Paul Gitsham - The Last Straw

Deer Lizzy,

I am typing this because I can’t bare to look in your eyes when I tell you the truth. I am so sorry for what I did. It was a wicked thing that we planned, I can only hope that by confessing to my crime one day you and the boys will forgive me. Please now that I only did it for us. Money is so tight and with your mum and dad so ill its only going to get worse. I couldn’t bare the fought that you an the boys would be made homeless.

I am sure that you will learn all of the details from the press but I need to confess it here to you. Antonio and I plotted to steal the labs research and set up our won company. But we realised that we couldn’t do it without getting rid of Alan first. Together we planned his killing.

I have decided to kill myself because if I have realised one thing in the past few days, it is that I love you and the boys more than life itself. I cannot bear the thought that my boys’ father will be in prison for murder and I do not think that I could survive. I hope that by confessing my crimes I can also gain your forgiveness. This will be the last time that we are together, us and the boys.

I love you all so much,

Mark

The analysis team suggested that the note had in fact been written by two separate authors. One with dyslexia, one without. A proposal was that an original note by Crawley had been edited to change its meaning. The third sentence was almost certainly added or edited and had been highlighted.

Other sentences might also have been added and it was impossible to know what, if anything, had been deleted. The analyst suggested that an original version of the letter might be on the laptop and the IT specialists were looking for evidence of the original file on its hard drive.

Warren sat back and waited until Sutton had finished reading all of the reports and looking at the attached photographs.

“Thoughts?”

“Murder, no question in my mind. And two people at least.”

Warren nodded in agreement. “Taken individually, it’s all circumstantial, but put it together and it’s good enough for me.”

“We really need that original note — I wonder why they didn’t print the damn thing out? Leaving it on the computer screen like that was just asking us to look at the laptop. And I’ll bet good money that even if they deleted it, it’ll be somewhere on that computer’s hard drive. IT will find it, no question.”

Warren shrugged. “Could be as simple as them not knowing where his printer was or how it worked. I can’t believe they turned up expecting to find he’d written a note to his wife on his laptop. More likely they saw it as an opportunity and took it.”

“Speaking of which, what do you reckon is on that original version?”

“Well, I think it’s a given that he is confessing to his role in Tunbridge’s murder. Quite what the role was I have no idea. I would bet that he also names other people involved, probably the same people that killed him. Clearly, Severino can’t have murdered him, which really only leaves Spencer and Hemmingway.”

“What about this mysterious woman that Mrs Turnbull claims to have overheard him talking to? Where does she fit in?”

“Assuming that she does fit in. It could be a coincidence; he could have been filling his boots somewhere else. In fact we’re not even sure he was having an affair — all she knows is that he was making private calls in the garden and that he said he could come over because ‘he’s away’. It could mean anything.”

“I don’t know, boss, I don’t like coincidences. My money is on him having a bit of quality time with Hemmingway. After all, we know that she’s shagged Tunbridge and almost certainly Spencer. Why not complete the set? The girl seems to be the campus bike.”

“It’s possible,” Warren conceded, a little surprised at Sutton’s judgemental attitude, “but I think we may need to wait for that document to be found. Or for the results to come back on any trace found at the scene.”

Sutton nodded, dropping it for the time being. “The question I would like to know is why kill him now? How could they have known that he was going to confess?”

“He went home early on Wednesday and was acting strange that evening. It sounds to me as if he had decided to make a clean breast of it that day. He was then killed some time on Thursday. Somehow his killers found out about his planned confession and decided to silence him. It will have taken some preparation. Unless they were intimately familiar with Crawley’s house they will probably have needed to search for his climbing ropes, then figure out how to rig up the hangman’s noose.”

“Well, they wouldn’t have wanted to do that with Crawley awake, surely,” interjected Sutton.

“Good point,” Warren agreed. “That means they probably subdued him and force-fed him the vodka and pills first. Or one of them could have searched the house whilst the other dealt with Crawley. I wonder how long it would have taken for him to pass out from the pills? And how much longer it would have taken for him to die — because that’s the window they had to actually rig him up. Remember it was the hanging that actually killed him.”

“And don’t forget they had to fake the note as well. That would have taken some time.”

“So what do we think, an hour in the house?”

Sutton nodded. “Reasonable, I reckon. They won’t have wanted to stick around too long. So when did they do it? The coroner said he died at midday, plus or minus two hours, so he was hung between ten a.m. and two p.m. If they killed him immediately then set up the fake suicide and doctored the note, they will probably have been out of the house by three p.m. at the latest.”

Flicking through the various witness statements taken at the scene, Warren saw that the ever watchful Mrs Turnbull had spotted Mrs Crawley and children leaving for the day at about ten a.m. The two driveways were only separated by a low wall, and the Turnbulls’ living-room bay windows afforded a full view of the Crawleys’ drive. She admitted that she could normally hear their doorbell ringing or even the front door opening and closing if it was quiet.

Unfortunately, she and her husband had left the house themselves at about ten forty-five to attend their weekly over-sixties club and didn’t return home until after four p.m. Assuming that the killer or killers would have been spotted by the eagle-eyed neighbour — who Warren suspected was probably even more fascinated by her nearest neighbours after his visit the previous day — Warren decided that this meant that they couldn’t have been at the house any earlier than just before eleven.

“Let’s assume that the Turnbulls would have heard anyone coming to the house before they left and after they returned. So playing it safe, that leaves a window of opportunity between about ten forty-five a.m. and four p.m.”

Just then, Jones’ phone rang; he ignored it. A few seconds later it stopped ringing in his office and immediately restarted outside as the call was diverted. He heard Janice, one of the support workers, pick it up. Cupping her hand over the mouthpiece, she called out, “Chief, it’s Welwyn Forensics again.”

Warren snatched up the phone, mouthing his thanks. Sutton sat opposite him clearly trying to look as if he wasn’t deliberately trying to overhear the call. Taking pity on the man, Warren switched to speakerphone.

“DCI Jones? It’s the trace lab from Welwyn. We’ve got a match on that bloodspot and the fibre you found yesterday on the window frame of the common room. The blood matches Professor Alan Tunbridge and the fibre matches the blue denim jeans worn by the witness Thomas Spencer on the night of the murder.”

Warren looked at Sutton, his blood starting to sing again. “I think we’ve entered the end-game, Tony. Time to bring him in.”