The Last Straw (6 page)

With at least a couple of his questions answered, Jones suggested Crawley take them down to see the head of department. They were led back down the corridor in a thoughtful silence. Jones stared at the back of Crawley’s head, his mind whirring. He’d started the day with only one potential suspect. Now it would seem that there may be dozens of people with motives. He glanced over at Hardwick. Her brow was furrowed and she was clearly thinking hard. Jones looked forward to her thoughts. One question in particular troubled Jones.

Why was the professor in his office at ten p.m. on a Friday? And how had his killer known?

Chapter 4

The head of department’s office was on the ground floor, close to the main reception area where the three officers had entered earlier. The entrance to the head’s office was actually inside a larger office complex signed as ‘Department of Biology — Administration’. A long, narrow room, it occupied almost an entire side of the building and was filled with a half-dozen workstations. Each desk had a comfortable-looking office chair, a desktop PC, a telephone and in and out trays, some empty, others stuffed with paper. A bank of cryptically labelled filing cabinets lined the wall underneath a row of windows overlooking the car park. A large photocopier and an industrial-sized paper shredder filled the remaining gaps along the wall. Two laser printers sat on top of the filing cabinets, along with a box of white A4 photocopy paper. The empty room smelt of stale coffee and ozone from the photocopier. The office seemed representative of the building as a whole, decided Jones. Nineteen-sixties architecture, a couple of decades past its prime, struggling to do its job in a world that bore little resemblance to what the planners had envisioned.

The door to Professor Tompkinson’s office was right at the back of the office. An effort had been made to create a sort of waiting area, with a couple of comfy chairs lined up beneath the window. On the opposing side of the room a workstation sat facing the visitors; a name plate on the table read ‘Mrs C Gardner — PA to the HoD’.

Despite the shabbiness of the set-up, it reminded Jones a lot of the chief constable’s office. The logic of the layout there was to keep the boss away from the day-to-day grind, shielding him from unwanted visitors and time-wasters. The HoD’s PA was no doubt the guardian of the appointments calendar and probably a formidable obstacle. Jones himself tended to operate an open-door policy: if the door was open come straight in, no appointment necessary. If the door was closed ask Cathy, the secretary nearest to the office and Jones’ unofficial PA, if it was worth knocking or if it would be better to leave a message. He found himself wondering if Professor Tompkinson was an open-door or closed-door kind of boss.

At the moment, the door was closed. As the two officers waited by the comfy chairs Crawley knocked once and entered the office. A few seconds later he emerged. “Professor Tompkinson is on the phone. He’ll speak to you in a moment. I’d better get back to the lab and give those details to the constable.”

He left quickly.

With the door still closed, Jones turned quietly to his colleague.

“Impressions?”

Karen chewed her lip. She was clearly a little intimidated about being asked her opinion by someone as senior as Jones; nevertheless, she thought the question over carefully.

“Holding something back. He was definitely uncomfortable answering that last lot of questions. I reckon he knows more than he was letting on.”

Jones nodded in concurrence.

“Karen, you asked some interesting questions there — what was on your mind?” He was careful to phrase it as an invitation. Jones valued the instincts of his junior colleagues and encouraged their input more than some. The first DCI he had worked for had routinely told junior officers to remember that they had two ears and one gob, and to use them in that proportion. His aggressive attitude had made young constables nervous about voicing their opinions. Jones was convinced that more than one case could have been closed far faster if the crusty old detective had listened to his colleagues more. Fortunately, he had finally retired six months after Jones had joined CID and his replacement, Bob Windermere, had been the complete opposite. To this day, Jones still regarded him as something of a mentor and regularly sought his advice.

Karen Hardwick took the invitation.

“When I was back in uni, some of my friends were doing PhDs. More than one of them had a supervisor that they argued with. It could get pretty nasty. If this Professor Tunbridge is half as unpleasant and mean as Dr Crawley was saying, he could have given Tom Spencer a pretty good motive for his murder.”

Jones nodded encouragingly. He’d had the same thoughts himself.

“What about the questions on funding you were asking about?”

