The Last Straw. Paul Gitsham

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СКАЧАТЬ the bell push down for a full fifteen seconds, Jones was finally rewarded by sounds of movement behind the door and muttered cursing. The door opened and a wave of whiskey and stale cannabis fumes assaulted his nostrils. Standing in scruffy, striped boxer shorts and a stained grey T-shirt was a twenty-something man of average height. His skin had the slight olive cast to it common amongst those from Mediterranean countries, his unruly hair raven black. He blinked at Jones, clearly struggling to wake up fully.

      “Dr Antonio Severino?”

      The man nodded, puzzled. Jones held up his warrant card.

      “You are under arrest for the…”

      That was as far as Jones got. Severino’s face promptly lost all of its colour, turning in an instant to a pasty white. Without a word, he turned on his heel and bolted back into the house.

      “Shit! Don’t let him get away!” yelled Sutton, somewhat unnecessarily since the two officers at the rear of the house were waiting by the back door with open arms. Much to Jones’ surprise, however, rather than heading through the kitchen and towards the back door, Severino dived up the stairs.

      Jones took off after him, Sutton a pace behind. Thundering up the stairs, the two officers struggled to catch up with the fleet-footed Italian. Where the hell was he going? To destroy evidence? Was there somebody else in the house? Maybe he was going to kill himself, throwing himself out of the bedroom window. Christ, it would really screw things up if he topped himself, Warren thought fearfully.

      Reaching the top of the stairs, the fugitive carried on running, crashing into what was clearly the bathroom. Barely a second behind, Jones followed, expecting to see the man rummaging through the medicine cabinet for a weapon or a means to kill himself. Instead, he saw the man on all fours leaning over the toilet bowl being violently sick. The sour stench of whiskey and bile filled the room.

      Catching his breath and trying to ignore the smell, Jones tried again. “Antonio Severino, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Professor Alan Tunbridge.”

      Severino finished vomiting and turned around, opening his mouth as if to speak. He seemed to be having trouble focusing. After a pause of a few seconds, his eyes rolled back into his head and before Jones could catch him he fainted clean away, his head hitting the porcelain of the toilet bowl with a solid smack.

      “Reckon you’ll probably have to read him his rights again, guv,” Sutton noted from the open doorway.

      * * *

      A cursory inspection by a paramedic pronounced Severino to be dead drunk but otherwise fit and so the semi-comatose Italian was loaded into the back of the waiting police van. Back at the station, he was roused enough to be read his rights before being stripped and put into a paper suit, his own clothes bagged and sent off to Forensics. Severino was clearly in no state to be interviewed and his lawyer would doubtless try and get anything he said declared inadmissible as evidence. Therefore, Jones decided to play it by the book. Dumping him in the drunk tank to sleep it off, he asked the desk sergeant to organise a solicitor and, as an afterthought, an Italian translator for when he awoke in a few hours. The last thing they wanted was any language problems slowing down the interview process.

      In the meantime, Jones and the rest of his team finally had time to eat and an opportunity to compare notes. Unfortunately, the station’s small canteen was closed for hot meals at the weekend, so the team had to make do with the rather sorry-looking sandwiches left over in the self-service fridge from the previous day. As a result they decided not to linger over lunch. All of them were keen to get on with their work, but Jones insisted that they take a short break.

      Despite the rapid early progress of the investigation, Jones knew from experience that a murder investigation was a marathon not a sprint and he wanted his team to remain fresh. Furthermore, Jones firmly believed that a few minutes’ break would allow each officer’s subconscious to process what they had learnt so far, supplying new insights and new questions. Besides, Severino wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while and Spencer wasn’t due to return for further questioning for some time.

      Whilst the others tucked into the stale sandwiches, Jones snagged Sergeant Kent and asked him to collate the latest reports from his incident desk. Glancing at his watch, Jones then decided he had time to ring Susan and headed into the corridor for some privacy. The phone connected on the third ring. “Hi, sweetheart, it’s me.”

      “It’s Bernice. Susan’s busy preparing a salad for the picnic. And of course it’s you — it says so on the screen.”

      Jones stifled a groan. He had hoped to have a private chat with Susan, explaining what was going on. But that clearly wouldn’t be possible. Mustering all of his tact and injecting a false note of positivity into his voice, he addressed his mother-in-law.

      “Hello, Bernice, Happy birthday.”

      A sniff at the other end of the line.

      “I’m sorry I had to leave so suddenly last night. Unfortunately I got an emergency call.”

      “I see. And that kept you out all night? I suppose you are calling now to say that you won’t be coming to Cambridge for the picnic today?”

      Bloody woman, she wasn’t making it any easier for him. Susan must be a bit annoyed as well, he decided. Normally she tried to wrestle the phone from her mother; today she was letting him stew as Bernice grilled him. Changing tactics, he decided to appeal to her baser instincts. Bernice loved to gossip and the idea that she had got the inside scoop on such a big story before any of her friends would appeal directly to her self-importance. Besides which, the press had already started sniffing around. It wasn’t as if he was telling her any information that wouldn’t be in the public domain within a couple of hours.

      “I’m afraid so, Bernice. It’s all a bit hush-hush, you understand, but last night a famous scientist was found murdered at the university.” Warren could almost hear Bernice’s interest pique. It wasn’t exactly a lie, after all; in terms of celebrity, Tunbridge was famous in the field of antibiotic research, wasn’t he?

      “Really? Which college? It wasn’t that lovely Professor Hawkings, was it? He was on television last week and I said to Dennis, ‘It’s such a shame, such a wonderful mind trapped inside that poor broken body.’ Who could murder that lovely man when he’s so helpless? I tell you, Warren, there are some truly wicked people out there! Why have they brought you in? Isn’t Cambridge a bit out of your jurisdiction?”

      Jones blinked as he tried to process the torrent of misunderstanding flooding down the phone. It was no wonder Dennis never said anything in public.

      “Er, no, it wasn’t Stephen Hawking, Bernice, it was a Biology professor and it was at our local university, the University of Middle England.”

      “Oh.” A pause. “I didn’t realise that Middlesbury had a university.”

      “Oh, yes, it’s quite a good one.” Warren suddenly felt an irrational need to defend the institution against the withering disdain of his mother-in-law.

      “Anyway, the body was discovered late last night. We had to secure the crime scene and then this morning we started our enquiries.”

      “So will you be coming to the picnic?”

      “No, I’m sorry, we have too much going on at the moment. But I promise that I’ll make it tonight.”

      Bugger! Why СКАЧАТЬ