The Last Straw

by Paul Gitsham

  A tall, willowy woman in the uniform of an inspector broke off from the conversation she was having with a sergeant. Hand extended, she introduced herself to Jones as Inspector Alison Carmichael. Sutton, she already knew.

  “We thought it was just A.N. Other suicide at first, but when we saw the note and realised who he was I figured we’d better get you guys down here, asap.”

  “So take us through what’s happened, Inspector.”

  “The wife arrived home with the couple’s kids about two hours ago. Found him hanging from a rope he’d rigged around the bannister at the top of the stairs. Looks like he did the sums; clean break, probably killed him instantly. Living room has an empty litre bottle of vodka and an empty pot of strong, prescription painkillers, made out in his name. He also left a suicide note on his laptop — looks like he confessed to being involved with killing that professor of yours.”

  “What state is the scene in?”

  “Not too bad. His wife tried to lift him up, but she’s no fool — she could see he was dead, probably a few hours. Obviously the paramedics saw it was a potentially suspicious death and as soon as they pronounced him they left the scene untouched. When we got here, and saw the suicide note on the laptop, we declared it a crime scene and called in you guys and Scenes of Crime.”

  Warren nodded in approval; until it was confirmed as a suicide he was treating the death as suspicious and unexplained. A suicide was just too coincidental at this time.

  Sutton interjected, “Why did he leave his suicide note on his laptop? I reckon if I was about to kill myself, the last thing I’d do is wait for Microsoft bloody Office to load.”

  “Apparently he was extremely dyslexic,” Warren volunteered. “He has special pink spectacles to help him read but I don’t know if that’d help him write better as well. He probably used the computer’s spell-checker to help him.”

  “That makes a lot of sense when you see some of the strange spelling mistakes he’s made,” agreed Carmichael.

  “What state is his wife in?” asked Warren, anxious to speak to her.

  “Holding up surprisingly well. She actually had the sense of mind to get her eldest to stop the two youngest kids from coming through the front door and seeing their dad like that.” Carmichael shook her head in admiration. “It’s amazing what a mum will do to protect her kids, even under those circumstances.” Her expression became more sober. “It’s just a shame the eldest lad walked in beside her and saw everything.”

  “Do you think she’s up to talking?”

  “She was when we last checked. She and her kids are next door with the neighbours and Family Liaison. We’re tracking down friends as we speak. Before you go in, though, I think you should see the suicide note.”

  “Has she seen it yet?”

  “No, and we’ve not mentioned it. You’ll see why when you read it.”

  She pulled out a smartphone; on the screen was a series of photographs. “We didn’t want to risk screwing anything up before the IT whizzes checked it out, so I just scrolled down the screen and photographed it.”

  “Good thinking, Allie. Ever thought of joining CID?” suggested Sutton.

  “Not if I’d have to see your ugly mug every day, Tony. One evening a month was enough, frankly.” Both officers grinned at each other, then sobered slightly. “Been a while, we must start playing again,” Sutton nodded, his expression neutral.

  “Tony used to play my husband and me at bridge, so I saw more of him than I wanted to,” Carmichael explained to Warren, who nodded politely, more interested in the contents of Crawley’s suicide note than his inspector’s social life.

  The phone screen was small, but high resolution and Crawley had clearly used a fairly large font size. The suicide note was across three photographs and Warren had to swipe through to read it all. He did so twice, with Sutton looking over his shoulder. It was clear why Carmichael had been unwilling to let Crawley’s wife see the note.

  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

  Warren and Sutton looked at each other.

  “Well, that was unexpected,” opined Sutton eventually.

  “You aren’t bloody kidding. Now I really want to speak to his wife.” Warren turned to Carmichael. “And could you find out who the crime scene manager is and let them know we want a tour as soon as we’ve finished interviewing Mrs Crawley?”

  He turned to Sutton. “Either you’ve been right all along, Tony, and I’ve been wasting our time, or this thing just got a whole lot more complicated.”

  Chapter 45

  For the second time in two days, Warren found himself walking up the Turnbulls’ driveway. A uniformed constable stood guarding the doorway to the couple’s house, making sure that nobody intruded on the family’s grief. Except for the local neighbourhood gossip, Warren realised, who had taken them into her home. He found himself hoping that the private grieving of a widow and her children didn’t become fodder at the next WI meeting. He wondered if he should have a word with the family liaison officers to warn them against this possibility.

  Immediately he decided against the idea and felt a flush of shame for suspecting the woman’s motives. All too often in the past, after a hard day investigating the terrible crimes that people had perpetrated on others — often their neighbours — he had lamented that a bit more neighbourliness would go a long way towards solving much of society’s ills. Yet the moment he witnessed an example in action he viewed it with suspicion. The cynicism left a sour taste in his mouth.

