The Last Straw. Paul Gitsham

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      “I was in the PCR room for an hour or so — you can check that, because it has a swipe-card lock — before going back up to the lab.”

      “What were you wearing?” interrupted Sutton.

      “What you found me in: jeans, T-shirt and a lab coat, with latex gloves.”

      “When did you leave the PCR room?”

      “About quarter-past ten, I guess.”

      “Did anyone see you then?”

      “No, I don’t think anyone was left in the building by that time, but again the swipe machine should confirm my exit.”

      “Where did you go next?”

      “Nowhere, I went straight back to the lab. I put the completed PCR reactions in the freezer. I’d seen Alan’s office light was on when I came back up, so I decided to pop my head around and say ‘Goodnight’. That’s when I saw the body.”

      “You were still wearing latex gloves, a lab coat and a face mask when we arrived. Seems a little strange that you didn’t take these off if you were going to say ‘Hi’ to the boss.”

      Spencer shrugged vaguely. “I dress like that all day, every day. I probably just forgot.”

      “Tell me what happened then, Tom.”

      Spencer’s eyes became downcast. “The moment I came in, I saw the blood. He was spun in his chair staring towards the doorway. I could see from the state of his throat that he had to be dead, but I checked for a pulse anyway. Then I dialled 999.”

      Jones nodded in understanding. “May I ask why you didn’t use your mobile phone to call us? You young people seem to have them turned on constantly these days. I wouldn’t have thought many people your age could use a landline.” Despite his almost light-hearted tone, the question was a serious one. For Spencer’s generation, the mobile phone was like an extension of their body. Office phones and other semi-obsolete equipment were almost invisible to them. Spencer had an expensive smartphone in his pocket when he was arrested, indicating that he wasn’t a total Luddite.

      “I saw a picture of one on the Internet and used Wikipedia to tell me how to use it,” responded Spencer with an almost straight face. Warren smiled briefly in response, before becoming sober once more.

      “Tell me, Tom, how much did you hate Professor Tunbridge for stopping you passing your PhD?”

      The question was deliberately brutal and out of the blue; Jones wanted to see what Spencer’s response would be. He blinked a few times, as if trying to understand the question. “Alan and I had our differences, sure, but I’d never dream of killing him.”

      Jones and Sutton said nothing, waiting. The silence stretched uncomfortably. Eventually, Spencer broke it, as they knew he would. “Anyway, I have done pretty much everything I need. I’d be mad to kill Alan — I needed him to sign off on everything.” Jones and Sutton said nothing, apparently ignoring the contradiction with everything that they’d found out that morning.

      “I was just doing a few more experiments, before I wrote up the final conclusion.”

      Now it was Jawando who broke the silence. “I think we’ve heard enough, gentlemen. My client has a provable alibi. He was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.” At that moment, there came a knock at the door.

      Sutton answered it, stepping into the corridor. After a few moments he returned and whispered into Jones’ ear, who nodded, then addressed Spencer.

      “We’ve just got confirmation from the two graduate students that you saw on your way to the PCR room. Along with the security logs showing swipe-card usage, it seems that your alibi stands up. I think that’s enough for today. We may need to contact you again in the future, however, to answer further questions.”

      Spencer slumped back into his chair in obvious relief. Jones arranged to have his statement typed up and signed, before seeing him to the front door.

      When Spencer was finally gone, Jones called into the custody suite to check on Severino. The Italian was snoring loudly on the small bed. A half-filled bucket next to him and the stains down the front of his paper suit justified the police surgeon’s recommendation that they wait another hour or two before attempting to interview him.

      In the meantime, Jones decided to see what the professor’s former lover had to say for herself. Whilst they waited for Hemmingway to arrive, Jones polled Sutton for his thoughts. “Well, I think we can rule out Spencer and I reckon this Severino character is good for it. We need to tie up a few loose ends, but it looks pretty open and shut to me. The super will be pleased — twenty-four hours to solve a murder investigation is pretty good.”

      “Well, let’s not count our chickens before they’ve hatched. I think there is still a lot more to this than meets the eye.”

      “In what way?”

      “Well, first of all, even if Severino did do it, was he working alone?”

      “We’ll have to see what he says, I suppose, but, even if there are others involved, the evidence so far suggests that he committed the murder alone.”

      “But what evidence? That CCTV image is pretty non-conclusive and anyone could have swiped his access card through that lock. Furthermore, how did he know that Tunbridge would be working late that night? Was that usual for him? If not, who tipped Severino off? And what about Spencer? Something’s not right there.”

      “Well, it looks like it’s as his brief said — wrong place, wrong time.”

      “Possibly, but something smells strange about this set-up. It’s too bloody convenient. He just happens to be in the PCR room when it all goes down and then he stumbles across the body. He checks the pulse of a blatantly dead man, conveniently covering himself in the victim’s blood to wreck any forensics. Why did he check the carotids? Don’t most people check the wrist for a pulse? And his demeanour wasn’t right. He’s just found a freshly murdered co-worker, whilst on his own in a large, deserted building late at night. Chances are the killer is still in the building somewhere, yet he calmly makes a phone call and waits at the murder-scene for us to arrive. I don’t know about you Tony, but I’ve seen enough slasher movies in my time to know that you don’t hang around and call the police from the victim’s phone, you run like hell and find somewhere to hide before using your mobile.”

      Sutton shrugged, clearly not convinced.

      “I think you’re over-complicating things, guv. Shock makes people do strange things.”

      Seeing that he was unlikely to budge his colleague based on what they had so far, Jones decided to give up. In the meantime, the desk sergeant was signalling that Clara Hemmingway had arrived. Motioning to Sutton, they headed for Interview Room Two to avoid contaminating Hemmingway with any trace evidence from Spencer’s interview in Interview One. More than one case had been scuppered because the police had transported two different suspects in the same car or interviewed them in the same room and found it impossible afterwards to disentangle their separate DNA profiles.

      Gathering his thoughts, Warren prepared for his next interview of the day.

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