The Fourth Crow

Chapter Three

‘She what?’ said Canon James Henderson, Sub-Dean of St Mungo’s Cathedral. He stared at Gil over a laden table; he had been interrupted breaking his fast on smoked fish, white bread and new milk, with a dish of quince marmalade and another of raisins set by his elbow. ‘How can she be so sure? If the face is unrecognisable-’

‘A course she’s sure o’t, if she’s going by the shift,’ said the plump maidservant at his elbow. ‘There’s no a woman in Scotland wouldny ken her own linen from another’s. I’d pick your shirts out anywhere.’

‘Be silent, woman,’ ordered Canon Henderson. He broke off another piece of bread and buttered it with irritable, jerky movements. ‘I don’t like the way you keep turning up corpses — female corpses, at that — on St Mungo’s land, Gil. We’ll ha no more of them, if you don’t mind.’

Gil preserved a careful silence in the face of this injustice; there had been one other female corpse, two years since in rather different circumstances.

‘But what’s come to the lassie that was there?’ entreated the maidservant. ‘Surely St Mungo never carried her away to Paradise?’

‘Will you be quiet?’ demanded her master. ‘Where has that woman gone, Gil? What’s her name again, Annie Gibb. I could see this nonsense wi the Cross far enough, it never does them any good, and now see what’s come of it!’

‘I’ll set up a search,’ said Gil. ‘I need to let the Provost hear of this, since we’ll have to have an inquest on the dead woman, try to find a name for her, find out how she came to be at the Cross. Will I borrow some men from him, or will we use Cathedral servants to search?’

‘To search?’ Canon Henderson frowned. ‘What kind o a search did you have in mind? Rattling at doors, or looking under bushes, or searching outbuildings?’

‘All three, I’d say.’

‘Aye, you’re right, I suppose. She could be anywhere in Glasgow, and dead or alive come to that. Better see what the Provost can do, our men haveny the same powers outside St Mungo’s land.’ A child wailed, elsewhere in the house, and the Canon glanced at the maidservant and gestured at the door. ‘Away and deal wi that bairn, Kirsty, and see if you canny keep it quieter.’

‘Takes after his faither,’ retorted Kirsty with a toss of her head, but left the room with reluctance.

‘Tell me it again,’ said the Canon. ‘Annie Gibb was bound to the cross wi a new rope, and it’s been untied and tied again, you say.’ Gil nodded. ‘So someone freed her, and throttled this woman to put in her place.’ He crossed himself. ‘Wickedness! What would make anyone act that way? And her friends never saw a thing?’

‘Not till they came to untie her in the morning,’ agreed Gil. ‘It makes little sense. We’ve two problems, I think. Who is the corpse, and how did she die and come to be bound to the cross, and where is Annie Gibb and who freed her?’

‘That’s more than two,’ Henderson said fretfully. He took a draught of milk, emerging from the beaker with a white moustache. ‘Well, you sort it out, Gil. If you need folk to help you, likely some o the songmen would be glad o a change of duties. Sim and Craigie are already involved, you can ask them. And the vergers are aye useful men in a stushie, the younger ones at least, though I hope it’ll no come to that.’

‘So do I,’ agreed Gil.

‘Away and speak to the Provost. He’ll need to hear about it all, I suppose.’

‘I was looking for you to call by,’ said Maister Andrew Otterburn, depute Provost of Glasgow, waving at a stool beside his desk. Gil raised an eyebrow. ‘Aye, I’ve heard about it. Andro brought the word in earlier. Did you ever?’

‘Extraordinary business.’ Gil sat down. Socrates sprawled at his feet, grinning up at Otterburn.

‘Tell me about it, then. What have you discerned?’

‘Very little. The women have the corp stripped now. She’s much of an age with their kinswoman, thin as a lath, has probably borne at least one child so Dame Ellen says. How do they tell that?’

Otterburn glanced at him, but said only, ‘Likely some women’s knowledge. Ask at your wife, I should.’

Perhaps not, thought Gil.

‘We’ve no idea yet what killed her, unless the beating,’ he went on, ‘let alone who she is or how she came to be there. As for where Mistress Annie Gibb might have got to, that’s anyone’s guess. St Mungo’s isny best pleased about the matter.’

