The Harper's Quine

Chapter Seven

‘She was certainly in the market this morning,’ said Alys, patting Mistress Hamilton’s hand.

‘She never came back,’ sobbed Mistress Hamilton, ‘and I had to make Andrew’s dinner without the beets she was to bring.’

‘Did any of the other girls go with her?’ Gil asked uncomfortably. Alys threw him an approving smile, and Mistress Hamilton wiped her eyes on one long end of her linen headdress, hiccuping.

‘They all went,’ she said, ‘but they came back by their lones. They do that, they tarry, if they’ve met a friend, or a sweetheart. She was a good girl, she knew the beets were for the dinner, she’d have brought them straight back.’ She dissolved into tears again. ‘Alys, what can have happened?’

‘Where is she?’ asked the mason. ‘Did they bring her back here?’

‘Come ben and see her.’ Mistress Hamilton rose, still dabbing at her eyes, and led them out across the yard, past the silent kitchen and into a store-room in one of the other outhouses. One of the dead girl’s colleagues rose from her knees and stepped back as they entered. ‘It’s not right, laying her here, but it’s quiet, and fine and cold. Oh, the poor lass!’

‘Where was she found?’ Gil asked, drawing back the linen. ‘What happened?’

‘A corner of Blackfriars yard. Dear knows what she was doing there, she’d gone down to the market, she’d pass the house on the way back up before she got to Blackfriars. Mally Bowen that washed her says she was stabbed. She thought maybe sometime between Sext and Nones, by the way she was stiffening.’

‘She looks as if it was quick,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘She had not been forced, then?’

‘Mally says not. But she’d been robbed. The money I gave her to go to the market — a couple of groats, no more — that wasny on her.’

Gil looked down at Bridie Miller. Young, moderately pretty, quite ordinary, she lay as if asleep on the board set up to receive her, and kept her secret.

‘May I see the wound?’ he asked. Alys glanced quickly at him, and stepped forward past Mistress Hamilton’s flustered exclamations.

‘It’s very like the one that killed Mistress Stewart,’ she said, ‘save that it is at the front.’ She drew the shroud further back, exposing the rigid hands with their bitten nails, crossed and bound neatly over the girl’s belly. Under one muscular upper arm, just below the girl’s small breast, a narrow blue-lipped wound showed between two ribs. Gil bent close to study it, smelling the harsh soap Mally Bowen had used to wash the body. He sniffed, and sniffed again.

‘There is, isn’t there; said Alys. Just a trace of a scent.’

‘Like a privy,’ said Gil. ‘And something else as well.’

‘She’d void herself,’ Mistress Hamilton pointed out practically, and wiped her eyes again.

‘Mally must have washed that off,’ Alys said. Gil leaned over the corpse, sniffing.

‘It’s on her hair; he said finally. ‘Mally wouldn’t wash that. It smells of …’ He tested the air again. ‘Aye, like a privy. Stale. Not from when she voided herself but older, like the spillage outside a dyer’s shop. But there’s something else.’ He frowned. ‘It’s familiar, but I can’t place it.’

Maistre Pierre came forward curiously, peered at the wound, and sniffed cautiously at the lank brown locks coiled by the dead girl’s shoulders.

‘How did she wear her hair?’ he asked, and sneezed.

‘Like any other lass,’ said Mistress Hamilton. ‘Loose down her back, with a little kerchief tied over it for going outside.’

‘Is her kerchief here?’

‘It’s yonder,’ said the maidservant still standing by the wall, pointing at the side of the room. Gil looked around, and found a pile of garments on a barrel.

‘Is this it?’

‘Aye, likely. Yes, take it, if you need it.’ There were voices out in the yard, and Agnes Hamilton turned her head. ‘That’s likely the serjeant. He sent word he’d come by before he had his supper.’

Gil hastily folded the kerchief and stowed it in his pouch as Serjeant Anderson proceeded into the store-room.

‘Good evening, maisters,’ he said, nodding. ‘What’s all this then? One dead lass, as notified.’ He touched Bridie’s cold cheek with a massive hand, twitched back the linen shroud to look at the wound, and nodded again. ‘Aye, aye. She’s dead, for certain. Between Sext and Nones, eh? A wee foreign kind of knife, would it be, maybe?’

‘Maybe,’ said Gil despite himself.

‘Found in Blackfriars yard, you tell me,’ said the serjeant, covering the corpse’s face again. ‘Simple enough. Knifed in Blackfriars yard this forenoon by some foreigner, no doubt when she wouldny do his will. Murder chaud- melle. A lesson to all Glasgow lassies no to take up with foreigners. No offence, maister,’ he said belatedly to the mason, who eyed him quizzically, and sneezed.

‘But is that — ‘ Gil began.

