Free Shadows of Sounds by Alex Gray

murder. But now the hacks had got hold of more details and were milking the story for all it was worth. Lorimer had to admit it made pretty bizarre reading.
    Poliakovski claimed to have been devastated by George’s sudden death and the idea that someone could have got access to his dressing room so easily. There was a veiled suggestion that the killer had perhaps got the wrong victim, that in fact the Russian conductor was the real target and that this was a professional hit. Lorimer reeled at this. It was risible. But then the reporters hadn’t got all the facts. They weren’t to know about the immobilisation of the CCTV camera outside Morar, were they?
    But would that have made such a difference? Lorimer’s mind spun rapidly. George Millar had been a fairly short chap, but, like Poliakovski, he’d sported a beard and was thinning on top. The Russian was a huge bear of a man. Surely there could have been no mistaking him if this had been a pro’s job? All the other attention to detail ruled that out, didn’t it?
    The paper went on to discuss the Russian’s position on dissident musicians and his own political leanings within his country. There wasn’t an awful lot about poor old George, the actual victim. It wouldn’t be long, thought Lorimer, before they’d sniffed out the facts of George’s homosexuality. Then they’d have a field day. He wondered how Mrs Millar would respond to a crowd of reporters at her door.
    Back on the screen, Lorimer could see the names of so many strangers scrolling up past him. The team had done a good job of tabulating the musicians’ names and addresses alongside their particular part in the Orchestra, even down to the desk number. Brendan Phillips’s hand was in this detail, Lorimer supposed. There had been four percussionists paid for that night’s concert, two men and two women. Three were British, one American,Lorimer noted. No Eastern Europeans amongst them. Why had he made that mental remark to himself? Was he becoming paranoid over the Gazette ’s suppositions? The percussionists’ statements all tallied. They’d been together in their dressing room from the time the rest of the Orchestra had trooped on stage to the time they’d been informed of George’s death. They’d followed the concert on the TV monitor in the room. Only one of them had been out of the room for more than a few minutes. Cassandra Austen had visited the ladies toilet once during that time. CCTV footage had confirmed her statement. Lorimer was impressed. The team had been hard at work collating what evidence there was and now there could be a proper process of elimination.
    The CCTV footage had helped enormously, though not in the way Lorimer had first hoped. The members of the audience who had come into the auditorium had been checked out. Very few had left their seats during the first half of the performance. Most had visited the toilet area by the cloakrooms. One had been seen taking a telephone call on his mobile at the foot of the stairs. He’d been confirmed as a Consultant Surgeon on call. There were no suspicious punters mooching about backstage. To take the audience out of the equation gave Lorimer a huge sense of relief. The members of the Chorus had trooped on stage in a particular pre-ordained order. There was even a pegboard with their names in a seating plan that had been checked against a still from the monitor. That didn’t mean there wasn’t a killer amongst them, but it did narrow the possible time of death to the twenty minutes before the Chorus had appeared on stage. Prior to that, they’d been clustered on the stairs leading from dressing rooms 5, 6and 7 for a final briefing from their Chorus Master.
    Lorimer stopped reading and frowned. Where had the Chorus Master gone after that? He scrolled up and down but failed to find the man’s name amongst the musicians or members of the Chorus. Odd. After the thoroughness of the rest of the team’s efforts this was a glaring