‘I’ll wager.’ Otterburn glanced out of the window at the cathedral towers, visible above the warm sandstone outer wall of the castle. He was a lanky man in his forties with a long gloomy face and a wry sense of humour; he was not fully appreciated in the burgh, but Gil had found him easier to work with than his predecessor. ‘Let Walter have a description of the corp-’ His clerk looked up from the end of the desk and nodded, his pen pausing in its eternal squeaking progress. ‘He’ll get her cried round the town, see if anyone’s missed her. Now tell me what you’ve found, maister, and what you’re doing about it.’

Gil obeyed, summarising the little information they had gathered so far.

‘I’ve yet to speak wi the rest of Mistress Gibb’s family or friends,’ he ended. ‘I thought you’d as soon hear about it now rather than later. Young Lowrie’s talked wi the servants, but all he’s learned so far confirms what the family says. They all arrived together, they seem to ha stayed within the hostel walls, other than Mistress Shaw’s two young kinsmen and two fellows that were sent out on an errand for the doctor and were back within the half-hour, until Mistress Gibb was led out wi the whole household, save Sir Edward and his man, to go to St Mungo’s for confession. I’ll set Lowrie to track down the bystanders from this morning and find out if they know anything, and my man Euan’s away to talk the vergers into searching St Mungo’s, but I’m not hopeful.’

‘Aye.’ Otterburn turned the sand-pot on his desk, frowning at it. ‘So the one we have was beaten till she’s beyond recognising, and slain some way we don’t know yet. Could the beating ha killed her?’

‘It might,’ said Gil cautiously. ‘Pierre found no trace of a head injury, but we won’t know for sure till she softens. There’s no sign she was stabbed or the like.’

Otterburn grunted.

‘And then she was throttled, but no till after she was dead, and then she was tied to the Cross. Why? It makes no sense! And where’s the other one got to?’

‘I’d say she was tied to the Cross first, and then throttled,’ said Gil. ‘The hair at the back of her neck was caught under the cord, but the rest hung free. And at some point the sacking gown Annie Gibb was wearing was put on her.’

‘Is it the same one?’

‘I need to check wi St Mungo’s.’

‘So is Mistress Gibb running about Glasgow in her shift? She’ll be easy enough recognised if that’s so. How mad is she? Is she a danger?’

‘Her friends say not. She seems to be melancholy rather than wood-wild. And she may well be in her shift, I got her maidservant to check and her clothes are all in the pilgrim lodging where the lassie put them last night, naught missing.’

Otterburn grunted again.

‘Give Walter her description and all. We’ll get the two o them cried through the town and see what that turns up, and you can ask at Andro for any help you need. The men should enjoy searching for a stinking lady in her shift. Have you any more to tell me?’

‘Not yet,’ admitted Gil, ‘but I’ve another question.’ He drew from his purse the coil of cord, and laid it on the Provost’s desk. ‘This is what was used to throttle the dead woman. The Shaw servants never saw it afore, so far as they can tell. Can we learn aught from it, do you think?’

‘Cord’s just cord, surely,’ said Otterburn, lifting a honey-pale loop. ‘This doesny look anything out of the ordinar.’

‘A barrel’s just a barrel,’ countered Gil, ‘but I once learned a lot about one barrel by speaking to its maker. Most craftsmen can make their own cordage if they’re put to it, but this looks like a specialist’s work. Do we have any spinners of twine and cord in the burgh?’

‘Walter?’

‘You might ask at Matt Dickson the rope-drawer, maister,’ suggested the clerk. ‘It’s mostly heavier stuff he turns out, so I believe, but he’d likely ken where that came from.’ He assessed Gil’s blank expression. ‘Away out the Thenewgate, almost at Partick. A great long shed o a place, been burned down two-three times. You canny miss it.’

Like most major offices around a great cathedral church, that of Almoner to St Mungo’s was a sinecure, a post whose holder was not expected to take more than a perfunctory interest in its duties. These were carried out by the Sub-Almoner, a depressed individual who inhabited a cramped, sour-smelling chamber up a stair in the northwest tower, surrounded by piles of neatly folded clothing and blankets. When Gil found him there, Sir Alan Jamieson was just dismissing the last of his morning’s supplicants, a surprisingly well-nourished boy of eight or nine.

