A Spider on the Stairs

by Cassandra Chan

  Some balance was restored when at last Evelyn was ready to leave and they fell back into their usual roles: Bethancourt carried her bags out to the car for her and installed them while she directed their arrangement. A quick peck on the cheek, an admonishment to drive carefully and give his regards to his uncle, and she was gone, leaving Bethancourt feeling much relieved.

  He returned to the empty house and immediately went in search of his mobile to ring Gibbons and find out what was happening in the Jenks investigation.

  “Did you just get up?” asked Gibbons suspiciously.

  “It’s after lunchtime,” protested Bethancourt. “Even I’m not that slothful. No, I just got rid of Aunt Evelyn, so this is first chance I’ve had to ring. Have there been any developments?”

  “Jenks is looking very much like our man,” reported Gibbons. “Brumby confirmed that he had opportunity, and now they’re engaged in putting brick on brick, so to speak. I’m more or less kicking my heels at this point,” he added, lowering his voice. “Howard’s off nailing down exactly when Jenks was where over the past two years, Andy Rowett’s investigating unsolved murders in Indiana, and Brumby is making arrangements to speak with a detective over there, while everybody else is putting things together for a search warrant for Jenks’ bungalow and van.”

  “When will you interview Jenks?” asked Bethancourt.

  “Brumby wants to have a go this evening,” answered Gibbons, “but he wants everything in place beforehand. His idea is to get Jenks here, and have the search warrants executed while Jenks is out of the way.”

  “So an arrest is imminent?” said Bethancourt.

  “Depending on what happens,” said Gibbons. “But, yes, I think it likely.”

  “Well, I never thought you and I would end up finding Ashdon when we started the Mittlesdon case,” said Bethancourt, who could still hardly believe that this in fact was the case.

  “Neither did I,” admitted Gibbons cheerfully. “But it’s worked out very well. I’ll let you know if anything surprising turns up.”

  “Yes, do,” said Bethancourt. “Oh, there’s the doorbell—I’ll speak to you later then.”

  Cerberus, who had had an energetic run in the garden that morning and had thus been sound asleep on the drawing room carpet, roused at the sound of the bell, and the way his tail was wagging as he stood at the front door gave Bethancourt a very good idea of whom he would find when he opened it. He took a moment to steel himself and reached for the latch.

  Marla did not smile when he greeted her, although she did automatically bend down to fondle Cerberus’s ears. Instead, she looked almost hesitant, not a quality normally associated with her.

  Bethancourt decided to help her out. “Did you come to talk?” he asked, striving to keep his tone neutral.

  “Yes.”

  She nodded soberly and he responded by swinging the door open and motioning her in. She shed her heavy coat in the hallway, revealing well-worn jeans and a clinging cashmere sweater that immediately made Bethancourt want to touch it, despite his current conflicted feelings about its wearer. Manfully, he refrained, and led the way into the drawing room instead. He gestured toward the couch, but Marla had abruptly screwed up her courage. She turned to face him.

  “Look, Phillip, you have to know I never meant any of it to happen. Not the thing with Jason, not your finding out about it, not that stupid argument we had,” she said, all in a rush.

  She paused for breath and Bethancourt had time to think that thoughtlessness was not much of an excuse for all that had happened.

  “I only blew up because you didn’t seem to care that I’d been to bed with someone else, only that I wasn’t more discreet about it,” she continued, her voice rising. She seemed to realize this and stopped herself, taking another breath. “Anyway, I’m sorry for all of it,” she finished.

  Bethancourt noticed that she did not promise amendment. Still, it was a much greater admission of guilt than he had been expecting, taking into consideration the fact that Marla generally considered the best defense was a good offense. And he still wanted to touch the sweater.

  “I cared like bloody hell,” he said, but even as he said it, he knew his pride had suffered more than anything else. And what did that say about his feelings for her? He was suddenly nonplussed by his own emotions.

