Damned by Logic

by Jeffrey Ashford

  Something she said jerked his mind back to the present and made him aware he had not heard Mary’s well-meant, but dull chatter. ‘I’m sorry but I couldn’t quite catch that.’

  ‘You were struggling to understand why it had to happen. Can there ever be an answer? I was telling you I wanted you to come along to a small party. You’re going to try to say “no”, but you must not cut yourself off from the world. You need to meet people, to let them help you take yourself out of yourself. Sadness feeds on itself.’

  Had she recently been reading a women’s magazine? ‘I’m afraid I’ll be very poor company.’ Ansell tried feebly to get out of the invitation. He couldn’t think of anything worse than having to listen to her condolences and inane chatter – and to that of her no doubt similarly awful friends – for a whole party.

  ‘People will understand. Come as you are. There’ll be a small buffet. I promise you’ll meet some charming people.’

  He did not accept that some of her friends were ‘charming’; they admired wealth, despised mere money.

  He thanked her for the invitation, said he would try to turn up. On his return to the sitting room, the film had finished, irritatingly leaving the ending to his imagination.

  Ansell was woken early the next morning by the repeated ringing of the front door bell, backed up by heavy pounding on the door. He went into the corridor and along to the road-side window, opened that, shouted out, ‘What the hell are you up to?’

  He then looked down onto the front garden below him. A police constable was standing there with Frick and Glover.

  ‘Please let us in, Mr Ansell,’ Glover called out.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We have a search warrant for this property. If you will do as I ask, it will save us all a lot of trouble.’

  Their calm politeness made his anger sound absurd. He put on a dressing gown – silk, highly patterned, bought in Hong Kong for Eileen, dismissed by her as tasteless – went downstairs. He switched off the alarm system, unlocked, unbolted and opened the front door.

  Glover entered, followed by Frick and the constable. ‘As I said, Mr Ansell, we have a search warrant for this house.’ He held it out. ‘Do you wish to read it?’

  ‘To tear it up.’

  ‘Unavailing and unwise.’

  ‘What are you searching for?’

  ‘Seven uncut diamonds.’

  He wondered why they couldn’t understand that had they ever been in his possession, he would have used them to save Melanie’s life.

  ‘We’ll start upstairs.’

  He watched them climb the stairs, enter the end bedroom. Standing in the hall, he heard the sounds of drawers being opened and closed, furniture being moved and returned to its original position.

  Glover appeared on the landing. ‘One room appears to be used as an office and has a free-standing safe in it. I should like you to come up and open it for us.’

  ‘And if I tell you to go to hell?’

  ‘I would say you are too intelligent to need me to answer.’

  He went upstairs and into the study/bedroom they were all standing in, dialled in the number to open the safe. ‘The only diamonds I have in here are very small and in the ring my wife was given when young, which she very seldom wore.’

  ‘You will allow us to make certain of that.’

  ‘Do you dig at the foot of rainbows?’

  ‘Only white ones.’

  The search continued for the next couple of hours until Glover acknowledged it was completed.

  ‘Sorry to have disappointed you,’ Ansell said sarcastically as he opened the front door to let the detectives out.

  ‘I don’t expect to meet success at the beginning of a case,’ Glover replied, his meaning clear to the angry Ansell.

  SIXTEEN

  Frithton was still referred to as a market town, which suggested to those who did not know its present form that it was not very large. It had in the recent past been populated with a number of small shops run by their owners and selling goods and food of a quality now seldom seen in large stores, a weekly market at which cattle, sheep, chickens, rabbits dead and alive, game in season, and home-grown vegetables were auctioned, the Mothers’ Union which ran a stall selling home-made jams and perhaps there would be a smaller stall run by a Bible society. In the past years, the town had almost doubled in size and most independent stores had vanished, as had the market.

  DC Pascall parked behind a car which would soon have to be scrapped. Two young men, slouching their way along the pavement, noted him at the wheel of his car and after a quick comment from one of them, began to walk more quickly. He recognized the taller one with hair grown long and tied into a bun. Carter had broken into a country house, stolen a collection of silver and later, at a boot sale, tried to sell the silver to a constable in civvies who had printed out the list of the silver. Some were not born to succeed.

  Pascall left the car, crossed the pavement to the front door of a terraced house which was in need of repainting and guttering repair. He knocked. The door was opened by a woman whose features marked a life of dreariness, whose clothes showed a lack of interest in her appearance. She looked past him, said nothing.

  ‘Is Gabby in?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. The tangle of black, greasy hair hardly stirred.

  ‘Where will I find him?’

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘Come on, get the ideas working. You don’t want us calling every half hour to find out if he’s turned up, making the neighbours wonder who he’s blagged this time.’

  ‘Them?’ With the one word, she expressed her opinion of the neighbours.

  ‘Don’t make it difficult for the two of you.’

  ‘You lot don’t know nothing. He dropped three days ago.’

  ‘He died?’

  She slammed the door shut.

  He returned to the car, cursed the lack of information which had caused him by his manner to appear to show contempt for her loss.

  Back at the station, he reported to Frick. ‘Saw his old woman and she says he died.’

