Alex Gray - Shadows of Sounds

For a moment Solomon felt a heat suffuse his cheeks. His relationship with the pathologist was nobody’s business but his own. As he stared back at the Superintendent Solly experienced a sudden revelation. Not only was he acknowledging to himself that he and Rosie were in a relationship but he saw just how ready he was to protect and defend her. The insight made him smile. He decided not to respond, waiting instead for Mitchison to spell out the reason for his invitation to headquarters.

For a second time a cordon was flung around one of Glasgow’s focal points. But as yet it was an invisible cordon as there was no telltale scene-of-crime tape.

The Bath Street entrance to the Buchanan Galleries was closed off, much to the annoyance of its manager. It was a real inconvenience to all his shoppers, he protested, but neither he nor they had any knowledge yet of a body floating deep below the city pavements. Nor would they know if the Police Press office kept the news strictly to itself for a while, Lorimer told himself. All that was apparent was the presence of a Strathclyde Fire Brigade truck, its hoses snaking into the emergency exit at west Nile Street and down into the roots of the building.

Lorimer stood for a minute regarding the grey lines disappearing into the darkness. The steps down into the dungeon looked dank and unwholesome as if the triangular shadows in each corner held some poisonous muck. He could see flickering light from the firemen’s torches down below, somewhere out of sight. The beams they cast made ghosts dance upon the streaming walls. Lorimer’s mouth felt dry as he swallowed. This unnatural fear that had haunted him from childhood seemed to grip him by the throat, rendering his whole body useless for the task ahead. He gritted his teeth, cursing his weakness then forced one foot in front of the other as he began the descent down into the bowels of the Concert Hall. The soles of his shoes squelched against the sodden carpet, its blood-red colour blackened both by the flood and the many pairs of booted feet that had preceded Lorimer down into the lowest levels of the building.

As always the walls seemed to close in on him, and he had to fight the impulse to raise his hand to ward off their phantom approach. He swallowed once more and continued down each slimy step.

Round a bend in the staircase Lorimer saw with some relief that the dungeon was a fairly wide space though the roof, as he’d expected, was oppressively low.

As the stairs ended, Lorimer felt the water gather round his ankles. It took an effort to move forward, sloshing one foot after the other towards the middle of the plant room. As he ducked to avoid the metal cable trays overhead, the pencil torch he was carrying picked out red lettering on a bank of control panels: DANGER 440 VOLTS. Lorimer felt the sweat trickle down between his shoulder blades. There were electric cables above his head and all along the walls of this room.

One flick of a switch by a careless hand could send them all to eternity.

‘Keep back, will ye, sir?’ one of the firemen called. Lorimer, peering through the intermittent darkness could see that they were draining a lake of black water. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could make out two white-clad figures bending over what looked like flotsam washed up on the far shore of the pool. On either side of them were drive shafts that led up towards a flat ceiling where a dim rectangle of light illumined the activity below. Measuring the space between the pool and the roof above, Lorimer calculated he was standing almost directly below the stage.

He gazed back at the two white figures. Their ghostly appearance held no terrors for DCI Lorimer, who grinned as he recognised the diminutive Doctor Fergusson and Dan, her burly counterpart from Pathology. Looking down at his shoes, Lorimer gave a sigh.

‘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.