  The Turnbulls’ living room felt crowded. On the couch, surrounded by her three boys, was a tearful Lizzi Crawley. The two youngest boys were clutching each other and crying in the cathartic, shameless way that only children could. The eldest sat with his arm around his mother. Red swollen eyes and dried stains on his cheeks evidenced earlier crying, but now he was stony-faced. The hand that wasn’t protectively draped around his mother held a tissue, which he was repeatedly screwing up and releasing as he balled his fist then relaxed it, again and again in a nervous tic.

  Warren recognised the symptoms. The initial surge of grief and shock had been replaced and the boy — no, he was suddenly a young man now — was feeling a confusing mix of emotions. Grief at their loss; anger at his father for doing this to them; helplessness and perhaps guilt that he didn’t see it coming; all topped off with the growing realisation that he was now head of the family.

  Appearance-wise, the three boys were almost a perfect blend of both their parents, Warren realised. All of them had an appealing lankiness that Warren suspected would probably turn into the tall ranginess of their father, rather than the short plumpness of their mother. Their mother’s influence was clear in the dark hair and eyes, whilst their pale skin and light freckling were probably an inheritance from both parents.

  Sitting in the armchairs, unwittingly mirroring the positions of Warren and Gary Hastings the previous day,
were the family liaison officers. A man and a woman, they were dressed smartly but were not in uniform. On the coffee table sat several cups of tea. Only the police officers’ drinks had been touched; those in front of the Crawleys had acquired the glassy look that tea took on when it had cooled to room temperature.

  Warren nodded a greeting to the two officers. What a horrible job, he thought every time he met them. All police officers had to deliver bad news at some point in their career — it went with the territory — and Warren knew that he had a reasonably sensitive manner when doing so. Nevertheless, he hated doing it and, when he’d done what was necessary, he couldn’t leave the scene fast enough. Not these guys. Not only did they break more than their fair share of bad news, they stuck around to deal with the aftermath — sometimes for days, or weeks or months. Warren couldn’t imagine what that was like.

  Warren and Sutton introduced themselves to a tearful, but apparently rational, Lizzi Crawley. Warren could see that Mrs Crawley was unwilling to leave her children to speak to them alone and so he and Sutton decided to keep the interview as short as possible, extracting only the most important details. A more detailed interview, which might or might not reveal details upsetting to younger ears, could wait until they could interview her in a more private setting.

  After expressing his condolences on their loss, Warren asked her to describe the past twenty-four hours or so, focusing particularly on her husband’s state of mind.

  In a surprisingly steady voice, Lizzi Crawley described how her husband had come home early from work the previous day because he thought he was about to come down with a migraine. This confirmed what Tompkinson had said that morning.

  “I got home from town with the kids at about five o’clock. Mark said that he’d returned home at about eleven a.m. but by the time he’d got in, the symptoms were fading. It does that occasionally — he gets a sort of false alarm. I guess it was triggered by all of the stress at work and when he got home the stress had gone…” Her voice trailed off as she realised that the stress clearly hadn’t gone, otherwise he wouldn’t have committed suicide. Not wanting her to dwell too deeply on this, Warren quickly prompted her to continue.

  “Well, he seemed slightly hyper. He gets like that sometimes when he has had what he calls one of his near misses. He insisted that we all go out as a family for pizza, the kids’ favourite meal, and ten-pin bowling, the kids’ favourite game. It was weird, because they had only been out the week before for Ben’s birthday and done exactly the same. The night Alan was killed, as a matter of fact. I reminded him of this and he said that he just wanted a fun night out with the kids. The boys were thrilled, of course, to have their favourite treat a second time, and to be honest Mark’s been so down lately I wanted to have a fun night out with him.”

  “How long had this mood lasted and what do you think caused it?” Warren asked gently.

  “For the past couple of months, really. Since well before the school holidays, certainly. He just wasn’t himself. He was brooding and sometimes a bit snappy. He also didn’t sleep very well.” She motioned her head towards her sons. “As you can imagine, these three have quite a bit of energy to burn off and Mark was really good at that normally. He’d take them down the rec ground with a football or a frisbee. In the summer evenings particularly, he and a few of the local dads would get together and organise rounders or cricket matches. But over the last few weeks, he claimed to be busy or said he had a headache. The boys would usually still get a game, of course, with the other kids, but I know that one or two of the dads complained that he wasn’t pulling his weight.”

  “It wasn’t as much fun without Daddy playing,” interrupted the youngest of the three boys suddenly, his voice small and heartbroken.

  “I know, sweetheart, I know,” crooned his mother, gently kissing the boy’s tousled head as new tears started to silently track down his cheeks.

  Warren swallowed hard several times trying to remove the lump in his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, Warren saw Tony Sutton cover his mouth and cough theatrically, patting his chest as if he had something caught in it. Whatever it was, it appeared to be making his eyes water slightly. He sneaked a look at the family liaison officers, who sat dry-eyed yet somehow conveyed the exact amount of sympathy required without seeming patronising. Warren wondered briefly if they practised in a mirror.

  “So what happened yesterday evening?”

