Authors: Alex Gray
Maggie Lorimer put down the phone, her hand trembling. What on earth had possessed him? The lad could be into anything. Hadn’t he already admitted dealing in drugs, for heaven’s sake? Yet the sensible half of her had kept quiet as Lorimer related his plans for Flynn’s recuperation. Her husband was a policeman, after all; he knew the score better than any of them. Any error of judgement regarding this boy would be utterly out of character for him. So why did she feel so shaken?
It’s your home, that’s why, a little voice reminded her.
Suddenly the vision of her untidy lounge with its shelves of books on two walls came to mind. It would be dark there, now. Would the table lamp be switched on? She’d left it on a timer, but that was back in August when the nights had still been light. Maybe it was raining, the cold wind sweeping the rowan leaves over the grass at the front. would any of the neighbours have lit their Christmas trees at the windows yet? OK, it was still only November, but here the razzmatazz of ‘the holiday’ as they
called it had been in force since Hallowe’en. Fairy lights flickered all along the street where Maggie lived, her own apartment windows blank. It was something they always left until the last minute, usually when school broke up at the end of term.
Then Maggie would fling herself into a frenzy of shopping and decorating, usually ending up asleep on Christmas afternoon.
She wanted to be there, she realised, preparing things for this stray that Bill had found. ‘You’re jealous!’ she whispered aloud, the truth of her feeling shocking her. This boy, this vagabond, who had usurped her home; she wanted to be there to provide for him, to make up a Christmas stocking, to see that he was warm and loved. But it was Bill who would be responsible for these things, if he thought about them at all.
‘Maggie Lorimer, stop all this at once!’ she scolded herself, recognising the latent maternal instinct for what it was.
Christmas. Christmas had always been home with Mum and Dad then just Mum and the two of them. What had Christmas been like for this Flynn person? And what, since Mum and Bill were intending to come over by December 25th, would it be like for him this year? Had Bill even thought this through? In their conversation nothing had been mentioned about where the boy would go when her husband left for Florida. Surely he wouldn’t leave him there alone? But then, where else would the lad go? Maggie asked herself fretfully.
Her hand hovered over the telephone once more then dropped. No. Bill would sort it out. She’d left him to get on with his life in Scotland. Somehow it robbed her of
her rights to make decisions about their home. Maggie bit her lip. Not for the first time she wondered at the driving force that had taken her all the way across the Atlantic.
Lorimer pushed his foot against the cupboard, hearing a clatter as the vacuum’s nozzle fell against the closed door.
Well, at least he’d made up for all those weeks of indolence, he thought with some satisfaction, then smiled wryly as he recalled Maggie’s dictum that real housework only got done whenever they were expecting guests. It was true, he supposed. Flynn’s imminent arrival had catapulted Lorimer into a frenzy of vacuuming and cleaning. Several black bin bags were stacked by the front door to be taken to the dump, some full of bottles for the bottle bank. when Maggie had been here, she’d religiously taken stuff every week, papers and all, for recycling.
The spare room was tidy now, at least; the single bed made up with an extra cover over the duvet in case the boy felt cold after the heat of his hospital room. The weather had been bitter all through November. Lorimer had spoken to the social worker attached to the hospital about Flynn’s longer-term prospects. It was agreed that it ‘was not reasonable for the patient to continue to occupy temporary accommodation’ (i.e. Lorimer’s spare room) when the DCI was to be away in Florida. There would be a furnished flat made available to Flynn, well away from his old haunts and from anyone who might try to harm him.
The hostels were out of the question. All too often pushers from outside preyed on the vulnerable men and women who sought temporary refuge in the spaces provided by these bleak rooms. It was a moral dilemma
for the case-workers attached to the Hamish Allan Centre. By law they had to find accommodation for these folk, but sometimes they knew only too well that there were pushers just waiting near the hostels to march some poor soul up to the benefit office for the handover.
And the movement of drugs within the hostels was rife; there were no locked doors, a double-edged sword that was meant to protect the men and women who tried to shelter from the streets but which could also make them a danger to one another.
