Free Damned by Logic by Jeffrey Ashford

silence.
    â€˜Did Melanie Caine object to the activity you demanded?’
    â€˜If ...’
    He repeated the question.
    â€˜If I tell you ...’ Again Belamy stopped before completing the sentence.
    â€˜I would leave as soon as possible. You telephoned Melanie and ordered her to come here?’
    He nodded.
    â€˜What was her number?’
    â€˜I ... I can’t remember. I don’t have it anymore.’
    â€˜You expect me to believe that?’
    â€˜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?
    â€˜You say your “friend” gave you the phone number. What is his name?’
    â€˜I don’t remember.’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜He’s married and his wife ... She’d ...’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜His address?’
    â€˜I’ll have to look it up.’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜Hasn’t Major Belamy phoned you?’
    â€˜No. Why do you think he might have done?’
    â€˜Is your wife here?’
    â€˜Away with friends. The natterpack, I call them.’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜You’ve not read about her murder?’
    â€˜Oh! ... But you can’t think I could have had anything to do with what happened to her?’
    â€˜I don’t.’
    â€˜Then why mention her as if ...’ He stopped.
    â€˜As if you’d met her?’
    â€˜It’s absurd to think I could have done.’
    â€˜As absurd as giving Major Belamy the telephone number of a woman you’d never met?’
    â€˜Who says I did?’
    â€˜He does.’
    â€˜I don’t believe that.’
    â€˜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