The Rough Collier

Chapter Five

It was not Thomas Murray.

Adam Crombie the youngest stood in the stable-yard in the dying light of the April evening, loud and proud as Ivy, broad-shouldered in his blue student gown, and glowered at Gil.

‘Is it you that’s set this nonsense afoot?’ he demanded. ‘What’s it all about, then? Thomas dug out of a peat-bank, and my mother taken up for a witch? It makes no sense.’

‘I never said that,’ said Jamesie Meikle at his elbow. ‘I said it’s no Thomas Murray, and Mistress Lithgo was freed. By this fellow here,’ he added, ‘so you might as well be civil to him, maister.’

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ said Gil mildly. He stepped back, to allow Alan Forrest to offer ale to both men, and nodded to the stable-hand who held the bridles of two sturdy ponies. ‘Aye, take those beasts in, Tammas. They’ll be hungry, if they’ve come from Glasgow today.’

‘Glad? Why should that be?’ said Crombie, emerging from his beaker. ‘Did you look for us?’

‘There’s all sorts I need to know that I’d not wish to ask the women, that one or other of you can surely tell me. Will you come in the house? You’ll not ride on tonight, I hope. It must be another hour to the heugh, and the light’s going. We can feed you and fit you in a corner somewhere, can’t we, Alan?’

‘Aye, very like,’ admitted the steward with faint reluctance.

‘We’ll no be looked for till the morn,’ said Meikle hopefully, ‘and the owls will fly soon.’

Crombie grunted ungraciously, but followed Gil up the stone steps into the house, saying, ‘What’s going on, then? Jamesie brought me a word from my grandam, but all she says is that I’m needed out at the heugh, and what Jamesie has to add to that’s no great benefit, what wi’ a dead man in the Thorn peat-cutting and that fool Fleming trying to blame my mother for it.’

‘That’s the meat of it,’ agreed Gil, ‘that and the fact your grieve’s missing. He went off five weeks since to fetch the dues for last quarter and hasn’t come home.’

‘Five weeks? Have they no sent after him?’ demanded Crombie. ‘Jamesie, you never said it was as long as that.’

‘Mistress Weir won’t hear of sending after him yet.’ Gil led the way into the hall, just as Michael appeared in the doorway of the small chamber, bowing to those within.

‘Servant, madam, Mistress Mason,’ he said, and turned to leave. He checked at the sight of Crombie, who was staring at him from the hall threshold. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘What are you doing?’ demanded Crombie in return, equally hostile. Gil looked from one to the other in amusement, thinking of fighting-cocks.

‘Leaving,’ said Michael curtly. ‘I’ll carry on down the list the morn,’ he added to Gil, replacing his hat, ‘and report again.’

‘Have you light enough to get home by?’ called Lady Egidia. Michael turned in the doorway, raising his eyebrows.

‘Two mile on the old Roman road, most of it on our own land,’ he said. ‘I don’t need a light. I’ll see you the morn, madam.’

‘Good man,’ said Gil, clapping him on the shoulder as he went past. Michael grunted a reply, ducked round the glowering Adam Crombie, and left the house. Gil led the two new guests into another of the small chambers, and went to alert his mother to their presence.

Once both men had washed and eaten, Crombie in modest state in the chamber off the hall, Meikle in the kitchen with the maidservants giggling by the hearth, they forgathered in the steward’s room with a jug of the twice-brewed. Gil offered a concise account of events so far, to which the young coalmaster listened, frowning.

‘It makes no sense,’ he complained. ‘You say you’ve no notion who this corp might be.’ Gil nodded agreement. ‘As for where Thomas might ha’ got to — Jamesie, can you say?’

‘No,’ said Meikle baldly.

‘And David Fleming calling my mother for a witch. My mother! What’s got into him to do that? That’s bad, isn’t it, Maister Cunningham?’

‘It could be,’ Gil said warily. ‘Any woman as herb-wise as your mother is at risk of being accused like that. Have you yourself aught to add to the situation? I’d hoped you might be able to tell me what’s behind Fleming’s behaviour.’

Crombie was silent, staring into his cup of ale.

‘The corp’s nothing to do wi’ us,’ he said at length.

‘I think he’s been in the peat a good many years. Maybe even before your time.’

‘The clerk was teaching my sisters their letters and a bit Latin,’ continued Crombie, ‘till — oh, last autumn. Then when I was home at Yule he’d ceased the lessons. There seemed no reason for it, but Arbella wouldny hear of it continuing. Whether he broke them off, and she took exception to that, or whether my mother put a stop to them and he took a strunt, or what, I’ve no notion. He’s never liked us, for all Arbella’s done him a good few favours. I’ve aye took it it’s down to his father dying in the Long Shaft, but this — ’

‘This seems to be aimed at Mistress Lithgo herself,’ Gil agreed, ‘and she can’t have been there when that happened.’

