Damned by Logic

by Jeffrey Ashford

  ‘Was she married?’ Belinda now had her notepad out again ready to write down anything relevant.

  ‘She never mentioned a husband and did not wear a wedding ring.’

  ‘Did she have a job?’

  ‘She had a friend who ran a dress company and helped her, especially when one of the staff was ill or suddenly left, which seemed to happen often even though Melanie said they were well paid.’

  ‘Then she was quite busy?’

  ‘Must have been since she often was away. She told me the work was hard, but she didn’t mind that because it enabled her to have nice clothes. She was always beautifully dressed.’

  ‘Where was the company?’

  ‘I expect she told me, but I’m afraid I can’t remember.’

  ‘Did you meet the friend who ran it?’

  ‘I don’t think so. No, I’m certain I didn’t.’

  ‘Did Melanie have lots of friends?’

  After a pause, Jane said, ‘It was strange.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘Melanie was attractive and friendly, but I don’t remember ever seeing her with anyone.’

  ‘One would have expected her to have a number of friends. And perhaps many of them male?’ Belinda again tried to lead the conversation; often personal opinions were just as useful as facts.

  ‘I know, but I did have the impression ...’

  ‘That she preferred a quiet life?’

  ‘I’m probably being rather ridiculous.’

  ‘Most unlikely. I’m sure you’re a very good judge of people.’

  ‘Well ... I had the impression that she disliked men, even despised them.’

  ‘Did you wonder why that could be?’

  Jane said nothing.

  ‘Did she ever say anything to suggest she was worried about someone or something?’

  ‘No. But I must say that the day she got back from her cruise, I thought she was very nervous. Indeed, I asked her if something was wrong. She told me to mind my own business. I was really surprised. She’d never before been rude like that and I was only trying to help. Still, later she was friendly and showed me a photo of the ship she was on. It didn’t look like they did when I was young, but not much does.’

  Belinda phoned Glover. ‘I’ve had a chat with Mrs Greene and haven’t learned enough to cover the head of a pin.’

  ‘Of course not, when all the fairies are standing on it.’

  ‘Fairies?’

  ‘And they say the intelligence of the average person hasn’t been numbed by the box. Get back here as quick as you like and do some work.’

  The team of three SOCOs and Glover attracted the brief interest of passing pedestrians as they left the police van and entered Ashcroft Building. Sergeant Cathart brought out a small bunch of skeleton keys which at different times had been taken from arrested housebreakers and at the third attempt unlocked the front door.

  The flat was more tidy than the home of most – if not all – of those present. Dresses, of which there were many, hung in plastic dust bags, shoes were on racks, clothing was carefully folded and in drawers, a couple of magazines on a bedside table were squared with the table. There was a large television set, but no DVD and therefore no disks to collect. There was likewise no laptop, PC or tablet. Every paperback in the two small cupboards was examined page by page for insertions, every piece of paper on which was writing was read. Carpets were raised and floorboards examined for a hiding place. In the bathroom, the lavatory cistern was trawled and every bottle and tin in the medicine cupboard opened. In the kitchen, the refrigerator was emptied, the interior of the electric stove checked by torchlight, china and store cupboards examined.

  Cathart reported the obvious. ‘Nothing, sir.’

  Glover fiddled with some coins in his pocket. ‘She won’t have worked without some form of records, so where in the hell did she keep them?’ He answered his own question. ‘In her working place. Here, she lived a normal life.’ He looked around at the tidy flat, deep in thought. ‘The old girl remarked on her apparent lack of friends, notably males ... Maybe a retired marine major would be of some help.’

  NINE

  Despite DC Pascall’s unwillingness – he and religion were strangers – he would have taken his wife to the church fête had he not been ordered to question Major Belamy instead. That Pam had believed his professed inability to drive her to the fête was an excuse, had – and still did – annoy him. As he passed through the gateway and passed the bordering oaks, he had a clear view of Manor House; the probability that the major was likely to be a wealthy man was confirmed.

