A Spider on the Stairs (7 page)

“Yes.” Gibbons sighed. “I'd thought of that, but Mittlesdon says his most valuable items were in the safe, and were all accounted for. Moreover, no one except him has the combination.”

Bethancourt shrugged. “It still doesn't strike me as very interesting,” he said. “No doubt they had a plan for getting into the safe, but argued before they got to that part of the program. When the argument ended in murder, our killer got the wind up and fled.”

“A very plausible scenario,” agreed Gibbons. “But things might have a different interpretation put on them. Anyway, I'll know better once I've managed to talk to all of the key-holders.”

“I take it you didn't have time to track any of them down today?” asked Bethancourt.

“No.” Gibbons shook his head. “By the time I was done at the scene and with the autopsy, I only had time to follow up with Mittlesdon. He was still quite shaken up, but he managed to give me a few details about his employees.”

“Anything interesting?” asked Bethancourt.

“No, just clearing up who's in charge of what. Unfortunately, the one piece of real information I got from him was not encouraging.” Gibbons frowned at his glass and then sighed and drank.

“Well, what was it?” asked Bethancourt impatiently.

“Oh—sorry,” said Gibbons. “I think I must be tired. Well, it's
about the keys. All employees have the key to the office door, but only four of them have the keys to the store itself.”

“That would seem to narrow it down nicely,” said Bethancourt. “And yet I see from your expression that for some reason it doesn't.”

“It doesn't because people are quite cavalier with their keys,” said Gibbons. “So far as I can tell, nearly any of the employees could have made off with a set of keys for long enough to have copies made. For example, the back door is always kept locked, but the smokers go out that way to have a cigarette, and it's common for them to borrow a set of keys from one of the managers, or even the spare set that's kept in the office.”

“Oh dear,” said Bethancourt.

“Mr. Mittlesdon earnestly assured me that all of his employees were very trustworthy,” said Gibbons dryly.

“Except perhaps for the one who's a murderer?” suggested Bethancourt.

“He hasn't got that far,” said Gibbons. “He's still in the ‘it must be an outsider' phase.”

“It really can't have been, can it?” asked Bethancourt. “I mean, quite apart from the matter of the keys, there must have been some reason for your killer and victim to have been at a bookshop at Christmas—it's not like they could have wandered in there by accident.”

“No, most certainly not,” agreed Gibbons. “Well, we'll see what comes out tomorrow.” He yawned. “That drink's gone straight to my head. I'm sorry, Phillip, I think I had better go to bed.”

“Don't be sorry,” responded Bethancourt. “It's after midnight, after all.”

“Yes, but I meant to ask about Marla,” said Gibbons.

Bethancourt's face shuttered at once.

“That can wait,” he said shortly. “There's really nothing to tell in any case. Here, let's get you set up upstairs. What's the agenda for tomorrow, by the way?”

He had risen and was leading the way out of the room; Gibbons had little choice but to follow.

“The shop's set to open at ten,” he said, bending to pick up his duffel and swing it onto his shoulder. “Mittlesdon's manager is scheduled to open tomorrow, along with four of the sales people. Mittlesdon says they usually show up about fifteen minutes early, although the manager might be there as early as half nine. I reckon that means I should be there by nine or a little earlier.”

Bethancourt nodded as he tramped up the stairs. “Breakfast at eight then?” he suggested.

“That sounds about right,” agreed Gibbons.

“We'll have to go out for it,” warned Bethancourt, opening one of the bedroom doors. “There won't be anything perishable in the house. Here you are—the best room at Bethancourt's B and B.”

It looked like heaven to Gibbons, a well-appointed guest room with a very comfortable-looking double bed complete with a thick, silk-covered duvet and four feather pillows.

“Perfect,” he said. “Thanks again, old man.”

“Not at all,” replied Bethancourt automatically, checking to make sure the bed was made up. “The WC's at the end of the hall; there should be towels in the armoire here. . . . Yes, there they are. Do you need anything else?”