The serjeant smiled indulgently. ‘See, Maister Cunningham, I’ve a burgh to watch and ward. I’ve no time to run about the streets asking questions. Now, once I’ve called to mind what foreigners are in Glasgow the now, I can lift someone for it, and get a confession, and that’s the end of it.’

‘But suppose he was somewhere else at the time?’ said Gil helplessly.

‘Who?’

‘This man you’re going to seize for the killing.’

‘How could he have been elsewhere,’ said Serjeant Anderson, ‘when he was in Blackfriars yard knifing Bridie Miller? Now, I’ve more to do than stand around all evening. God save ye, maisters.’

He raised his bonnet to them, and left. Gil stared after him, and Agnes Hamilton drew a gusty breath.

‘I must set someone to watch,’ she said. ‘The lassies are barely fit for it, what with the last two-three days. Alys, Maister Mason, Gil, I must not keep you. You’ve been good neighbours. Candles,’ she muttered, leading the way from the store-room. ‘Flowers. Would St Thenew’s send someone to watch?’

She ushered them out with incoherent thanks and shut the door with great firmness behind them. Out on the step, at the head of the Hamiltons’ handsome fore-stair, they all paused, Gil watching the serjeant’s back retreating towards the Tolbooth as he headed majestically for home and supper. Alys said, ‘I think she was no more than eighteen.’

‘Hush a moment,’ said her father softly. ‘Maister Cunningham, look here.’

Gil turned to look up the High Street. There were not many people abroad, although it was still full daylight, but a few stalwarts drifted from door to door in search of variety in their evening’s drinking. Among them, conspicuously sober and wearing a short gown of blue velvet which must have cost a quarter’s rents, was James Campbell of Glenstriven.

‘He has seen us,’ said Maistre Pierre. The comment was unnecessary. Gil had also recognized the tiny pause in the sauntering gait. He moved forward, to descend the forestair, and Campbell altered direction to meet him, waving his blue velvet hat in a bow. The dark hair was receding unkindly up his high forehead.

‘What, are you still at your questions? Don’t say you suspect Andrew Hamilton?’ he asked, with slightly artificial lightness.

‘No,’ said Gil, as Alys and her father came down the stair behind him. ‘But someone suspected Bridie Miller of knowing too much.’

The handsome, narrow face froze.

‘Bridie Miller?’ Campbell repeated. ‘Is Bridie dead? But she — are you saying that’s the girl that was in St Mungo’s yard?’

‘The point is that she wasn’t in St Mungo’s,’ Gil reiterated. ‘She had quarrelled with Maister Mason’s laddie before Easter. Someone else was in St Mungo’s yard with the boy, and not Bridie. Nevertheless, she is dead.’

‘Poor lassie,’ said Campbell, with a hollow note to his voice. ‘What happened? When was this?’

‘She was found stabbed in Blackfriars yard,’ said Maistre Pierre behind Gil.

‘Stabbed,’ repeated James Campbell. ‘Like Bess, you mean? Then surely the same broken man or — When did this happen?’

‘She never came back from the market this morning,’ said Gil.

‘Oh,’ said Campbell, his face changing.

‘Do you know something to the purpose?’ asked the mason. James Campbell glanced at him and shook his head.

‘She was found this evening.’ Gil gestured down the hill. ‘Are you for the lower town? Maister Mason goes home, I believe.’

‘Poor wee trollop,’ said Campbell. ‘Had she been forced?’

‘It seems not.’

Campbell looked about him, and frowned.

‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘I must away back up the hill. I am forgetting. I–I’m to meet Sempill before Compline. Good e’en to ye, maisters. Good e’en, demoiselle.’

He raised the hat again, bent the knee briefly and strode off rapidly up the High Street, the breadths of velvet in the back of his gown swinging.

‘That is a very unpleasant man,’ said Alys, ‘and his eyes are too close together, but I think he was upset to hear about Bridie.’

‘I thought so too,’ said Gil.

Maistre Pierre tucked his daughter’s hand under his arm, and drew her down the street, saying with rough sympathy, ‘You go home now and help Catherine. She is still praying for Davie, no?’

‘She is.’ Alys looked up at him. ‘What did you think of that man, father?’

‘He was hiding something,’ said the mason firmly.

Gil, with a covert look over his shoulder, said, ‘He has just stepped into Greyfriars’ Wynd. I wonder where he is meeting Sempill?’

‘We have already questioned him,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘and I can think of a better errand.’

‘Where are you going, father?’

‘There is yet an hour to Compline; said the mason, glancing at the sky. Maister lawyer, are you of a mind with me?’

‘We must find Annie Thomson,’ Gil agreed. ‘Thirsty, are you?’

