Paul Gitsham - The Last Straw

“Chief, Forensics are on the line from Severino’s house. We’ve got the bastard.”

Sutton and Jones fought to maintain their calm outward appearances as they recalled Severino to the interview suite. They had deliberately not said anything to his lawyer about what time they expected to recommence the interview and knew it was likely that he would be hungry and bad-tempered by now. After concluding their latest client conference, Severino had returned to his cell and his lawyer to the small waiting room reserved for family and solicitors. The room consisted of four badly plastered walls, one with a scenic view of the next-door hotel’s recycling bins. The posters on the wall were the usual Home Office approved notices about preventing crime, dealing with alcohol and drug problems and reporting domestic abuse. Between them, the posters contained enough words to keep a moderately literate adult occupied for two minutes at most.

By happy coincidence, the room had a clear mobile phone signal, but no 3G signal. After about forty minutes the desk sergeant, who could keep an eye on the room from his post at the building’s entrance, reported that Stock had apparently phoned or texted everyone that he knew, given up on trying to get a strong enough 3G signal to surf the web and was now sitting, staring into space, with a look of utter boredom on his face.

He’ll learn, thought Warren with amusement. The job of a police representative was to wait around. More experienced solicitors never went anywhere without their briefcases, which always contained something to read and something to eat.

“Why did you murder Professor Tunbridge Friday night, Dr Severino?” started Jones, back in the increasingly claustrophobic interview room. As intended, the question jolted Severino, who flushed red. Before he could answer, his lawyer stepped in.

“Hold on, Chief Inspector. It has yet to be established that my client had anything to do with the murder on Friday night.”

Jones inclined his head slightly as if conceding a point. “You’ve had some time to reflect upon your situation, Dr Severino, and I wonder if you have perhaps come to any decisions about confessing to Professor Tunbridge’s murder?”

Severino shook his head emphatically and his lawyer looked relaxed. Warren hid a smile at the young man’s inexperience.

“DCI Jones, my client maintains that he is an innocent man and that the evidence you present is poor at best. I again ask you to release my client without charge and stop this foolish charade.” The young man was trying to out-bluster experienced CID officers. It wasn’t going to happen.

“If you are innocent as you say, Dr Severino, could you please explain why we found these stuffed down a drain at the back of your house?” Warren pushed over the glossy A4 photographs and sat back in satisfaction. The look of horror and muttered, “Shit!” from Severino’s lawyer, Daniel Stock, would probably be the highlight of his week, decided Warren.

* * *

The telephone call from Forensics had been better than Jones could have hoped for. Although the inside of the house had yielded little in the way of evidence, it confirmed that Severino had certainly partied hard the night before. The coffee table in the lounge had been covered with the empty trays from ready meals, several days’ worth at least and two near-empty bottles, one of vodka, one of whiskey. The overflowing ashtray was home to the nub ends of several joints. Small wonder he had looked so ill when they had arrested him, Jones thought with a small amount of satisfaction. The house’s décor supported the story that Severino shared it with his fiancée. However, there was no sign of her and the neighbours claimed not to have seen her for a fortnight. To Warren’s experienced eyes and those of the even longer-serving Crime Scene Manager, the state of the flat suggested Severino had been slumming it on his own for a couple of weeks. It was unlikely, albeit not impossible, that the house would be in such a state if he was sharing it with his fiancée.

However, it was when the investigators moved outside that they found what they were looking for. Stuffed down a drain, the manhole cover clearly moved recently, was a black plastic bin bag similar to that carried in the hand of the mystery person caught on CCTV leaving the Biology building immediately after Tunbridge’s murder. Inside, the bag contained a heavily blood-stained white lab coat with ‘A Severino — Tunbridge Group’ written on the collar in indelible ink; wrapped up inside this were a pair of similarly stained jeans and a hoodie, just like that worn by the person caught on camera. In the bottom of the bag were a pair of bloody latex gloves, some plastic overshoes and finally — the pièce de résistance — a blood-encrusted scalpel.

The bag had immediately been dispatched to Welwyn for DNA typing and a more thorough forensic analysis, but high-resolution photographs had been sent directly to Middlesbury CID for their use. Jones had printed these out on glossy A4 paper before going down to meet Severino.

* * *

After dropping their bombshell on the young Italian and his even younger lawyer, Warren and Sutton left the briefing room as they requested yet another client conference.

Sutton was jubilant, clearly on an adrenaline high. “Did you see the look on that young kid’s face?” he crowed, rubbing his hands together. “He’s thinking that any dreams he may have had of making his name overturning some great big miscarriage of justice have just gone up in a puff of smoke. I bet he even believed Severino!”

Warren smiled slightly, finding his colleague’s mood hard to resist. “Don’t get too carried away, Tony. Plenty of slips between the cup and the lip. Even if he throws in the towel and admits his guilt now, we have a lot of work to do to make sure the case holds together.”

Sutton barely seemed to hear him as he downed the last of his cold coffee, grimacing slightly. “How long do you reckon we’ve got to wait?”

“Not too long. Either he cops to it right away or he tries to brazen it out. Regardless, we’ve done our bit. Let’s charge him and get him in front of Stevenage Magistrates first thing tomorrow morning.”

In the end, it took little more than twenty minutes before Stock signalled that the client conference was over.

Warren made sure that the PACE recorder was working before settling back into his chair. He and Sutton stared silently at Severino, knowing that the accused would speak first.

“I know nothing of those items or why they were down my drain. I know nothing about the death of Alan Tunbridge.”

“The evidence would suggest otherwise, Dr Severino. I am therefore formally charging you with the murder of Professor Alan Tunbridge on August the twelfth of this year. Do you understand what I have just said?”

The young man nodded, numbly, muttering an affirmative. With that, there was nothing else to be said. Jones and Sutton left the accused and his lawyer in the cold, little room as the custody sergeant entered, ready to return him to his cell. Leaving through the empty doorway, Jones glanced back. The young man was now weeping floods of silent tears, his shoulders shaking as he fought to keep his sobs inside. Next to him, his lawyer sat uncomfortably; clearly unsure exactly what to say. His tutors at university had doubtless drilled him in the legal procedures that he would now need to follow on behalf of his client, but Warren doubted that they had given him much in the way of training for how to deal with a young man, almost the same age, breaking down as he contemplated spending the next few decades behind bars. The custody sergeant remained impassive; he’d seen it all before and his sympathy was limited.