‘No, well afore her time,’ said Crombie, and took another pull at his ale.

‘Was Fleming’s father a collier?’

‘No that I heard. He clerked for the place, kept accounts and the like, I believe. What’s that to the point?’

‘Little enough, if that’s the case. And Fleming himself, is he a good teacher?’

‘Who knows. My sisters wereny enjoying his lessons much, they’d no sorrow that they were ended. I just left it,’ he said grandly, ‘lassies have no need of reading, Latin or Scots, so long as they can keep the accounts straight.’

‘And is he liked by folk round about?’ Gil asked, ignoring this statement.

‘No as much as Sir Arnold was.’

‘My auntie hasny a good word for him,’ said Meikle.

‘I was up at Thorn and heard some of her words today,’ Gil said, glancing at him. The collier grinned. ‘What did you mean yesterday, Jamesie, about swearing to something on any relic Sir David could produce?’

Master and man looked at each other.

‘Is that still — ?’ said Crombie. The collier nodded. ‘What a piece of nonsense. We’ve a chapel of St Ninian up by the coal-heugh, maister, and Sir David wants a relic for it. He and Arbella can never agree on what to search for, nor how much to pay for it, nor who should pay. It’s been an argument atween them these three year.’

‘The man’s a fool. I wonder that my godfather keeps him on,’ said Gil. Neither man rose to this bait. ‘Does he have much to do with you up at the heugh as under-steward?’

‘It’s generally him that collects the quarter’s fee,’ said Crombie, surprised. ‘But it’s mostly that he priests for us, seeing he’s chaplain at Cauldhope.’

Behind them, hinges grumbled as the door was nudged open. The colliers looked round, and both stared in surprise at the long grey muzzle and single bright eye which appeared round the edge of the heavy planks.

‘And what about Murray?’ said Gil, snapping his fingers. Socrates pushed the door wider and padded into the room. ‘Is there any reason why the man would vanish?’

‘A whole quarter’s takings would maybe be reason enough,’ suggested Meikle sourly.

‘Is that so? Would he think so? How much should he gather, all told?’

Crombie shrugged, still eyeing the dog with suspicion. ‘Ten merks? Twelve? Depends how much coal he sold last winter.’

‘Hardly a fortune to run off with. What does the man earn in a quarter?’

‘No that much, I assure you.’

‘And there’s the other two lads,’ Meikle pointed out. ‘He could never just ride off and leave them. They’d surely be back to let us know.’ He made a chirruping noise, and Socrates cocked his head at him.

‘And Joanna,’ said Crombie. The collier’s face froze. ‘He’d be daft to go and leave her, the way my sainted grandam’s will stands, unless she’s altered it since I’ve been in Glasgow.’

Socrates left Gil and went to Meikle’s side, nudging at the man’s hand with his long nose. The collier caressed him, fair head bent over rough grey.

‘Has there been any difficulty with the business?’ Gil asked. ‘Has he maybe run off because there’s no coin, rather than a lot of it?’

‘I see why you wouldny want to ask that of my grandam,’ said Crombie with a short laugh. ‘She’d let you have your head to play with. No, so far’s I’m aware there’s naught wrong wi’ the business. Coal comes out the ground, we sell the coal, the customers pay us and we pay the colliers. Is that no it, Jamesie?’

‘Aye,’ said Meikle.

‘And Murray himself. How do you find the man?’ Gil asked the coalmaster.

‘I’ve no need — he’s aye about the house.’ Meikle gave his master a swift glance, and bent over the dog again. Gil looked at Crombie without expression, and he amended his answer: ‘He’s a good enough worker, a good pitman so my uncle Matt aye said, and he would know, but he’s a knack for rubbing the men up the wrong way. Comes o’ being red-haired, I suppose. By Arbella’s way of it, she’s forever having to smooth things down.’

Meikle shot him another of those looks, and busied himself with refilling the beakers. Socrates had laid his head down on the man’s knee.

‘Is he trustworthy?’

‘You keep coming back to that,’ said Crombie, scowling again. ‘Have you any reason why I would find him otherwise?’

‘Not so far,’ Gil said. ‘We’re hunting along the track he should have taken, soon or late we’ll find whether he left it and where, but I want to consider all the possibilities.’

‘Why? It’s our man that’s missing, if he’s missing. What’s it to you?’

‘I was called in to deal wi’ the accusation of witchcraft,’ Gil reminded him, ‘part of it being Fleming’s thought that the corp in the peat-digging was Murray. If I can find Murray that part of the evidence fails.’