‘No, no, wee Leckie’s fit enough,’ he said when Gil commented. ‘He’s the laddie that’s paid of the burgh to lead old Jeanie Thomson, that’s been blind these ten year. He was fetching another head-rail to her, to keep her decent, seeing her last one blew away when her neighbour laid it out to dry.’ He pulled a face. ‘That’s their tale, any road. I just hope they got its worth at the rag market. What can I do for you, Gil? I take it this isny a call on my duties?’

‘Maybe no directly,’ admitted Gil. He set the bundle he carried on the table beside the almoner’s great ledger. ‘You’ll have heard what happened at St Mungo’s Cross, then, Alan?’

Sir Alan crossed himself.

‘Aye, poor lady, her servant came up to the vestry just as we were about to sing Matins. She’s free o her troubles now, right enough, but no in the way she-’ He paused as Gil shook his head. ‘What d’you mean, no?’

‘There’s more happened than that,’ Gil said. ‘The lass that was found dead at the Cross this morning wasny the same one that was bound there last night.’ Jamieson gaped at him. ‘She was wearing this,’ he nodded at the bundle, ‘and I’d like to hear if you reckon it’s the same gown you gave out yesterday, or another. It was me cut the inkles,’ he added hastily as the almoner reached for the folds of sacking. ‘I’ll pay for the repairs.’

‘Aye, you did,’ said Sir Alan, inspecting the ragged ends of the tapes. ‘Made a thorough job of it, and all.’ He shook out the light brown folds. ‘Let me see now, where’s the-Aye, this is the gown I lent out to Mistress Gibb’s kinsfolk yesterday afternoon. There’s the mark.’ He pointed to a row of neat red stitches just inside the neckline. ‘Six red lines for gown number six. There’s a dozen,’ he enlarged, ‘but we’ve never needed that many, even when thon band of penitents cam here two summers ago, hoping to flagellate theirsels the length o the High Street. Canon Henderson soon put a stop to that, I can tell you.’

‘He did that,’ agreed Gil, recalling the occasion with faint amusement. It had provided his uncle with food for shocked discussion for days. The parade of the High Street had been reduced, in short order, to a procession round the Upper Town and a vigil by the patron saint’s tomb in the crypt; the weather had been unkind, and the fiddler the group had brought with them had refused to risk his instrument in the pouring rain, so the singing had been doleful indeed. When last heard of the group of penitent pilgrims had been riding out of Glasgow, back to wherever they came from (Arbroath, was it?) quarrelling bitterly about whose idea it had been in the first place. ‘So you’d swear to this being the same gown?’

‘Let me mak certain.’ Jamieson clipped his spectacles onto his nose and drew the great ledger towards him. ‘A plaid to Hoastin Harry, a woad-dyed gown to Maggie Bent, aye, aye, here we are. Penitential gown number six, to the kin o Annie Gibb.’ He turned the great book about so that Gil could read the entry. ‘Clear enough, I’d say, and I’ll just mark it returned.’ Drawing the book towards him, he reached for his pen.

‘Clear enough,’ Gil agreed. ‘Thanks for this, Alan.’ He dug in his purse for a couple of coins. ‘Will that cover the repairs? Is it just clothing and blankets you give out here? I’d thought you’d some provisions to supply the poor and all.’

‘Oh, I do, I do.’ Jamieson shook sand on the new entry and wiped his pen on the blotched rag at his elbow. ‘Such as there is the now.’

‘What, are donations running low? I’ll tell my wife.’

‘No, no, donations is no bad, though we can aye do wi more. The poor we ha aye wi us, after all. No,’ Jamieson straightened up on his stool, shaking his head, ‘it’s hard to keep hold o the stuff the now. It’s all stored next the dry goods for the Vicars’ hall, round the north side o the kirk, and there’s as much vanishing from both dry stores, the last six month or so, it’s a right worry.’

‘Theft, you mean? How secure is the store?’

‘Secure enough, I’d ha said, till now. Aye, it’s theft. There’s aye the odd cup o dried pease or handful o meal goes astray, but this is a half-sack at a time just walking off when naeb’dy’s watching.’ The Sub-Almoner pulled a long face. ‘You don’t see folk at their best in this post, Gil, you’ll believe me, but to my mind that takes the bell, thieving from the poor. I’ve got the vergers warned to look out for it, but it wouldny surprise me if they were in the game and all.’

