Shadows of Sounds Read Free Page A

‘That’s fine. Just keep the masses away from here. We don’t want to contaminate this area any further. OK?’
    ‘Yes,’ Phillips seemed uncertain if he should stay around but clearly didn’t relish the prospect of being insuch close proximity to whatever they were planning to do with George Millar’s corpse.
    Lorimer turned back to the Orchestra Manager. This time he laid a consoling hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘Look. You’ve had a pretty tough time tonight. Why don’t you stay down in Security meantime? I’ll catch up with you when we’re finished in here.’
    Brendan Phillips gave a grateful nod. The man looked simply defeated, thought Lorimer. A dead body might be all in a day’s work for Rosie, and to a lesser extent for a DCI but, Lorimer reminded himself, it was surely outside the experience of the average Orchestra Manager.
    ‘Well. what have we here?’ Lorimer joined the pathologist at the entrance to the tiled bathroom. The preliminary examination had taken place, he supposed. George Millar’s body still lay face down, but Rosie would have taken the body temperature as a first measure.
    ‘Time of death?’ he queried.
    ‘How did I know you were going to ask me that? You’re so predictable, Lorimer,’ Rosie teased. ‘Not that long ago, actually. The body was still warm when I got here, but rigor was coming on so I’d narrow it down to say he died two to three hours ago.’ She looked at her watch. ‘That’s about half an hour, or less maybe, before the concert was due to start. This room’s pretty well heated but I don’t think that complicates the timing too much.’
    ‘Good. So any CCTV footage from about seven o’clock onwards should show us who was around this particular dressing room,’ Lorimer mused.
    The fact that so many people had been in the Concert Hall made this case a potential shambles. But, really, these security devices should eliminate practically all of them.
    Lorimer didn’t anticipate a lot of bother with this one. once they’d seen the footage, they’d be home and dry, surely?
     
    Sitting in the tiny space that passed for the Security department, Lorimer scanned the tapes that had purported to show all movement in and around the whole of the Concert Hall since midday. His initial optimism about finding evidence on the tape footage was rapidly being extinguished.
    ‘That’s when we change the tapes,’ Neville explained to him, ‘There’s maybe a two minute delay between taking the last ones out and putting fresh ones in. That’s all.’
    Lorimer frowned. The screen that should have shown the area around the Artistes’ dressing rooms had been blanked out from just after seven o’clock.
    ‘And didn’t you do something about it when you saw that?’ Lorimer demanded of the man.
    Neville shrugged. ‘Our usual technician’s off sick tonight. There’s just me and I didn’t know there’d been a murder, did I? Anyway, the outside cameras are probably more of a concern at that time of night.’
    ‘Oh? Why?’
    Neville looked uneasy. ‘Don’t get me wrong. It’s not me who makes decisions about that sort of thing,’ he paused. ‘It’s all the beggars we get around here; Big Issue sellers and druggies with their wee plastic cups. It’s company policy to keep an eye on them.’
    ‘So what did you think when you saw that one of your monitors was suddenly blank?’ Lorimer wanted to know.
    ‘I was puzzled. But then His Nibs phoned down and told me to dial 999. That was when I realised there musthave been something fishy about that screen.’
    Lorimer gritted his teeth, so much for an easy solution. Whoever had immobilised the CCTV camera upstairs had planned things pretty carefully. At least he knew now that this was no random killing. Premeditated murder would be on the charge sheet in the event of an arrest.
    ‘OK. Thanks. We’ll need the original tapes to take away tonight. I’ll have them copied and returned to you whenever it’s possible,’