‘I suppose so,’ agreed Crombie grudgingly.

‘Do you know where he’s from? Does he have kin hereabouts, or friends?’

‘No,’ said Crombie. ‘Jamesie? And I never had any reason to doubt him,’ he added, ‘but then Arbella keeps me out of the business. Jamesie, has he mentioned kin to you ever?’

‘No,’ said Meikle. ‘He goes drinking in Lanark, times, he might have friends down there. He never talks much to the rest of us at the coaltown, save the Patersons. I’ve a notion he’s from Fife somewhere, like them.’ He screwed up his eyes. ‘He learned his trade at the sea-coal pits by Culross, I think. That side of the water, at any road.’

What would a sea-coal pit need with a sinker? wondered Gil. ‘The salt-boilers must be just this side of the Forth from there,’ he said aloud.

Crombie snorted, and took a pull at his ale. ‘That was a plan Murray had, and talked Arbella into. Daft idea. We’re short enough as it — ’ He broke off, and took another mouthful of ale.

‘It was just the small stuff he wanted to sell them,’ said Meikle, and got a glare for his pains. ‘We canny shift it up here, maister. He might have gone to talk to them.’

‘I know the name,’ Gil said, and drained his beaker, ‘and where they are. I need to talk to them and all. And now I think we should see you settled for the night. You’ll want to be up betimes.’

Out in the stable-yard in the twilight, watching the shadowy dog ranging round checking the scents and adding his own, Gil considered the interview carefully. Magistrand or no, young Crombie did not appear to be a clever thinker, but it seemed as if he was concealing something about his dealings with the missing man. He had claimed nothing was wrong with the business, but he gave an impression of discord among those managing it, and Gil had not missed the last, broken-off remark. If the coal-heugh was not doing well, it might be a reason for the grieve to cut his losses and leave without notice, but what did the salt-boilers have to do with it? And where were the other two men?

Perhaps Alys has gathered more information, he thought hopefully, listening to the quiet sounds from the horses, the rustle of hay in a rack, the clip of shod hoof on cobbled floor. The dog snuffled at a stable door, and its resident snorted in answer. Alys would be waiting in their chamber by candlelight, perhaps reading, or combing down the silken honey-coloured tresses which he loved. He had been dismayed to realize that as a married woman she would have to cover her hair in public.

There were footsteps on the stone stair down from the house door, and he turned to see a dark figure moving towards him. Socrates appeared grinning out of the dark, claws rasping on the cobbles, and bounded towards the newcomer, who paused to greet him and then came forward.

‘Jamesie,’ Gil said.

‘The same,’ acknowledged Jamesie Meikle.

‘Tell me about the salt-boilers.’

The collier’s head moved sharply against the deep blue of the sky, as if he was startled by the request, but after a moment he said quietly, ‘What makes you think I ken aught of use, maister?’

‘I think you’re alert to anything that affects Mistress Brownlie,’ said Gil. There was another sharp movement, and he went on in soothing tones, ‘I’m not suggesting any ill doing. She’s a virtuous woman, I think.’

Meikle relaxed with an audible exhalation.

‘She’s that,’ he acknowledged. ‘I’ve no notion even if she kens what I feel for her, though once I did think — well. Anyway she wedded Murray.’

Poor devil. Love is to his herte gon, with one spere so kene, thought Gil.

‘And?’ he prompted, when no more was said.

‘The salt-boilers. When you buy coal, Maister Cunningham, you buy the great coal, am I right? Pieces the size o’ your head or greater.’

‘I suppose so.’ Gil recalled watching deliveries of coal at his uncle’s house. ‘Aye, indeed, the men bear it in from the cart in huge lumps. Some are so big it takes two to carry them.’

‘Aye. Most folk prefer to break up their own coal for burning, that way they can be sure it’s all good coal and no rock. It doesny all come out the ground in great pieces, though, and we’ve trouble shifting the small coal. But it suits the salt-boilers to take it off our hands at a good price, they’re no fussy about the quality and it saves them the trouble of breaking it. The fire under the pan burns more even and all.’

‘Go on.’

‘We’ve a hill of small coal up at the heugh, waiting to be sold on, and Murray was trying to get an agreement to sell it to Willie Wood down at Blackness, that’s all.’

‘What was the problem?’

‘Problem?’

‘What was the delay in getting the agreement?’

‘None that I ken. Well, it was maybe that we couldny be sure how often we’d have a load worth taking so far, what wi’ the throw at one side the working and the seam running thin at the other.’

‘Running thin? How much longer will it hold out?’

‘No telling. Could be years, could be months. The first seam lasted thirty year, this one’s done twenty now. I’d say it was about done, but I could be wrong.’