‘I knew I could depend on you.’ Maistre Pierre stopped outside his own house, and patted his daughter’s hand. ‘Go in, ma mie, and we will go drinking. You will not be shocked, I hope.’

‘Catherine says one should never be shocked by the things men do,’ she reported primly. ‘I wish I could come to the ale-house too.’

‘Now Maister Cunningham will be shocked,’ reproved her father. She smiled wryly, tilting her face to share the joke with Gil.

‘Women are always restricted in what they can do,’ she complained. ‘Like priests. You must make the most of this visit, Maister Cunningham, for you won’t be able to make many more. You should join the Franciscans or the Blackfriars instead of being a priest — they like the inside of an ale-house, by what I hear.’

‘If we are not back, you do not go to Compline. Understood?’

‘Luke and Thomas — ‘

‘Understood?’

‘Very well, father.’ She kissed him. ‘Will you both come in later?’

‘There is Mistress Stewart’s box to inspect,’ said Gil, speaking quietly, although they were using French. ‘I would like to do that before the day’s end.’

‘Then I shall see you later.’ She smiled at him, and slipped into the shadowy tunnel of the pend. The mason watched her fondly out of sight, and turned to go on down the hill.

‘Is the demoiselle truly only sixteen?’ Gil asked, falling into step beside him. ‘She seems much older.’

‘She will be seventeen on St John’s Eve,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Her mother was prettier, but I think Alys is a little the wiser.’ He sighed. ‘Who would be a father?’

They passed the Tolbooth and Gil said, ‘What do you think about this second killing?’

‘I think it is either connected or coincidence,’ said the mason, ‘and I do not believe in coincidence. Well, maybe I do,’ he conceded, ‘but not here. And you?’

‘I agree.’ Gil tucked his hands behind his back under his gown. ‘The means of killing looked very similar. To get close enough to kill in that way one must be trusted, or much stronger than one’s victim, I suppose, and there were no bruises on her wrists. I would have liked to look further. I wish we had seen her before she was washed.’

‘Before she was lifted from Blackfriars yard would have been better,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘And why was she killed? She knew nothing.’

‘Either she knew more than she realized — ‘

‘Or we, indeed.’

‘Or we. Or as I said to James Campbell, her killer did not know it was the wrong lass. In which case we are respons ible for her death.’ They paused, looking at one another in dismay.

‘Who knew we were searching for her?’ asked the mason.

‘Your man Luke told Alys who she was,’ said Gil, pacing onward. ‘All her household knew it when Alys learned that she had quarrelled with the boy, although they may not have been paying attention,’ he added, recalling the scene in the Hamilton’ yard. ‘But she went on talking about it. Alys said she was at the market today, very full of her narrow escape.’

‘Poor lass,’ said the mason after a moment. ‘And little older than Alys, by what Agnes says. So who could have killed her? Do we look for the same person?’

‘Serjeant Hamilton is looking for a foreigner,’ Gil reminded him. We are hunting off our own land down here.’

‘Aye, true. So would we be looking for the same person? In hypothesis?’

‘In hypothesis, yes. The existence in the one small burgh of two killers, with two causes for killing, using the same means and method, is not a reasonable postulate.’

‘I saw John Sempill coming down the hill as I went up this morning.’

‘When was that?’

‘After Prime? Maybe later. He and his — cousin, is it? — the fair-haired man who came to the burial — they passed the cross at the Wyndhead to go down as I went up, talking loud about black velvet and leather for a girth. Did you say Sempill works leather? Does he use a knife?’

‘Aye. I saw the tools, and some harness he was working on. I would say the knife was the right shape, but too short in the blade.’

‘I suppose so, but we should bear it in mind.’ Maistre Pierre paused on the crown of the bridge to look down at the water forty feet below. ‘We have not simplified matters, have we? The more we look, the more complicated it gets.’

‘My mother embroiders bed curtains,’ said Gil, and got a startled look. He drew his companion into one of the boat-shaped niches in the parapet as a late cart ground its way up the long slope from the Gorbals side. ‘When the cat gets at her thread, it falls into knots and tangles, and I have to untangle it. The best method is to loosen this, and tease at that, and the tangle gets bigger and takes in more thread, and then suddenly you find the end and you can unravel the whole.’

‘I see,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘So we are not hunting, we are untangling things. Your mother is yet living, then?’

‘She and my two youngest sisters live on her dower lands by Lanark.’ Gil leaned on the parapet, looking at the green banks of the river in the evening light. ‘Let us consider this morning. The girl who has died was at the market,’ he said carefully, conscious of ready ears passing as people crossed the bridge to go home or to go out drinking. ‘We know that from several sources. Who else was there?’

‘Most of the women of the burgh,’ Maistre Pierre pointed out. Gil ignored him.

