The Last Straw

by Paul Gitsham

  Rolling as he’d been taught in jiu-jitsu class, Hastings struggled back to his feet, just in time to ward off a lethal snap-kick that threatened to remove his head from his shoulders. This was followed swiftly by a punch towards his face and another kick, aimed at his groin. Hastings parried all of the attacks, aware even as he did so that he was operating at the edge of his ability. He was pretty good at hand-to-hand, particularly the dirty, street-fighting style that his jitsu instructor was an expert at, but he realised that this guy was better. By quite a margin. And he had a dirty little advantage, Hastings saw, even as he realised his error, leaving his chest exposed as he sought to protect his face and his groin. The perfect target for the six-inch kitchen knife clasped in Spencer’s fist.

  * * *

  Warren simply followed the trail of destruction. Trampled flower beds and sagging garden fences told the tale of the chase. He added even more to the story as he clumsily followed the two men. Already his chest was heaving, his legs burning as he raced to catch up. Whether he liked it or not, he was a thirty-something desk-bound pen-pusher chasing two twenty-somethings at the peak of their physical fitness. Pursuing the two men without waiting for back-up probably made him as rash as Gary Hastings, but he knew that he couldn’t leave the young officer to chase the killer down on his own. Images of Tunbridge’s bloodied corpse filled his mind, spurring him on as he hurled himself over the neighbour’s fence. He felt something snag, couldn’t be sure if it was clothing or flesh, then he was tumbling over the fence, landing face-down in the dirt.

  Pulling himself to his feet, he looked on in horror as Gary Hastings desperately fought for his life against a crazed Tom Spencer. Too winded to shout, Warren just threw himself as fast as he could towards the fighters. Suddenly he saw what Hastings plainly hadn’t — the glint of metal in Spencer’s right hand. Even as he opened his mouth to shout a warning he knew it was too late. Time seemed to slow, the distance between Warren and the two men becoming a yawning chasm. Warren desperately forced himself to cover the last few metres, but it was impossible. Even as his legs stretched and his arms pumped, he saw Spencer’s left fist snap out in a head punch. Time was moving slowly, yet Spencer’s punch was like a rocket and Warren was amazed when Hastings somehow got an arm up to block the lightning-fast blow; he was even more amazed when Hastings somehow parried an equally fast snap-kick to the groin, but of course both of those attacks, devastating as each would have been on its own, were nothing more than a distraction, a prelude to Spencer’s real strategy.

  The knife went into Hastings’ exposed chest almost to the hilt. The effect was instantaneous; Hastings just stopped moving. His mouth opened in surprise as he fell to his knees.

  Spencer stood in front of him, lost in the spectacle of yet another human being dying at his hand. He was so engrossed that he was taken unawares as Warren blind-sided him with a clumsy rugby tackle. The two men crashed into an ungainly heap. Having seen what Spencer was capable of close up, Warren had no intention of letting the man get to his feet. Before a stunned Spencer could react, Warren flipped him onto his back and straddled him, before planting a punch square on his jaw.

  Or at least that was the plan. Spencer reached up, grabbing Warren’s arms. Suddenly, with a squirming motion that caught the policeman by surprise, Warren felt himself being flipped. Spencer had his right arm in some sort of arm-lock, applying what seemed to be almost no pressure at all. Then, for a sickening moment, Warren thought his arm was about to be torn from its socket. The pain was intolerable and he had no choice but to allow Spencer to turn him over onto his face.

  It was over, Warren realised as Spencer let go of his arm, instead wrapping both arms around Warren’s head and neck in the classic chokehold. His oxygen reserves were already dangerously low from the physical exertion. He doubted he would last more than a few more seconds, even assuming that Spencer didn’t just snap his spine and kill him instantly. From a distance, he could hear the crashing of more back-up on their way, but he knew that he would be dead before they arrived.

  Tiny sparkling dots were starting to appear in his vision. It occurred to him that in all of this time, he had yet to hear Spencer speak.

  “Why?” Somehow he managed to get his lips around that single word.

  He heard a sniff, then a sobbing cry.

  “It was all his fault. I’ll be done for killing him, yet nobody will count the lives he destroyed. People’s dreams, people’s livelihoods.”

  Spencer’s breathing was hard in Warren’s ear. The greyness around the edge of his vision was starting now, but he struggled to listen. Before he died, he had to know what had gone through the man’s mind. Why he thought his actions were justified.

  “All I ever wanted was to be a scientist. But that bastard just couldn’t stand to let anyone share the credit. He fucked me, just like he fucked Clara and made her give up that baby. He might not have killed anyone physically but if killing people’s dreams can be counted as murder, he’s Hannibal Fucking Lecter.”

  By now the greyness was complete; a rushing in his ears almost drowned out the world around him. As his vision faded to black Warren’s last thought turned to Susan. Did I tell her I loved her when I left the house this morning? Suddenly that seemed the most important thing in the world.

