Paul Gitsham: The Last Straw

A small window overlooked the car park below. Beneath it sat a small fridge, pulling double duty as a counter top. A mug tree jostled for space with four or five different jars of coffee, a jam jar of sugar and a box of PG Tips tea bags. The white plastic surface was ringed with brown stains from spilled drinks. Several dirty teaspoons were propped up in a coffee mug, itself in need of a good clean. Even by the standards of the CID tea room, the place was a health hazard. All three officers politely declined Crawley’s offer of a hot drink.

Motioning them to sit on the over-stuffed dentist’s chairs, Crawley flopped down himself. He looked physically exhausted, yet at the same time filled with nervous energy, Jones decided. Was it the weariness of grief? Worry about his job? Guilt? At this moment, Jones was keeping an open mind.

“First of all, Dr Crawley, could you tell us a little about yourself? I’m a bit mystified by the title ‘Experimental Officer’.”

“Basically, I’m the person in charge of running the lab on a day-to-day basis. The lab manager, if you will, except that I also do my own research. Alan…Professor Tunbridge…does…or rather did a lot of travelling and so I was the person in charge of making sure the lab ran smoothly in his absence. I’ve been with Alan for about twelve years or so, I guess.”

Jones nodded. “What can you tell me about Professor Tunbridge?”

Crawley sighed, took his glasses off and cleaned them, before placing them back again. The three police officers waited.

“Well, it’ll all come out in the end, I suppose… Alan was a brilliant researcher. His work was well respected around the world, hence his constant travelling. He has dozens of high-impact papers in all the best journals and regularly referees the papers of others in the field before their acceptance into journals.”

Jones sensed a “but”.

“But, on a personal level the guy was less than universally loved.”

Jones’ ears pricked up.

“Are you suggesting that the motive for his murder could be personal, rather than professional?”

“Look, all I’m saying is that, frankly, the bloke was a bit of an arsehole. He had a tendency to rub people up the wrong way, often for no good reason. He could really upset people and he just didn’t give a shit, ’scuse my French. He got away with a hell of a lot because of who he was and senior management used to excuse him ‘because he’s a genius and they can be funny sometimes’. Try telling that to a masters student in tears because her dissertation has been sent back with ‘crap — start again’ scrawled across it in red pen.” Crawley was clearly starting to unload years of pent-up frustration and Jones was willing to let him vent. Who knew what might come out…?

“The genius bit is bollocks. I’ve met a number of geniuses over the yearsand they were all nice blokes. Alan hadn’t got his Nobel yet, but he still acted like a wanker. At least three graduate students made complaints against him and two technicians claimed constructive dismissal. But Alan’s Teflon-coated. He usually got away with it.”

Crawley’s voice had started to rise and he broke off, breathing heavily.

“So why did you stay with him so long?” Jones asked.

Crawley sighed, the energy draining again.

“The sad fact is that despite all the nonsense, he was OK with me. I think he realised that he would be lucky to find someone else who’d put up with his behaviour. As for me, I’ve fallen with my bum in the butter. I can pursue my own research and I still get my name added to pretty much every paper that comes out of this lab.

“My problem is, I’m at the top of the research associate pay scale and my next career step is my own research group, but I’ve got a wife and three kids. The oldest will be off to uni next year, the youngest is still at primary school and has just been diagnosed with hyperactivity disorder and the family curse, dyslexia. My wife’s parents will probably have to go into a home in the next twelve months. I don’t have time to set up my own group, but I’m too expensive for anybody else to want me. Alan, for all his faults, was happy to keep on paying me. I guess we needed each other.” He gave a humourless grin. “If we were having this conversation in five years’ time, I’d say ‘cuff me now’, I’ve got every motive. I’d be ready to bump the old sod off and take over the group. But at the moment, it’s the last bloody thing I need.”

Jones nodded, not yet convinced. He moved on to another tack.

“Who else could have a motive for killing Tunbridge?”

“It’d be easier to ask who didn’t. Frankly he pissed off most people that he met. Plenty of collaborators over the years have complained that he was dictatorial and manipulative. He put plenty of noses out of joint by taking advantage of other people’s research, but the simple fact is that there is one rule for us and one rule for people like him. But that was mostly professional jealousy. I can’t see any of these guys killing him over who deserves to be first name on a paper in the Journal of Bacteriology .”

“OK. Leaving aside professional rivalries, what about closer to home?”

“Well, he was a philandering bastard. He shagged at least one of his undergraduate students, not to mention a few colleagues that he used to meet at conferences. For somebody with such an unpleasant streak, he never seemed to have any problems getting laid.”

“Can you give me any names?”

Crawley thought for a moment, his brow creased in concentration.

“I think one of them was called Claire or something. Rumour mill has it that she was one of the students on his Microbial Genetics course and he took a shine to her. There were the usual claims that he gave away good grades in exchange for sexual favours, but that’s bullshit. I know for a fact that undergraduate essays are all marked independently and anonymously from the tutor that sets them to stop that sort of stuff happening. Anyhow, she moved on and we haven’t heard from her since. This was some months ago.”

Jones noted down the details, deciding to pursue the lead nevertheless.

“I guess the people with the biggest grudge against Alan would be his former grad students and postdocs. He treated some of them shockingly. I know, because I usually ended up picking up the pieces.”

“Anyone in particular?”

“Well, I suppose Antonio Severino is the first name to spring to mind. He was one of Alan’s postdocs until recently, then things went horribly sour.”

“How? By the way, could you just clear up some terminology for me? What is a ‘postdoc’?”

“Well, a postdoctoral research assistant or associate is a junior researcher at a university. Basically, you do your PhD, to become ‘Doctor’ and then do a couple of research positions of a couple of years apiece in other people’s laboratories to gain experience. In some countries, such as Canada, you are still regarded as little more than a glorified student. Fortunately in the UK it’s now a properly salaried position with all the usual benefits.

“Anyhow, Dr Antonio Severino joined us about two years ago. He’s a smart guy and managed to solve a couple of really difficult problems that we were struggling with. Anyway, Alan being Alan felt a bit threatened by this as he realised that Antonio was inevitably going to share a lot of the limelight when the research was published and so he announced out of the blue that when Antonio’s initial appointment expired in six weeks’ time, he wasn’t going to renew the post. Furthermore, he was going to hold off on the publication of several key papers until he had some more data. This really upset Antonio. You see, not only was he out of a job in six weeks, he is also not going to have any publications to show for the past two years. In this climate he’ll be lucky if he gets a job cleaning glassware. The long and the short of it is that Alan absolutely shafted the poor bastard.”