  He parked level with the end of a well clipped yew hedge. The gravel turning-circle was newly raked. The lightly carved oak front door, under a lead covered canopy, had been striated by time and weather. There was a well polished brass fox’s bell-pull. From inside came the flat sound of a bell. A wonder it didn’t sound ‘Rule Britannia’, he thought sourly.

  The door was opened with accompanying creaks. A man in white coat and striped trousers said, ‘Good morning.’

  Pascall ‘heard’ a question mark in the other’s voice. Was he judged to have come to the wrong door? ‘Is Major Belamy in?’

  ‘Who is asking?’

  ‘Detective Constable Pascall.’

  ‘You wish to speak to Major Belamy?’

  He would have liked to ask if the other thought he might be there to speak to the chief constable. ‘Yes.’

  ‘If you come in I will ask Major Belamy if he is available.’

  If he thinks he isn’t, he’ll learn it’s the twenty-first century, Pascall decided. He watched the butler cross to one of the panelled doors, knock, go inside. A woman came into the large hall, from another room and with one glance dismissed him as being of any consequence and walked over to the staircase with spiral balusters and carved tread ends. It pleased him to note she had a fat bottom.

  The butler returned to the hall. ‘Major Belamy will speak to you in the study.’ He then indicated the way with an outstretched arm and disappeared from view.

  The study contained leather armchairs, a kneehole desk, filled bookcases; on the walls hung a tattered white ensign, a large photograph of staged rows of the crew seated or standing under the three guns of the after turret on a battleship, and a painting of HMS Victory.

  Belamy did not stand but stared at Pascall for several seconds before he said, ‘Your reason for coming here?’

  ‘I need to have a word with you.’ Pascall made a point of omitting any ‘sir’.

  ‘For what reason?’

  ‘We are investigating the death of Melanie Caine.’

  ‘That is supposed to be your reason?’

  A cool bugger, Pascall thought resentfully. ‘We think you knew her.’

  ‘You are mistaken.’

  ‘Not according to our records.’

  ‘I can only presume you are referring to the unfortunate experience when the woman was shown into the house, claiming she had information concerning the poaching that was going on. When I asked her to name the person or persons concerned, she shouted that people who killed for pleasure were perverted and attacked me.’

  ‘You reported the assault to the police then retracted your evidence.’

  ‘Having overcome the injury she inflicted on me, I accepted that, like all the others, she was incapable of comprehending the stupidity of her behaviour, and it would not be fair for her to suffer imprisonment.’

  ‘Did your servants assist you when you were assaulted?’

  ‘None of them was here. I was forced to phone for help.’

  ‘Why were they not here?’

  ‘I had granted them the day off.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That does not concern you.’ The major began to look uncomfortable.

  ‘Was it because you wanted an empty house when Melanie Caine arrived?’

  ‘The suggestion is slanderous.’ The haughtiness was back in his tone, but Pascall judged it was just his defence mechanism goi
ng into overdrive for one last go before he had to admit defeat.

  ‘How did you get in touch with her?’

  ‘You have not listened to what I have said?’

  ‘We have determined that she was an upmarket call girl, ready to service a customer in a hotel, at his home or her pied d’amour.’

  ‘I find it very distasteful to hear you speak about such matters. If you are trying to suggest I had some form of relationship with that woman, I will make my objection to so egregious a mistake to the highest authority.’

  He tried to sound angrily outraged, but it was easy now to identify the fear underneath his words. Those who portrayed high standards dreaded having their muddied lives exposed. ‘I think, major, that with your wife away, you decided to dismiss the staff long enough for you to call Melanie Caine over here. What to me is inexplicable, is why she attacked you so vigorously. Did she object to what you demanded?’

  ‘Your suggestion is contemptible.’

  ‘But no doubt correct. Is your wife here?’

  ‘No concern of yours.’

