Shadows of Sounds lab-3 Read online

  ‘Another pair for the bin,’ he muttered.

  ‘Aye, you should’ve brought your wellies right enough, Chief Inspector,’ one of the firemen grinned up at him. His face in the torchlight gave the man the look of a demented sprite, his eyes shining under the yellow helmet. ‘If ye wait another wee while we’ll have the place sucked out and ye can get across to your body,’ he continued. Lorimer raised his eyebrows and smiled in spite of the darkness that was pressing down upon him.

  The man’s matter-of-fact words brought the situation into a new perspective. They were all just doing their jobs. That realisation often made the filthier business of death a lot easier to handle. Lorimer raised his hand in acknowledgement and stepped back against the wall as the hose threatened to sweep him off his feet.

  Over on the far side he could see Dan and Rosie prepare a stretcher to carry out the half-submerged corpse. They moved slowly, their hooded suits making them look like astronauts attempting some grotesque ritual. The sound of water being siphoned away filled the space between them and Lorimer concentrated on the surface water. So long as he focused on the middle of the room he’d be OK. It was an old trick that helped keep the worst of his claustrophobia at bay, like watching the horizon to overcome seasickness.

  ‘That you, Lorimer?’ Rosie’s voice sounded hollow as she called out in the darkness.

  ‘Yes. D’you want me across there yet?’

  There was a pause as Rosie murmured something indistinct to her colleague then, ‘No. We’ll be up there shortly.’ There was another pause then she added, ‘No need for you to get your feet any wetter.’ The usual teasing note was absent from her voice making Lorimer stare through the murk. Whatever grimness lay before the two pathologists had wiped out any sense of levity.

  With a feeling of relief, Lorimer turned and started back up the tunnel of stairs that would take him to ground level and into the blessed daylight.

  Rosie and Dan had moved the body out of the dungeon and into the room used by the technicians and shifters where natural light flooded in from a window set high above them.

  A light knock on the door made Rosie turn her head, a frown on her face, ever ready to repel boarders. Her brow cleared, however, when she saw Lorimer slip quietly into the room. His gaze immediately fell on the sodden corpse lying on a sheet of tarpaulin. Rosie watched as his expression suddenly altered.

  ‘You know her, then?’ she asked wryly for it was clear that the Chief Inspector had recognised the woman whose lifeless body lay centre stage before them. Lorimer nodded slowly, never taking his eyes off the bloated face, its shape distorted by the wire twisted around her neck.

  ‘Karen Quentin-Jones,’ he said at last.

  ‘But that was…’ Rosie broke off, remembering the imperious figure who had swept down the Artistes’ corridor. The pathologist gave her head a shake as if to clear the mental picture. But it persisted. Even as she recalled the woman to life, Rosie could not help but remember that other violinist’s corpse, a corpse she’d been in the process of examining when she’d caught sight of the figure clad in black lace. The body on the floor was fully dressed, coat buttoned up as if she had been about to step into the winter’s night. Only some other hands had stopped her. Hands that had held a wire across her throat, cutting off breath and life.

  ‘I’ll have to do a full post-mortem, obviously, but you can see for yourself.’ Rosie indicated the wire crisscrossing the neck.

  Lorimer bent down, pointing to the ends of the wire. One end was curled into a neat little loop; the other held a small round of white plastic. He knew better than to touch anything. ‘Any idea what it might be?’ he asked.

  Rosie made a face. He knew she hated to speculate but he always asked her just the same.

  ‘Guitar string?’

  Lorimer looked more closely at the wire. Its silver coils were wound round and round the throat like some obscene African necklace. ‘Too long for a guitar,’ he muttered to himself.

  ‘What about a harp, then?’ Dan offered, his large hands making circles in the air as he mentally unwound the filament, calculating its length.

  ‘Could be. We’ll know soon enough,’ Rosie replied briskly.

  Lorimer stood up again, the tone in her voice telling him it was time to leave the pathologists to their duties and begin his own. With his mouth set in a grim line, Lorimer realised that one of the first of these duties would be to inform Derek Quentin-Jones that his wife was no longer a missing person.

