The Last Straw

by Paul Gitsham

  Jones wasn’t convinced.

  “I can see your point, Professor. However, sometimes unexpected things happen; arguments flare up, old grudges simmer until they reach boiling point. In fact, if you don’t mind me saying so, you look a little young to be retiring. Did Professor Tunbridge have any influence in that decision?”

  Tompkinson laughed, a short bark.

  “The man had influence, but he wasn’t God! No, Alan Tunbridge had nothing to do with my retirement. If anything, he’d probably have liked me to stay in the job, since whoever replaces me will probably be less of a pushover. No, it’s probably genetics and bad luck that is forcing me out.”

  Noting the police officers’ blank looks, he held out his hands.

  “I’m sure that trained observers such as yourself have noticed that my hands shake. I’m afraid that it isn’t nervousness, too much coffee or the after-effects of a good night out. I’ve got Parkinson’s disease.”

  He took off his hat, revealing an almost entirely hairless scalp, bisected by an angry-looking red scar.

  “I was diagnosed a few years ago. The symptoms were kept in check for a while by drugs, but as I’m sure you know it’s a progressive disease. A year or so ago I had deep-brain stimulation.” He gestured at the scar. “Unfortunately it’s had little effect. Maybe if this had happened a decade or so from now I would have phoned a few old colleagues and seen if I could wangle a place on a clinical trial for stem cell therapy, but it’s a little too early for that yet.”

  He sighed regretfully. “Since the beginning of the year it’s been obvious that I am going downhill pretty fast. The shakes are getting worse. I daren’t go near any of my students’ work in case I have an accident and wipe out six months’ research. Most days I slur my speech and nod my head constantly, but I’ve learnt how to regulate my medication, to ‘overdose’ on days that I need to speak more clearly or move more carefully. My GP doesn’t recommend it, of course, since the pills have side effects, but a lot of patients do it. Anyway, I decided a few months ago that enough was enough. The university has been very understanding and I’ve managed to secure a fairly generous pension. My wife and I are going to move to the South of France to be near our daughter and enjoy the grandkids whilst I still can.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence for a few moments. The man’s story would need to be checked out, of course, and nothing he had said would make it impossible for him to be involved in Tunbridge’s death, but Jones mentally moved him to the ‘unlikely’ list.

  “I see. Well, leaving aside yourself, it would seem that there are still a fair number of people with a motive for killing Professor Tunbridge. I would like to ask you a bit about some of the members of his laboratory. First, Thomas Spencer.”

  “Ah, so those rumours are true. I heard that Mr Spencer had been arrested at the scene. Covered in blood, I heard.” The Professor looked excited. Not an unusual reaction, noted Warren — the popularity of crime drama on TV and in best-selling fiction was a testimony to the fascination of the general public when it came to crime. And, of course, the more lurid and salacious, the better. It would seem that news was spreading fast, probably aided by the security guards present at the scene. The building’s virtual lock-down wouldn’t go unnoticed either, as the various Saturday workers were turned away at the door. Nevertheless it was important to make sure that any information was accurate, particularly when the press turned up. Which would probably be any moment now, Jones realised.

  “Mr Spencer found the body and is currently assisting in our enquiries. We would greatly appreciate your help in ensuring that any information that gets passed to the press is accurate and won’t compromise the investigation.”

  Looking suitably chastened, the professor nodded.

  “Of course. Well, in anticipation of your interest, I took the liberty of pulling Mr Spencer’s file. I had only just started to read it when the chancellor phoned. But, there is a slight problem. If, as you say, Mr Spencer is merely helping with your enquiries I am afraid that, under the Data Protection Act, I cannot let you look at his file without a warrant.”

  Shit. Bloody lawyers.

  “I fully understand, Professor, and I will have no problem getting a warrant. Indeed I will be getting one issued as a matter of course to assist in our investigation. However, it will take some time for a warrant to be signed. In the meantime, we could well have a killer on the loose.”

  The older man licked his lips nervously. Jones could see the conflict in his eyes. It was obvious that the man genuinely wanted to help the police and was almost as frustrated as Jones that bureaucracy was threatening to get in the way. Unfortunately, under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, any information that Jones saw might well be inadmissible in a court of law unless he had that warrant.

  Of course there was a compromise and Tompkinson was an intelligent enough man to see it.

  “What if I were to allow you to take a peek at the information, informally of course, and then if you found anything of interest you could then read it officially after having shown me the warrant?”

  Jones suppressed a smile. He didn’t need to look at Hardwick to know that she too had been hoping for the offer. “Thank you, Professor, that will be most useful.”

  The file was rather thick, Jones noticed. As if reading his mind, Tompkinson gestured into the main office.

  “You are welcome to photocopy the file once you have the warrant, to read it at your own leisure, but in the meantime what if you tell me what you are looking for?”

  “Well, first of all, how well do you know the lad?”

  “Not at all well, I’m afraid. In fact although his name rang a bell, I couldn’t recall his appearance. I do recognise him though, now that I have seen his picture in his file. I have probably said a few words to him at the Christmas party or the summer barbecue, but his work is too different from my own and his lab too far away for me to have spoken to him much.”