  ‘That is true. But it is of concern to you because when she returns and finds me here, still trying to get you to answer my questions, she will wonder what’s going on. Perhaps you would find it difficult to explain ...?’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Did Melanie Caine object to the activity you demanded?’

  ‘If ...’

  He repeated the question.

  ‘If I tell you ...’ Again Belamy stopped before completing the sentence.

  ‘I would leave as soon as possible. You telephoned Melanie and ordered her to come here?’

  He nodded.

  ‘What was her number?’

  ‘I ... I can’t remember. I don’t have it anymore.’

  ‘You expect me to believe that?’

  ‘It is fact. When my friend gave it to me, I wrote it down. But afterwards I tore the paper up because ...’

  Had he been scared his wife might find the paper and ask him whose number it was or was it the need to destroy the evidence of what, now that passion was spent, was a humiliating memory?

  ‘You say your “friend” gave you the phone number. What is his name?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘You’re living in another world,’ Pascall said scornfully. This man needed to face up to the consequences of his own actions. ‘I want his name,’ he repeated.

  ‘He’s married and his wife ... She’d ...’

  ‘A little common sense on his part and, as with you, his wife will have no reason to learn about her husband’s off-duty life.’

  After barely a hesitation, Belamy volunteered a name. ‘Sheridan.’

  ‘His address?’

  ‘I’ll have to look it up.’

  ‘Please do so.’

  Belamy left the room. When he returned, he had a filled glass in one hand and a piece of paper in the other. He handed Pascall the name and address.

  Pascall pocketed the piece of paper and left the house with barely an acknowledgement. Mission successful but how he hated those bloody arrogant rich people!

  The six-mile drive was past fields with many shapes whose boundaries were marked by thorn hedges and were laid down for hay or in which cattle or sheep grazed.

  Frackley Grange, a seventeenth-century house which had been extended in the middle of the twentieth century, was in a small village and on one side of the traditional green. Sheridan, middle-aged, overweight, had a fulsome manner. ‘Come along in, constable. Is there some sort of problem which brings you here? If there is, I shall be pleased to help you if I can,’ he proclaimed in a cheerful tone, clearly clueless as to the policeman’s mission.

  ‘Hasn’t Major Belamy phoned you?’

  ‘No. Why do you think he might have done?’

  ‘Is your wife here?’

  ‘Away with friends. The natterpack, I call them.’

  ‘Then you can give me Melanie Caine’s phone number and address.’

  Sheridan’s bonhomie manner vanished. ‘Who’s she?’ he asked, trying, and failing, to sound puzzled. Instead he sounded scared and shocked.

  ‘You’ve not read about her murder?’

  ‘Oh! ... But you can’t think I could have had anything to do with what happened to her?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Then why mention her as if ...’ He stopped.

  ‘As if you’d met her?’

  ‘It’s absurd to think I could have done.’

  ‘As absurd as giving Major Belamy the telephone number of a woman you’d never met?’

  ‘Who says I did?’

  ‘He does.’

  ‘I don’t believe that.’

  ‘You’ve forgotten there’s no honour amongst adulterers. The name and address, please.’

  This man was easier to crack. Ten minutes later, Pascall sat in the car and reread the address. Cloverdean, Alersham. The guv’nor had been right – the flat they’d found so far had been Melanie’s off-duty home. He put the paper down on the passenger seat, started the engine, drove off. He accepted his manner when questioning both men had been sharp and aggressive. But that was often necessary when someone thought he was insulated from others by wealth or breeding. And ultimately, it had worked and that was the point of his job after all.

  Cloverdean, a brick bungalow in a two-acre field ringed by a semicircle of woods, was fronted by a lawn and flower beds. Sergeant Cathart checked that the outer front and back doors were locked, so he used a skeleton key to open the back one.