‘You saw two of — of the quarry at the Wyndhead. I saw two more in the market.’ He gestured quickly, sketching a man’s jack and helm, and Maistre Pierre nodded. ‘That was just before I met the lady and her escort. Oh, and her brother whom we saw just now. Assuming that her waiting-woman was not — ‘

‘Can we assume anything?’

‘True. Well, the waiting-woman was probably not in the town this morning, since they had a funeral feast to arrange, but seven others of the household were. The men I saw were likely gathering information.’

‘Are they capable of doing so?’

‘I think we should not underestimate the wild Ersche only because they do not speak Scots,’ Gil said. ‘They think differently because their language is different, but Ealasaidh for one is no fool.’

‘Because the language is different,’ Maistre Pierre repeated thoughtfully. ‘And any of these,’ he added, ‘could have stepped aside into Blackfriars yard with that poor girl and knifed her.’

‘Once again, we are faced with the same questions. Why knife her? And why would she go aside to a secluded spot like that with someone like to kill her?’

‘There is no telling what some girls will do,’ offered Maistre Pierre. ‘My friend, if we do not proceed across this bridge and find the ale-house, my tongue will cleave to the roof of my mouth, and it will be too dark to find the door of the place. Let us move on.’

‘Very true.’ Gil straightened up.

Maistre Pierre remained a moment longer looking down at the swirling water of the river. ‘You know, God is endlessly good. Look how he has arranged that the tide reaches to the bridge and no further.’

The Brigend was a sizeable community of mingled wattle-and-daub cottages and tall imposing houses, inhabited by those for whom it was not necessary to be indwellers in the burgh, whether because they were too poor to become burgesses or because they were wealthy enough to ignore the by-laws. Maggie Bell’s ale-house was perhaps a hundred yards beyond the ancient stone-built leper hospital, and was easy enough to find, with its ale-stake thrust into the thatch over the door. Someone had gone to the trouble of painting the likeness of St Mungo’s bell on a piece of wood to hang from the stake. Gil paused below the image and looked along the empty street to where a dog was attempting to round up a handful of hens.

‘It is said to be healthier living here,’ he remarked to the mason, ‘out of the smells of the burgh.’

‘I do not see how that can be true,’ objected Maistre Pierre. ‘There is St Ninian’s, after all.’

He ducked to go into the house, and Gil followed him.

A tavern was a tavern, whether on the banks of the Seine or the Clyde. Inside this one there was firelight, and the smell of many people, fried food and spilled ale. Several girls were hurrying about with armfuls of wooden beakers, jugs, plates of food. The long tables were crowded, people stood in groups near the door and the tiny windows, and from the great barrel of ale in the corner Maggie Bell herself kept an eye on the proceedings and removed the money from her girls as they collected it. She was nearly as tall as Gil, broad-shouldered and grey-haired, and put him strongly in mind of Ealasaidh.

‘We can learn nothing here, surely!’ the mason bawled, his mouth inches from Gil’s ear.

‘It will clear in a while,’ Gil answered. ‘Many of these have yet to go home for supper.’

A girl appeared in front of them smiling hopefully. She wore a greasy canvas apron, but she herself seemed fairly clean.

‘What’s your will, maisters?’

‘Two mugs of ale,’ said Gil, trying not to look down her bodice. She held out her hand for the money, contriving to brush his hip with hers, and slipped away through the crowd. When she returned, Gil said to her, ‘Does Annie Thomson work here, lass?’

‘Why? Will I no do?’

‘I am suited, thanks. I want a word with Annie.’ Gil produced another coin. ‘Can you point her out to me?’

‘She’s out the back the now. Here she comes.’ She jerked her head at a girl just pushing in from the kitchen. Gil, peering in the dim light, thought he recognized the build and movements.

‘Thank you,’ he said, and dropped the coin into the cavity being thrust at him. He got a gap-toothed grin, and the girl slipped away again.

‘Is that the girl you saw with Davie?’ asked the mason.

‘I think it is.’ Gil was watching, trying not to stare. The big-framed girl with the black brows distributed the food she had brought in, a plate of fried meat here, bannocks and cheese there. The bell of St Ninian’s began to ring, and several groups of customers downed their drinks and left.

‘Are these all going to hear Compline?’ said Maistre Pierre incredulously.

‘Probably not,’ said Gil, claiming two stools at the corner of a table. ‘But master or dame will bar the door when the Office is done, and there you are in the street shouting to be let in.’ He frowned, as the girl who had served them paused by Annie Thomson and spoke in her ear, jerking her head towards their side of the room. Annie answered, without looking round, and went out to the kitchen again. Something about the set of her back made Gil uneasy.