‘Is that why you’ve only the one shift working, or is the place haunted as they say?’

‘Ha!’ said Jamesie, without humour. ‘There’s aye strange things in a mine. Noises and missing tools, voices in the distance, the folk we call the Knockers, you get used to it. Some of the lads thinks there’s more than that at the Pow Burn, but I’d say myself it’s these owls, which are all ower the place by night. No, you’re right, the auld wife has ordered the work slowed down a bittie till we find a new seam. She put out the order five week since, as soon as Murray was off the place.’

Socrates came back to Gil’s side, and nudged his hand. He scratched absently behind the dog’s soft ears, and said, ‘You don’t like Murray.’

‘Joanna’s feart for him. His sharp tongue, you ken.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Is it no enough? No,’ admitted Meikle. ‘It’s no all. He’s a hard master, demanding, aye looking for a reason to cut a man’s pay. He’s aye after the women behind — behind her back. Nan Tweedie where I lodge says he’s aye sportsome, aye making suggestions, aye got a hand for a rump or a titty. And he’s no easy to work beside neither. You know the way some folk are just aye in the wrong place? He’s like that — forever in the way, and it’s never his fault. Mind you,’ he added, and Gil could hear the wry smile in the man’s voice, ‘he’s learned that if I see Joanna’s been weeping, nothing goes right in the mine for him the next day. Strange, that.’

‘Does he drink in Lanark often?’

‘Once a week, maybe. One of the men’s wives up at the heugh brews a good draught, but he’ll no sit in a common collier’s house and drink ale wi’ the rest of us.’ This time he laughed. ‘Agnes Brewster would likely put a dead mouse in his cup if he tried it.’

‘Does he get on with Fleming?’

‘Not so’s you’d notice. But there’s nobody much he does get on with, maister.’

Gil considered this, and at length said, ‘What do you think has happened?’

‘I think he’s run off,’ said Meikle promptly. ‘Taken the quarter’s money and run. But what he’s done wi’ the two sinker lads I’ve no notion. They might go along wi’ him, unless he’s slit their throats and left them under a bank somewhere. But then, that’s what I would hope he’s done,’ he admitted, ‘and leave Joanna free.’

‘She’d be freer yet if he’s dead,’ said Gil deliberately. ‘You’ve not slain him yourself, or paid the sinker lads to do the same?’

‘Now I never thought of that,’ said Meikle with regret. ‘Though I doubt if I could ever afford the sum they’d ask for it. Besides, you’d think if he was dead the word would ha’ — Is that an owl?’

A pale shape drifted silently across the yard above their heads. Socrates looked up, and something small rustled in the shadows of the cart-shed. The floating shape alighted on the ridge of the far range, and delivered a familiar Hu-hu-hoo.

‘An owl,’ agreed Gil.

‘I’ll away in,’ said Meikle. He turned and hurried up the steps, ignoring Gil’s attempt to question him further.

Alys was at her devotions. When he entered the chamber, leaving the dog sprawled before the embers of the hall fire at the foot of the stairs, she was seated relaxed and upright in the candlelight by the empty hearth, her feet next to a brass box of hot coals, the prayer-book which was her father’s wedding gift open on her lap; her eyes were shut. Gil undressed quietly, considering the interview with Meikle. It was strange that a man who could speak hardily of the odd things in the mine — who or what were the Knockers? he wondered — should retreat so promptly from the mere presence of an owl. But the other information the man had provided was certainly interesting, though he could not yet see where it might fit into the puzzle. Nobody had a good word for Thomas Murray, other than his wife, but there still seemed no reason for him to disappear.

He abandoned these thoughts, and settled down to make his own petition before the crucifix on the end wall of the bed. As he drew back the bedclothes to climb in, Alys closed her book and turned her head to smile at him.

‘Did you speak to the colliers? Did they have anything useful to tell you?’ she asked.

‘A little.’

She put the book carefully in its tasselled velvet bag and set it on a shelf by the hearth, then rose and came forward to him. Her hair was loose, falling over the shoulders of her bedgown, and shone in the lamplight. He put his hands on her shoulders and bent his head to kiss her.

‘What did they say?’

He slid one hand down across her breast, down to the knot of ribbons which fastened the bedgown.

‘Later,’ he said.

But later, much later, lying skin against skin, heart against heart, drowsy with loving, he found a deep reluctance to break the mood with rational thought. It seemed Alys felt the same way, but just before she fell asleep she murmured something he failed to catch. He made a questioning noise, and she repeated it.

‘Joanna. Joanna is the key, I think.’

‘Joanna?’ he said in the morning. ‘What has she — why Joanna? Why not Beatrice?’