“Well, typically a student funded by a body like the Medical Research Council is given three years’ worth of funding for their project. That may be awarded directly to the student, but more typically it is part of a larger project grant that their PhD supervisor has successfully applied for. We’ll probably find that Tunbridge’s laboratory had a couple of large project grants running for several years and that his PhD students had studentships funded as part of the grant.”

Jones made a note to follow that up, thankful to the gut instinct that had caused him to choose Karen Hardwick to accompany him and Sutton. Her insider knowledge of the mysterious workings of university departments was proving invaluable.

“Anyhow, full-time students normally have funding for three years and are expected to submit their completed PhD thesis — an eighty-thousand-word dissertation — within four years.”

“What happens if they miss the deadline?” asked Sutton.

“In the worst-case scenario, I suppose they’d fail their degree.”

“You seemed to think it important that Spencer was reaching the end of his four years. Could Tunbridge have been stopping him submitting? Crawley did mention that Tunbridge had been harsh to students in the past over their dissertations.”

Hardwick shrugged. “I don’t know. We should definitely ask though, sir. We should also ask about Tom Spencer’s finances.”

“Oh? Why?”

“If he was towards the end of his four years, he was probably pretty skint. The three-year project funding also extends to the student’s living stipend. Students are usually told to save a bit of money during the three years so they can keep on paying the bills during their write-up period. Sometimes they can get some part-time teaching, but I knew PhD students who had to have bar jobs on top of their research just to make ends meet.”

“Well, that’s certainly a good enough motive,” Jones mused. “If Tunbridge was stopping Spencer from graduating, he could have been in trouble financially. I think we’ve got a few more questions to ask Mr Spencer later.”

Chapter 5

At first glance, Professor Tompkinson resembled a retired Geography teacher or librarian, Jones decided. Small and stooped, with generous ears and tiny spectacles perched on the end of his nose secured with a safety cord, he wore a grey woollen sweater, checked shirt and plain red tie. In addition, he was wearing a flat cap, as if he had just come in, although the empty coffee cups next to his phone suggested otherwise. Jones was unable to resist a surreptitious glance at the coat stand in the corner of the office and felt almost let down by the absence of a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches.

“Please, do come in. I’m very sorry about you having to wait. The chancellor of the university was on the phone; he’s rather concerned about what happened last night.”

After offering them coffee, which the two officers declined, Tompkinson sat down behind his desk. “First of all, please let me make it absolutely clear that you will have the full co-operation of myself and this department in solving this terrible crime. The vice chancellor and the chancellor have also expressed their willingness to assist in any way.” He paused as if not quite sure how to proceed. “Ah, as you may be aware, Chief Inspector, the university will shortly be hosting a prestigious conference, with a number of high-profile guests.” Warren nodded. “We are a little concerned as to the impact any investigation would have on the smooth running of the conference and the implications such a violent attack may have for the university’s reputation. As such, we would appreciate it if you were able to keep us fully informed of the progress of your investigation.” His piece said, he sat back in his chair.

As he did so Jones noticed that the man’s hands shook slightly. Why? Was he nervous? It seemed unlikely — the professor was clearly a man used to moving in political circles. The presence of a police officer, even one investigating a murder, would be unlikely to unnerve him enough to give him the shakes. Jones made a mental note to check for an alibi. Perhaps he was just wired from too much caffeine.

“Of course, I fully understand, Professor. As soon as we have any information that we are ready to make public I will ensure that the university is informed.”

Tompkinson’s eyes narrowed slightly at Jones’ careful wordplay, but he said nothing, merely nodding acceptance. Jones carefully maintained his poker face, but inside he was satisfied that he had discreetly but firmly laid out the ground rules — the investigation would be run on Jones’ terms and his terms alone.

With the lines drawn and the rules of play established, Jones decided to start off with a little fishing to see what the professor volunteered, before getting down to specifics.

“Tell me, Professor, how well did you know Professor Tunbridge?”

“I suppose I’ve known Alan for about twenty-five years, to a greater or lesser extent. We were postdocs here back in the day, before we went our separate ways for a few years. Eventually, we both found our way back here and set up our own labs. We work in different fields, so we never collaborated. Nevertheless, this isn’t a huge department, so we got to know each other as colleagues. As we became more senior and gained our chairs — professorships — we obviously spent time together on committees.”