  As he faded out of consciousness Warren’s last memory was of a sudden lightening sensation. Is my soul leaving my body? he thought. At the same time he became aware of a voice, slurred and muffled as if from a long way away. It sounded like Hastings.

  “Take that, you prick.”

  Epilogue

  “Come in, Warren, and sit yourself down.”

  It was a few days after the climax at Tunbridge’s house and twenty-four hours after Warren and the other key officers involved had submitted their full written reports. The case had finally been solved, with the right people now in jail awaiting trial and enough evidence and signed confessions to all but guarantee convictions.

  But it had been a messy case to say the least. Mistakes had been made, some serious, and Warren was uncomfortably aware that the very future of Middlesbury CID hung in the balance. And that worried Warren far more than he would have thought possible just a couple of weeks ago. Over the past few days he had started to see what made the little CID unit so special to people like Tony Sutton. The camaraderie within the close-knit team was remarkable — and he was a part of the team, he realised now. He’d taken his knocks alongside the team and earned his stripes.

  He’d come to realise that the CID unit at Middlesbury was filled with good, dedicated officers. Some lacked experience, but nobody could be faulted for that; it was his job and that of other experienced colleagues to get them that experience. Most importantly, they worked as a team. Breaking up their little unit and absorbing them into the main Serious Crime Unit at Welwyn might save some money, but it would be at the cost of a valuable resource.

  One of the people responsible for making that decision was the occupant of the office that Warren now sat in, Assistant Chief Constable Mohammed Naseem. He’d read all of the reports and had the facts. They had voluntarily called in the Independent Police Complaints Commission to see what could be learnt from the episode. In the meantime, though, Naseem wanted to hear the human side of the story, as he put it, straight from the horse’s mouth. He wanted an honest appraisal of anything that went wrong and could be improved upon.

  This case had certainly had its fair share of ‘learning opportunities’. How many of them he could deflect onto his own broad back, Warren was unsure. Hopefully he would be allowed to issue a few slapped wrists and bollockings in the privacy of his own office, rather than having to ‘do it by the book’ and blot the copybook of some otherwise good police officers. Those decisions would be for the future, though. For now, Naseem just wanted the story.

  “First of all, how are you and your team?”

  “On the mend, sir.” Unconsciously, Warren touched his neck, where the bruises from Spencer’s stranglehold were c
ycling through every colour of the rainbow. A few small cuts and nicks dotted his face from his less than graceful header into the flower bed after the second garden fence. A four-inch gash on his right calf had required stitches and a tetanus jab from where he’d snagged a rusty nail on the first fence. Aside from a slightly raspy voice caused by bruised vocal cords, Warren was in pretty good shape, all things considered, and keen to get back to work. Not least to avoid the well-meaning, but overwhelming, concern of his mother-in-law. I think I liked her better when she despised me, Warren thought ruefully.

  “Karen Hardwick had a moderate concussion and needed a few stitches to a scalp wound, but there will be no long-term effects. She started back today, in fact, on light duties.”

  Naseem nodded, pleased. “And what about DC Hastings?”

  Warren’s expression turned sombre. “He’s no longer in a critical condition, but he’s still in Intensive Care. He didn’t have time to put his stab vest on before he went into the house. The knife struck a rib and was deflected away from the heart, but it nicked a lung. He’s due to undergo another operation tomorrow, then we’ll know more. If all goes well he could be back on light duties by Christmas.” Warren’s voice grew quiet. “He saved my life, sir. Pulling the knife back out of a stab wound is a cardinal sin in first aid and he must have known that, but he did it anyway. I don’t think I would have survived until the back-up arrived if he hadn’t crawled over and stuck Spencer like he did. I can only imagine the pain he was in.”

  Naseem shook his head in silent respect at Hastings’ bravery. “Let’s hope for a full recovery, then, shall we? The service needs young officers like that — even if they make mistakes from time to time.”

  Warren nodded, feeling relief at the hint that Hastings’ mistake with the CCTV evidence would probably be glossed over. He agreed with Naseem: the police service needed young officers like Gary Hastings. Warren just prayed that the young man agreed and was fit enough both psychologically and physically to return to duty.

  “So tell me why you think this whole sordid affair took place. There are contradictory reports at the moment. Spencer, Mrs Tunbridge and Hemmingway are all busy trying to cover their own arses and, of course, Crawley isn’t here to tell his side of the tale.”