  “Well, why don’t you tell us a bit about his background?”

  Slipping his glasses back on, Tompkinson flicked through the pages of the file.

  “OK, I have his original application form. Thomas Michael Spencer. Born June twenty-sixth 1985. Parents’ address is given as Stockport, although this file is four years old now and that address may not be current. You would need to speak to Student Services to find out the address he lives at when he studies. He’s listed as unmarried, ethnicity white British, no disabilities, sexual orientation heterosexual.” He looked up, slightly embarrassed. “Equality monitoring. World’s gone bloody mad. Again, you will need to speak to Student Services to check if that’s up to date. For the marital status that is, obviously his ethnicity hasn’t changed or his sexual orientation… actually I suppose that could have changed and he could have had some sort of accident…sorry. Where was I?” He cleared his throat.

  “Ah, yes, well, Mr Spencer joined us in October 2007, having got an upper-second-class degree from Sheffield University. He worked, as you know, in Alan Tunbridge’s group and was directly supervised by Mark Crawley.”

  Tompkinson leafed through a few more pages.

  “OK, so he passed his first year with distinction, with the recommendation that he be allowed to transfer onto the PhD course.” Tompkinson paused and backtracked slightly. “It is common practice for students to be registered for a Master’s in Philosophy initially — an MPhil — and then transfer to a Doctor of Philosophy, PhD, after the production of a satisfactory first-year report, roughly equivalent to a master’s dissertation. It’s a safeguard that allows students who don’t wish to continue their studies to graduate with something.”

  “And Spencer was passed with distinction? Who examines the dissertation?”

  “The report is marked initially by the student’s supervisor, in this case Tunbridge, and then passed on to two other members of faculty, who will also verbally examine the student to make certain that it is their own work etc. Alan signed off on it and then Professors Abdul
lah Omara and Jennifer Stokes marked it formally as a distinction.”

  “So he was a promising student?”

  “It would seem so.” Tompkinson leafed through a few more pages. “Here is his second-year report. This time it’s the result of a verbal meeting between the student and the faculty advisor. Jenny Stokes reported that Spencer was progressing well in his research and was confident that he would be in a position to start writing up within the next twelve months. Alan Tunbridge again signed off on the report, saying that Spencer had made sufficient progress and that with hard work he would be in a position to write up within twelve months. Neither Jenny, Alan or Mr Spencer reported any concerns, either publicly or confidentially.”

  Tompkinson carried on reading.

  “Oh. This is his mid-third-year report.” He adjusted his glasses again and peered over them, a gesture that Jones was starting to recognise as his ‘teaching pose’.

  “Standard full-time PhD courses, such as the one that Spencer was enrolled on, are funded for three years by the funding council, in this case the MRC. The expectation is that students complete their research, write it up and submit at the end of those three years. Either way, they stop being funded and they are no longer paid. In reality, we have found that most students take about three and a half years to finish and write up. The funding councils get very antsy if they don’t submit in four years and can penalise the university. So about halfway through the third year we start progression-to-submission meetings.

  “Mr Spencer, at this point, was still working full time on his research, but was confident that he would be completed within the next few months and written up by the beginning of his fourth year. That’s fairly typical. Alan has signed the bottom to say he agrees. No further action required.”

  He turned the page.

  “Three months from the three-year deadline. Spencer is still working full time. Some experiments have had to be repeated. He will start writing up when they are completed. Signed by Alan.”

  Another page.

  “Three-year deadline. Spencer is still repeating key experiments. He agrees to submit a first couple of chapters of his thesis to Alan for checking by the end of the month. Both sign the form.”

  Another sheet of A4.

  “Hmm. This is three months later. Spencer has started another set of experiments. He has submitted his first two chapters, which Alan has signed off as satisfactory. However, he requested a confidential meeting with Jenny Stokes where he expressed concern that Alan was insisting that he complete more research and won’t accept the conclusions of a paper that he has written for the Journal of Bacteriology. Jenny advises him to follow Alan’s advice for the time being.”

  Jones sat up a little straighter. “So Spencer and Tunbridge had an argument.”

  Tompkinson waved a hand in a dismissive gesture.

  “I wouldn’t read too much into that, Inspector. Disagreements between PhD students and their supervisors aren’t uncommon at this stage. In fact there is an old saying that your PhD supervisor is the first person that you have a truly professional argument with. It’s almost a rite of passage. Strange as it may seem, but at this stage Mr Spencer will probably be the world’s leading expert on that one tiny facet of his research. He will have lived and breathed his project for the past three years and so will be very possessive of his work.”

  Tompkinson’s eyes misted over and he smiled slightly. “It’s been thirty years but I remember the arguments with my PhD supervisor like they were yesterday. Of course, my prof was right and his decision to force me to delay publication of my first paper was absolutely correct. In the end it was published in a far more prestigious journal than it would have been otherwise. At the time though I thought the old bastard was past it and nearly walked out. I went to his eightieth birthday a couple of years ago and he still teased me about it.”

