Death in Disguise by Sally Spencer

Author:Sally Spencer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780107707
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2016-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

Apart from the twenty-six half-days a year when he sat on the bench, handing down custodial sentences of up to six months and fines of up to five thousand pounds, Brian Chubb worked as a chartered surveyor. He liked to think of himself as a fair man who, once he assumed the mantle of magistrate, carefully weighed up the evidence before reaching his decision. And generally speaking, he was fair – as long as he was dealing with men.

It was women who were the problem.

He liked women, but he also liked them to know their place, which – roughly speaking – was either at home or out on the arm of their partners. His own wife, Maureen, had been perfectly satisfactory in this respect, until early one morning – and quite unexpectedly – she had packed her bags and run away with a door-to-door insurance salesman called Derek.

The woman standing before him now clearly did not know her place, otherwise, she would never have sought to become a chief inspector. Women did have a role in the police force, Chubb thought – they were much better at breaking bad news than their male counterparts were, for example – but it was quite wrong that they should have the power to order grown men around.

‘So what can I do for you, Miss Paniatowski?’ he asked, hoping that his expression showed the disapproval he was not allowed to put into words.

‘I’d like you to issue a search warrant for 33 Hope Terrace, the home of Mr George Clegg, sir,’ Paniatowski replied.

Chubb frowned.

‘Is Mr Clegg a known criminal?’ he asked.

‘No sir, he’s—’

‘In that case, have you asked the gentleman in question’s permission to search his house, and been refused?’

‘No sir, we can’t—’

‘Why haven’t you asked his permission? Do you think there’s some reason he’s likely to refuse?’

‘He’s not in a position to either agree or refuse. He’s in a coma in Whitebridge General.’

‘You should have mentioned that earlier, then we would have wasted less time,’ Chubb said, with some irritation. ‘Do you expect to find evidence of the crime you are currently investigating in 33 Hope Terrace?’

‘Not exactly, sir, no. But we are hoping to find information relating to the crime.’

‘What kind of information?’

‘We won’t know until we find it.’

‘That seems rather vague.’

‘Then let me explain, sir. Before he collapsed, Mr Clegg rang the inquiry line and said he knew who killed Melissa Evans, and—’

‘Melissa Evans? I thought the woman who was murdered in the Royal Victoria was called Mary Edwards.’

‘So did we, sir, but it has recently emerged that Mary Edwards was not, in fact, her real name.’

‘I must say, this investigation of yours does seem rather shambolic,’ Chubb said.

‘The point is that we believe that George Clegg does know the killer’s name, and that we will find something in his house which will tell us how he knows that name.’

‘It sounds to me more a case of woman’s intuition than anything with a solid factual basis, Miss Paniatowski,’ Chubb said, ‘and you can’t run a police force on woman’s intuition.

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