A Spider on the Stairs (11 page)

“Yes, sir,” said Gibbons. “A woman was killed there. So you were alone here on Christmas Eve?”

Bartlett was still frowning over the death.

“What?” he said. “Oh, no, I went to a dinner party at a friend's house. But I don't understand—how did anyone get into the shop after it was closed?”

“We're still investigating that aspect of the matter,” said Gibbons. He produced the autopsy photo again, but Bartlett failed to recognize the victim. Bethancourt, watching him silently, thought he
did not try very hard; he seemed principally disturbed to be confronted with the evidence of violence. But he did remember Jody Farraday.

“Oh, yes, I knew Jody,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “She had a wonderful wit. And she was so brave.”

“Brave?” asked Gibbons.

Bartlett waved a hand. “Perhaps that's the wrong word,” he said. “She was just—very confident, I suppose. Not afraid of being out on her own, or of trying new things, new places. I found her very refreshing.” He paused, sobering. “Do you really think it's her?” he asked anxiously.

“We don't know as yet,” answered Gibbons. “At this time, it's only a possibility.”

“I see, I see,” Bartlett muttered. “This is very disturbing. I don't like to think—well, of course not.”

This was said half to himself, but despite its incoherence, his listeners understood his feelings very well.

“It's an unnerving situation,” said Gibbons sympathetically.

Bartlett bobbed his head in agreement and pushed his glasses back up on his nose. Behind the lenses, his eyes looked at them blankly, a man at a loss for how to deal with such an unexpected state of affairs.

“So those are our suspects?” asked Bethancourt as they left Bartlett's flat, turning their backs to the wind and walking southward, toward police headquarters. “I missed meeting this Tony Grandidge chap, but I can't say they seem a likely bunch to me. Didn't you say there were a couple of others, who were out of town?”

“Exactly,” responded Gibbons dryly. “Out of town, as in out of town for the holidays.”

“Oh,” said Bethancourt. “As in out of town during the murder. That is a bit difficult. Fairly far out of town, I take it?”

“As I recollect,” answered Gibbons, tugging on his gloves, “one is on a cruise in the Mediterranean, and the other is visiting her family in Cornwall.”

“Well, that puts paid to that,” said Bethancourt.

“On the other hand,” said Gibbons, “the key-holders are not our only suspects.”

“They're not?” asked Bethancourt, and then, before Gibbons could answer, he added, “Oh! I'd forgotten about the proliferation of keys.”

“Which widens the field considerably,” said Gibbons.

“Yes,” said Bethancourt thoughtfully. “In fact, if nearly any employee could have had a copy made, then it follows that Jody Farraday herself might have had a set. In which case, she could have let both herself and her murderer into the bookshop.”

Gibbons nodded. “Always assuming that our corpse really is Jody Farraday. That's the first thing to nail down. I don't think the photo Libby Alston gave us is good enough on its own to give us a positive ID, but it ought to help. And meanwhile we can be finding out about Miss Farraday in case it is her.”

“Yes, surely someone has seen the woman in the last year,” said Bethancourt. “And yet, I rather thought our witnesses were telling the truth when they said they hadn't.”

Gibbons shrugged. “Murderers are often very good liars,” he said. “I've noticed that.”

And Bethancourt had to agree.

Gibbons frowned at the computer screen. He was back at police headquarters, in the conference room Detective Superintendent Brumby's team had taken over, doing a basic background search on Jody Farraday. Normally, this would turn up all sorts of information, but he was finding next to nothing on the mysterious Miss Farraday. There was a birth certificate on file, indicating that she had turned twenty-eight last October, and a driver's license had been issued to her eight years ago in Northumberland. Other than that, nothing. No credit cards or bank accounts, no address beyond the one given eight years ago in Northumberland, and no telephone number or even an electricity bill in her name. Gibbons was beginning to think he had input something wrong.

Thoughtfully, he rose and looked around for Detective Sergeant Andrew Rowett, Brumby's expert in electronic records.