  Jones nodded silently, but filed the information away nevertheless. Crawley had suggested that Tunbridge had a reputation for being possessive about his lab’s research. Could this have been enough to provoke Spencer to kill him? And why hadn’t he mentioned this when they spoke to him earlier?

  Tompkinson flipped over another couple of pages.

  “Here is his three-and-a-half-year meeting. Spencer is still working in the lab and has not submitted any more chapters. The head of Graduate Studies, Professor Davidson, has put Spencer on his ‘cause for concern list’ and scheduled a meeting with Alan, Jenny and Mr Spencer.”

  He turned over the page.

  “The outcome of the meeting is that Alan did not feel that Mr Spencer had fully proven his hypothesis and recommended a number of further studies to back up his claims. Spencer has agreed to do the studies and Jenny has agreed to meet regularly with him to ensure that he keeps on track. They also agreed upon a schedule to write up the less contentious parts of Mr Spencer’s thesis.” Tompkinson turned to two pieces of paper stapled to the current page. “Professor Davidson and Professor Stokes have both written private memoranda commenting on the tense atmosphere between Tunbridge and Spencer. Jenny has spoken to Mark Crawley and asked him to keep an eye on the situation.”

  “Is that sort of thing normal?”

  Tompkinson looked a little embarrassed. “A complete breakdown in the relationship between a student and his supervisor is rare but not unprecedented, and of course Alan had a reputation for being a little…difficult, shall we say? Mark Crawley is Tom Spencer’s immediate line manager and is used to Alan’s ways.”

  “I see.”

  Tompkinson continued flicking through the folder.

  “It seems that Spencer unsuccessfully applied for a hardship grant from the Student Welfare Office. They don’t usually help students who are in their fourth year unless something exceptional has happened. However, they did promise to try and arrange some more teaching and demonstrating hours for him.”

  So, pissed off and broke? The motives were certainly stacking up against Spencer. Again, why hadn’t Crawley mentioned this? Jones knew that at times like this a person’s loyalties were torn. Crawley might well have been trying to protect Spencer, not because he felt that Spencer was guilty, but because he felt responsible for the lad and didn’t want to cause him any trouble. On the flipside, he’d shown no such loyalty to the postdoc Severino. Why? Mark Crawley was worth a second visit, Jones decided.

  “What is Spencer’s current situation?”

  Tompkinson flicked forward to the last page of the folder.

  “He’s coming up on four years. He needs to have submitted by October first at the latest. Apparently he submitted several more draft chapters, all of which Tunbridge accepted. However there is still some disagreement over the final results.”

  “What happens if he misses the deadline?”

  “Well, there are a couple of options.” To emphasise his point, Tompkinson held out a hand, counting off the fingers. “First, he misses the deadline and has to apply to the Board of Graduate Studies for an extension. They have to consider the university’s standing with the funding agencies as well as what is best for Mr Spencer.

  “Second, they decide to simply ditch the disputed work and write up what he has completed for submission. That’ll depend on how critical the work is to the thesis.”

  Another finger. Warren wondered if it was just his imagination — now that he was looking out for it — or was Tompkinson’s hand trembling more?

  “Third, he could well fail the PhD. In which case we would probably submit his earlier work and examine him for an MPhil.”

  “How big a blow would that be to him?”

  “Catastrophic. The thing with PhDs is you only get a single bite of the cherry. He could very well end up in debt, with a four-year hole in his work history and bugger all to show for it. It would almost certainly hamper his career. He could massage his CV a bit, claim that he went for MPhil then stayed on and did more research, but it probably wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny in a job interview.”

  So Spencer certa
inly had a motive. The question was, was it enough to make him snap? Warren was looking forward more and more to this afternoon’s scheduled interview.

  “Moving on, another name that has been mentioned this morning was that of Dr Antonio Severino. What can you tell us about him?”

  Tompkinson sighed, taking his glasses off and rubbing them for a few moments before replacing them, something that Jones was starting to associate with the professor being forced to answer unpleasant questions.

  “Another of Alan’s diplomatic triumphs.” The irony of the statement was clearly masking a genuine irritation and anger at his former colleague.

  “Officially, Dr Severino is taking overdue holiday whilst he waits for the renewal or otherwise of his contract.”

  “And unofficially?”

  “Alan got rid of him. He claims that Severino had completed the project for which he was originally employed and that his services were no longer required.”

  “What about the disagreement over the publication of Severino’s findings?”

  “Again, officially the papers are ‘in preparation’ with other members of the lab finishing their part of the project. Unofficially, Severino’s contribution to the overall manuscript was so great that Tunbridge would struggle to justify his position as lead author. Alan was pretty tight-lipped about the results from this particular research, but the rumour mill has it that they had solved several significant problems in the field of antibiotic resistance. I suspect that Alan was going to use the interest garnered by the publication of the research to kick-start his search for funding to start his own company, with him as boss. The last thing he’d want is to share the limelight with someone else. Based on gossip in the tea room, Alan was probably going to split Severino’s work into two separate manuscripts and dilute his influence by padding out the papers with other results from the lab. That way he could retain first authorship on both papers. In the meantime, Severino has practically nothing on his CV to account for the past two years of work, making him almost unemployable.”