  Marla sensed his hesitation. “I know I sometimes let my temper get the better of me,” she admitted, “and I honestly don’t remember what I said. But I certainly never meant to break up with you. You’re the only boyfriend I’ve ever had that’s lasted more than a few months.”

  That hardly seemed a decent basis for a long-term relationship, but Bethancourt was nonetheless comforted by the compliment.

  “So you do want to make up?” he asked.

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” she said, a trifle impatiently, and then paused. “Only I’m not sure you do anymore,” she added in a lower tone.

  Bethancourt wasn’t sure he did, either. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure he didn’t. This was turning into a much more serious discussion than he had been prepared for. He realized all at once that he had believed the relationship was over largely because he had had no intention of wooing her back this time. Even with her arrival in York, he had not anticipated that she would take on the role of wooer.

  “I hadn’t thought it was a possibility, frankly,” he told her.

  She shrugged, though it was a rather forced gesture. Unstated but understood was the fact that Marla would never stay anywhere she was not wanted.

  “If you’d rather not bother,” she said, turning a little away from him but still waiting for his answer.

  “I didn’t say that,” protested Bethancourt, rather flattered by her obvious desire to have him back, and she turned at once. “If you want to try, then I’m willing to give it a go,” he said with a crooked half smile. He was unaware that the quirky smile made his hazel eyes gleam, and that it was one of the things that made him so attractive to women.

  The look in Marla’s eyes grew warm in response.

  “Yes,” she said, holding out her hands. “Let’s.”

  He took her hands, drawing her to him and bending to kiss her. And at last he was free to explore the cashmere sweater.

  Gibbons’s big moment, for which he had waited all day, turned out to be anticlimactic.

  By tea time Howard had returned from Leeds with Jenks’s itinerary for the past two years; it showed him as having been in the south when every single Ashdon killing had occurred. Moreover, there was some correlation of the place of the murders with the place of Jenks’s previous job. In May, for example, he had been installing an alarm system in Bedfordshire, and had gone on from there to a job in Surrey. Toward the end of his work in Surrey, an Ashdon killing had occurred near Stevenage in Bedfordshire. Moreover, research had shown that several of the small shops the bodies had been placed in had had their alarm systems installed by Revetment, Ltd., though not all by any means. Still, as Howard had said, it was significant.

  By five o’clock, the search warrants had been expedited, forensics was standing ready, Rowett had found a possible connection to another murder in Indiana, and Brumby had finally been cleared to talk with Lieutenant Roy Baker.

  Baker, once contact had been established, sounded rather bemused to be speaking to Scotland Yard.

  “I remember the case quite well,” he told Brumby in a broad American accent. “I never did find motive, and we decided it must be a random killing. I went through our records and found a couple of cases where girls had been tasered and abducted, although in both of those, the girls were let go—they just woke up after a few hours, one in a house under construction, and the other in a back alley. Then I heard they had a similar case over in Hendricks County, so we turned it over to the FBI. I think they found another case to tie in, but so far as I know, the crimes simply stopped after that.”

  Baker really had little more to add; he had never had any suspects in the case, and the only clue h
e had was some grainy footage from the mall car park security camera, and that showed only a blurred figure, face turned from the camera, escorting the victim out of camera range.

  “The guy was medium,” he said. “Medium height, medium hair, medium weight. There was just nothing to go on.”

  After a bit of searching, he came up with the name and number of the FBI agent who had been given charge of the case, and Brumby, noting the information down, thanked Baker for his trouble and promised to let him know if the case turned out to be connected to the Ashdon serial murderer.

  Brumby immediately dialed the FBI office and asked for Special Agent Mancuso. Mancuso was out in the field, so Brumby left a message with a secretary who promised to relay it.

  When he had rung off, he sat silently for a moment, mulling over what he had heard. Then he turned decisively to his team, his grey eyes searching out Gibbons.

  “I’m not going to wait for the FBI,” he said. “We’ve got enough to go on. Make the call, Sergeant.”

