Paul Gitsham: The Last Straw

“Ah, I wondered when she would make an appearance.”

“She appeared in November of last year when she was randomly assigned to him as a tutee to write an essay. Well, Tunbridge is something of a predator when it comes to women. He is clearly able to spot vulnerable young women and, despite appearances, Hemmingway is vulnerable. Who exploited who is a matter for debate. Tunbridge may have been the senior of the two, but Clara had been manipulating men since she was in her teens. He probably didn’t stand a chance.”

“So then he has his fun then dumps her?”

“Exactly. But, of course, she was pregnant and she tried to blackmail him into supporting her. The daft thing is, if he hadn’t been so arrogant he could probably have bought her off, no harm done. But instead he figured he was the university’s golden boy and she had more to lose than him and called her bluff.”

“So instead, she did the unexpected and went to Tunbridge’s wife. But Annabel Tunbridge already knew everything. She had his email password and knew all about how close he was to a lucrative breakthrough — and divorcing her. So they teamed up.”

“So that accounts for Hemmingway, the wife and her lover, Crawley, so where does Tom Spencer come in?”

“Well Tunbridge had treated Spencer appallingly and was on course to pretty much end his career before it started. Mark Crawley, on the other hand, had always treated Spencer well. Add in the charms of Miss Hemmingway and his abuse of steroids and they had themselves the perfect killer.”

The chief was clearly enraptured. Jones noticed that he’d diverted all his phone calls to his secretary, lest he be distracted by something as trivial as a call from the Home Secretary.

“What about this mysterious investor Priest? I get that he was fictional, but didn’t Tunbridge meet him?”

“They simply paid an American exchange student that Spencer knew to approach Tunbridge during the networking sessions of a conference. A smart suit, a business card and Tunbridge’s own hubris did the rest.”

“Well, it’s a hell of a tale, Warren. So what tripped them up?”

“Inconsistencies that seemed small in isolation but bigger when put together. Karen Hardwick was convinced that Tom Spencer’s alibi just didn’t make any sense. All pretty technical and entirely inconclusive, but it sent us back to look closer.

“Then there was Severino’s claims to have been seduced by a woman who sounded suspiciously like Clara Hemmingway — she threw us off the track for a bit with her clever supermarket alibi, but once we discarded that it became apparent that she was in it up to her neck. In the meantime, the calls she made to Severino as she seduced him opened the door to a network of four anonymous mobile phones, all of which were activated in the run up to the murder and which communicated solely with each other. Of course, by the time we figured this out, the two of them had disappeared into the wind.

“Their biggest miscalculation was killing Mark Crawley. At first glance it looked like a suicide — he even left a note on his computer. But the problem was that in it he took responsibility alongside Severino — which contradicted what we had already figured out. Further, it made no sense that he would happily lay the blame on Severino but try and protect the other people we knew had to be part of the conspiracy. Forensics soon figured out that the suicide and the note were both faked.

“What we now think is that Crawley had realised that the net was closing in and had gone to Annabel Tunbridge with the suggestion that the two of them confessed to being involved in the planning, then offering up Spencer and Hemmingway as scapegoats, hoping for a more lenient sentence. Forensics have since found what they think is the original version of Crawley’s suicide note, which was in fact a confession to his wife and children before he handed himself in, and it seems that he and Annabel Tunbridge decided to enjoy one last night of freedom before giving themselves up.

“But in reality, Mrs Tunbridge had no intention of falling on her sword. As far as she knew, there was no evidence to link her to the murder and she was unaware that we were searching for Spencer and Hemmingway. She figured that if they could get rid of Crawley and link him to Severino, the three of them could brazen it out.”

Naseem whistled. “I don’t know if she was brave or foolish.”

“I’d settle for arrogant, sir.”

“Works for me. Is that the original note there?” He gestured at the printout in Warren’s hand.

Warren nodded. “It seems that they copied and pasted chunks of this original, presumably to keep his wording and phraseology — remember he was dyslexic — then filled in the gaps themselves and hoped nobody would notice the difference.” He handed over the sheet.

Deer Lizzy,

By know you will know of my arrest. 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 bear the fought that you an the boys would be made homeless.

I have been a bad husband and I know that this will all come out in the end. I had an affair with Alans wife Annabel. We both enjoyed the excitement of going behind his back and things were so stressful at home that I wanted to get away from it. I now there were times you felt the same.

I will not try and blame it all on Annabel since I am an adult and went along with it, but when Alan started talking about getting a divorce, I told her, hoping that she would join me. But Annabel instead was angry and said she had only stayed with Alan because she believed in Trident Antibacterials. Alan would discuss his ideas with her and she would help prepare his conference talks. She felt she deserved part the millions he would earn.

I am sure that you will learn all of the details from the press but I need to confess it here to you. Annabel 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. So we contacted Tom Spenser and a student called Clara Hemmingway that Alan had got pregnant. Together we planned his killing.

Killing Alan was wrong, but the most wicked thing was setting up pour Antonio Severino. I want to state for the record that Antonio was entirely innocent and should be released immediately.

Yesterday I went to Annabel and we decided that it had gone far enough. She is coming around this morning and we will drive to the police station together to confess. Why the delay? 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 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. By the time I get out of prison they will probably be groan up.

I really hope you will be waiting for me when I come out.

I love you all so much,

Mark

There was a respectful silence for a few seconds.

“Do you think that this will lessen the pain of his poor wife and kids?”

Warren shrugged resignedly. “I don’t know. Maybe one day, but at the moment I think they are too stunned. I went to see her yesterday and she was clearly not in the same room as me.”

“Do you think this will be admissible in court during the trial?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. The CPS are deciding if it’s worth submitting. But it’s really only the icing on the cake. We have plenty to charge them with regardless.”