  “Well, he was back to his old self. Last week, he seemed a bit on edge. He kept on checking his mobile phone and was distracted. Last night he was full of life and affection, probably a bit too much affection, since he kept on telling the boys how special they are and how much he loved them. You know how teenage boys can be about things like that.” Marcus, the eldest, looked away, the pain on his face visible, his lower lip trembling.

  Warren wondered if he was blaming himself — had he told his father to stop embarrassing him in public and now was worrying that by spurning him he had caused his suicide? Or was he just remembering the feel of his father’s arms that last time and wishing he could go back and experience it just once more? He tried to catch the boy’s eye and reassure him that it wasn’t his fault. That he wasn’t to blame, and that he knew how he felt. But the young man resolutely stared the other way.

  “Well, anyway, it was a great evening and he insisted on letting the youngest boys stay up past their bedtimes — it is the school holidays after all, he said — and telling them silly jokes.

  “When they finally went to bed, I was exhausted. But Mark was very, you know…affectionate.” She glanced self-consciously at her three children, blushing slightly. “We were up very late.”

  “What about this morning? How was he then?” Warren couldn’t bring himself to call him ‘Mark’, it seemed too intimate, yet ‘Dr’ or ‘Mr Crawley’ was far too formal.

  “It was a complete change, as if he couldn’t bear to look at me.”

  Warren could see the pain written across her face, and mirrored in her children’s. “He claimed that he could feel another migraine coming on and he worried it would be a big one. He asked if I would take all the kids over to see Mum and Dad, since he needed peace and quiet. Mum and Dad live a few miles away in Shepreth and they are both getting on a bit. I go over a few times a week to be with them. We left about ten o’clock, I guess.”

  She started to sob, quietly. “I shouldn’t have left him alone. I knew that something wasn’t right. All of that over-the-top jollity the night before — I thought he was trying to make up for the previous few weeks, but he wasn’t, was he? He was trying to leave us with some good memories.” She looked up at Warren and Sutton, “The reason he couldn’t look at me or the boys this morning was because he knew that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to kill himself.”

  She locked eyes with Warren, fixing him with a stare that seemed to reach inside him and grab his very heart.

  “Please, DCI Jones, I need to know why my husband killed himself. Please let us know.”

  Warren nodded, unable to say anything. His knowledge of the contents of Crawley’s suicide note burned in his mind. At that moment, if he could have he would have destroyed that note, and never revealed its contents to the woman and children in front of him. They’d been through enough and, despite their remarkable fortitude so far, he feared that the letter might just be enough to destroy them.

  Chapter 46

  Jones and Sutton emerged from the Turnbulls’ house and walked down the driveway. As if by mutual consent, the two men paused before turning and walking the five paces to the left and entering the Crawleys’ driveway.

  “Shit.”

  It wasn’t the most poetic of summations, Warren decided, but in this case Sutton had expressed both of their feelings perfectly.

  “I agree entirely, Tony.” He glanced back at the house that they had just left. “We need to get to the bottom of this, not just for the sake of the case, but for that woman and those kids in there.”

  Nodding grimly, Ton
y resumed his pace and the two men walked into the Crawleys’ drive. Most of the gawkers from across the street had gone now and the area seemed eerily quiet. Only the Scenes of Crime van and the ambulance remained. Two police constables and Alison Carmichael were the only remaining uniforms in the area, the former standing guard at the bottom of the driveway and the front door.

  Carmichael was busy on her BlackBerry smartphone; seeing the arrival of the two CID officers, she stopped and called in through the front door, “Andy, can you give that tour now?”

  A few seconds later CSM Andy Harrison emerged, dressed from head to toe again in a white paper forensics suit. As usual, he didn’t offer to shake hands.

  “Hello again, DCI Jones, we must stop meeting like this.” The man’s cheerful demeanour again seemed slightly out of place, but Warren was nevertheless glad to see a familiar face. He’d been pleased with the speedy and professional response that he’d received earlier in the week from Harrison and his team.

  “Are you the only Scenes of Crime duty officer that Herts and Beds employ?” asked Warren, only half joking. Harrison gave a short laugh. “No, but I get a lot of Middlesbury jobs because I live up here. I was on call tonight.”

  “What can you tell us about what happened?”

  The three men entered the front door, Warren and Sutton slipping on latex gloves and plastic overshoes before they crossed the threshold.

  The two CID officers stopped dead in their tracks. Both men had seen death in their career. Both men had seen violent and graphic death — most recently, of course, the previous Friday — but this was nevertheless a deeply disturbing sight.

  Crawley’s eyes were wide open and staring at them. His skin was a grey waxy colour and traces of vomit had dried in sticky trails down his chin, soaking into his smart white shirt. Around his neck he wore an expensive-looking blue silk tie that fitted well with the neatly creased trousers and shiny shoes. What went less well with the ensemble was a hangman’s noose made out of multicoloured nylon rope, the sort used to climb mountains or as a tow rope. Warren made a mental note to work out which it was, the two being very different. As a friend of his had found out recently to her cost, a climbing rope is a hell of a lot more expensive than a tow rope — and if you used it for the latter it was no longer suitable for the former.