  Gibbons nodded smartly and turned to the phone. He dialed Jenks’s number, his story of a bag needing identification fully formed and ready, and listened to the rings with increasing dismay. After the sixth ring, voice mail picked up, and Gibbons left a brief message. Then he rang off and turned to look at Brumby helplessly.

  Brumby was frowning. “He may simply be out for the evening,” he said, but not as if he believed it. He hesitated for a moment more, then turned to two of his people.

  “Take an unmarked car,” he said, “and run down to his place. Park somewhere inconspicuous and ring me the moment you have sight of Jenks returning—or if he’s already in residence. It’s not unknown,” he added dryly, “for people to screen their calls. Gibbons here can give you the lay of the land.”

  Gibbons, feeling slightly crestfallen that he had missed his mark, turned to make a sketch of the area. He was pleased, however, that he was not the one being sent to wait in the car on what was rapidly becoming a very cold night. He had always hated surveillance.

  Bethancourt woke from a pleasant doze to the sound of his mobile ringing. The ring was faint, since the phone was across the room in his trousers pocket, but he came to with a start nonetheless and tried to answer it. Since his limbs were thoroughly tangled up in Marla’s as well as in the sheets and blankets, the effort was somewhat abortive, and ended with him halfway out of the bed, with one foot still firmly entangled amid the sheets, and his phone still well out of reach.

  “Good Lord, hang on half a mo, can’t you?” said Marla sleepily, trying to unwrap his foot.

  “It’s probably nothing,” said Bethancourt, falling back on the bed with his leg bent under him at a rather uncomfortable angle. “I don’t know why I lunged for it.”

  In their newly amicable state, he did not want to mention that it was likely Gibbons, reporting progress on the Ashdon case: Marla had never cared for his sleuthing hobby. But in the next minute, he remembered that it could well be his father, heralding the imminent arrival of another family member or, even worse, of the parental units themselves. Considering their reaction over Christmas to the mere suggestion of his liaison with a fashion model, he was not an eager for any members of his family to meet Marla in the flesh, much less in her present location and state of undress. Groaning, he disentangled himself and went to retrieve the phone, shivering in the sudden cold of the room.

  The caller ID showed that it had been Gibbons after all.

  “I’d better ring him back,” he told Marla, picking his trousers up from the floor and hastily drawing them on. “He might be coming home.”

  “We should get up anyway,” she answered, sitting up and searching amid the bedclothes for her underwear. “Don’t you think it’s time for dinner? I’m starving.”

  Bethancourt agreed, while privately hoping Gibbons was not ringing to suggest the same thing.

  Gibbons was not.

  “There’s been a bit of a hitch in the plans,” he told Bethancourt. “Jenks is apparently away. When he didn’t answer my call, Brumby sent Susan and Doug off to do surveillance in Appleton Roebuck. They spoke to a neighbor who told them Jenks had been gone since yesterday—the neighbor assumed he was off on one of his business trips.”

  “But I thought you said he was still on his Christmas vacation,” said Bethancourt.

  “He is,” answered Gibbons. “Which just means we have no idea where he might be. It could be a perfectly innocent holiday trip, or he could be stalking another victim. Needless to say, we’re hoping it’s the former.”

  “Not likely though, is it?” said Bethancourt.

  Gibbons sighed. “No, not terribly likely,” he said. “So Brumby’s decided to put off the search of the bungalow and concentrate on finding the van instead. He’s put out an alert for it in connection with Jody’s murder. The thinking being that mention of that case should alarm him less, since I’ve already spoken to him about it.”

  “And he’s therefore more likely to come along to the nick voluntarily,” said Bethancourt.

  “That’s right,” said Gibbons. “Although Brumby believes Jenks would come along anyway, thinking he’s smarter than any policeman. Anyway, I should get back to the others—I just wanted to tell you what was happening and let you know I’m stuck here until there are further developments.”

  “Right,” said Bethancourt. “Ring me back when there’s news.”

  “Will do,” promised Gibbons, and rang off.

