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.