  Chapter Twelve

  When Maggie Lorimer stretched out her hand to halt the alarm’s intrusive bleep, she had no idea that another hand was at that moment unwinding a wire ligature from the neck of Karen Quentin-Jones. Maggie’s first thoughts on wakening were to remember the day of the week then calculate what time it was back home. She stretched her feet down to the coolest part of the bed then drew the single sheet up towards her chin, creating a tiny draught of air. The fan whirred quietly on the ceiling above, a noise she’d ceased to notice after all these weeks in Florida. Five more minutes, she told herself, five more minutes before the day need begin. She’d shower in the tiny cubicle adjacent to her bedroom then pad barefoot through to the open plan kitchen/living area, switch on the various machines that would deliver her breakfast while she rummaged in the closet for something suitable to wear. Waking up slowly gave her time to breathe before the rush began and, better still, gave her time to reflect.

  Her mouth curved in a wide smile as she remembered last night’s telephone conversation with her mum. They were both coming out for Christmas! How Bill had fixed that, she couldn’t imagine. Mum had always been adamant that nobody would catch her flying on an aeroplane. But somehow Bill had sweet-talked her into it.

  Bill. Maggie breathed a long sigh. They’d be here for two whole weeks. He’d promised. There was leave long overdue and he was taking it, he’d assured his wife. Maggie’s right hand drifted unconsciously to the place where her husband would lie. Two weeks. They’d be together, on holiday, for all that time. OK, Mum was going to be there too, but the nights would be theirs alone. Maggie closed her eyes and conjured up her husband’s face, the rough places around his jaw when he’d been too long away from a razor, the mole on his left cheek and the way his eyes crinkled when she made him laugh. She swallowed hard. Dwelling on such things would undermine her resolve. Better to think about practicalities.

  There was so much they could all do during the holiday. Maggie forced her thoughts towards all the sights she wanted to share with the two people she loved best in the world. Some of these were right here in Sarasota. Mum would love the Marie Selby Gardens, especially all those orchids, and she’d have to take them to the Ringling Museum, its mock Venetian Palazzo looking out over Long Boat Key. There were other sights they might want to visit; places further afield that she’d been saving up to explore. Maybe they could take a mini-break down to the Keys? Her head buzzed with the possibilities. It would be fun to show off the bits of Sarasota that she knew so well, now. OK, she’d only been here for eight weeks, Maggie calculated, but already she felt proprietorial about the place. Her place. A few more weeks and they’d be arriving. She longed to show her husband the apartment. Maggie screwed up her eyes tightly. No. What she really wanted was to show him that she could do this thing on her own. It mattered that he saw her in charge of her life.

  Maggie listened to the noises of traffic outside her window and that cawing bird she’d yet to identify. Bill might know what it was. How he’d love the birds out here, especially the brown pelicans flying idly over the water. Her mind raced ahead, skimming over the prospects of those precious two weeks. A sudden thought intruded like a cloud blotting out the sun. What would she feel once they’d gone home again? she asked herself. Loneliness? Regret? So far work had been a balm to soothe those self-inflicted sores. In January the new semester would begin. She’d have six more months of being busy at the High School before her exchange was up. Then what? a small voice asked. She pushed the thought
away as her hand threw off the crumpled sheet.

  Maggie’s feet hit the wooden floorboards that were already warm with the morning sun penetrating the slatted blinds. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she hauled the cotton nightshirt over her damp curls. Shower first, she told herself, then coffee, then …? Then the day would materialise into its usual pattern dominated by assertive teenagers and voluble colleagues, a weary voice reminded her. Her five minutes of peace were up. It was time to join the frantic tilt at accumulating credits that passed for education in this part of the world. That really wasn’t fair, she scolded herself. Maggie heaved a sigh. OK, so she had to confess: it was no better or worse than the system back home. At least it was warm here, she smiled ruefully, running fingers through her moist tangle of curls.

  As Maggie Lorimer switched on the shower, her naked flesh responded gratefully to the tepid spray sloughing away the sweat of another restless night.