He looked around the room as if checking to make sure he had missed nothing.

“No,” answered Gibbons. “I'm fine. I take it you'll come with me in the morning?”

“If that's all right, I will,” said Bethancourt. “You never know—it might not be as simple as it appears.” He smiled a little sheepishly.

Gibbons laughed at him.

“You just want to make my job harder,” he said. “Yes, you can come, though I'd appreciate it if you'd fade into the background if Brumby or MacDonald show up.”

“Not a problem,” said Bethancourt. “I'll leave you to get some sleep, then. Good night, Jack.”

“Good night,” echoed Gibbons.

Bethancourt went back out into the hall, closing the door firmly behind him and picking up his bag, which he hefted along to the next door down. The room inside was much like the room he had just left Gibbons in. Bethancourt deposited the bag on the bed and went back downstairs. There he topped up the whisky in his glass, which he sipped while he carried Gibbons's empty glass back to the kitchen. He checked the refrigerator and cupboards there for supplies, and found that though—as he had expected—there was no milk or other perishables, there was a stock of coffee.

“Wonderful,” he murmured, and proceeded to set the coffeepot ready for the morning.

He finished his whisky and left the glass in the sink before putting out all the lights on the ground floor and wandering back upstairs to his room, followed this time by Cerberus, who immediately lay down on the hearth rug to continue his nap. His master, however, was restless, and rather wished Gibbons had not brought up Marla just at bedtime. Nevertheless, in view of the early hour at which he would have to rise in the morning, he prepared for bed and settled in, lying wakeful in the dark, the specter of a slim, redheaded woman appearing against all desire in his mind's eye. He was, he decided, still considerably angry, but he could see no help for that. He closed his eyes tightly and tried to think about the dead woman in the bookshop.

It was not actually raining when they set out the next morning, though the skies were dark and threatening and the air was raw. Cerberus gamboled along beside them, being by far the most awake of the party and the only one who did not seem to mind the cold.

“We'll warm up as we go,” said Bethancourt, starting off at a good pace. He was still feeling very fortunate to have escaped his parents' house a day early. “It's not far in any case.”

“Oh,” said Gibbons, stifling a yawn. Despite copious amounts of coffee, he was not feeling very alert.

“Not that way,” said Bethancourt, catching him by the arm. “We can cut through here and go down along Straker's Passage. Haven't you ever heard of a snickelway?”

“No,” answered Gibbons grumpily.

“Oh,” said Bethancourt, correctly interpreting this monosyllabic response as a lack of interest. “Well, York's full of them. In this case, it's a shortcut.”

Gibbons let himself be steered off the sidewalk and along a
path apparently leading into a garden. It did not seem to him a very likely way to get to Fossgate, but he trusted Bethancourt to know all the highways and byways of the city in which he had grown up. And in fact a passage that Gibbons would have called an alleyway and that Bethancourt persisted in calling a snickelway brought them up to the back side of the bookshop, and then along its side to Fossgate. Gibbons fished out the keys and, after taking down the police tape, let them in the front door.

“My,” said Bethancourt, stepping over the threshold, “this brings back memories.”

“Were you really here that much when you were a schoolboy?” asked Gibbons, hunting for the light switch.

“Yes; it was an approved place to visit,” answered Bethancourt. “Not only that, but old Mr. Mittlesdon would often let us trade in old books for new ones, which saved on pocket money. Besides, I like bookshops.”

While Bethancourt began a leisurely inspection of Mittlesdon's current stock, Gibbons went to check the back door. When he returned, he found PC Murphy in the front room with Bethancourt.

“Ah,” said Bethancourt, sounding relieved. “Here he is. Constable Murphy was looking for you, Sergeant.”

Murphy looked hopefully at Gibbons. “Very good to see you, sir,” he said with a slight emphasis.

“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?”