Under the other window, a large group began singing. Gil could make out neither words nor tune above the hubbub, but Mistress Bell straightened up, glared at the singers, and rapped on the ale barrel with an old shoe which lay conveniently to her hand. This had no effect, so she tried again, shouting, — ‘No- singing!’

The noise receded, leaving the singing isolated like rubbish cast up by the tide. One or two of the singers, realizing what was happening, fell silent, but the rest roared on, oblivious to tugged sleeves and nudged ribs. Mistress Bell, leaving her post at the barrel, stalked across the room in a widening hush, and bellowed, ‘No singing in my house!’

The singing broke off in a ragged diminuendo.

‘Och, Maggie, it’s just — ‘ began one of the minstrels. Mistress Bell tucked the shoe behind her busk, removed his beaker and gave it to his neighbour, then lifted him by one arm and the seat of his hose, and carried him without another word to the door. Someone standing by it hastily opened it for her and she stepped out, dropped her burden in the gutter, dusted her hands together and marched back into the house.

‘And the rest of ye,’ she said, withdrawing the shoe in a threatening manner.

Under her eye the rest of the group finished their drinks and left quietly, while the other customers pretended not to watch. Finally, satisfied, Mistress Bell went back to the tap of the great barrel, making shooing motions at the huddle of grinning serving-lasses in the kitchen doorway.

‘Monday!’ she shouted after the last miscreant. He nodded, and slunk out. She nodded at another table. ‘And you, Billy Spreull. Ye’ve had enough the night. Finish that and get away to your bed.’

‘Ah, Maggie,’ said the man next to the red-faced customer she had addressed.

‘Will I cross this floor?’ she offered, elbows akimbo.

‘No, no,’ said Billy Spreull hastily. ‘We’re jush — just going, Maggie.’

‘Mon Dieu!’ said the mason devoutly, as the noise returned and Billy and his friend left.

‘The singers are barred until Monday,’ Gil interpreted. ‘Habbie Sims told me about this place. It’s the only alehouse the Watch never has to clear.’

‘Surely the Watch has no jurisdiction outside the burgh?’

‘They come over occasionally. Probably to drink at Maggie’s.’ Gil peered into his beaker. ‘Maistre Pierre, look into that corner, and tell me what you see.’

The mason turned to cast a casual glance beyond where the singers had been.

‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Two of those we discussed earlier. So Maister Campbell was not meeting them. I wonder what he was doing?’

‘Further,’ said Gil, his back to the Sempills, ‘I no longer see Annie Thomson. She has not returned to watch the house being cleared, like the other girls. Do you need another drink?’

‘My turn.’ The mason crooked a finger at the girl who had brought their ale. ‘Two more mugs of that very good ale, hen, and where is Annie? Has she left? We wanted to ask her a question.’

‘She’s likely out the back again, her belly’s bothering her,’ said the girl, lifting their empty beakers. ‘It’s funny — there’s another two fellows asking for Annie over there, and I never noticed her spitting pearls.’

Another group of customers left. By the time the girl returned with their drinks, the room was half empty.

‘Could you find Annie?’ Gil said. ‘It’s important.’

‘That’s what the other body said,’ she retorted, tossing her head at him. ‘What’s Annie been up to?’

‘Nothing you wouldn’t do, I’m certain,’ said Gil. He produced another coin, and made it slide in and out between his fingers. The girl watched it, fascinated. ‘Find Annie for us?’ he coaxed.

‘Joan!’ shouted her employer across the room.

‘I’ll try,’ she said grudgingly, and hurried off.

‘Where did you learn that trick with the coin?’ the mason asked.

‘Paris.’

‘I must remember not to play cards with you.’

Gil grinned. I don’t cheat at Tarocco. No need.’

Joan came back into the room, a loaded tray of food in her hands. She distributed this to a group at the long table beyond where the Sempills were sitting, to the accompaniment of complaints that it was cold, and began collecting empty beakers. Pausing by Gil’s elbow she announced, ‘Annie’s no there. She was to bring that tray in, and she’s just no there.’

‘Not in the privy?’ Gil prompted, dismayed.

‘Can- ye no understand? I’m saying she’s no there.’

Gil dropped the coin after its fellow.

‘Thank you for looking,’ he said. ‘Where might she have gone?’

‘Joan!’ shouted Mistress Bell again.

‘The deil knows,’ said Joan, and whisked off. Gil turned to look at Maistre Pierre.

‘Another broken scent,’ he said, and felt something nudge at his memory.

‘Perhaps that formidable woman at the tap could tell us more,’ suggested the mason. His eyes flicked beyond Gil, and he sat back a little, so that Gil had a moment’s warning before John Sempill of Muirend said at his shoulder,

‘And what brings you out this side of the Clyde, Gil Cunningham?’

‘I was born this side,’ Gil pointed out unwisely.