  Four thousand miles away, Doctor Rosie Fergusson laid the harp wire on a tray beside Karen’s body.

  ‘You can see the ligature marks now, can’t you?’ she asked, glancing up at Chief Inspector Lorimer who was standing close to the viewing window. Despite the toughened glass they could converse easily through the Mortuary’s sound system.

  Lorimer looked at the marks left by the twisted wire. The depth of the ligature was quite dramatic. Even after Rosie had removed that last twist, the neck bore a deep cleft as if the wire were still biting into the woman’s dead flesh. The wound told its own tale, one of passionate determination to put an end to Karen Quentin-Jones. To stop her breath, to stop any sound she’d ever make again, except that last choking as the wire finally did its work.

  ‘What are these scratch marks near the wound?’

  ‘Fingernails. We might find traces of her own skin under her nails. She’d been trying to get the wire off.’ Rosie looked down at the body below her. ‘Didn’t help though. She’d have lost consciousness in less than a minute.’

  ‘Not enough time to have made any cries for help, then?’

  Rosie shook her head. ‘Hardly a peep. Still,’ she added in a cheerier tone of voice, ‘it looks worse than it is.’

  Lorimer glanced at the swollen, reddened face then looked away again.

  ‘She’ll look better after the post-mortem once the blood’s drained,’ Rosie assured him.

  ‘So,’ he began, ‘when did she die?’

  ‘When was she last seen alive?’ Rosie countered.

  ‘Wednesday night. They had an evening rehearsal. Finished at ten.’

  ‘Hm. Can’t be precise, but it’s possible she died not long after that.’

  Lorimer nodded. Karen Quentin-Jones should have been on her way home shortly after that. CCTV footage showed no sign of anyone leaving the building later than eleven-fourteen.

  The last member of the Orchestra to leave had been Carl. The great Dane, she’d called him, Lorimer remembered. The camera had shown him hurrying away from the stage door, coat collar up against the chill wind, his viola case tucked beneath one arm. And could Karen’s missing violin have been inside that case? It would have been easy enough to conceal the instrument under a coat or within a music case. Easy for any of them, come to that.

  Most of the musicians had left and walked uphill, towards the car park, their faces scanned only for the briefest of moments and some totally obscured beneath hoods and umbrellas. But there was no mistaking the Dane. He’d scanned that section of film over and over, watching the man’s retreating back, asking himself if he was looking at a murderer. A few of them were being invited in again for questioning, Carl Bekaert among them. Lorimer tapped a fingernail against his front teeth, oblivious to the surgical procedure that was taking place in front of him. The big Dane. Could he have fixed that duster across the CCTV lens with his bow? He was certainly tall enough. And he was one of George’s lovely boys, darling, a voice reminded him. Lorimer started as if Karen’s haughty drawl were coming through the glass.

  ‘No. That’s it. Cause of death: strangulation involving a ligature,’ Rosie’s words brought him back suddenly. ‘No signs of any other trauma. No evidence of sexual assault.’

  ‘Any idea yet where the killing took place?’

  ‘We’re still working on that one. It’ll keep the SOCOs busy for a while. It wasn’t done in the plant room, that’s for sure. The trap door was only opened when we arrived. The maintenance boys’ idea to give us more light on our subject. Did more than that, though didn’t it?’ she caught his eye and grinned.

  ‘The body was directly under the trap door in a position commensurate with having been dropped through from just that height,’ Rosie said.

  Lorimer nodded. Whoever had killed Karen Quentin-Jones must have had some nerve. Someone had shoved her body through that space in the stage. He tried to visualise the darkened auditorium and the stage set out with music stands for a concert that was certain to be cancelled, now. The vision of the abandoned stage made something flicker in his brain as if someone had struck a match, but whatever it was guttered and died as suddenly as it had appeared. He gave a shudder that had nothing to do with the cadaver lying a few feet away. All at once he needed to be somewhere else, finding out answers to more questions than the ones Rosie was asking.

  ‘OK,’ Lorimer raised a hand. ‘I’m off. Send me a copy of the report whenever you’ve finished, will you?’ He fished in his pockets for the car keys, his thoughts already elsewhere.

