Authors: Alex Gray
‘Well, Chief Inspector, just how long do you intend keeping us cooped up here like a lot of cattle?’ The woman’s sarcasm made WPC Irvine flinch. People who knew Lorimer just didn’t speak to him like that in her experience. So she was surprised when Lorimer smiled.
‘Would you come with me please? Constable Irvine, may I have this lady’s notes. I’ll be through in the room marked “Ness”. All right?’
Wordlessly, the musician rose from the chair, brushing out the layers of her skirt and followed Lorimer to the door leading to the other end of the Artistes’ corridor.
The tape was fastened across the narrow space but Lorimer untied it, indicating that the woman should pass through with him. For a second she hesitated. It was clear she knew what had taken place along here and didn’t relish the prospect of being so close to violent death.
‘If you would just take a seat in here, I’ll be right with you,’ Lorimer told her, holding open the door of the empty dressing room. He closed it behind her and turned to look up in the corner by the corridor door.
The CCTV camera was covered with a dark piece of cloth. Lorimer stood on tiptoe to examine it more closely. It looked for all the world like a black duster. A few strides would take him back into Morar. He stopped at the doorway, hearing familiar voices and realised that Rosie now had the company of the Scene of Crime Officers.
‘Sorry. Stay out of here will you! Oh, it’s you, Lorimer,’ Rosie looked up as he came into the room.
‘Can I borrow someone for a minute?’
Jim Freely, one of the SOCOs, followed him into the corridor.
‘There,’ Lorimer pointed to the cloth covering the camera. ‘Can you have it photographed before you take it down, d’you think?’
‘Sure,’ Jim gave Lorimer a quizzical look. ‘Someone’s gone to a bit of trouble to keep themselves off the screens, eh? Can’t be one of the performers, then. They’re only too keen to be on the telly,’ he joked, walking back to Morar.
Lorimer stood looking up at the cloth then back at the shape of the corridor. The doorways of each dressing room were deeply recessed in from the wall. He took a step towards the entrance of Ness but did not open the door. Instead, he stood back in the shadow of the doorway and lifted his hand towards the camera. It was several feet away. Whoever had immobilised it must have used something to attach the cloth. Something like a walking stick, perhaps? Lorimer made a mental note to scan the tape again as soon as he could. Meantime Mrs Quentin-Jones was waiting for his attention.
He gave a quick knock and entered the dressing room.
It was like George Millar’s room, only not quite so grand. Karen Quentin-Jones had placed herself in the middle of a small settee, her voluminous skirts spread out around her. There was another chair in the corner.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ he began, fetching the chair and setting it down at an angle beside her. ‘Now. I gather you were acting as Leader of the orchestra tonight. Is that correct?’
The woman bent her head imperiously, steady grey eyes looking straight at him. ‘Quite correct.’
‘As Second Fiddle, you’d go on stage with the other members of the Orchestra. Which side did you come on?’
‘Violins came on from stage right,’ she answered.
Lorimer made a mental sketch in his head. ‘That’s by the Stage Manager’s cubicle, yes?’
‘Correct.’
‘And what time did you all leave your dressing rooms?’
‘Seven-fifteen. We always have a call at seven-twenty, but usually we’re ready to go on before then.’
Lorimer remembered the few occasions when he and Maggie had attended orchestral concerts. The members of the Orchestra usually came onto stage in dribs and drabs, adjusting music stands, playing snatches of music until the Second Fiddle gave them their note to tune up.
‘So everybody was on stage by what time?’
‘Oh, definitely seven-twenty-five. I remember looking at my watch and thinking it would all be over in two hours and twenty minutes. Quarter to ten,’ she added as if Lorimer was too slow to work that out for himself. He ignored the sarcasm and continued, ‘Was anybody late arriving on stage?’
Karen’s eyes widened, the reasoning behind that question clearly not lost on her.
‘No,’ she answered immediately. Then she seemed to hesitate for a moment before continuing, ‘But not everybody was needed for the first half. Some of the brass section and two in percussion would still have been backstage then.’
Lorimer was interested in her faltering tone. Her mind was obviously moving on to the consideration of who
might have killed George Millar. She didn’t want it to be one of her own colleagues, he could tell.