‘I’d not heard of that,’ Gil confessed. ‘You’ve changed the locks, I take it.’

‘Oh, aye, and a new padlock at my own expense. That walked off and all, I’d to get a second.’

Thinking it was little wonder that the Sub-Almoner was usually afflicted with melancholy, Gil took his leave of the man and returned to St Catherine’s, where the nameless corpse was now laid out in the little chapel under Annie Gibb’s own shroud, with Sir Simon murmuring in the shadowed chancel. Drawing back the linen he studied the dead woman with care, counting the scars and bruises on her thin body, considering the rough skin of her hands and feet and the broken nails. Meggot had washed these as thoroughly as the rest, and had cleaned under the nails with the point of a knife, extracting dirt and blood and fragments of skin.

‘She’s marked him, whoever he was,’ she had said darkly. ‘And I’d say,’ she twitched her nose fastidiously, ‘she’s lain wi him or wi some man at least, no long afore she was slain. But there’s no sign she was forced, maister, that I can see from here, even wi all these bruises.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Dame Ellen, ‘though we’ll maybe make certain o’t when she softens and I can get a wee look at her-’ She bit off the next words. Curiously, the term which Gil’s unruly mind supplied was French, and not one which Alys used.

Examining the nail-scrapings, he had concluded that there was nothing more to learn there; he had hoped for some clue to the woman’s identity, or at least her trade or profession, but the dirt appeared to be grease from cooking, something nearly all women came into daily contact with.

Now, contemplating her battered body, he reflected that the violence it revealed was also something many women met daily. Who was it? he asked her silently. Who bloodied your mouth and blacked your eyes? Was he your husband, your father, a client? Does he know where his last beating has put you?

‘So what happened, maister?’

Sir Simon had left his prayers again. Gil blinked at him, collecting his thoughts.

‘It’s none so easy to read,’ he admitted.

‘Poor lass,’ said the Master, bending to peer into the corpse’s downturned face, ‘she’s had her troubles, but she’s free o them now. Who must you speak wi next? Your laddie’s away to ask round about if anyone heard anything, and the good-brother, Lockhart, he’s away over to St Mungo’s to complain of their lack of care, but if you’re wanting any of the women I’ll fetch them out.’

‘Aye, if they’re fit to talk to.’

‘I’ll get the lassies out to you, they’re a wee thing calmer now.’

If Annie Gibb’s sisters-in-law were calmer now, Gil was glad he had not attempted to speak to them earlier. Led out into the sunshine they proved to be rather younger than Annie or the dead woman, perhaps fifteen and seventeen, two sturdy girls neither pretty nor plain but something between, with curling brown hair and eyes swollen with weeping. The older one had the hiccups, which provoked increasingly hysterical giggles in the other girl. Their names, it seemed, were Nicholas and Ursula, and like Dame Ellen they had watched from a distance while Annie was bound to the Cross and then had left her.

‘She protested, I think,’ said Gil, sitting down on the opposite bench. The sisters looked at one another, and one nodded.

‘She never wanted it,’ said the other. ‘She wanted just to be left alone.’

‘But it wasny right, living the way she did,’ said her sister, and hiccuped. Blushing, she covered her mouth, and said behind her hand, ‘No company, and never meeting anybody, and we couldny be with her that often, we’d duties about the house.’

‘Had she none?’ Gil asked.

‘Aye, but she renounced them,’ said the hiccuping girl, Nicholas he thought. ‘We’d to see to them all atween us. Feed her hens, take her share o the sweeping and cooking.’

‘Fetch her food,’ said the other, who must therefore be Ursula.

‘Did her maid or her waiting-men not do that?’ It hardly made sense, he thought; he had seen several servants already, and the householder was described as a gentleman and his daughters as heiresses. His own sisters had had their duties certainly, but they hardly amounted to cleaning and kitchen-work.

‘Meggot had enough to do trying to keep her chamber clean.’

‘Tell me about the household,’ he suggested. ‘How many are you?’

They looked at each other. Beyond the outer courtyard, beyond the walls of the hostel, Gil heard the burgh bellman ring his great brass bell and begin the description of Annie Gibb.

