Paul Gitsham: The Last Straw

As he did so Jones noticed that the man’s hands shook slightly. Why? Was he nervous? It seemed unlikely — the professor was clearly a man used to moving in political circles. The presence of a police officer, even one investigating a murder, would be unlikely to unnerve him enough to give him the shakes. Jones made a mental note to check for an alibi. Perhaps he was just wired from too much caffeine.

“Of course, I fully understand, Professor. As soon as we have any information that we are ready to make public I will ensure that the university is informed.”

Tompkinson’s eyes narrowed slightly at Jones’ careful wordplay, but he said nothing, merely nodding acceptance. Jones carefully maintained his poker face, but inside he was satisfied that he had discreetly but firmly laid out the ground rules — the investigation would be run on Jones’ terms and his terms alone.

With the lines drawn and the rules of play established, Jones decided to start off with a little fishing to see what the professor volunteered, before getting down to specifics.

“Tell me, Professor, how well did you know Professor Tunbridge?”

“I suppose I’ve known Alan for about twenty-five years, to a greater or lesser extent. We were postdocs here back in the day, before we went our separate ways for a few years. Eventually, we both found our way back here and set up our own labs. We work in different fields, so we never collaborated. Nevertheless, this isn’t a huge department, so we got to know each other as colleagues. As we became more senior and gained our chairs — professorships — we obviously spent time together on committees.”

Jones nodded. “I see. And how would you say you were on a personal level?”

Tompkinson took his glasses off, and polished them on his tie, frowning. The two officers waited in silence.

Finally, Tompkinson replaced his glasses and let out a weary sigh.

“There’s no point sugar-coating it, I suppose. Alan was a hard man to like. He had an abrasive personality and didn’t suffer fools gladly. He was also arrogant, domineering and bullying, yet strangely petty at the same time. He was a genius, no question. But I can’t really think of anyone that I would describe as a close friend of his.”

Jones repressed a sigh. It seemed that the motives, and thus by extension the suspects, were stacking up.

“Alan and I had a lot of arguments, particularly when I became Head of Department. We butted heads frequently over all manner of policies. Pretty much any decision I made, Alan would question and because he was who he was, often the VC — the vice chancellor — would overrule my decisions and go with Alan’s. Sometimes I wondered who the hell the head of department was, me or him?”

“So do you think Tunbridge was after your job?” Was that a big enough motive, Jones mused, for murder?

Tompinkson let out a bark of laughter.

“Oh, dear God, no, you misunderstand completely. The last thing Alan would want is the hassle that goes with being the head of department, far too much pen-pushing and meetings. No, Alan was a research scientist through and through. He hated any type of ‘admin bollocks’ as he called it.

“No, Alan would far rather be the power behind the throne. He’d let me and others sweat out all of the details in meetings and just swan in at the last minute. The bugger probably only attended one departmental meeting in three and he was only one of a dozen or more faculty members, yet barely a major decision has been made in five years that Alan didn’t have a hand in.”

“Forgive me, Professor, but so far we haven’t heard a good word about Professor Tunbridge. Some of the behaviours that he has been accused of sound suspiciously close to gross misconduct. Violent rows with postdocs, students reporting him for bullying, constructive dismissal claims and an alleged affair with an undergraduate student. Yet it seems that he hasn’t been subject to any disciplinary action at all. Why is that, Professor?”

Tompkinson looked embarrassed. “You’re right, of course, Chief Inspector. Much of what Alan did was unacceptable. Particularly the way he treated that poor undergraduate — getting her pregnant and then making her get rid of the baby left a bad taste in my mouth. You just can’t act like that. But, senior management decided that it would be in everyone’s best interest if we hushed it up. After all, she was a consenting adult. It’s not like any laws were broken.”

Jones blinked; beside him he felt Hardwick stiffen. Tunbridge had got an undergraduate student pregnant? And then had it hushed up? Tompkinson had blithely admitted it, clearly assuming that if they knew about the affair, they must know about the pregnancy. Why hadn’t Crawley mentioned it? If he was to be believed, he was Tunbridge’s trouble shooter, stepping in after his boss to clear up the former’s mess. Surely he had known about it. Was he trying to protect Tunbridge’s memory? Unlikely, given the way he’d trashed the man’s reputation for the past half an hour. What about the young woman’s? Was he trying to protect her dignity? That seemed a little more likely, Jones decided. And what about his discomfort over questions about Tom Spencer’s finances? Was he trying to protect him as well?

“Could you give me the young lady’s name, please? I think we should speak to her.”

Tompkinson looked a bit uncomfortable. “Is that really necessary, DCI Jones She went through rather a lot. We decided that a fresh start was best for her. I’d rather we didn’t open old wounds.”

“I’m sorry, Professor, but I really must insist. Better that you give me the details discreetly, here and now, than I have to conduct enquiries.”

Tompkinson sighed.

“The young lady’s name was Clara Hemmingway. She’s a current student, so student services will have all of her details. She was assigned to Alan, along with three other students, after choosing Microbial Genetics as one of her essay preferences. This would have been back in November. It’s a long-standing tradition at the university, designed to bring undergraduate students into contact with the research side of the university. They get a tour of the lab and we even pay for them to go out to lunch with the lab members and encourage them to discuss their lab’s work and findings.

“Sometimes students even manage to get summer jobs or internships with the lab later in their course. To the best of my knowledge, Miss Hemmingway has not had any work experience with the lab, but she certainly made an impression!” His laugh was bitter and his expression suggested that he found the situation far from amusing.

“Thank you, Professor. Now, back to the original question. Why was Professor Tunbridge allowed to behave in the way he did, seemingly with no consequences?”

Tompkinson leant back slightly, before sweeping his hand in an all-encompassing gesture. Again, that nervous tremor.

“Look around you, Officers. This is the University of Middle England, not Oxford or Cambridge.” Seeing their uncomprehending gazes, he leant forward.

“How much do you know about university funding? Are you familiar with the Research Assessment Exercise?”

Seeing their shaking heads, Tompkinson adopted a professorial air — appropriately enough, thought Jones.

“Funding for UK universities comes from many different sources, but broadly it can be categorised in two ways. There is specific funding for a specific project. The university and individuals bid for grants from a wide-range of different funding bodies. Some are governmental, such as the Medical Research Council or the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, others might be charitable, such as the Wellcome Trust or Cancer Research UK. These grants may be a few thousand pounds to fund a series of particular experiments; a few hundred thousand pounds to run a research project and employ staff and students or tens of millions to build a new research centre.”