‘Did it bother you that you had to take the part of Leader at such short notice?’
Karen made a face. ‘I didn’t have time to be bothered. Anyway, it’s not the first time it’s happened.’
‘Oh?’ Lorimer raised his eyebrows, inferring that she should elaborate on her statement.
‘There was an incident earlier in the season when George was suddenly very sick just before the start of a concert. It turned out to be bad oysters,’ she wrinkled her nose in distaste. Was she insinuating that the Leader had consumed oysters to boost his sexuality or was she simply the squeamish type? Looking at her, Lorimer was prepared to bet that she had a cast iron constitution.
‘What can you tell me about Mr Millar?’
‘What do you want to know?’ she answered back, almost rudely.
Remembering Mrs Ellis in his street, Lorimer bit back a hasty retort. He knew he’d be given plenty of facts-and-figures information from the Orchestra Manager who was responsible for the Orchestra personnel, but he sensed this woman could provide a different side to the standard ‘everybody liked him, he had no enemies’ routine that invariably met his questions after a sudden, unexplained death.
‘I want to know what you thought of George Millar. What manner of man was he?’ Lorimer asked quietly.
For the first time Karen Quentin-Jones lost her imperious look and became thoughtful. Perhaps she was finally experiencing some real remorse for the man who had been her colleague, Lorimer thought. Her next words
took him by surprise, however.
‘He was a total shit,’ she said calmly, leaning back and crossing her legs in a rustle of petticoats under the black lace.
‘In what way?’ Lorimer asked, trying to conceal his astonishment at her remark.
‘In his relationships. In the way he treated people.’
‘Care to expand on that for me?’ Lorimer asked wryly. ‘Tell some tales out of school?’ The question was blatantly suggesting that the woman before him would relish a good gossip. It was rather out of order under the present circumstances and they both knew it but to his relief he saw the hint of a smile play about the violinist’s mouth.
‘I really shouldn’t be telling you this,’ she began, ‘but George was a very naughty boy. Kept all his lovers in a fair old turmoil, he did, playing them off against one another.’
‘His lovers? Ladies in the Orchestra, do you mean?’ Lorimer asked, suddenly wondering if the woman numbered herself among George Millar’s lovers.
‘God, no!’ She gave a harsh little laugh. ‘George was as bent as his fiddle, darling!’
Lorimer stared at her. The screwed-up face describing the oysters had been an indication of her disapproval of the late Leader’s sexual appetite. The way Karen had mentioned his lovers suggested that it had been a rather voracious appetite at that. And were these signs of distaste more to do with a homophobic attitude on her part?
Lorimer thought again of the fearsome Mrs Ellis. He was sure she’d be first in the queue to protest against the gay community if she believed it was trying to encroach on her precious suburban street.
‘Did he live with anybody in particular?’ Lorimer decided to ask as a way of moving the dialogue forward.
‘His wife,’ answered Karen, her face studying his reaction in amusement. Lorimer didn’t return her smile. He was well enough acquainted with homosexual relationships to know that nothing was straightforward. often a married couple found, sometimes very belatedly, that their sexual orientation was not as they had imagined on the day of their nuptials. It was surprising how so many couples stayed together despite that. Surprising, too, the tolerance shown towards the aberrant one in the marriage.
‘Who were George Millar’s lovers?’ he asked, the question deliberately blunt.
Karen pulled a small evening bag onto her lap. ‘Mind if I smoke?’
Lorimer did mind, but it was his policy to let any smoker indulge their habit if it relaxed them into telling him what he wanted to know. He simply nodded his head and waited as she fished out a pack of Rothman’s and lit up her cigarette with a tiny silver lighter shaped like a harp. He watched as she inhaled deeply then blew the smoke over one shoulder.
‘I didn’t know who they all were, naturally, only the ones in the Orchestra. I’m sure he had lots of other friends, though.’
Was she playing with him, wondered Lorimer, or was she stalling for time, wondering whether she should tell him the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
His blue stare seemed to unnerve the woman, however, as she flicked ash from her cigarette and gave a small sigh.
‘Currently he was messing around with Simon and Carl. Simon is our Number Three Horn and Carl plays Second Viola. We call him the Great Dane. He’s six foot six. A big, blond boy,’ she added with a leer.