Jones nodded. “I see. And how would you say you were on a personal level?”

Tompkinson took his glasses off, and polished them on his tie, frowning. The two officers waited in silence.

Finally, Tompkinson replaced his glasses and let out a weary sigh.

“There’s no point sugar-coating it, I suppose. Alan was a hard man to like. He had an abrasive personality and didn’t suffer fools gladly. He was also arrogant, domineering and bullying, yet strangely petty at the same time. He was a genius, no question. But I can’t really think of anyone that I would describe as a close friend of his.”

Jones repressed a sigh. It seemed that the motives, and thus by extension the suspects, were stacking up.

“Alan and I had a lot of arguments, particularly when I became Head of Department. We butted heads frequently over all manner of policies. Pretty much any decision I made, Alan would question and because he was who he was, often the VC — the vice chancellor — would overrule my decisions and go with Alan’s. Sometimes I wondered who the hell the head of department was, me or him?”

“So do you think Tunbridge was after your job?” Was that a big enough motive, Jones mused, for murder?

Tompinkson let out a bark of laughter.

“Oh, dear God, no, you misunderstand completely. The last thing Alan would want is the hassle that goes with being the head of department, far too much pen-pushing and meetings. No, Alan was a research scientist through and through. He hated any type of ‘admin bollocks’ as he called it.

“No, Alan would far rather be the power behind the throne. He’d let me and others sweat out all of the details in meetings and just swan in at the last minute. The bugger probably only attended one departmental meeting in three and he was only one of a dozen or more faculty members, yet barely a major decision has been made in five years that Alan didn’t have a hand in.”

“Forgive me, Professor, but so far we haven’t heard a good word about Professor Tunbridge. Some of the behaviours that he has been accused of sound suspiciously close to gross misconduct. Violent rows with postdocs, students reporting him for bullying, constructive dismissal claims and an alleged affair with an undergraduate student. Yet it seems that he hasn’t been subject to any disciplinary action at all. Why is that, Professor?”

Tompkinson looked embarrassed. “You’re right, of course, Chief Inspector. Much of what Alan did was unacceptable. Particularly the way he treated that poor undergraduate — getting her pregnant and then making her get rid of the baby left a bad taste in my mouth. You just can’t act like that. But, senior management decided that it would be in everyone’s best interest if we hushed it up. After all, she was a consenting adult. It’s not like any laws were broken.”

Jones blinked; beside him he felt Hardwick stiffen. Tunbridge had got an undergraduate student pregnant? And then had it hushed up? Tompkinson had blithely admitted it, clearly assuming that if they knew about the affair, they must know about the pregnancy. Why hadn’t Crawley mentioned it? If he was to be believed, he was Tunbridge’s trouble shooter, stepping in after his boss to clear up the former’s mess. Surely he had known about it. Was he trying to protect Tunbridge’s memory? Unlikely, given the way he’d trashed the man’s reputation for the past half an hour. What about the young woman’s? Was he trying to protect her dignity? That seemed a little more likely, Jones decided. And what about his discomfort over questions about Tom Spencer’s finances? Was he trying to protect him as well?

“Could you give me the young lady’s name, please? I think we should speak to her.”

Tompkinson looked a bit uncomfortable. “Is that really necessary, DCI Jones She went through rather a lot. We decided that a fresh start was best for her. I’d rather we didn’t open old wounds.”

“I’m sorry, Professor, but I really must insist. Better that you give me the details discreetly, here and now, than I have to conduct enquiries.”

Tompkinson sighed.

“The young lady’s name was Clara Hemmingway. She’s a current student, so student services will have all of her details. She was assigned to Alan, along with three other students, after choosing Microbial Genetics as one of her essay preferences. This would have been back in November. It’s a long-standing tradition at the university, designed to bring undergraduate students into contact with the research side of the university. They get a tour of the lab and we even pay for them to go out to lunch with the lab members and encourage them to discuss their lab’s work and findings.