Free The Last Straw by Paul Gitsham Page A

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 certainly 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