** For authors notes, disclaimer etc. see chapter 1
Black Widow 21/?
"How is Esther? Have the hospital said if she'd going to be ok?" We've just arrived back at the office where Emily and Strickland have got paperwork spread out all over the evidence table which I'm assuming is all Joanna's personnel records from the university, and before you say it yes I know her name isn't Joanna but I can't get my head round it at the minute so it's easier if I just stick with the name I've been using because this whole situation is head melting enough without starting to fuss around about names.
"She's ok they'll let her out later today they just want to keep an eye on her for a few more hours." Jack is still taking charge and he has no idea how grateful I am as he recounts all the details Esther was able to give us and Emily and Strickland listen carefully.
"Yeah well she might think she can do what she wants and walk away again but she's never dealt with us before we'll find Gerry and make sure it's a hell of a long time before she sees the light of day again." Strickland has really surprised me through this he seems genuinely furious that she would think she could hurt Gerry and we'd just stand back and let her and I can see that Emily is as shocked and worried by what we've heard as I am. "We've got the personnel records here and they are a complete fairy story. While I've been reading them through Emily has been contacting the universities she claimed to have her qualifications from and none of them have heard of Louisa Carson or Joanna Wilson but then we don't know what name she'd be using at any time right now they are emailing through the university year book pictures for the year she claims to have graduated from her undergrad degree and also her masters to see if we can see her and work out if she was using another name."
"How can she have gotten a job at one of the top universities in the country without them checking her qualifications?" I can't believe what I'm hearing I mean these days you need a bloody reference from the queen to get a job collecting the bins how can this have happened? How can she just have walked into a research post without anyone bothering to contact her educational qualifications? "Did they check her references? Did she even give references?"
"I spoke to the head of personnel and she says they would have eventually got around to checking her claims about her qualifications but they don't routinely do it before offering research positions. As for references she gave the Oxford as he references and apparently some bright spark in the vetting department figured no one would fake a job at one of the top two uni's in the country so they put checking them on the back burner."
"But we didn't." Emily has finally spoken for the first time since we came in and I'm glad that she's not falling apart as much as I was but I'm starting to pull myself together the determination from all of them rubbing off on me.
"And?" Jack has so little patience it is unbelievable but I'm with him on this one I'm not in the mood to play guess the outcome.
"Oh a "Louisa Carson" worked there and even in the psych department but she wasn't a lecturer or even a researcher she worked in the admissions office sending out offer letters to A level students. The woman I spoke to said they'd send through everything they had on her thought they've already given copies to the Oxford guys. Apparently there were complaints and she left under a cloud. She was making a nuisance of herself in the department hanging around the research students making them feel uncomfortable and there was even a claim of harassment from one of the Lecturers he said she was coming on strong and had made threats but eventually she was persuaded to leave and it wasn't taken any further." This is all making so much sense and as she writes that information up on the incident board I feel like we're starting to actually get a handle on this woman.
"Great so they let it drop she goes on to try to bump off hubby number two and when that fails she lands down here and we're fucking stuck with her." Jack hates it when he hears things have just been "dropped" for convenience and it leads to something even more dangerous. "Where the complaints passed on to the Oxford guys before she did her disappearing act?"
"No it was considered counterproductive and potentially embarrassing to the college she was working in to have it on public record so it was dealt with internally." Why am I not surprised and even Strickland who is very much an establishment man sounds pissed off by it all. "We've arranged a call to the professor who made the original complaint he's going to talk to us in about half an hour when he's one lunch and then we'll head over to her place and see if we can find anything there while we wait for the uni's to get back to us with all their various bits of info hopefully then we'll know something more about her and maybe be able to get into her head a bit better."
"What about the daughter and the ex? Have we managed to arrange a time to meet them yet?" I can't get past the idea that the key to what we need to know lies with her daughter I mean until recently she's been the only person around for all of Joanna's antics so she will surely know more than anyone else about what her mother will be thinking and where she might be.
"Yeah they are driving down they should be here tonight they're staying the night and we'll interview them in the morning." I know Emily agrees with me that they hold the key I can tell in her tone of voice. This is the point where we should be getting somewhere, we have several sources of information we didn't have yesterday so maybe, just maybe when we get all of that in place we may actually get somewhere.