Rowett, a dour-faced man of thirty-five or so, grinned at Gibbons when he saw him.

“Thought you might come looking for me sooner or later,” he said.

His tone was a little smug, but Gibbons did not begrudge it him. He grinned back good-naturedly and said, “So you've already had a look at Jody Farraday, have you?”

“Brumby mentioned she might be your victim,” said Rowett, “so I just thought I'd run her through the system. You know, at least find out if she were missing or no.”

“I didn't see her in the missing-persons database,” said Gibbons. “But then, I didn't see anyone there who could be our victim. Did you find something I missed?”

Rowett shook his head. “I started with the same check,” he answered, “and came up with nothing. So I ran a few others, but our Miss Farraday doesn't show up anywhere. I think what we have here is someone living under the radar, probably deliberately so. I didn't go a lot further, since I didn't think we were sure yet she was our victim?” He raised an eyebrow in question.

“No,” admitted Gibbons, “we're not. They're still working on identification, and I've contributed a bad snapshot of Jody to help, but it's possible the victim is someone else altogether.”

“Not someone recently reported as missing,” Rowett assured him. “I ran that search first, locally and then nationally, but the only possible matches I came up with were obviously wrong.” He paused and stroked his chin. “I didn't look very far back,” he said. “I could do that, if you think it worth the time?”

Gibbons considered. “I have a kind of feeling,” he confessed, “that it is Jody Farraday. I think I'd like to go a little further in that direction before you spend a lot of time slogging through cold cases. But I've never come across anyone off the grid before. I take it that means she was engaged in some kind of criminal activity?”

“Not necessarily,” said Rowett. “You'd think so, but there are a lot of odd people about. Some of them just don't like the idea of
the government knowing too much about them. Career criminals, on the other hand, tend to have lots and lots of identifying information—sometimes in triplicate, if you take my meaning.” He grinned again.

“I see,” said Gibbons, with a smile to show he appreciated the humor. “But sometimes there are criminals who live off the grid?”

“Sometimes,” said Rowett. “They tend to be either very low-ranking or else they're very dangerous characters indeed. Spies and assassins or, just once in a while, serial killers.” He sighed.

Gibbons fervently hoped he was not dealing with a dead spy.

“I'll keep on with the research,” added Rowett. “A titbit or two will turn up eventually, if experience is any guide. Let me know what more you find out—anything could turn out to be helpful.”

Gibbons thanked him and went off to pay another visit to Mr. Mittlesdon.

Bethancourt had not accompanied Gibbons to the police station, knowing he would merely be left to kick his heels there while Gibbons worked.

Left therefore to his own devices, he decided the most he could hope to contribute was to get in touch with some of his parents' friends and bring himself up-to-date on York gossip. It was still, he reflected, Christmastide, which meant the Heywoods would be holding open house.

Accordingly, he turned his steps toward the Heywoods' home in Monkgate, ruminating on what kind of reception he might receive. Among his parents' friends the Heywoods were known for their bonhomie, considered an oddity as it was not a quality generally found in his parents' acquaintances. It perhaps explained, however, why Bethancourt had always been on good terms with them, even during his school days, when he had frequently run into them about the city, ofttimes when he should have been in his dormitory.

There was only a glimmer of twilight left in the sky when he turned into Monkgate and found, as he had expected, the Heywood house lit up and obviously ready to welcome visitors. He stepped up to the door and heard the unmistakable sounds of a cocktail party in full swing. Smiling to himself, he lifted and then let fall the heavy brass knocker.

Donald Heywood himself answered the door. He looked blank for a moment and then, before Bethancourt could say anything, exclaimed, “By all that's holy, if it isn't young Bethancourt! Come in, lad, come in. It's a good few years since we've seen you—and how are your parents keeping this season?”

Bethancourt was swept into the house, divested of his coat while he made polite responses to Heywood's inquiries, and introduced to the rest of the gathering. He knew about half of them, though he was not surprised to find so many new faces: the Heywoods' circle was an ever-expanding one. Bethancourt, having had a large, mulled wine pressed into his hand, joined the party happily, renewing old acquaintances and making new ones.