‘Aye, but ye don’t hold the Plotcock and Thinacre now. How’s your mother?’

‘She’s well, John. Regrets her sister Margaret yet,’ said Gil, giving as good as he got. ‘Do you know Maister Peter Mason?’

Sempill nodded at the mason, hooked a stool out with his foot and hunkered down, hitching up the hem of his short black gown to avoid sitting on it. Firelight glinted on the jet beads on his doublet.

‘You were at Bess’s funeral. Sit down, Philip, in God’s name, don’t stand over me like that.’ His cousin sat obediently beside him, staring heavy-eyed at the wall behind Gil’s head. Sempill looked at him and shrugged. ‘Gil, I want a word with you.’

‘You’re getting one.’

‘It’s about …’ Sempill hesitated, turning his beaker round, apparently counting the staves of which it was constructed. ‘It’s about Bess,’ he said at length.

‘I’m listening.’

Sempill turned the beaker round again.

‘I know fine,’ he said, picking at the withy hoop that held the staves together, ‘that Bess had a bairn and that it was none of mine.’ Philip turned and looked at him, then faced the wall again. Ignoring him, Sempill continued, ‘I can count as well as the next man, and I’d been at the Rothesay house once in the three months before she left it. At the quarter-day,’ he added. ‘There was rents to collect. But is that right, that in law I could claim the bairn as mine, because it was born within twelve months of her leaving my house?’

‘You were not separated?’ Gil asked. ‘She had not applied for a divorce?’

‘She wouldn’t have dared,’ said Sempill rather grimly. His cousin turned to look at him again. Recollecting himself, he said more circumspectly, ‘Not that I know of.’

‘Then I think that is probably the case,’ Gil said.

‘I need an heir,’ Sempill said, ‘and I need it now. My uncle is making a will.’

‘What uncle would that be?’ Gil asked curiously.

‘Old John Murray, canon at Dunblane. He’s done well for himself, and I’m his nearest male kin, since his sister was my grandam but no Philip’s. If it’s any business of yours. His mind’s going as well this time,’ he said viciously, ‘and if I can show him an heir he’ll leave me the lot. Failing that it goes to Holy Kirk.’

‘You are asking Maister Cunningham to bilk Holy Kirk of your uncle’s estate?’ said the mason. Sempill snarled at him.

‘He’s asking for advice,’ Philip Sempill said, and leaned forward, putting his leather-clad elbows on the table. ‘It could benefit Bess Stewart’s bairn.’

‘I’m asking for more than that. Will you take a proposition to the harper for me? If he will let me recognize the brat as my heir, I’ll see him right after I get the money.’

‘By him, do you mean the harper?’ said Gil. ‘Or the baby?’

‘So it is a boy!’ said Sempill triumphantly, and Gil suppressed a wave of annoyance. ‘I mean the harper, gomerel.’

‘There’s Euphemia,’ said his cousin.

Sempill glared at him. ‘I need a bairn now. This one’s here, it’s a boy, it’s legally mine. Even if I was to marry Euphemia — ‘

‘If Euphemia Campbell were to give you a legitimate heir,’ said Gil carefully, ‘it would have to be born at least nine months from now. Furthermore, because she has been your mistress in open notoriety, I am not certain you are able to marry Lady Euphemia in any case, though you would be best to take advice on that.’

The two men stared at him, open-mouthed, for a moment.

‘So I need to recognize the harper’s brat,’ said Sempill, recovering quickly. ‘Will you put it to him? I suppose there’ll be a fee to yourself and all.’

‘For a fee,’ said Gil, ‘I will.’

‘Thank you.’ Sempill slammed his beaker down on the table and rose. ‘Come on, Philip. That lass is not here, and it’s a long way up the brae.’

‘Tom-catting in the Gorbals now?’ said Gil innocently.

‘Just as much as yourself, Gil,’ said Sempill.

Gil caught at his arm, and felt the man tense angrily. ‘Now I want a word with you, John.’

‘What, then?’ Sempill stared down at him.

‘What did you come down the market for this morning?’

‘If it’s any of your business, to get another couple of hides off Sandy the tanner in the Waulkergait, who’s sitting over yonder just now with two of his cronies, and to get a word with them at Greyfriars about the burial. Why?’

‘And to run up a bill for black velvet with Clem Walkinshaw,’ said Philip.

‘Aye. You’d think when we’re cousins he could let me have it at cost, but not him.’

‘And when did you go back up the brae?’

‘Oh, well before Sext. Right, Philip?’

Philip Sempill nodded. they were- just beginning Sext at St Nicholas, at the Wyndhead, when we passed.’

‘Who else of the household was down at the market?’