  Frick stared through the window at the summer weather – dull, grey cloud. ‘It’s beginning to smell like a dead-end case.’

  Ansell phoned Mary three times to say he was sorry, he could not face a party; each time, the line was engaged. In a mood of self-pity and self-sacrifice, he went.

  Maltone Lodge was on the edge of Frithton and beyond the garden were green fields and distant woodland. Mary sometimes decried the size of both house and garden to assure her listener that she was an ardent ‘green’ and would have preferred to live in a smaller property which would need much less energy. Neither she nor her husband would actually have contemplated leaving.

  To another female, it was obvious that her dress had cost a small fortune, to those who recognized good jewellery, her diamond necklace, more of a fortune. To lessen the burden of having to arrange a ‘small’ party, she had engaged the services of caterers who provided food, drink, cutlery, crockery, glasses and staff. Had the ground not been so sodden, there would have been a marquee on the lawn and guests would have eaten and drunk while enjoying the soft sounds of falling water from the highly formal fountain imported from the seventeenth-century chateau in the Loire Valley. As it was, the centre of the party was the large hall, notable for the painting by Rubens (or so the nameplate claimed) and at the far end two knights in full armour.

  ‘There you are!’ Mary said, as Ansell entered.

  ‘I am.’ He tried to smile, not wanting to appear too discourteous.

  ‘I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.’

  ‘You expect me to believe you’ve missed my absence?’

  ‘Still the same, despite what’s ... I feel so sorry for you, David.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He knew he needed to accept her sympathy with more warmth and politeness; she meant well after all.

  ‘You’ll know most of the people here, or at least some of them, but I decided you had to
meet someone who’d bring you some cheer, some light into your life. So come and meet her.’

  ‘I’d rather ...’

  ‘She’s the daughter of old friends of ours. A little bit feisty, but very much alive. There she is, in the red dress with her back to us. She’s with those boring people, the Fentons, who can only talk about themselves. She’ll be very glad to be moved on – it’s surprising she hasn’t done so of her own accord. Follow me.’

  They eased their way between the many guests until she came to a stop by the Fentons. ‘Sorry, Janet, but I must break you up. Belinda, I want you to meet my dear old friend, David.’

  Belinda turned. Her surprise was as obvious as Ansell’s.

  ‘You know each other?’ Mary asked, disappointed that it seemed the introduction was unnecessary.

  ‘In a way,’ Ansell answered.

  ‘Neither of you has anything to drink.’ She beckoned to a waiter. ‘Tell him what you’d like. I must go and have a word with Julie.’ She hurried away.

  Ansell broke the silence. ‘Time for the cliché apt for this sort of situation, more than just like “It’s a small world”.’

  Belinda said nothing.

  The waiter asked them what they would like to drink. They both chose champagne.

  Conversation, after the waiter hurried away, was hesitant and sparse.

  ‘Have you known Mary and Bart a long time?’ Ansell asked.

  ‘My parents are old friends of theirs.’

  ‘Your parents are here?’

  ‘On holiday.’

  ‘Somewhere in Europe?’

  ‘America.’

  ‘Are they enjoying it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The waiter returned, handed each of them a well-filled flute.

  Ansell raised his glass. ‘Am I allowed to drink to your health?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’m finding the situation beyond my horizon.’ Belinda admitted with a wry smile.

  He drank, tried to find something more to say which would salvage their chance meeting. ‘Have you been in the police long?’

  ‘A few years.’

  ‘Do you enjoy the work?’

  ‘Most of the time.’

  He drained his glass. A waiter, with a bottle of Dom Pérignon wrapped in a serviette, noted this and, having checked that Belinda had drunk very little, refilled Ansell’s glass, and then moved on.

  ‘It’s not been all that long since women have been entitled to equal pay and rank in the police force, is it?’ he said.

  ‘Depends what you call “long”. Look, do you mind if I go and have a word with Jill?’ She did not wait for an answer and left.

  He watched her until she was hidden by other guests. Mary had referred to her as feisty. He would have called her socially abrupt.

  Persuaded to come to the party because the company would lighten his life, ironically introduced to someone who was potentially trying to destroy it.

  He learned he had underestimated Mary’s persistence. When guests were called to dinner in the large dining room whose mahogany D-end table on fourteen legs could have dined a regiment, he was seated next to Belinda.

  They could ignore each other or find neutral ground. ‘“There is no armour against fate”,’ he said lightly. ‘I read that when young and have remembered it ever since. Can’t remember where it came from. Perhaps at the battle of Crecy and they were a French knight’s last words, complaining against the English who did not know how to fight like gentlemen, knight on knight, not bowman against knight?’

  Belinda merely gave Ansell a quizzical look and then turned back to the person on her other side with whom she was having a rather stilted conversation, it seemed.

  The first dish was served. Scottish smoked salmon on one plate, two small wedges of lemon and thin buttered slices of brown bread on the second.

  ‘Can I pass you the pepper?’ he asked.

  ‘No, thank you.’ She barely turned her head to him in replying.