A great deal of the conversation centered around the recent flooding, and Bethancourt was inundated with questions about the situation in the Dales. Eventually, however, he managed to work his way round to introducing the topic of murder.

No one had yet heard of the death at Mittlesdon's, though there was some mention of the serial killing.

“All these killers want is publicity,” opined one man, a large, robust figure in an unfortunate plaid vest. “If the media would stop playing up to them and making a cause célèbre out of all their nasty perversions, why, they'd stop killing, I warrant.”

Bethancourt regarded him bemusedly while Peter, the Heywoods' eldest son, refuted this view.

“Do you know Brian Sanderson?” asked a voice in his ear, and Bethancourt turned to see another of his parents' friends, Daphne Stearn. She nodded toward the plaid vest.

“Happy Christmas, Mrs. Stearn,” he said. “No, I don't think I
know him. Is he connected with those Sanderson's Carveries one sees around town?”

“That's right,” said Daphne. “He's the man himself. He's made a fortune out of the business, and is very proud of it.” Her tone indicated that in her view it was nothing much to be proud of.

“I see,” said Bethancourt neutrally. “He seems to fancy himself a student of criminal psychology.”

Daphne snorted.

“Well, Phillip here should know,” Peter Heywood said, turning to him. “Didn't I hear you had taken an interest in police work? Do you know any of the Scotland Yard people who've come up to investigate the serial killing?”

“One of them is a friend of mine,” admitted Bethancourt. “But he's been spending most of his time on this Mittlesdon's murder.”

“Mittlesdon?” asked Daphne, surprised. “The bookshop?”

“That's right,” said Bethancourt. “A young woman was murdered there over the holidays.”

“Good God,” said Peter. “At Mittlesdon's Bookshop? That must be some kind of sacrilege.”

“Had you heard about that, Brian?” asked Daphne. “Doesn't your nephew work there?”

“He does, he does,” said Sanderson, frowning. “He didn't say anything about it over the holidays, though.”

“They didn't find her until Christmas morning,” said Bethancourt.

“Ah, well, that'll account for it,” said Sanderson. “I haven't seen Tony since Christmas Day. I'm sorry to hear there's been a crime there, though—I'm quite an aficionado of Mittlesdon's. Always popping in to see what new things he's got.”

“Brian thinks it makes him look intellectual,” whispered Daphne in Bethancourt's ear.

Bethancourt repressed a smile and answered Sanderson. “I understand Mr. Mittlesdon was quite distressed over it.”

“But what happened?” asked Peter. “Surely the shop was shut.”

“Nobody's sure yet,” said Bethancourt. “I believe the working theory is that an ex-employee somehow gained access. But whether she was killed by someone currently working at the shop or by someone she brought with her is unknown.”

Other people were being drawn in by the conversation, no doubt attracted by the mention of murder. It resulted, as Bethancourt had hoped, in a general discussion of crime in York and of Mittlesdon's Bookshop. He fell back into a listening mode, while Daphne Stearn continued to enliven the observations of the rest of the party with her peppery commentary in his ear.

All in all, he quite enjoyed himself, although at the end of the evening he was not sure how much useful information he had gathered. Thanks to Daphne, he could now identify several other matrons who had lost weight on his aunt Evelyn's diet, and knew rather more than he wanted to about the indiscretions of some of York's leading citizens. But he hadn't really discovered much that would help the case. As in his school days, Mittlesdon's was still looked on as a reliable place to purchase both rare manuscripts and used books. If anything, the wealthier class of York seemed to feel the bookshop's reputation had grown, and there was talk of how Mervyn Mittlesdon had done very well for himself. In any case, there had certainly not been any scandals recently associated with the shop or its employees.

But, reflected Bethancourt as he at length emerged from the party feeling rather tipsy, it was very difficult to tell exactly which aspect of the bookshop needed investigating. Had the murder in fact had anything to do with the business of bookselling? Or was it entirely to do with Jody Farraday's personal life?