‘Well, there’s us,’ said Ursula, counting on her fingers, ‘and Faither, and our aunt, and Annie. And there was Mariota till she wedded Lockhart, and times there’s Henry and Austin-’

‘Who are they?’ Gil asked.

‘Cousins?’ said Nicholas.

‘No, they areny cousins,’ said Ursula. ‘Only by courtesy. They’re no blood kin o ours, Nick, they’re Ellen’s nephews by her first man’s sister Margaret Boyd, they’re Muirs, the both o them.’

Outside, the bellman had dealt with Annie Gibb and was now describing the unknown corpse, inviting any who might know her to visit the chapel of St Catherine’s hostel. A mistake, thought Gil. We’ll be overrun. Reckoning his mother’s Boyd kindred in his head, he located Margaret Boyd and her sons. They were perched on a very distant branch of the pedigree, but the connection with Dame Ellen could be useful.

‘They might as well be cousins, the way Ellen carries on,’ said Nicholas. ‘Making them ride into Glasgow wi us, keeping on at Annie how handsome they are,’ she added darkly, and hiccuped. Ursula bit back more giggles, and continued,

‘And there’s that doctor the now, and then there’s Meggot, and Gillian that waits on my aunt.’ She proceeded to list a good half-dozen indoor servants before she lost count, looking helplessly from her hands to Gil.

‘Most of those have stayed at home, I think,’ Gil said. Nicholas nodded. ‘Why did you come to Glasgow?’

‘Well, for the miracle,’ said Ursula reasonably. ‘It wouldny work tying her to the farm gatepost, after all.’

‘No, I meant you two in particular.’

They looked at each other again. Nicholas hiccuped, Ursula giggled.

‘To see the High Kirk?’ suggested Nicholas, trying to ignore her sister. ‘And all the vessels on the Clyde, and the market, and that. All the things the chapman tellt us, that was through Glenbuck last month.’

‘We’ve only seen St Mungo’s so far,’ said Ursula. ‘Might as well ha stayed at home.’

‘Ellen wouldny ha left us at home,’ said Nicholas sagely. ‘Where we go, she goes, and where she goes, we go, till we’re wedded. And Ellen had to come wi Annie,’ a shadow flickered across her face, ‘and Faither.’

‘Tell me about Annie,’ he suggested. ‘What like was she before she fell into her melancholy? Was she a good sister?’

‘Oh, aye,’ said Nicholas, and hiccuped. Ursula ducked her head, suppressing more giggles, and her sister went on, ‘She was a good laugh, she was aye fun to be company wi, she’d lend all her gowns and her jewels and borrow yours.’

Gil nodded; his sister Margaret had summed up this sharing as First up, best dressed.

‘Then she lost the bairn,’ said Ursula, sobering. ‘She was right melancholy after that.’

‘And then Arthur died,’ both sisters crossed themselves, ‘and she vowed she’d never cease mourning him, and all the rest of it.’

‘Sitting in the dark, aye at her prayers, no singing or joking or bonny clothes.’

‘She’d locked her jewels all in her kist,’ said Nicholas resentfully.

‘She must have loved him very deeply,’ said Gil.

‘Aye,’ said Ursula, ‘and the deil knows why, it was just Arthur.’ Her sister hiccuped explosively, and she gasped and turned her head away, biting back the giggles.

‘Has she any friends in Glasgow?’ Gil asked.

‘Just us,’ said Nicholas blankly. ‘Who would she have? She’s never been in Glasgow in her life afore this.’

‘So she’s adrift in a strange burgh,’ said Gil deliberately, ‘barefoot in her shift. What d’you suppose has come to her?’

‘She’ll be safe enough,’ said Ursula, on a sudden uncontrollable burst of giggles. ‘The way she stinks now, nobody’d go next or nigh her!’

Her sister drew breath looking shocked, hiccuped resoundingly, and collapsed in equal laughter. The door to the women’s lodging was flung wide, and Dame Ellen stalked out.

‘What a way to comport yoursels! Your sister missing, a dead woman in the chapel, your faither the way he is. Sit up straight and behave yoursels decent, or the Archbishop’s man will send in sic a report of you, you’ll never be wedded this side o Doomsday.’

