He was out of the shower and towelling dry his hair in record time. What had happened to the percussionists since their preliminary interviews? That piece was to have been played in the second half. They’d always had two hammers ready. Why had that been? Had he even asked that question? And what had the players who were not needed for the first half of the concert been doing during the time that George Millar was in his dressing room? He’d have his work cut out today to catch up with the transcripts of interviews. Annie Irvine had assured him that the computer files would be updated to make cross-referencing easier. Lorimer growled at his steamy reflection in the bathroom mirror. He’d see if that were true soon enough.
‘No breakfast this morning either? That’s not good for you, y’know!’ Sadie’s voice followed Lorimer out of the canteen as he strode along the corridor to his office, trying not to get his fingers too sticky with the icing from his daily Danish.
The file was still incomplete but he’d expected that. There were names and addresses of all the musicians, choral singers and the punters who’d had their evening’s entertainment cut short. Or had they? The morning headlines screamed murder at him from the Gazette. There was a grainy picture of Poliakovski that was obviously an old publicity shot judging from the man’s slimmer figure. Lorimer was torn between trying to focus on the computer screen and reading the front-page columns.
He gave up and rustled the paper into shape, beginning to read the tabloid version of events in Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. They’d sensationalised it, of course. Poliakovski was their main focus of interest simply because of his high profile in the music world. There had been a short press statement following George’s death and a smallish piece had appeared the day following the Leader’s murder. But now the hacks had got hold of more details and were milking the story for all it was worth. Lorimer had to admit it made pretty bizarre reading.
Poliakovski claimed to have been devastated by George’s sudden death and the idea that someone could have got access to his dressing room so easily. There was a veiled suggestion that the killer had perhaps got the wrong victim, that in fact the Russian conductor was the real target and that this was a professional hit. Lorimer reeled at this. It was risible. But then the reporters hadn’t got all the facts. They weren’t to know about the immobilisation of the CCTV camera outside Morar, were they?
But would that have made such a difference? Lorimer’s mind spun rapidly. George Millar had been a fairly short chap, but, like Poliakovski, he’d sported a beard and was thinning on top. The Russian was a huge bear of a man. Surely there could have been no mistaking him if this had been a pro’s job? All the other attention to detail ruled that out, didn’t it?
The paper went on to discuss the Russian’s position on dissident musicians and his own political leanings within his country. There wasn’t an awful lot about poor old George, the actual victim. It wouldn’t be long, thought Lorimer, before they’d sniffed out the facts of George’s homosexuality. Then they’d have a field day. He wondered how Mrs Millar would respond to a crowd of reporters at her door.
Back on the screen, Lorimer could see the names of so many strangers scrolling up past him. The team had done a good job of tabulating the musicians’ names and addresses alongside their particular part in the Orchestra, even down to the desk number. Brendan Phillips’s hand was in this detail, Lorimer supposed. There had been four percussionists paid for that night’s concert, two men and two women. Three were British, one American, Lorimer noted. No Eastern Europeans amongst them. Why had he made that mental remark to himself? Was he becoming paranoid over the Gazette’s suppositions? The percussionists’ statements all tallied. They’d been together in their dressing room from the time the rest of the Orchestra had trooped on stage to the time they’d been informed of George’s death. They’d followed the concert on the TV monitor in the room. Only one of them had been out of the room for more than a few minutes. Cassandra Austen had visited the ladies toilet once during that time. CCTV footage had confirmed her statement. Lorimer was impressed. The team had been hard at work collating what evidence there was and now there could be a proper process of elimination.
The CCTV footage had helped enormously, though not in the way Lorimer had first hoped. The members of the audience who had come into the auditorium had been checked out. Very few had left their seats during the first half of the performance. Most had visited the toilet area by the cloakrooms. One had been seen taking a telephone call on his mobile at the foot of the stairs. He’d been confirmed as a Consultant Surgeon on call. There were no suspicious punters mooching about backstage. To take the audience out of the equation gave Lorimer a huge sense of relief. The members of the Chorus had trooped on stage in a particular pre-ordained order. There was even a pegboard with their names in a seating plan that had been checked against a still from the monitor. That didn’t mean there wasn’t a killer amongst them, but it did narrow the possible time of death to the twenty minutes before the Chorus had appeared on stage. Prior to that, they’d been clustered on the stairs leading from dressing rooms 5, 6 and 7 for a final briefing from their Chorus Master.
Lorimer stopped reading and frowned. Where had the Chorus Master gone after that? He scrolled up and down but failed to find the man’s name amongst the musicians or members of the Chorus. Odd. After the thoroughness of the rest of the team’s efforts this was a glaring omission. He searched back through the list of members of the audience. It wasn’t there either. The final check had to show his name amongst all the back room boys, surely? People like Brendan Phillips and other administrators, the drivers and shifters and the permanent Concert Hall staff were all listed in a separate file. But the name was still missing. Lorimer chewed his lip. He didn’t even know who he was looking for, simply a name against the designation: Chorus Master, City of Glasgow Chorus. When he’d checked the lists again he lifted the phone and dialled Brendan Phillips’s number at the orchestra Manager’s headquarters.
‘Good morning, Chief Inspector. Any news yet?’ Brendan Phillips’s voice sounded breathless as if he’d been running to pick up the phone.
‘Nothing to pass on to you as yet, sir. But I do have a question to ask you. Do you have the full name and address of the Chorus Master?’ Lorimer’s question was intended to make it seem as if he was querying information he already had rather than fill in an embarrassing blank.
‘Could you hold just for a minute?’ Lorimer heard the clunk of the handset being placed on Brendan’s desk as he waited for the Orchestra Manager to return.
‘Here we are. C. Maurice Drummond, 24 Belmont Street. Afraid I don’t know what the C stands for, Chief Inspector. we all know him as Maurice.’
Lorimer grinned to himself. This was a piece of pure luck. Phillips would think he needed the man’s Christian names. Whatever C stood for it wouldn’t make Chief Inspector Lorimer look a right Charlie. He’d follow it up, nonetheless, he thought as he scribbled down the man’s telephone number. Someone would have to go and check this one out. He’d enough to do without running around the West End every minute of the day. Lorimer dialled another number and gave instructions for a visit to be made to Mr C. Maurice Drummond.
Funny, though, he mused after he’d spoken to WPC Irvine, how he had slipped through the net like that.
By Rosie’s reckoning the murder had taken place before the musicians had gone on stage. The events behind the scenes during that half hour before the scheduled performance were pretty much visible on the CCTV footage. He’d spent hours watching the screen show men in dress shirts milling around their dressing rooms, folk smoking outside at the back door, musicians and members of the Chorus alike wandering through the warren of corridors backstage. And in the minutes before that particular camera had gone blank there was only an empty corridor. The last people seen moving along there had been Brendan Phillips and one of the female stewards. If Lorimer’s hunch was right, the camera had been tampered with by someone coming in from the area behind stage left, not someone who had calmly walked down the corridor towards it.