‘How the devil would I know? Neil and Euan both, likely, but who knows what Marriott Kennedy chose to send down the brae?’

‘What about Lady Euphemia? Her brother? What was her brother doing? And Mistress Murray?’

‘I don’t lead Euphemia out on a chain,’ said Sempill forcefully, ‘and I’m not my good-brother’s keeper. It’s very possible. Ask them. What is this about?’

‘Another lass died today,’ Gil said, ‘and there may be a connection.’

‘Well, it was nothing to do with me,’ said Sempill. ‘And you’d best find who it was, Gil Cunningham, or there’ll be no lasses left in Glasgow. Come on, Philip.’

He tugged his arm free of Gil’s grasp and marched out. They heard him in the street cracking his plaid like a whip.

His cousin hesitated.

‘Who killed Bess?’ he asked quietly. ‘Do you know yet? John’ll not be fit to live with till it’s discovered.’

‘Does it worry him?’ Gil asked, surprised by this image of the man. ‘I never thought he cared a spent docken for her, except as his property.’

‘Exactly.’ Philip Sempill finished his ale and rose, shaking out his grey plaid. ‘And his property’s getting scarce enough, without folk putting knives through it.’

‘Philip!’ shouted Sempill from the street.

‘So you’ll let us know the answer,’ said Philip Sempill ambiguously, and followed his cousin.

Gil turned his head to watch the door swing shut behind him, and Maistre Pierre said, Interesting.’

‘More than that.’ Gil watched the latch click and said thoughtfully, ‘He must be desperate for money. He knows it is a boy — that is my fault,’ he said ruefully, counting off the points, ‘he either cannot find it or knows he cannot reach it, he seems willing to acknowledge it although he knows it is not his.’

‘Why can he not marry his leman? He seems to consider her his wife already.’

‘Simply because she is his leman. His adultery has been publicly recognized while his wife was alive. Canon law is quite specific on that point.’

‘So he must acknowledge this baby which is not his. For how long?’ asked Maistre Pierre.

Gil shrugged. ‘He was a year or two above me at the Grammar School. I would trust him about as far as I could throw him. Until he gets his uncle’s money, I imagine the bairn would be safe.’

Will you put his proposition to the harper?’

‘I will — and whistle for my fee, most likely.’ Gil pushed back his stool. ‘We have a long walk over the bridge too, but first I think there is something we must do here.’

Maggie Bell eyed him with disfavour as he approached her. Ignoring this, he took up a position where he did not impede her view of the room, and said quietly, ‘Mistress Bell, I owe you an apology.’

‘How so?’ she said, startled.

‘It seems I may have driven one of your lasses away.’

‘Annie Thomson.’

‘The same. I came looking for a word with her, and so did the two that have just left, and the girl Joan says she has vanished.’

‘I’m no surprised. My girls are good girls, maister. What they do in their own time’s their own concern, but there’s no assignations made in my house. Four of ye in one evening, michty me!’

‘I wanted a word,’ Gil said, ‘because it was Annie who spent May Day with the mason’s boy. The one that was taken up for dead in St Mungo’s yard. Maybe you’ve heard about that. And now Annie has disappeared, and the other men who wanted to speak to her have left.’

‘I’ve heard about it,’ said Mistress Bell with a sniff, measuring a huge jug of ale for another girl, ‘but I don’t pay much mind to what happens up-by.’

‘I hoped,’ Gil pursued, ‘that she might be able to tell me who struck him down. Since the boy is still in a great swound, he can tell us nothing. But now I am concerned for Annie, since there’s another girl dead.’

‘I remember now,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘Annie came back late on May Day. About this time, it was, or later, after Compline anyway. I would have fetched her a welt for it, for we’d been busy, but she seemed owercouped by something.’

‘She said nothing?’

‘No to me.’ She poured two beakers of ale for one of the girls. ‘Mysie, when you’ve served these, get out the back and search for Annie. All of ye. Take torches to look in the buildings, work in pairs, look in all the corners. All of them, mind, and the yard as well.’

‘Why? What’s come to her?’ asked the girl pertly. Mistress Bell raised her arm to her and she ducked, grinning, and spilled some of the ale. ‘I hear ye, mistress.’

‘Maybe we should lend a hand,’ offered Gil as the girl hurried off. Mistress Bell eyed him carefully.

‘Maybe ye should no,’ she corrected. Gil, understanding her, felt his face burning, but nodded in acknowledgement.

‘You keep your girls well, mistress. Supposing she is not to be found out the back, can you tell me where she might have gone?’

‘I can not. Do ye think I’ve the sight like an Ersche henwife? Her mother’s at Dumbarton, she might run home if she’s feart for something.’ She grinned at him. ‘Get you out my way and wait, maister. Unless you like to lend a hand here fetching jugs of ale, since I’ve sent all the lassies out hunting for Annie.’