Both sisters rose, scarlet with mingled laughter and embarrassment, and collected themselves enough to curtsy briefly to Gil before fleeing past their aunt and into the shadows. He could hear them, still laughing within the hall, and Dame Ellen turned a bony simper on him, the rather dreadful coquetry of her mouth by no means matched in her eyes.

‘What a pair of lassies!’ she was saying. ‘You’ll accept my apologies for their behaviour, I hope, maister.’

‘They’re very young,’ Gil observed. The simper vanished bleakly.

‘Aye, well, if they’re old enough to be wedded, they’re old enough to behave theirsels like modest women. What my kinsman at St Mungo’s would have to say about them I canny think. Have you learned aught yet? That doctor says my brother’s-’ She broke off, her expression softening as voices rose in the outer yard, Sir Simon’s among them. Feet sounded in the passageway, Socrates growled quietly, and two young men burst into the sunshine.

‘What’s this yon fellow says?’ demanded the first of her, as Gil checked his dog. ‘Annie vanished and some dead woman in her place? What have you been at here?’

‘Now, Henry, mind your tongue afore Blacader’s quaestor!’ chided Dame Ellen. ‘These are my nephews, maister, that rode into Glasgow wi us and are lodged wi their kinsman along Rottenrow. Henry and Austin Muir.’

Her gestures identified them: Henry fair and ostentatious, Austin tawny and diffident, both sturdy, handsome and expensively dressed in identical short velvet gowns which did not conceal Austin’s low-necked shirt of fine linen or his brother’s embroidered doublet of crimson silk, its high collar caked in silver braid. That must itch, Gil thought irrelevantly.

The brothers stared, taken aback, until Henry recalled his manners and made a swaggering bow, sweeping his jewelled bonnet above the cobbles. Gil returned the courtesy, saying,

‘Aye, Mistress Gibb is vanished away. Have you any knowledge of where she might have taken shelter or hid herself?’

‘Hid herself? Why’s she done that?’ said Austin, still staring.

‘We’d looked to find her here,’ said Henry. ‘Is there truly no trace o where she’s at?’

‘What brings you here to find her?’ Gil countered. ‘Had you business wi her?’

‘Business?’ repeated Austin. ‘Us? No, we-’

‘What else would bring them but civility? They’ve called in the hopes o finding her cured o her madness, a course,’ said Dame Ellen, smiling fondly. ‘And the wish to see their old aunt, I hope.’

‘But what’s happened?’ asked Henry, ignoring this. ‘Have you no set up a search? Why was there another woman in her place? Who is it, anyway?’

He was speaking to Dame Ellen, but Gil answered him:

‘The Provost’s men are searching for Mistress Gibb, and we’ve got both women being cried through the town. We’ll see if anyone kens the corp we have. Someone must ha missed her.’ He paused, considering the two. ‘Where were you last night? ‘

‘Where were we?’ Henry bristled. ‘Are you saying we had aught to do wi it?’

‘If I ken where you were and whether you saw anything useful,’ said Gil patiently, ‘it would help me trace where the dead woman came from. In fact, I’d be grateful if you’d take a look at her now.’

‘And then you can join the search for Annie, the both of you,’ announced their kinswoman. Henry gave her a sharp look, but said,

‘Aye, well, we were in our cousin’s house all the evening, getting the news o Glasgow and telling him the news o Ayrshire.’

‘Together?’

‘That’s right,’ agreed Austin, nodding.

‘So what about this corp?’ demanded Henry. ‘Are we to look at her, or no?’

‘One thing,’ said Austin, ‘she’ll ha stayed this side of the Girth Burn.’

‘Who will? What are you on about now?’ demanded Henry, turning to follow Gil to the outer courtyard.

‘Annie, a course. She’ll ha stayed up here atween the two burns.’

‘How d’you make that out?’

‘They canny cross running water. Everybody kens that.’

‘That’s witches, bawheid! Annie’s no witch, just melancholy.’