In the end it had been fairly straightforward to arrange for the boy to stay for a short time. Flynn could at least apply for a benefit book now that he was to have some sort of an address, then it would be transferred to his new flat. That way the social services could recoup the housing benefit. There had been no mutterings about setting a precedent and disregard for correct procedure, as Lorimer had feared. In fact the senior emergency services officer had been more than helpful; a community nurse would be calling on a regular basis, he was told. Flynn’s neck injury was healing and the broken ribs and fractured skull no longer required quite so much in the way of pain relief.
Lorimer experienced a sudden twinge of guilt. Would Flynn be better off in some country nursing home? Somehow he doubted whether he’d be able to keep tabs on the boy if he were to be hauled out to Mearnskirk Cottage Hospital or wherever they went these days. This was an ideal opportunity to let the boy open up to him, to reveal what he could of the life he’d been living in the streets of Glasgow. That hadn’t been his underlying motive, though the thought had come pretty hard on the heels of his offer to stay, Lorimer admitted.
They’d reached an impasse in this case now, a state he’d never contemplated happening in the beginning. With a wealth of forensic material and hundreds of statements, he had been pretty sure that an arrest would have been made by now. Solly was busy drawing up a profile on what evidence there was, though there had been little feedback from the psychologist so far.
In some ways there was simply too much to handle. Much of the work done was now on computer, and the IT boys had sorted things into a variety of patterns for Solly to see.
Several of the instruments in the City of Glasgow orchestra had been bought from George Millar and their provenance was being investigated. It was clear that most of the musicians had been genuinely astonished by the First Violin’s scam. Over and over their statements expressed a gratitude at having a decent instrument made available by instalments to a colleague whom they had trusted.
As Lorimer had foreseen, the overtime bill on this case was massive. Today was the first whole Saturday he’d spent in the house since that night at the Concert Hall. Working practices were quietly ignored at times like this, despite Mitchison’s continual attempts to bring them into line with maximum shift times.
A ring on the front doorbell startled Lorimer from his thoughts.
Solomon Brightman stood on the doorstep, a tentative smile on his face.
‘Solly, what on earth?’ Lorimer began, then, ‘Has something happened?’ he frowned, opening the door and ushering Solly inside.
‘Yes and no,’ Solly smiled again, catching sight of the
instant irritation his words produced.
Lorimer ran a hand through his hair. ‘Well, let’s have it, then.’
Solly unravelled his long knitted scarf and set it down on the edge of a settee before removing his heavy black overcoat.
‘Come, on, sit yourself down.’
Solly pulled aside a plastic basin full of cleaning materials before sitting down. His eyebrows were raised in a silent query that Lorimer deliberately ignored.
‘It’s the profile,’ Solly began. ‘Mitchison has been on at me to draw something up. Oh, I know,’ he said, gesturing with his hand in the air as if to ward off any verbal assault. ‘It’s your case and he’s interfering. But be that as it may, I do have a duty to provide some form of paperwork on this.’
‘And?’
‘And I have,’ he replied, simply. ‘There’s not such a mystery over all of this. It’s not as if it’s a stranger killing. You should have no fears that we are dealing with some damaged person who has an escalating hit list.’
‘I never thought we were.’
‘No,’ Solly looked thoughtful. ‘There wasn’t a very strong reason for my presence in all of this, except your Superintendent wanting to be certain that there was no outside element involved. No loner attaching himself to the Glasgow music world.’
‘Himself. You’ve established that, then?’ Lorimer’s sarcasm was cutting.
‘A large man,’ Solly went on, oblivious to Lorimer’s tone. ‘Somebody with the strength to wield a percussion hammer effectively and to strangle a fit woman with a
harp string and dispatch her body beneath the stage. Someone who is conversant with the music world from a professional point of view.’
‘Not necessarily another musician, then?’
Solly shook his head. ‘But it could be?’
‘Of course. Many of them had the opportunity. It remains to be seen if they might also have had a motive. There was forethought into George Millar’s death, the evidence itself shows that. The
crime passionel
it was not, and yet …’
Lorimer drummed his fingers impatiently against the leg of the chair. Solly’s ponderous silences maddened him.
‘There could well be some high emotion behind this. There’s a personal motive. George Millar was careless with his relationships.’