They had exchanged fuller accounts of the previous day while they dressed, Gil describing the interview with old William Forrest as he hooked up Alys’s gown for her, she recounting her conversation with Joanna as she laced his doublet in a ritual which had grown up almost immediately after their marriage, and tended to slow the start of the day.

‘Because Beatrice is a good woman,’ Alys answered him now, intent before the dim greenish mirror as she pinned her indoor cap to her braids. ‘And she loved her husband.’

‘I thought you said Joanna loved her first husband too. Why would she kill him?’

‘I don’t think she did. Nevertheless, she is the key.’ She turned away from the mirror. ‘I spoke to Kate Paterson, Gil.’

‘The sinkers’ kin.’

‘Yes, their sister. She works in the kitchen of the house. She is not concerned for her brothers, she said, because she heard some word that they had gone to Linlithgow. Blackness is the port for Linlithgow, I think? Is that where the salt-boilers are?’

‘To Linlithgow?’ he repeated. ‘Why? Did Murray go with them? How did she hear that? It seems strange.’

‘It does,’ she agreed. ‘I questioned her, but all she knew was that the folk at Forth, is that the right name?’ He nodded. ‘Had told some of the colliers that her brothers were gone to Linlithgow. She seemed to think they were to meet Murray there.’

‘Ah!’ said Gil, and then, ‘But that means they were not there together.’

‘So I thought. She knew nothing more.’

‘Forth,’ said Gil thoughtfully. ‘It’s the last place on the round. I suppose they could have got that far, but why would Murray have left them and gone ahead to Linlithgow?’

She nodded, and straightened the velvet cuffs of her red worsted gown. ‘Would you say Sir David is well liked?’

‘No, I suppose I would not.’

‘I wonder why,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I did not like him myself, but he is not my priest.’

‘He’s nobody’s priest,’ Gil pointed out, ‘though it seems he acts for Thorn and the coaltown when John Heriot’s busy. I don’t think I’d take well to anyone that read the Malleus Maleficarum for pleasure, and he’s not the world’s most powerful logician either.’

‘John Heriot? That is the vicar here in Carluke?’ Gil nodded in answer, and Alys went on, ‘I thought the women at the Pow Burn disliked Fleming particularly. I wonder what. . I wonder if Murray tried to remonstrate with him, and he killed the man?’

‘Over what?’

‘Perhaps he made advances to Joanna. Or to Phemie. Or perhaps Murray guessed why he had consulted Mistress Lithgo and proposed to make it public.’

‘Murray would hardly step in to defend Phemie, by what you say.’

‘I suppose not. Gil, we must find some trace of Murray. Where will you search today?’

‘Michael is following the trail for now. I thought to pursue the identity of the man from the peat-digging further afield, but instead I might go up to Forth and find out what they know up there. Will you come with me?’

She shook her head. ‘If we work separately, we can find the answer sooner. Then you can continue to show me swordplay.’ Her faint blush made clear her awareness of the double meaning in her words.

He smiled reluctantly, trying to cover his disappointment. ‘What will you do, then?’

‘I want to find Joanna’s family, if your mother will let me borrow Henry again. I wonder if Jamesie Meikle knows …’

There was a scraping at the door. Gil crossed to it and let Socrates in, and the conversation paused while they both acknowledged his greetings. Once the dog had settled down Gil said, ‘To ask about the agreement with the collier at Dalserf, you mean?’

‘That too.’ She nodded. ‘And Gil, you must find the other two men, the sinkers. They are also important. I wonder if they really have gone to Linlithgow?’

‘You think Murray is dead, don’t you?’

‘I do,’ she said seriously, and crossed herself. ‘What worries me is why.’

‘I suppose that depends on who killed him, and that’s not easy to guess. He isn’t much liked, but he seems to be respected, there’s no sign he was thieving from the business, his wife says nothing against him — what about young Phemie? I’d believe her capable of riding out to meet him and stabbing him, if he jilted her as you say. The two sinkers might have killed him for the coin, I suppose, but why go openly to Linlithgow if so?’

‘Her brother? Would he be capable of it?’

‘I’d say so. He’s one to want to have the maistry in londes where he goes, and I suppose he would take exception to it if Murray was trying to take charge, or make decisions that weren’t his to make. But when would he have the chance?’

‘It’s a long ride from Glasgow, but he could do as you suggest for Phemie.’

‘True. Not an easy journey to get an exeat for, just the same.’ Gil grinned. ‘Maister Doby, may I have leave to go and slay my aunt by marriage’s second husband? I think the Principal would find it lacking in the Christian virtues.’ Alys giggled. ‘I suppose that’s why he and Michael dislike one another so much,’ he went on. ‘I thought there would be daggers out when they set eyes on one another last night.’