  The inside of the bungalow made even he express surprise. On the walls of the larger bedroom hung pornographic photos and drawings and on the ceiling, above the king-sized bed, was a large circular mirror. This was obviously to accommodate Melanie’s form of entertaining, but elsewhere the house had been ransacked and had certainly been made unfit for further socializing. The contents of cupboards and drawers had been emptied on to the floor, the mattress ripped open, pillows cut and the feathers strewn everywhere. The other rooms were as chaotic. Chair seats had been torn, books pulled out of a small bookcase, the TV set ripped open as had been the DVD player, empty disk covers and disks thrown around; in the kitchen, the oven had been attacked, jars and bottles littered the floor, many of them broken and their contents forming a sludge; in the dining room, the smashed contents of a display cupboard lay in a heap. A survey of windows and outside doors was made to determine whether entry had been forced or the intruders had been let in. The interior of the lock of the back door, viewed with the aid of a light probe, showed that it had been forced.

  Glover arrived shortly before the SOCO team had finished their work. Cathart met him at the front door. ‘The place has been turned into a junkyard, sir.’

  ‘Vandals?’

  ‘Could be, but I’d say more likely someone searching for something.’

  Glover went inside. Anne frequently called him untidy; the contents of the bungalow would show her what that word really meant. ‘Have you recovered any notebooks, phones, computers, anything with addresses or telephone numbers?’

  ‘All that sort of thing has been put on one side for a full examination, but I’ve made a very brief check and didn’t come across anything that looked interesting.’

  ‘Memory sticks or disks?’

  ‘Just lots of CDs and DVDs with their empty cases all over the place.’

  He went outside through the back door. Here, there was no garden, only rough grass, recently cut. A quick movement caught his attention and a squirrel ran up the trunk of a tree and disappeared behind the leaves. He began to pace the ground. Vandalism or a search? Vandals were more likely to have left obscene messages or, lacking spray cans, thrown the bottles of jams, chutney, etc at the walls. Chaos would have been similar, but the form of it different. That the computer had been left marked a search for something which wasn’t in the form of information. What had Melanie Caine, an upmarket tart, possessed which provoked that search and, it seemed reasonabl
e to surmise, her torture before she was murdered?

  The answer – or part of it – to his question was waiting in Glover’s office. A note on his desk recorded a call from Interpol. A report had been received from the inspector general of Internal Security in Lebanon. Having learned of the death of the English woman, Melanie Caine, he would advise the English Constabulary that she had been suspected of smuggling illegally mined, uncut diamonds from Sierra Leone, but had managed to escape detection prior to her departure from Beirut on MV Helios. The English authorities had been advised before the arrival of the ship, but the suspect had been found not to be in possession of diamonds.

  Glover addressed the window. ‘Why the hell does it take someone in Lebanon to tell us? Was everyone here fast asleep?’

  He left his room, found Frick’s was empty, continued on to the general room. That was equally empty. He went over to the noticeboard under which was a movements book, listing the time at which a person had left and why, where she or he had gone.

  He turned to leave as Belinda walked in. ‘There is one of you around to do some work, then.’

  The DI’s mood was clear and forbade any droll comment. ‘It’s been a hectic day, sir.’

  ‘Find out which shipping company runs the Helios.’ He left.

  She sat at her desk, did not immediately do as ordered. Peter had rung home whilst she’d been at work. Her mother was sufficiently old-fashioned to have disliked her moving into Peter’s flat before their marriage, yet had been sorry when she had moved out, having decided he could make her daughter a good husband if only ... Until one lived with him, one could not judge the selfishness of his character. Anyway, she didn’t like to hear that he was calling; moving out had meant to signal a new start for her, away from him and his influence. How could she hope to move on if he still rang for a chat – or whatever excuse he liked to give.

  The internal phone rang.

  ‘When did she dock?’ Glover asked.

  It took a moment to banish Peter and relationship issues from her mind and reorganize her thoughts. ‘I’m still looking,’ Belinda lied as she shook herself out of her reverie. ‘I’m afraid there’s rather a long list of companies and I can’t yet say.’