  Rosie smiled briefly then turned her attention to the body on the slab. The Police would have their paperwork, but first she had to complete the examination as thoroughly and tenderly as she could. It was something the living owed to the dead, Rosie always told herself; especially to those whose ending had been particularly violent.

  The rain on his windscreen closed Lorimer off from the outside world as he sat next to the City Mortuary. Karen Quentin-Jones’ face came back to him as he’d first seen her. A woman with a fine opinion of herself, he remembered.

  Not the least sign of apprehension had shown in that cat-like smile. No, she’d had nothing to fear, of that Lorimer was certain. So why had she been the second victim? Had she known something about George’s killer? Perhaps. But her violin was missing too, he remembered. People had been killed for less than a sixty-five grand violin, Lorimer knew.

  Lorimer switched on the ignition and instantly the rain was swept away showing the different shades of grey on the city street. He turned the Lexus towards Glasgow Cross, reflecting on the history at the heart of the old town. Here wealthy merchants had amassed their fortunes trading with the Virginia tobacco plantations. Here too, was the site of all the public hangings that had taken place, the Gallowgate. Lorimer gave a thin-lipped smile thinking how apt it was that the city’s mortuary and the High Court were situated in this part of Glasgow. Justice was still being meted out in some form, at any rate. His smile creased into a frown as thoughts of the dead woman returned. Had that been somebody’s warped idea of justice?

  Lorimer hardly noticed the swinging bells and dancing angels being erected on each side of George Square. His mind was taking him on a walk through the depths of the Royal Concert Hall to the stage elevator pit. Every set of lights along Saint Vincent Street changed to red as the big car approached but for once Lorimer didn’t curse them. Who had access to that trap door? And what would have happened to Karen’s body if the dungeon hadn’t been flooded? Lorimer shuddered at the memory of that dark, enclosed space beneath the stage and the twin steel pillars that rose and fell to raise sections of staging.

  Had the killer thought that her body would be crushed under the weight of the hydraulics? or would the mechanism have failed because of the corpse lying in the sunken area below the stage?

  It seemed no time at all until he was across town and into the City of Glasgow Orchestra’s private car park.

  Brendan Phillips was sitting at a desk leafing through a pile of paperwork when Lorimer walked into the room.

  ‘Oh! Oh! It’
s you!’ The Orchestra Manager was half out of his seat, his face turned towards the Chief Inspector.

  Lorimer’s eyes narrowed. In that split second when he’d been disturbed, Brendan Phillips had visibly jumped from fear. While one part of his brain told Lorimer that it was entirely natural given all the poor man had been through, another part was asking questions.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Phillips began, then, sinking back into his seat. ‘Well, no. No. I’m not all right. How could I be?’ A querulous note entered his voice. Lorimer shrugged. Of course the man wasn’t all right. He was a bundle of nerves.

  ‘I came to ask you some more questions,’ Lorimer told him gently, taking a seat beside Brendan Phillips’s desk.

  ‘There’s nothing else I can tell you,’ Brendan began, his eyes pleading with Lorimer to leave him alone. ‘I really don’t know what’s been going on any more than you do.’

  ‘OK. I’m sure that’s how it seems. But the normal day-to-day things that might not mean a lot to you could have huge significance when we put them into a different context. You follow?’

  Brendan Phillips closed his eyes and drew his fingers back and forth across his brow as if something pained him. Lorimer waited. He recalled Karen Quentin-Jones’s derision when she had referred to the Orchestra Manager as ‘Brenda’. The man was certainly living up to her sneer. Lorimer had seen more backbone in a young child. Still, he was in a world where artistic temperaments abounded and sensitive souls were probably the norm.

  ‘Take me through the last rehearsal. Just tell me everything that took place.’

  Brendan sighed. ‘It was just a routine rehearsal for the Christmas Classics concert, nothing that was too taxing. There was nothing really very new. It’s for the older audience. You know? “White Christmas”, “Sleigh Ride”, “Lara’s theme” from Doctor Zhivago; that sort of stuff.’