‘They must be acquainted,’ Alys observed. ‘Other than both being at the university, I mean. They are much of an age, and they have grown up living within a mile or two, on the same lands. That will make matters worse.’ She shook out her skirts, and turned to the door. ‘Shall we go down?’

The corpse from the peat bog was not improving with exposure. Peering over the steward’s shoulder, Gil was dismayed to note the way the cracks in the skin were extending over the elbows and knees. He stood aside to let the two colliers have a closer look, and saw Crombie flinch at the sight.

‘I’ve got Danny the carpenter to him,’ said Alan Forrest anxiously, ‘and he says he’s been maybe five and a half foot high in life, and he’s away to make a box we can put him in. So I thought, Maister Gil, if we had him cried by the bellman the length of the parish, we could show him to anyone that thinks they might put a name to him, and then we could bury him decent.’

‘You were right, Jamesie. His own mother couldny put a name to him,’ said Adam Crombie. He dragged his appalled gaze from the face and surveyed the rest of the body. ‘But I thought you said he had all his fingers?’ he added to Gil.

‘Oh, the Devil’s bollocks!’ said Alan with unaccustomed vigour, bending to look at the damage. ‘Maister Gil, I’m right sorry! The household has all been after me, kitchen and yard, for a closer look, which is why I had him locked in here,’ he waved a hand at the feed-store where they stood, ‘and one of the women’s been on about a charm against getting lost on the moor. Someone’s been in here and got one of his fingers off.’ He peered round at the floor, then back at the torn black flesh and exposed brownish bone. ‘I ken who’s done it, I’ll wager.’

‘Why should he protect you against getting lost on the moor?’ said Gil in exasperation. ‘He met with a sorry end himself, poor devil. Get it back, Alan, and make it clear we’ll not have him treated like that.’

‘There’s a thing, though,’ said Jamesie Meikle, who was still studying the corpse’s face. ‘Seems to me, he’s no got the look of a man who’s met wi’ violence, for all the different ways he was slain.’

‘How can you tell that, Jamesie?’ demanded his master in scornful tones. ‘You said to me yourself, his own mother wouldny — ’

‘Aye, but,’ persisted the collier. ‘He’s a face to fright the weans, I agree, but he’s not been feared himself.’

‘You’re havering, Jamesie,’ said Crombie dismissively, but Gil, considering the bundle of bones and peeling skin, began to feel the collier had a point. There was something peaceful about the way the body was disposed, despite its savage death.

‘At the rate his skin’s drying out,’ he said, ‘we’ll need to bury the fellow soon anyway, but I’d rather he went under the earth wi’ a name to call his own. Send to Andro Bellman, Alan, that’s a good thought, and get him to publish a description abroad. I suppose you’ve no idea who he might be, Crombie?’

‘None.’ The younger man looked round as the horses were led out in the sunshine past the door of the feed-store. ‘We’ll get away out your road, Maister Cunningham, and my thanks to your lady mother again for our night’s lodging. I’m for Kilncaigow first, to confront David Fleming.’

‘I’ll ride out with you as far as the peat-digging,’ said Gil. ‘I want another look at where this fellow was found, and then I’m for Forth and Haywood.’

‘What, up on the roof of Lanarkshire?’ said Crombie. ‘What would anyone go there for? The folk walk bent sideways from the wind. Our lads go up there times to get a taste of ale other than Agnes Brewster’s, but there’s no more attraction than that.’

‘I’m still on the trail.’ Gil followed the two men out into the yard and snapped his fingers for Socrates, who loped over to him from the horse-trough. ‘Alan, you’ll need to keep him safe, or he’ll be round the parish in more fragments than the True Cross. Crombie, do you ken the name of the clerk up at Forth? Who is it you sell coal to?’

The peat-digging told Gil nothing new. He spent a little while confirming what he had observed on the day he had first seen the place, then mounted up again and rode on up the hill. It was a bright day, and much less windy than yesterday; the sun was warm on his face, there were larks singing high up under the fluffy clouds, and the familiar round-shouldered bulk of Tinto Hill showed away to his right. His discontent began to lift. Socrates galloped in great circles on the rough grass, until Gil saw a small flock of ewes with their lambs and whistled the dog in to take him up on the pommel. Even the air seemed cleaner up here, he thought. At times like this he wondered why he stayed in Glasgow.

As Adam Crombie said, Forth village had an unappealing setting. Perched below its chapel on a bald hillside, surrounded by ribbed fields and bent trees, the little group of houses seemed chilly and exposed. However the welcome a stranger received was warm. Gil and Socrates were noticed first by a rough-coated bitch tethered by a doorway, and when she began to hurl abuse at the intruders a group of the children gathered to stare. Gil dismounted and spoke to them, and they came slowly closer. One of them, taking his eyes reluctantly from Socrates, admitted that Sir Martin dwelt here.