  Her tone had been dismissive. He squeezed juice on to his three slices of salmon. ‘I didn’t choose to sit near you. You have to blame Mary who doesn’t realize what you and your colleagues are trying to do to me, who won’t believe I was in Oxford when—’

  She interrupted him and spoke sharply. ‘This is hardly the time or place to discuss the matter.’ She turned back to her neighbour.

  He ate another mouthful, spoke to the woman on his left. He endured lengthy descriptions of what her young daughter had recently said and done.

  Belinda entered Frick’s room first thing the next morning.

  ‘Yes?’ he muttered. The previous evening, he’d met up with a fellow DS, now with another division, and they had reminisced with the aid of half pints of real ale. Catherine, with whom he had lived since the death of his wife, had on his return offered little sympathy when he had complained how he was suffering.

  ‘I thought you should know, sarge, I went to a party yesterday evening—’

  ‘I have as little interest in what you did last night as in what you hope to do tonight.’

  ‘I met Ansell.’ She persevered.

  ‘You keep poor company.’

  ‘Mary, the hostess, knows him and thought it would cheer him up if she introduced us and seated us next to each other at the meal.’

  ‘I have enough work for half a dozen, a team who seem to think they’re on holiday, and you want to tell me all about your social life?’

  ‘I thought I ought to report the fact since he started trying to tell me he did not drive from Oxford on the Saturday.’

  ‘He’s getting rattled.’

  ‘Drank too much champagne to remember his manners.’

  ‘Didn’t realize the circles you move in. What else did he say? That he couldn’t remember Melanie?’

  ‘I shut him up before he could carry on. Told him it wasn’t the time or place to discuss the matter.’

  ‘That must have got right up his nose and it gets right up mine. You chose to close him down when he wanted to lean on your shoulders and talk?’

  ‘It was a party, sarge.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘One doesn’t discuss anything like that at a party.’

  ‘Pardon my social ignorance. I suppose it wouldn’t have occurred to you that there was a chance he’d say something that could help open the case?’

  ‘I’ve made a mistake—’ Belinda started before being interrupted again.

  ‘You manage to understand that?’

  ‘A mistake in thinking I should report the matter to you.’ She left.

  He opened the top drawer of his desk, brought out a plastic bottle of soluble aspirin tablets and swallowed two. If only he’d stopped after the third or fourth half pint ... The internal phone buzzed. Glover wanted to see him.

  When he entered the other’s room, Glover had the phone receiver to his ear and was listening far more than he was talking. Only after several minutes, did he replace the receiver. ‘The CI at HQ having a moan.’

  ‘Because the Ansell case isn’t moving quickly enough?’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘I can’t see why he doesn’t understand nothing about it is straightforward.’

  ‘Ring and tell him.’

  Frick was annoyed. He’d only tried to offer a little sympathy.

  ‘Why haven’t I got your report on the Cahill case?’

  ‘I put it on your desk earlier this morning, sir.’

  ‘If you had done so, it would be there now.’

  Frick belatedly remembered now that after arriving at the station and his office that morning he had needed a brief visit to the men’s room. It had been his intention to put the report on the other’s desk, but renewed disturbance in his brain and stomach had persuaded him to consider himself, not the work. And then he had got distracted. His brain just wasn’t functioning quite as it should.

  ‘Sorry Guv. I was on my way here with it, but was interrupted and somehow forgot to bring it along.’

  ‘Provi
ded your memory does not deteriorate much further perhaps you can remember to go and get it now.’

  Sarcastic bastard, Frick thought as he left. Back in his room, he wondered whether to take another aspirin, decided that might constitute an overdose. No hypochondriac, he did look after his health. A glass of water should help replenish the dehydration though. After a quick slug of water, he picked up the report, returned to the DI’s room.

  ‘As far as you know and can remember, is everything calm for the moment?’ Glover asked as he took the report.

  ‘Except for someone who’s acting stupid.’

  Glover put the report down on his desk. ‘Who’s doing what?’

  ‘Constable Draper went to a party given by friends with money – champagne, sit-down meal, servants – and met Ansell there.’

  ‘That makes her stupid?’

  ‘She sat next to him at the meal. He started moaning something about not having driven down from Oxford that day and instead of encouraging him to keep talking, she shut him up by saying it wasn’t the time or place to discuss the case. If she’d had an ounce of brain, she’d have encouraged him to go on swilling champagne. He could easily have let slip something that would have helped us, the amount of champagne he was probably knocking back.’

  ‘If he was guilty of his wife’s death.’

  ‘You’re beginning to have doubts?’ Frick looked incredulous.

  ‘Not necessarily, just trying to stand back and look at the facts again. He’s an intelligent man. If he knew the diamonds were in the monkey, wouldn’t he have removed them on arrival at home and not left them in the monkey, lying on the bed. Then of what use would they have been to him, a complete novice? As someone unknown in the diamond trade, he should have realized that to try to find out who would cut and polish the stones would have aroused immediate suspicion. How would he have had the nous to leave the security system switched off to indicate a careless wife? There are a lot of unanswered questions.’

  ‘One can learn a lot of the tricks from the telly.’

  ‘Yet not gain the skill and nerve to carry them out. However, Ansell has to remain our prime suspect for his wife’s death.’ He became silent and the minutes passed by.