  Bethancourt set down the phone and turned to find Marla already struggling into her sweater.

  “Is Jack up here for that serial killer?” she asked, her head emerging from the cashmere.

  “That’s right,” said Bethancourt, pulling a shirt over his head.

  Marla shuddered. “I hope he catches the bugger soon,” she said.

  “I’ve no doubt he will,” answered Bethancourt. “They seem to be making progress in the case. Shall we go? Dinner awaits.”

  There was a very practical side to Brumby. When no reports of Jenks had come in by ten o’clock, he returned to the hotel to get a good night’s sleep.

  “Bastard probably will, too,” muttered Howard.

  A couple of the others followed Brumby’s example, but for the most part the rest of them found it impossible to leave, somehow certain that the break would come the moment they did so.

  Gibbons, however, had pushed himself over the last few days and found that his recently wounded body was beginning to rebel. Though he was as convinced as anyone that news would come the minute he was out the door, he found himself at about midnight having to give in and call it a day. Extracting a promise from his fellow officers to ring his mobile if anything should develop, he rang for a taxi and was transported back to St. Saviourgate.

  The house was quiet when he let himself in, and if he was surprised to find Bethancourt already abed, he did not bother overmuch about it. The coffee he had drunk in the course of the evening was beginning to churn in his stomach, so he headed to the kitchen to get a glass of milk to take up with him.

  He was just replacing the milk jug in the refrigerator when he heard the sound of dog nails on the parquet and Cerberus trotted in, his feathered tail waving a welcome. He was momentarily followed by his master, who was wrapped in a quilted dressing gown and was engaged in putting on his glasses.

  “You’re back,” he said. “I thought I heard you come in. Is there any news?”

  Gibbons shook his head. “We’re all just waiting around for some report of Jenks or his van to surface,” he said. “Until he does, not a lot more will happen.”

  “That’s tedious,” said Bethancourt frankly.

  “Yes,” agreed Gibbons. “It is rather.” He took a sip of his milk and then sank into one of the kitchen chairs with a sigh.

  Bethancourt fished in the pockets of his dressing gown and eventually found his cigarette case. He lit one and went to join Gibbons at the table.

  “So you just cool your heels here until Jenks is found?” he
asked.

  “I don’t know,” answered Gibbons. “I’m superfluous at this point—there’s nothing going forward that Brumby’s team can’t handle. But I think the superintendent is giving me a chance to stick around to see the end.”

  “Good of him,” said Bethancourt. “How do you feel about it?”

  “Oh, I’d like to see Brumby wrap it up,” said Gibbons. “On the other hand, I don’t much fancy sitting around the York police station with nothing to do. So I suppose it all depends on how long it takes them to find Jenks.”

  Bethancourt nodded. “Would you mind awfully if I went ahead home then?” he asked. “You’re welcome to stay here, of course.”

  Gibbons looked a little startled, but he agreed at once. “I can see there’s even less for you to do here than there is for me,” he said.

  “There isn’t really,” said Bethancourt. “And, well, there’s been a development of sorts here.”

  Gibbons raised his brows. “Let me guess,” he said. “Alice has begun to stalk you.”

  Bethancourt laughed. “No,” he answered, “though, now you mention it, I did promise to have a talk with her before I left.” He scowled. “I hate talks,” he added. “There can’t be four other words in the English language more designed to strike one cold as a woman telling you, ‘we need to talk.’ ”

  It was Gibbons’s turn to laugh. “But what’s the development then?” he asked.

  “Well,” said Bethancourt, feeling rather sheepish, “Marla came round this afternoon and apologized.”

  “Ah!” said Gibbons. “The light dawns—that’s why you were in bed so early. I take it you’ve made it up?”

  “We have,” said Bethancourt. “But even before she turned up, I was thinking I’d like to be getting home. Jody’s murder is as solved as it’s likely to be, and the Ashdon case seems well on its way to being solved as well. And I’d rather like to get home.”