The Last Straw. Paul Gitsham

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СКАЧАТЬ unwrapped the cling film from his cheese and tomato sandwich. He carefully peeled back the top slice of bread and plucked the sorry-looking slices of tomato from on top of the micron-thin layer of Cheddar resting on a much thicker layer of margarine. The tomato’s juice had soaked the top layer of bread, making it soggy. Carefully wrapping the tomato in the cling film, he deposited it in a nearby waste basket. Why couldn’t a man just get a plain cheese sandwich? Biting into the sandwich, he grimaced. Where it wasn’t soaked with tomato juice, the starchy white bread was dry, verging on stale, and the cheese was indistinguishable in flavour from the margarine. One bite was enough, he decided, and the remains joined the tomato and cling film in the bin.

      Rejoining Hardwick and Sutton in the briefing room, he saw that a number of other detectives had also returned to the station. There was a low buzz of conversation. Kent, he saw, had started making use of the whiteboards, summarising the information flowing in from the investigators. Doing his best to ignore the faint, tantalising smell of somebody’s microwaved ready meal — clearly somebody better prepared than he to work on a Saturday — Jones called the meeting to order.

      By agreement, it was decided to leave Spencer and Severino until last, to see if anything else came out of the mix before they narrowed the investigation prematurely. Starting with DS Kent, he asked the man to fill everybody in on what information had been acquired so far.

      First of all, the house-to-house inquiries at the few residential properties nearby had resulted in no leads; no strange noises or suspicious strangers hanging around during the time of the murder or in the hours preceding it. Similarly, as expected, none of the local businesses had CCTV that overlooked the university building. The traffic cameras along the roads adjacent to the department were also useless, focused as they were on the roads and a nearby junction rather than the building itself. It looked as though between the university’s CCTV blind spots and the patchy traffic camera coverage in the area, it would be quite possible to approach the building and enter it on foot undetected.

      Turning to the call-centre logs that night, no reports had surfaced as yet of any crimes taking place within a mile or so of the Biology building. Overall it had been a fairly quiet Friday night with no more than the usual amount of closing-time fisticuffs, drunken vandalism and domestic violence.

      Dr Crawley and the university’s Personnel and Student Services departments had been helpful in supplying the names and details of the laboratory’s various workers and students, including the undergraduate student, Clara Hemmingway, that Tunbridge had his alleged affair with. A list had been drawn up on one of the whiteboards, headed ‘Potential Suspects’ with additional columns such as ‘Motive?’ and ‘Alibi?’. Jones had a feeling that before the day was out, a second board might be needed.

      On a different whiteboard, a second list had been drawn up headed ‘Witnesses’. The two students that Tom Spencer claimed to have spoken to immediately before locking himself in the PCR room were named. Officers were on their way to interview them to check that they corroborated his story. A third whiteboard was simply labelled ‘Forensics’. This was blank at the moment.

      Now it was Jones’ turn. Quickly, he summarised the interviews with Crawley and Tompkinson, adding a few more names to the suspects board. With that done, he moved on to Spencer. With the swipe-card logs from the PCR room and main-building entrance and assuming that the two students corroborated his story, Sutton proposed that they interview him one last time then eliminate him.

      Jones shook his head. “Let’s not be too hasty. We don’t know that Severino didn’t have an accomplice and he was the only other person in the building at the time. Something doesn’t feel right about him.”

      Sutton grunted non-committally. Ignoring him, Jones pressed on. “Spencer aside, number one suspect at the moment is Dr Antonio Severino, an Italian postdoctoral researcher in Tunbridge’s group. It seems that Tunbridge shafted him big time a few weeks ago and by all accounts he left in a furious if not murderous mood. We’re doing background checks on him now. CCTV has an unidentified male entering then exiting the building within the timeframe consistent with the murder. The building’s swipe-card logs suggest that the suspect used Severino’s access card. We arrested him an hour ago at his house. Unfortunately he seemed to have been having a one-man party last night and is busy sleeping it off in the drunk tank. We’ve a brief and a translator standing by for when he rejoins the land of the coherent. In the meantime, Forensics are searching his house and looking for trace evidence.”

      Jones looked around the room. “Anything else to add? Any more questions?”

      “Have we confirmed the wife’s alibi yet?”

      Kent answered this. “We’ve tracked down a couple of her dinner companions and the duty manager from the restaurant last night claims to have remembered the party. Till receipts match her credit card number. We’re waiting on CCTV from the restaurant, but it looks as if she’s cast iron at the moment.”

      Another hand. “Have we got any more forensics yet? What about the post-mortem?”

      “Full results from the PM are promised by tomorrow evening. Preliminary forensics are consistent with what we had this morning. We can expect a full report from the unit at Welwyn tomorrow. No word as yet from Severino’s place. A computer forensics team from Welwyn will be looking at Tunbridge’s laptop, to see if there are any clues there, particularly as to why he was working alone on a Friday night.”

      No more hands were raised, so Jones decided to assign roles to those present and close the meeting.

      Calling Sutton over, he outlined his plans. Severino wouldn’t be fit for interview for a few more hours, so they had time to re-interview Spencer, who had just arrived at Reception. Jones was also keen to speak to the late professor’s one-time mistress, Clara Hemmingway. A couple of uniforms were dispatched to her student flat to bring her in for questioning.

      * * *

      Making their way down to the station’s number one interview room, Jones arranged for the desk sergeant to fetch Spencer. Moments later, the young man shuffled in. Dressed in a clean T-shirt and neatly pressed chinos, he was a far cry from the paper-suited, blood-stained mess from the night before. Escorting him was a middle-aged black woman in a smart, pinstriped suit carrying a briefcase. She introduced herself as Denise Jawando, his solicitor. Although he wasn’t under arrest, Spencer’s parents had insisted on her presence as a precaution. Jones noted that her handshake was perfunctory, her expression unsmiling.

      As soon as all were seated, the recorders running and the appropriate introductions made for the tape, Jawando launched in.

      “May I remind you, Chief Inspector, that my client is here voluntarily as the witness to a crime in which he played no part and that he is not under arrest?”

      Smiling tightly, Jones kept an even tone. “Thank you for your assistance. Mr Spencer, for the record, could you tell us again what happened last night?”

      All eyes turned towards the young researcher. Fresh clothes notwithstanding, he looked dreadful; it had been barely twelve hours since he had found the body, yet he looked as if in that time he had lost a week’s worth of sleep. He was of average height and build, his hair a dirty blond, its length midway between scruffy and fashionably long. A few days’ stubble darkened his jowls.

      “I was working late, trying to finish off some PCR reactions before going home. I went down to the PCR room on the ground floor about nine.” The student had a broad Manchester accent, although his diction was precise and absent the urban drawl possessed by many native Mancunians.

      “Can anyone confirm that?”

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