Lorimer made a mental note to seek out the two men for interview before the night was out. He didn’t relish the thought of prying into their affairs with George but it would have to be done. Karen, on the other hand, seemed to take pleasure in dishing the dirt on George. Lorimer thought he knew why.
‘Did you enjoy being in charge tonight?’ he asked.
‘Naturally,’ she smiled. ‘It was a good programme.’
Lorimer looked at the order of pieces played in the first half.
‘Ah. You’d have played the solo during the Albinoni Adagio, then?’ he murmured.
The woman’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Good gracious. A policeman who isn’t a complete Philistine. Wonders will never cease.’
Lorimer didn’t rise to the bait. It was pure luck that he happened to have a recording of this piece of music. His classical discs rubbed shoulders with everything from Pink Floyd to REM.
‘Can you think of anything unusual that happened tonight before the concert?’ he asked, changing tack again.
‘What sort of thing?’ the woman countered, screwing up her eyes as she exhaled smoke into the air.
‘A change to the normal routine. A crisis of some kind.’
The woman gave a snort. ‘There’s always a crisis of some kind. Concerts rarely run to plan. Sometimes we have
to deputise at the last minute. Other times it’s silly things like someone forgetting to pack their evening shoes.’
‘And tonight?’ Lorimer persisted. Why did he get the feeling she was still stalling him?
‘Oh Brenda was flapping about like a wet hen. Chloe, the harpist, had no music on her stand. Brenda had to run round to the library box to fetch her some.’
‘Brenda?’ Lorimer queried, but even as the word came out he guessed what Karen Quentin-Jones would reply.
‘Brendan Phillips, our very own nanny. Orchestra Manager is his official designation,’ she added.
Lorimer flinched. Was the man who had made the discovery of George Millar’s murder also gay, or was the Second Violin simply unable to talk of her colleagues without making some sarcastic remark? He was beginning to wonder about this woman.
‘And that was all? There was nothing else?’
‘Not that I noticed,’ she replied, avoiding his eyes and flicking an invisible speck from her lacy dress. ‘Is that all? May I go home now?’ she drawled as if the interview had begun to bore her.
Lorimer glanced at the notes WPC Irvine had made. Karen Quentin-Jones had given an address in a part of the city that boasted some fine, detached properties, the sort of old houses that required a lot of money to maintain.
Lorimer studied Karen Quentin-Jones briefly, taking in the well-cut hair and jewels at her throat. This lady didn’t look short of a bob or two so her reason for working with an orchestra was hardly likely to be financial. It must be love of music, he mused, though she hadn’t struck him as the dedicated, artistic type. Perhaps it was different once you were on stage.
Lorimer looked again at her home address. She wouldn’t be too hard to find again if he needed her.
‘Yes,’ he answered shortly. ‘Be sure to sign out with Security at the stage door.’
They rose together, the violinist’s black skirts shivering against the carpet. Lorimer held open the door then followed her to the end of the corridor where he again untied the striped tape.
‘Thank you,’ Karen Quentin-Jones gave him a small nod and headed for the stairs that would take her back to the musicians’ dressing rooms. Lorimer watched her go. There was something in her manner that had disturbed him. Either she had told him too much or else there was something she knew that she was keeping entirely to herself.
The music room was flooded with light when Karen Quentin-Jones stepped towards her French windows. She could see the outline of the beech trees, their bark silvered from the light of the moon. A smile hovered around her mouth. What a perfect night this could have been! She’d played her socks off. Even that great bear of a Russian had tapped his baton against the podium. Laying her violin case on an ornate table by the window, Karen undid the clips that kept it fastened then opened it slowly and for a moment she simply gazed at the instrument. Then, like a woman afraid to awake her sleeping lover, she stroked the chestnut-coloured wood with one finger.
Giving a sigh, her eyes turned from the violin nestled within its case and she looked again at the darkness outside. She could have had such a triumph but her performance had been brutally overshadowed. Even in death George
Millar had outplayed her. Or had he?
Karen’s smile straightened out and her eyes narrowed into a frown. This would mean some changes all round. She would be asked to fill George’s shoes, she thought suddenly then shuddered at the image. And it would affect other people too, she thought, her lip curling in contempt.