There was a handful of local people in the chapel, arguing briskly about who the dead woman might be, their speculations hindered only slightly by the fact that none of them could recognise her. The bier was now attended by two of the hostel servants; a man in blue livery stood at its head and a woman in a blue gown and grey cloak knelt at the foot, her beads sliding through her fingers. Near them, leaning negligently against the chancel-screen, was Lowrie. His attention was on the arguing townsfolk, but when Gil stood aside to let the Muir brothers enter first, he straightened up, watching them approach. Gil, watching his assistant in turn, was warned by the way the younger man’s expression went blank, a fraction before Austin Muir stopped in his tracks and dropped his hat to seize his brother’s arm.

‘Henry! Is that no- Is it no-’ He swallowed, and his brother turned a furious face on him, as the group of neighbours paused to watch. ‘Aye, it is, surely!’

‘It’s no Annie, bawheid, they’ve tellt us that,’ Henry said savagely. ‘Hold your tongue, and let the rest o us decide what’s to do!’

‘No, it’s no Annie, I ken that,’ argued Austin, ‘it’s surely-It’s that- It’s awfy like-’ He took in his brother’s expression and fell silent. Henry freed himself and stepped forward to the bier, bending to look at the dead girl’s damaged face, then straightened up.

‘Never saw her afore,’ he said. ‘I’ve never a notion who she might be.’

‘And you, Austin?’ said Gil deliberately. Austin jumped, looked over his shoulder at Gil, and back at his brother.

‘I, I–I never saw her neither,’ he averred.

‘Likely she’s some hoor from away down the town, from the Gallowgate or the like,’ said Henry easily, crossing himself as he moved to join Gil. ‘Poor soul.’

‘That’s a good thought, maister,’ said one of the neighbours, a stout woman with a basket full of purchases from the market. ‘You never ken what they folks down the Gallowgate will get up to, beating lassies to death would be nothing to them.’

This met with agreement from two more of the group, but one man shook his head and the other woman present said,

‘It’s right far to carry her once she’s deid, Agnes, to bring her up here to St Mungo’s. Did the bellman no say she was bound to the Cross? Why would anyone do that?’

‘So they wouldny get the blame for it away down there, a course!’ said the basket-carrier triumphantly.

‘There, you see,’ said Henry to Gil. ‘Make sure the bellman cries her down the town, or better still carry her down there and show her, the most of them’ll not trouble themselves to come up here for a dead lassie. Likely someone down the Gallowgate’ll name her for you.’

‘But how would they do that, Henry?’ asked his brother in perplexity, ‘when they-’

‘Will you be quiet, bawheid that you are?’ demanded Henry. ‘Hold your wheesht and let those of us that can think do the thinking.’

‘No, I never met them before this,’ said Lowrie, accepting a share of bread and cheese with gratitude. ‘I doubt Austin can sign his name, let along con his books, and Henry doesny seem like a college man. Certainly he’s no Glasgow man.’

‘He never came to visit your friend Ninian when you were at the College? Ninian Boyd, I mean,’ Gil expanded, without much hope. Lowrie shook his head.

They had repaired to the inner courtyard; Gil wanted to consider what he had learned so far, and it seemed a good moment to consume Kittock’s dole. Now he continued, ‘I reckon they’d be some kind of kin of Ninian’s, third or fourth cousins maybe, closer than they are to me. The two of them are lodged wi Canon Muir on Rottenrow, who Dame Ellen said was another kinsman. I need to get a word wi him, confirm that, confirm what they were doing last night. I’m not at all convinced they gave us the whole truth.’

‘Austin knew the corp, or thought he did,’ Lowrie agreed, ‘he was struck wi horror at first sight. It could have been her bruises, but it seemed to me he recognised her.’

‘Henry was very quick to silence him.’

‘I liked his suggestion of the Gallowgate.’

‘A nice piece of misdirection. It could even be true.’

Gil extracted the cheese from between the remainder of his bread and ate it. Lowrie was watching him intently and chewing hard, and after a moment swallowed and said,

‘I had another word wi the servants here, both the guests’ household and the hostel folk, now it’s known Annie’s missing.’ Gil made an interrogatory noise. ‘The two that guarded her kept a good eye on her till about midnight, it seems, because there were folk about till that hour. The man Sawney says she spoke to him then, asking him to set her free, addressed him by name, so I think we can assume she was there and unharmed at that point. I’ve a note of who slept where here in the hostel, which should help if we’re checking movements, and that pair in the chapel the now, Will and Bessie, are man and wife and dwell by the gate here, and they mentioned there were comings and goings in the night.’