  Warren leaned back in his chair. “It seems that the chief architect of this whole affair was the late professor’s wife, Annabel Tunbridge, and you could argue it all started nearly thirty years ago. They met and married back in the early 1980s, when she was a junior lab technician in Tunbridge’s first laboratory. Screwing young women that he supervised became something of a lifetime habit, I’m afraid. Anyway, as Tunbridge’s career progressed, she left her own career and became a full-time mother to their two children, following him across the Atlantic as he accepted posts in a number of US laboratories. When they came back to the UK, the kids were school age and Tunbridge was starting to make a name for himself. Although the plan had been for Annabel to go back to work and study for her own PhD, they found it impossible. Tunbridge would do secondments for months at a time in laboratories across Europe, whilst Annabel stayed at home and played housewife.

  “By the time the kids were old enough for Annabel to consider going back to education, too many years had passed and the desire to go back to study just wasn’t there any more. At least on the surface. I think that urge never really went away and, although she’ll probably never admit it, I think she resented him for the choices they made. I can imagine that the resentment only grew as his career skyrocketed and the kids finally left home to do their own thing.”

  “A powerful motive, but hardly enough to commit murder over, Warren. What changed?” The chief was leaning back in his chair, clearly enjoying the tale. Rumour had it that the chief was an amateur novelist on the quiet and that when he retired, some of the many tales that he had heard on the job would be appearing in hardback — suitably fictionalised, of course. Jones hoped for at least an acknowledgement in the foreword — some royalties would be even better.

  “Well, it seems that lust entered the equation. Tunbridge’s philandering was an open secret around the university and in academic circles, although there is a sort of unspoken rule that ‘what happens at conference, stays at conference’, but it’s hard to imagine that his wife didn’t have at least some clue about what was going on. Anyway, it seems that life in the Tunbridge house was not at all cosy and hadn’t been for some time. Tunbridge was by all accounts an arrogant egoist and something of a sociopath. I doubt he was much fun at home.

  “The rumour mill had been suggesting for some time that the marriage was on the rocks. However, that was the last thing that Mrs Tunbridge wanted. A senior professor’s salary isn’t too bad and Tunbridge made a fair bit on the side from speaking engagements and his royalties from some early patents that he co-authored, plus she knew full well the significance of her husband’s research and the last thing she would want to do is divorce him before it reached fruition.”

  “But surely, if she killed Tunbridge, she also killed the research so that there would be no money anyway?”

  “Well, that was the beauty of it, sir. On the surface she had no motive to kill him and, if anything, plenty of reasons not to kill him. She only really piqued my interest when I learnt that Tunbridge had told others that he was considering a divorce. It seemed inconceivable that she didn’t know about it, yet she made no mention of it to me and played the part of a grieving wife perfectly. Of course that’s not really a big deal, so I simply kept it in mind.”

  Naseem nodded. “I think that’s fair, Warren. A reasonable interpretation could have been that she still loved him and the grief was genuine or that she felt his talk of divorce was just that. I think that twenty-twenty hindsight is a bit much to ask of my officers.”

  Warren smiled appreciatively, whilst not believing a word of it. He knew full well that the inquiry board would be demanding not only perfect twenty-twenty hindsight but retrospective clairvoyance also. Still, that was their job, he supposed.

  “Anyhow, whilst she could turn a blind eye to his bed-hopping, she was herself playing a dangerous game. For the past couple of years, it seems that she and Tunbridge’s experimental officer, Dr Mark Crawley, had been spending some quality time together.

  “Why he and Mrs Tunbridge hooked up we’ll never know. She’s still a handsome woman for her age and both had been treated badly by Tunbridge over the years. Crawley spent a lot of time dealing with the fallout from Tunbridge’s lack of social graces and, whilst he would be the first to admit that he had it good career-wise with Tunbridge, he clearly hated the man. It could have been something genuine between them, or it could have been a way of figuratively screwing Tunbridge by either or both of them.

  “Either way, Crawley was having troubles at home: his wife’s parents are ill and he’s been having problems with his kids. We also found out that they had decided to remortgage their home to have an extension done, right before the credit crunch and Mrs Crawley lost her job. With house prices falling and her parents needing care, not to mention the eldest off to university, it seems that financially Crawley was up shit creek without a paddle.”

  “And so they hatched their little plan?”

  “Pretty much. Crawley had joked in the past that he should bump Tunbridge off and take over his empire. At some point, the joke became an idea.”

  “I thought it was established that Crawley couldn’t afford the time to set up and run his own research group, what with all that was going on in his private life?”

  “We thought so too, bearing in mind what Crawley himself had told us. But when I telephoned Professor Tompkinson, he dismissed that out of hand. He pretty much ran everything anyway. Give it a couple of years and they could have suddenly announced a breakthrough and nobody would have been at all suspicious.”

  Naseem nodded.

  “So what actually started the ball rolling?”

  Warren paused thoughtfully. “We’re not entirely sure what precipita
ted the whole thing. Tunbridge’s contemplation of a divorce was probably the final trigger, but an important catalyst was Clara Hemmingway.”

  “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.”