‘He’s at the plough,’ said another.

‘My da’s at the plough and all,’ confided a diminutive person with cropped hair and no front teeth, bare feet firmly planted in the mud, well-worn tunic revealing nothing of gender.

‘Is your mammy here?’ Gil asked, aware that he was observed from several doorways.

The tethered dog continued to bark. Socrates, ignoring her loftily, sat down at Gil’s feet. The child with no front teeth shook its head, but the boy who had spoken first said, ‘Her mammy’s went to the wash at the Cleugh. My mammy’s here, but.’ He pointed at one of the low houses.

‘My mammy’s here and all,’ announced someone else. ‘Does yer dog bite, maister?’

‘Only if you’re rough with him,’ Gil said. ‘If you’ll tell your mammy I’d like a wee word with her, you can speak to the dog after.’

The boy he addressed nodded and ran off, leaving behind him a chorus of, ‘Can I? Can I? Can we all get clapping yer dog, maister?’

‘You can take turns,’ Gil temporized, wondering how Socrates would cope with the assault. A bigger girl organized them into a line at his words, and by the time his messenger returned with a woman bundled in a vast sacking apron he was showing the first child how to offer a hand to the dog for inspection.

‘Our John says you’re wanting a word wi’ me,’ she said, bobbing a curtsy while her hands picked nervously at the apron. ‘Are ye from the coal-heugh, maister? Was it about the coin? For it’s no here.’

‘The coin?’ he repeated, straightening up and raising his hat to her. ‘That’s right, show him the back of your hand. Let him sniff you.’

‘It’s kittly!’ said the candidate, snatching the hand away. ‘His whiskers is kittly!’

‘The coin the colliers left,’ said John’s mother. ‘Is that no what you want, sir?’

‘Let me!’ said the messenger, pushing the other child aside. ‘He said I could!’

‘I came up to ask about the colliers. Do you tell me they’ve been here and gone again?’

‘Oh, aye,’ she assured him. ‘Near a month since.’

Someone silenced the barking dog along the street, and the women gathered from their doorways, one or two still settling their linen headcoverings in place

‘There’s nobody here burns coal,’ said one. ‘They’re asking ower much for it when there’s peat in plenty up yonder.’

‘Forbye there’s coal lying on the ground for the gathering, over at Climpy,’ said another, and they all laughed.

‘What happened, then?’ Gil asked. ‘Why did they leave the coin here?’

‘Who’s asking?’ countered one of the older women. Gil introduced himself, raising his hat to them all, at which they curtsied and several giggled nervously.

‘You’ll have heard about the corp found in the Thorn peat-cutting,’ he said.

‘Aye, yestreen,’ said one or two.

‘I have, I have! He’s all dried like leather,’ said one of the boys with relish, ‘Robbie Wishart tellt us that when he came up to drink ale in our house. He said his face is all thrawn.’ He pulled a hideous grimace in demonstration, and the child with no front teeth began to cry.

‘Who is it, maister?’ asked a thin woman in faded blue. ‘They’re saying it’s the man Murray from the heugh, is that right?’

‘Are they?’ said another woman. ‘And him only here last quarter. Is that no a shame!’

‘Last month, surely,’ said Gil. Heads were shaken, their folded linen bobbing in the sunlight.

‘No, he never came last month,’ said John’s mother. ‘It was just the two Paterson lads, and then they went on their way to Blackness.’

Gil looked round the group.

‘You’re saying that last month,’ he said carefully, ‘Thomas Murray was never through Forth on his round.’

‘No last month,’ agreed a stout woman in homespun, ‘though he was here in February, I think it was, him and Tam Paterson but no Jock that time, wi’ the ponies and all the empty creels. Shifted the lot, so he had.’

‘Is it the coin you’re wanting to know about, maister?’ demanded John’s mother. ‘Will we send up the field to Sir Martin to come and let you know what he done wi’ it?’

‘Aye, do that anyway,’ said another woman, ‘and you can take a seat, maister, and a wee refreshment, and tell us all the world’s doing. Is that right, that Jamie Stewart’s looking to wed the King of England’s daughter?’

Much as had happened at Thorn, he was drawn into one of the little houses, given a seat, and a jug of thin sour ale was brought. All the women crowded in to watch and listen as the housewife and the brewster officiated over the receiving of news, in counterpoint to the renewed barking of the dog tethered before the door. They were surprisingly well informed, for cottars at the far end of a large parish.

