by Paul Gitsham
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.”
“What puzzles me is why Spencer and Hemmingway were around Tunbridge’s house when you arrived. It doesn’t seem to make any sense.”
“Well, Spencer and Tunbridge were lying low until the shit storm died down. We’ve no idea what their plans were in the long run — to re-emerge and brazen it out or to run away. So ask yourself, where is the last place anyone would have expected to find them? Pretty ballsy, I agree. It also meant that Tunbridge could keep an eye on them.”
“But what about her son? He met Spencer and Hemmingway at his mother’s house. Was he involved?”
“Apparently not. And so what if he met them? He was already due to fly back to the States the day after the funeral. You may have noticed that I haven’t yet mentioned the couple’s daughter. It seems that she didn’t even bother coming home for the funeral. Their son Simon has spent more time catching up with old friends than comforting his dear old mother, although he did seem genuinely shocked and upset that his father had been murdered. Apparently Tunbridge was banking on him being safely gone before we went public with any photos of the missing culprits. I guess that BBC America doesn’t screen Crimewatch reconstructions.”
Naseem shook his head. “What a messed-up family.”
“You’ll get no argument from me. I’ve often thought that what you show the world publicly is only a shadow of what you are like behind closed doors. If that’s the case, then given what a nasty individual Alan Tunbridge was in public we can only imagine what was going on at home.”
“I suspect you’re probably right. Yet it would seem that it was Tunbridge’s decision to divorce his wife that started the ball rolling.”
“Yes, it’s ironic that that was probably the last straw. You would think that, after all she’d put up with, a divorce would be exactly what she’d want.”
The two men lapsed into a contemplative silence. Finally, Naseem spoke up. “You know, the more I learn about Tunbridge, the more I see why someone bu
mped him off. I hope that when I die, I’ll be missed a little more than the professor.”
Warren couldn’t help a full-throated chuckle.
Naseem looked at him in surprise. “What’s so funny?”
“Sorry, sir, it’s just that I said the exact same thing to DI Tony Sutton.”
“Oh? What was his response?”
“He suggested that I’d have to start working on my reputation so that everyone would love me when I go.”
“I see, and did he have any suggestions?”
“He did, as a matter of fact. He suggested that I should get the first round in.”
Naseem stared at him for a long moment, before looking at the clock above his desk. “Sounds good to me. There’s a lovely little pub just round the corner. I’ll get my coat.”
CARINA™
ISBN: 978 1 472 09469 8
The Last Straw
Copyright © 2014 Paul Gitsham
Published in Great Britain (2014)
by Carina, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
CARINA™ is a trademark of Harlequin Enterprises Limited, used under licence.
www.CarinaUK.com