‘Was he also careless with his business affairs?’ Lorimer asked. ‘Could it be that his colleagues in the dealing of stolen goods or those in the drug scene had a reason to put out a contract on the man?’
‘But it is the instrument itself that causes me to question our killer,’ Solly murmured into his beard.
‘Go on.’
‘There is a certain amount of irony, is there not, in a killer choosing a musical instrument as a means to kill a musician. We agree that this was a well-planned murder. So.’ Solly counted off on his fingers, ‘There is the time to think things through. Time to immobilise the CCTV cameras, to know about the technician’s illness, perhaps? He even had inside knowledge of Maestro’s habit of secluding himself in his dressing room, let’s assume. So why not arrive prepared for killing with a more effective
instrument than a hammer picked up from the percussion stand?’
‘He enjoys the risk?’ Lorimer suggested.
Solly shook his head. ‘Maybe that happens at the time, but he does not anticipate the thrill. No. We must try to think what goes on inside his head prior to the killing. What his intentions really were.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Lorimer stared hard at him. ‘Are you trying to say that this was not intended as a murder at all?’
Solly shrugged. ‘One blow to the skull might have felled him to the ground if it had been a massive weapon. In this case the killer was lucky. Or perhaps not.’
‘Why attack George Millar, then?’
‘To stop him from playing at the concert? Or maybe as a lesson to him from an outside agency, though I don’t really think so.’
‘No,’ Lorimer frowned. ‘If it had been a professional hit then he’d have been targeted somewhere far less public.’
‘My point exactly!’ Solly beamed.
‘But you haven’t made any point yet,’ Lorimer protested.
‘He wanted George Millar to be brought down in a public place. And not just any place. It had to be the Concert Hall and it had to be during a performance,’ Solly exclaimed, his eyes shining. ‘Don’t you see? It was part of a performance itself, this drama. Whoever the killer is, he shows a certain penchant for creativity.’
‘Sounds a bit unhinged to me,’ Lorimer replied acidly.
Solly shook his head vehemently. ‘Not at all. He is quite lucid. Clear in his intent and maybe even anticipating the effect his actions will have. He’s making a statement. And
there’s a reason for that.’
‘Do you think it’s a member of the Orchestra?’
‘Could be, could be. Someone fit and healthy, strong, young, too. Early thirties at the most and single.’
‘How do you work that out?’
Solly shrugged again. ‘He’s willing to take such risks. It is as though there is some youthful bravado to his nature, foolhardiness, maybe. An older person is more inclined to worry about the consequences of their actions. And I feel he’s unhampered by any ongoing relationship. A single person has more freedom. He’s not worrying about what a partner might think of him if he’s caught.’
‘Carl Bekaert, maybe?’
Solly frowned. ‘I don’t think the Danish man has enough irony in his soul. But that’s just my own feeling. He certainly fits any physical profile I’d draw up.’
‘And that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’ Lorimer said. ‘You don’t want him arrested, is that it?’
‘What evidence have you against him?’
‘He was the last musician out of the Concert Hall the night of Karen’s death.’
‘There’s no forensic evidence, though. No DNA at either scene of crime to match up to anything on Bekaert.’
‘We’ve arrested folk on less than that before,’ Lorimer reminded him.
‘And what good would it do? If Bekaert’s not your man the real killer will simply breathe a sigh of relief and continue with his life. unless he feels threatened by anyone else.’
‘Yes, that’s something I’ve been concerned about,’ Lorimer frowned.
‘Flynn?’
Lorimer nodded silently. Joseph Alexander Flynn of no fixed address, who was to be his house-guest until Christmas, might easily be a target if he still had some knowledge about George Millar. And Lorimer was certain that he did.
Jimmy Greer had hinted as much and the journalist had sounded a tad put out that the boy hadn’t opened up to him completely.
‘Couldn’t you put an officer to watch the house?’
‘Nobody outside the investigating team will know he’s here; even the ancillary staff at the Division have been warned to keep quiet. No, he’ll be safe enough. Anyway, I expect he’ll be watching TV all day. He’s not fit to go out. In fact there’ll be a nurse coming in to see to that head wound. It’ll still need dressing for a while.’