But Joan, reporting back after a quarter-hour or so, had no information.

‘Not a sign of her, mistress,’ she said. ‘No in the outhouses, no in the brew-house, no in the yard. Mysie and Peg looked behind the kindling, Eppie and me checked the sacks of malt, but there’d been nobody there, you could see that.’

‘Could you?’ asked the mason. She threw him a challenging look.

‘Aye, you could. Because Rob Morrison tore a sack when he unloaded this afternoon, and there was no fresh footprints in the spilt grain. But we did find the side gate unbarred,’ she added to her mistress.

‘Ye did, did ye? Was it closed over?’

‘Oh, aye. Ye’d never have seen from outside that it was unfastened. I think she’s away, maisters, and I think she went that way.’

‘May we see it?’ Gil asked.

Mistress Bell scowled, looked round the room and finally said, ‘Joan, mind the tap a wee while. This way, maisters.’

The light was at that difficult stage where it was too dark to see clearly, but torches helped very little. The yard where Mistress Bell brewed her ale was surrounded by a stout fence of cut planks, as high as Gil’s shoulder. Near the house there was a narrow gate for foot traffic, closed by a latch and a bar the thickness of the mason’s forearm. It conveyed no information whatever. Gil, holding his torch high, peered round at the dancing shadows of barn and brew-house.

‘This is the only gate?’ asked the mason.

‘No, there’s the gate for the carts, yonder by the barn. This is the gate the lassies use in the morn, it’s the one she’d think of first. The cart-gate’s barred, maisters, I can see it from here.’ She strode down the yard and brandished her own torch at the big double leaves.

‘May I open this?’ Gil asked.

,if it makes ye happy.’

Beyond the gate was the muddy track which led between the ale-house and the next cottage. On one side it went out on to the street, on the other it disappeared into the shadows between the two tofts. Mysterious vegetable shapes jumped in the dimness.

‘Out there’s only Neighbour Walker’s grosset bushes,’ Mistress Bell informed him. ‘If ye’re ettling to search those in this light ye’re a better man than I am. Walker could sell the thorns for whingers.’

Gil shut the gate from the outside. It dragged over the ground, but with one hand in the latch-hole he contrived to close it completely. As Joan had said, from the outside all looked secure, and he judged that the hefty girl they were looking for would have had no difficulty in doing the same. He opened the gate and stepped back in.

‘Thank you, mistress,’ he said, settling the bar in place.

‘Seen enough?’

‘I have, for one,’ said the mason. ‘May we now leave the neighbour’s gooseberry bushes and speak to the girls?’

Joan, handing responsibility for the tap back to her mistress, admitted that she had no idea what was troubling-Annie.

‘She’s no been right,’ she admitted, ‘she’s been as if the Bawcan’s after her, peering in corners and ducking at shadows. She’s been taking more than her turn at the dishes, which is no like her.’

‘But kept her out of the way of customers,’ Gil interpreted.

‘Aye,’ agreed Joan. ‘But as for telling anyone, no. Mysie says she tried, and Peg tried, but she’d tell nobody. She said she’d the toothache, but we thought maybe someone forced her,’ she admitted.

‘And why did none of you tell me?’ demanded her mistress. ‘What a flock of haiverel lassies!’ She cast a glance round the emptying room, and raised her voice. ‘Last orders, neighbours! It’s near curfew.’

‘Do you know where Annie’s mother lives in Dumbarton?’ Gil asked.

‘No; said Maggie Bell bluntly. ‘And if you’ve to get home to the Wyndheid before they bar the door, you’d best get away over the river.’

‘You know me?’ asked Gil.

‘I know you’re from St Mungo’s.’

‘Then if you hear any word of Annie — good or bad,’ he said earnestly, ‘will you send to me? I stay in the Official’s house — the Cadzow manse.’

She nodded impatiently.

‘I’ll do that. Goodnight, maister. I’ll put Sandy the tanner out in a wee bit and he’ll shut the Brig Port on his way home.’

Out in the darkening street Maistre Pierre said thoughtfully, ‘She left well before the Sempills.’

‘Aye. She may simply have run, as the other girl says.’ Gil looked up and down the street and turned towards the bridge. ‘Providing she has not met James Campbell in a kirkyard, she is probably safe enough.’

‘You think he knifed the other girl?’

‘What do you think?’

The mason remained silent until they had crossed the bridge with a few last revellers, who vanished in ones and twos into the closes of the Waulkergait. Finally he said, ‘I do not know. Nevertheless I think we have learned something useful tonight, even if the scent is broken.’

‘We have.’ Gil hitched his gown round his shoulders. ‘Now — shall we try opening Bess Stewart’s box?’