‘Oh, there were, were there?’ Gil gave his crusts to the expectant dog and took another hunk of bread from the linen wrapping. ‘Did they name anyone?’

‘No, it seems the door was left unbarred a-purpose, in case they brought Mistress Gibb back earlier than the dawn. The woman, Bessie, heard the door go an hour or so afore midnight, so she reckoned, and looked out assuming she’d be needed to help Annie back to the women’s hall, but the courtyard was empty.’ Lowrie dug in his purse for his tablets, found the right leaf and scrutinised his notes. ‘And twice more after that she heard footsteps and the door closing, and voices in the courtyard. Seems it shuts wi a thump that shakes their bed, no matter the care that’s taken. She never looked out the later times, she said she took it if she was needed they’d bang on the lodging door. Likely she was too warm to move by then,’ he added in faint amusement.

‘Three times the door went,’ said Gil thoughtfully.

‘Three times after they were in bed,’ Lowrie qualified.

‘A good point. And yet none of the folk we’ve spoken to referred to being out of the hostel. You’d think they might have mentioned it.’ He considered the final portion of bread and cheese, then broke it carefully into two large pieces and a small one, handed the small one to the dog and gestured to Lowrie to take one of the others. ‘Did her man hear anything?’

‘He says he heard the door go but never roused enough to take note of how often.’

‘Hm,’ said Gil. ‘Did you get anything from the others? From the Shaw servants?’

‘No more than I’ve told you already. So do we need to start asking who was about in the night?’

‘That can wait.’ Gil brushed breadcrumbs from his person, gathered up the linen cloth and shook it out. Several chaffinches flew down onto the cobbles, keeping a wary distance from the dog, but flew up again when the two men rose. ‘I want to get another look at the Cross, and the ground about it, if Andro and his men haveny trampled it into dust. The amount of movement there must have been, they’d surely have left some trace.’

‘Who?’ Lowrie followed him across the outer yard. ‘Whose traces are you thinking we might find?’

Gil nodded to Sir Simon at his chamber window and strode on, out of the gate, before finally saying,

‘At the very least, Annie herself and whoever released her from her bonds. Depending on what came after that, it could be as many as five or six people we’re trying to track.’

‘Do you think she went willingly?’ Lowrie asked after a moment.

‘A lot turns on that,’ agreed Gil. ‘And on precisely why she was released.’

Lowrie was silent while they skirted the high sandstone walls of the Castle and approached the gate of St Mungo’s kirkyard. Finally he said, counting off the points on his fingers,

‘Marriage by consent, whether for love or money. Marriage by capture. Simple compassion.’

‘As a hostage,’ Gil supplied. ‘To get control of her land or her money, even without marriage. Any of these.’ He paused on the slope that led down to the Girth Burn, looking about him. Off to their left the building site which was Archbishop Blacader’s addition to his cathedral church showed signs of life, with the clink of metal on stone and the creak of wooden scaffolding; as Gil turned that way Maistre Pierre’s head showed above the wall. Seeing them, the mason waved, and vanished down into the structure.

Between the Fergus Aisle and the burn which formed the boundary of the kirkyard was a clump of hawthorns, their berries just beginning to show in still-green clusters. Taller trees beyond them threw a thick-leaved shade. Crows swirled about their tops, cawing, and the long blades of bluebells grew thickly in the dappled spaces between the glowing sunlit trunks, the flowers long faded and the green seed-cases ripening on the curved stems. A sudden memory assailed Gil, of hunting among the bluebells for a harp-key while the harper’s mistress, small John’s mother, lay dead in the Fergus Aisle, of finding a wisp of woollen thread from her plaid on one of those same hawthorn bushes.

‘So again we search the kirkyard,’ said Maistre Pierre at his elbow.

‘Aye. Have Andro’s men been here?’

‘No, they have tramped the other bank of the Girth Burn, through the gardens, but did not enter the kirkyard. I suppose they have no jurisdiction on church land.’

‘There’s been nothing bigger than a fox through those bluebells,’ said Lowrie.

‘Not in the last day and a night,’ agreed Gil. ‘Let’s take a look at the Cross itself.’