‘Oh, that’s Sir Thomas’s doing,’ someone assured him, when he commented. ‘Sir Thomas Bartholomew, that’s vicar at St Mary’s down at Carnwath and a man of some importance, so he is. He’s aye over at Linlithgow, you see, signing papers and talking to the King, and he aye stops here on the road back, to rest hisself and get a stoup of Ellen’s brew, and says a Mass for us while he’s here, and tells us all that’s new.’

‘It was Sir Thomas fetched the Paterson lads from Blackness,’ said Ellen the brewster. ‘Which is right beside Linlithgow, ye ken,’ she explained kindly. ‘One time he was in our house drinking ale, and some of the colliers was saying they needed a sinker, for they’d lost one deid in a rock-fall, and Sir Thomas asked about next time he was at Linlithgow. And Jock and Tam was looking for another place, seeing their last one had got flooded wi’ the sea, and was glad to come up here. So they said,’ she finished, nodding.

‘So they are the sinkers, right enough,’ said Gil.

‘Oh, aye,’ agreed several people.

‘That’s what they are. And mighty big fellows, too,’ added someone appreciatively.

‘You need to watch your tongue, Maidie,’ said the woman of the house slyly. ‘You’ll no speak like that in front of your Eck, will you?’

‘When were they here?’ Gil asked.

This gave rise to a brisk argument. By the time the tethered dog outside stopped barking they had reached the conclusion that the men had left Forth village at the end of March. One of the boys, leaping up and down, kept trying to interrupt and finally broke in with, ‘I ken! I ken, maister! It was the day afore Hunt-the-gowk! I mind, for I’d a good gowk to play on them, I was going to tell them the wrong way to Linlithgow, but then they left afore I could play it.’

‘That was just daft,’ said another boy. ‘You’re a gowk yersel, Andro Johnston.’

‘Am no!’

‘Aye ye ur!’

John’s mother, with practised ease, evicted the pair as they struggled, and stood aside to let a thin, balding, muddy man over the doorstep through a group of giggling children.

‘Here’s Martin Clerk,’ she announced. ‘He’ll tell you all about the Paterson lads, maister. It’s a man to hear about the coin from the coal-heugh, Martin.’

‘I didny ken what to do wi’ it,’ said the clerk defensively. ‘They never said what to do if Murray didny come for it, maister, and he’s never appeared.’

Patient questioning extracted a little more detail. The Paterson brothers had arrived on the morning of the second last day of March, spent the evening drinking ale in Ellen’s house and slept before the fire there. The next day they had spoken to Martin the clerk.

‘They’d all this coin,’ he explained, ‘said it was the fees for the quarter from all the folks they sold coal to, and they’d been expecting to meet Thomas Murray long afore that. So they said they’d go on to Blackness in case they’d missed him.’

‘Daft, I call it,’ said John’s mother. ‘How would he have got to Blackness except by going through Forth? We’d ha’ seen him.’

‘So we counted the coin, and all marked a paper of how much it was, and they left it wi’ me for safety,’ said the clerk anxiously, ‘but I couldny think to keep it in my house, nor in the kirk,’ he gestured in the direction of the little chapel, ‘nor to ask any of the colliers to take it home, the state they mostly leave here in, so I took it to the Cleugh and asked Somerville to put it in his big kist for me. And it’s still there, maister, and safe enough, I’ll warrant you.’

‘That was well done,’ Gil assured him. ‘Very sensible of you. Did the Patersons say where they last saw Murray?’

The man shook his head, relaxing a little. ‘They never said, just that they’d parted on the road, and looked to meet up again afore ever they reached here.’

‘First they were for going down to the heugh to see if he was there,’ said Ellen, ‘but there was a couple of the colliers up the night afore, and they were saying Murray was still away. They’d been surprised no to find him here. So when I tellt them that, they saw it wasny worth the ride down the hill and back up.’

‘So where did the Patersons go?’ Gil asked, disentangling the various they in the statement.

‘Why they went on to Blackness, like I tellt you, maister,’ said Martin the clerk.

‘Why Blackness? Are they leaving their employment at the Pow Burn?’

‘Well, that’s no what they said,’ said the man. ‘By their conversation, they were still expecting to meet up with Thomas Murray, and they were all to go and talk to some salt-boilers down there.’

The two boys who had been put out sidled back into the house with embarrassed grins, and one of them made his way to the side of the woman who was seated opposite Gil.

‘Mammy,’ he said, in what he clearly imagined to be a whisper, ‘see that man’s big dog?’

‘What’s he doing?’ asked Gil, suddenly aware of the laughter outside in the road. The boy cast him an alarmed glance, and addressed his mother again.

‘He’s been tupping our Fly, Mammy, and she was letting him. Mammy, can I have one of their pups? Can I?’