Paul Gitsham: The Last Straw

Kent nodded once and cracked his knuckles. A grey-haired man, well into his fifties, he was Middlesbury’s resident expert on the Home Office’s national serious crime database, HOLMES2. He had been one of the first people Jones had met after arriving at Middlesbury and his reputation for efficiency had preceded him. Even if he hadn’t been on shift this morning, Jones would probably have telephoned him and offered him double time. For his part, Kent looked excited at the challenge. Middlesbury wasn’t quite the back of beyond as far as policing was concerned; nevertheless a big juicy murder, as this could well turn out to be, was a welcome diversion from the car thefts, drunken assaults and mid-level drug dealing that the station usually dealt with.

“The rest of you, get yourselves ready to move at a moment’s notice. As we identify witnesses I want us to be able to pick them up for questioning before they get a chance to swap stories. Let’s hit the ground running, folks.” He paused, looking for questions. None, just impatient-looking faces, ready to get on with the task.

“Dismissed.”

Immediately the assembled officers jumped to their feet, the experienced Detective Sergeants Khan and Richardson promptly corralling the detective constables into groups to assign them their tasks. Without so much as a glance in his direction, Sutton and Grayson headed out of the double doors in the direction of Grayson’s office. Warren frowned, tempted to go after them, but he had more pressing concerns. Moving swiftly, he intercepted a young DC before she could be snagged by DS Khan.

“Karen Hardwick?” The young woman flushed slightly, no doubt a little taken aback to be identified by name by the new DCI.

“Yes, sir?”

Warren felt a twinge of sympathy for the poor girl. A probationer, she had only just finished her detective training, arriving at the station almost as recently as Jones. He vividly recalled his first few months as a trainee detective constable, desperately scared of screwing up or asking a stupid question in front of the boss. He’d hidden at the back of briefings, hoping to avoid catching the eye of anybody above the rank of sergeant.

“I’ve been reading your personnel file and I see that you were at university before you joined the force?”

Immediately, Warren cursed himself for his clumsy phrasing. It probably sounded to the poor woman that he’d pulled her file up especially, when in actual fact he’d been reading the files of everyone in the unit, trying to get to know his new team.

“Yes, sir. Bath, then Bristol.” Karen looked puzzled. These days graduate recruitment was the norm, not the exception.

“I believe that you did some sort of biological sciences degree?”

“Yes, sir, I did a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry and then a masters by research in Molecular Biology.”

“So I would assume that your degrees involved spending time in laboratories?”

“Yes, I did a twelve-month work placement in a pharmaceutical company during my first degree, then my master’s degree involved three rotations in different laboratories within the Biology department.” Karen now had an inkling where this might be leading.

“Well, Karen, my gut is telling me that the reasons for this murder might lie in that university department. I may need an interpreter, somebody who is familiar with the system and the language.”

“I’ll do whatever I can, sir.”

“Good. Now let’s go and round up DI Sutton. We’ve got some trees to shake and I get the impression that the DI is good at shaking.”

Jones, Sutton and DC Karen Hardwick were greeted in the lobby of the Department of Biological Sciences research building by a different young PC from the previous night. After crossing them off his clipboard, he radioed ahead to let the crime scene technicians know that they had arrived. Apparently, Dr Mark Crawley, the laboratory’s experimental officer, was already with them.

Following the same route as the night before — less than ten hours ago, Jones realised wearily — the three police officers headed towards the crime scene. This morning it was necessary to stop a few doors short of the office where the professor’s body had been found, since the whole end of the corridor was now blocked off with blue and white crime scene tape.

Just past the barrier was a set of wooden double doors, with a large sign proclaiming “Tunbridge Group. Microbial Biology”. Next to it were yellow warning stickers with the universal signs for biohazards and, Jones noticed with a touch of discomfort, radiation. A few metres further along the corridor the door to Tunbridge’s office was open, white-suited technicians hard at work. A uniformed constable stood to attention next to the tape, his hands behind his back. Jones pretended not to see the copy of The Sun inexpertly concealed behind him. He had spent plenty of time as a uniformed officer guarding crime scenes and knew just how desperately dull it could be.

“DCI Jones. I was told that Dr Mark Crawley was up here?”

“He’s in the laboratory, sir, with Crime Scene Manager Harrison, the lead forensics officer. I’ll fetch him.”

The constable stepped under the blue and white tape and slipped through the double doors into the laboratory. A few seconds later the doors opened again and a tall, middle-aged, rangy man stepped out. He was dressed in faded blue jeans with an open-necked checked shirt, a white forensic hairnet and white paper booties over his shoes. His eyes were red-rimmed behind small eye glasses and Jones noticed that he hadn’t shaved. His right shirt pocket was overflowing with pens and pencils of different colours, one of which appeared to have leaked slightly. The left contained a second pair of glasses, with what appeared to be pink lenses. A lanyard with a photographic ID card and a couple of small keys completed the ensemble.

“Good morning, officers, I’m Mark Crawley, the Tunbridge Group’s experimental officer.” He extended a hand awkwardly. His accent retained traces of a Yorkshire upbringing, although many years in the south had clearly influenced his speech.

“I was familiarising your forensic team with the lab before they go searching for evidence. There’s lots of chemicals and delicate equipment in there — we don’t want any accidents.”

“Good morning, Dr Crawley. I’m Detective Chief Inspector Warren Jones, this is Detective Inspector Tony Sutton and this is Detective Constable Karen Hardwick. First of all, let me extend our condolences on your loss.”

Crawley acknowledged the sympathy with an incline of his head.

“We are here to find out about Professor Tunbridge and try to piece together what happened Friday night. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“Of course, follow me. We have a tea and coffee area with seating.”

Shucking the hairnet and booties and depositing them in a labelled bin, he led the three police officers back down the corridor past another two doors and ushered them into a small, crowded room. Jones looked around, quickly assessing the space. Metal bookcases crammed with journals and well-thumbed textbooks lined two of the walls. In the centre, a coffee table was surrounded by five soft chairs that reminded Jones somewhat uncomfortably of a dental surgery. Just like in a waiting room, the table was covered in magazines — or, rather more accurately, journals. A cursory glance at some of the headlines on the journals suggested that he would be unlikely to find any diets or salacious celebrity gossip between their pages. That being said, Jones did spot a copy of Private Eye sitting next to a pile of New Scientist .

On the wall to the left, a cork notice board was covered in paper, mostly to do with upcoming seminars or courses. The wall to the right had a similar notice board to which photographs of what Jones assumed were the rest of the lab, in a variety of staged and candid poses, were pinned haphazardly, some of them tagged with cryptic in-jokes. Jones recognised Tom Spencer and Mark Crawley in a few of them. To Jones’ surprise, the only image that Tunbridge appeared in was a formal-looking group photo. He didn’t seem to feature in any of the Christmas or other party pictures. A handwritten sheet of paper proclaimed itself as the sign-up sheet for a meal out at a local curry house next Friday. A dozen or so names were scrawled in different-coloured pens, some with ‘+1’ next to them. Jones wondered if that would still take place — would the lab come together to raise a glass to the prof’s memory?