gibbons, however, was still sound asleep, so Bethancourt retreated again.

  After some deliberation, he decided he might venture out without shirking his duty as friend to the injured. Still, he wrote a note to let Gibbons know about the food left for him before he departed.

  The Heywoods were not holding open house tonight, but Bethancourt doubted they would be alone. He was proved right when he rang the bell and was ushered into the drawing room to find a small gathering of the Heywoods’ more intimate friends.

  “Here’s Phillip,” announced Donald Heywood to the rest of the company. “Now we shall get some answers to our questions. What are you drinking, my lad? Scotch? Right you are then.”

  “Come sit by me,” commanded Daphne Stearn, waving him over. “Just pull up that chair there. My hearing isn’t so good as it once was, you know, and I don’t want to miss anything.”

  Bethancourt obeyed good-humoredly, pushing the chair into position and saying, “I expect you want to know about the Sanderson murder?”

  Daphne snorted, while on his other side Pamela Rimmington said, “Yes, we’ve all been talking about it. And Peter says you’ve been working with the police?”

  She sounded a bit dubious, as if it passed all understanding that he should engage in police work, so Bethancourt smiled deprecatingly.

  “I’ve a friend in the detective branch,” he explained. “He likes to talk things over with me, get a civilian view point and all that.”

  “Here you are, Phillip,” said Heywood, handing him his drink. “I’ve topped it up nicely, the better to loosen your tongue.”

  Bethancourt grinned and sipped.

  “But seriously,” said David Rimmington, leaning forward around his wife, “what do you know? It’s quite the most shocking news I’ve heard all year, but nobody seems to know a thing about it. Was it a robbery gone bad?”

  “The police don’t believe so,” answered Bethancourt, mindful of what he could and couldn’t give away. “But, of course, there’s been no inventory taken as yet, so that hasn’t been ruled out altogether. At the moment, they’re taking the view that it was a deliberate crime.”

  “He was a most detestable man,” said Daphne, “but that’s hardly reason to murder someone. Goodness, if I were to go about murdering all the unpleasant people I encounter, why, the population of York would drop by half.”

  Everyone chuckled.

  “Only half?” asked Bethancourt, and she winked at him.

  “Well,” said Heywood, resuming his seat, “I expect poor Sanderson had more enemies than most. Not that he seemed to mind, I must say.”

  “So I hear,” said Bethancourt. “But who and why exactly?”

  “Oh, Lord, I don’t know,” said Heywood.

  “I know Harry Wellbourne wouldn’t have anything to do with him,” said Mary Heywood. “Don’t you remember, dear? There was that charity event when Mrs. Crowley put them at the same table.”

  “Oh, yes, quite a dust-up, that,” said Heywood. “Very bad form.”

  “I believe,” put in Peter Heywood, in an attempt to answer Bethancourt’s question, “that was over some property. Wellbourne felt he’d been cheated, though I don’t know the details.”

  “There was some bad blood in the city council, too,” said Daphne. “Rory used to tell me about it. He said Sanderson took advantage wherever he could.”

  “He pushed Dora Heald out of her tea shop when he wanted to expand the carvery in Stonegate,” said Pamela. “I did think he might at least have helped her relocate—she’d been there for years, after all.”

  Bethancourt nodded, mak
ing a mental note of all these incidents to report to Gibbons later.

  “Surely,” said Heywood with a laugh, “you’re not suggesting poor Dora Heald murdered the man—she wasn’t half his size.”

  “Well, Harry Wellbourne wouldn’t hurt a fly,” retorted Pamela.

  “What about his personal life?” asked Bethancourt. “Any jealous husbands or angry fathers about?”

  Daphne Stearn gave a peal of laughter. “Good heavens, no,” she said. “You’d met the man—what woman would have him?”

  “His wife, I imagine, for one,” said Heywood dryly. “He wasn’t so very bad-looking a chap, Daphne.”

  She shrugged to show her disagreement.

  “I always liked Amy Sanderson,” said Mary. “I can’t say I know her well, but from all I ever heard, they were happy enough together.”

  “He wasn’t known as a womanizer, one has to give him that,” said Rimmington.

  “If he was, he was damned discreet about it,” said Peter. “There was a lot of talk about him, but I never heard anything of that nature.”

  “But, here, Phillip,” said Heywood, “you’ve hardly told us anything. What on earth happened?”

  “Is it true he was killed in the house?” chimed in Mary.

  “Quite true,” answered Bethancourt.

  “But didn’t the servants hear anything?” asked Pamela.

  “It was their night out, I gather,” said Bethancourt. “The last of the Sandersons’ Christmas guests had left the day before, you see. Amy Sanderson and her daughter had gone to a show, so Sanderson was alone in the house. The police are working on the theory that the murderer saw his chance and took it.”

  “And a rare chance it was,” said Daphne. “From all I could make out, the man was perennially incapable of spending time by himself. I’m surprised he didn’t take himself off to the nearest pub.”

  “Now, Daphne,” chided Mary, “that’s not fair. Lots of people go out a lot.”

  Daphne sighed. “I didn’t like him,” she said. “I suppose I rather resent having to feel sorry for him now he’s been murdered. I much preferred poking fun at him.”