The Fourth Crow (12 page)

‘It was,’ said Gil rather grimly. ‘And no the kind of place I’d hope you’d frequent, save in a matter of the law. Long Mina takes better care of her girls, though I believe her prices reflect it. We’ll go round by the Castle the now. I’d better warn Otterburn or his man Andro, for I’ll wager their men use that place, handy as it is.’ He looked round, and saw Lowrie’s surprise. ‘Those four all have the clap.’

‘Oh.’ Lowrie followed him a few paces further, then asked, ‘How can you tell?’

‘Later,’ Gil said, very aware of the busy street. Half of Glasgow was going home for its midday meal, and this was no moment to discuss the signs of the afflictions of Venus: the privy itching, the burning water. It occurred to him that he had not foreseen this aspect of educating a young man when he took on an assistant.

Andro, the captain of the castle guard, was crossing the outer yard when they emerged from the gatehouse. He received the news with resignation, and promised to put the Trindle out of bounds to his men.

‘No that it’ll make much difference,’ he said. ‘Once that’s abroad in a town there’s only one way to avoid it, and they’re never all going to take that road.’ He eyed Gil. ‘Where have you got to wi this missing woman, maister? Or the other one?’

‘That’s what took me to the Trindle. The dead girl is one of theirs, Peg Simpson, last seen last night when they closed up. I need to find who she went off to meet. As for the other, I was hoping you might have something for me.’

‘No a thing.’ Andro shook his head gloomily. ‘We tramped all down the Girth Burn to the mill-burn, we’ve looked in sheds and outhouses and cellars and all, we’ve had as many sweirings from kitchen-wives. They’re still out searching, but we’re far enough fro the Cross now that if she was carried there to be hidden, you’d wonder why they bothered going so far. If you ken what I mean.’

‘You think she’s alive, then?’

‘Or hid somewhere right cunning. Tell you truth, I think she’s run off wi her lover. She never got untied fro the Cross hersel, somebody helped her and took her off. Likely she’s at Edinburgh by now, though how she got out o Glasgow’s anyone’s guess, for she never passed the ports this morning, I’ve checked wi all my lads.’

‘And the other lass? The dead one?’

‘No, that’s your problem, maister, none o mine.’

‘Just the same, if any of your men was in the Trindle last night, I’d like a word.’

‘You’ll get it,’ said Andro. ‘And I’ll get a word wi him too, whoever he is.’

‘So you have one lassie vanished away without trace,’ said Alys in her accented Scots, ‘apparently in her shift, and another lassie who left her . . . her place of work to speak to someone unknown, and turns up beaten to death, tied to the Cross, and strangled. In that order?’

‘In that order,’ Gil confirmed.

‘But are these the same matter?’ She clasped her hands together, then spread them apart, looking from one to the other. ‘Or are they separate?

‘You tell me,’ said Gil.

They were in the little solar at the back of the house, where they had retired after the midday repast along with small John and his toy horse, the last of the ale and a dish of sweetmeats. Now Lowrie handed the pewter dish to Catherine, who took a lozenge of apricot leather and said in disapproving French,

‘The girl who has vanished must have been melancholy indeed, to make such a vow as you describe,
maistre.
I do not know why her priest permitted it.’

‘But why?’ said Alys. ‘I can understand if she wished to live without candles, though doing without coal in Scotland in winter seems to me a great folly, but why would she vow never to wash or comb her hair? She must have been crawling with—’ She made a fastidious movement as if crushing something.

Lowrie offered,

‘The Provost’s captain was certain it would make her easy to trace, but I’m not so sure. She only has to wash herself and find some clothes, after all, to alter all that.’

‘She must also be absolved of the vow,’ Alys observed, ‘or be guilty of perjury.’ She withdrew her feet as John’s little wooden horse galloped over them, and went on, ‘Where would she find a priest for that? And would he see it as a moment to break the seal of confession and inform her friends?’

‘This is the upper town,’ Gil said ruefully. He seized John as the boy came within reach, and hauled him onto his knee. The harper’s son, Ealasaidh’s nephew and Gil’s ward, was a handsome child nearing three years old, tall for his age with sparkling blue eyes and a mop of dark curls. ‘Sit quiet a moment, John. She needny trouble the Cathedral or St Nicholas’, she just has to rattle at the nearest door to find a priest behind it.’

‘C’est vrai, maistre,’
said Catherine. ‘And his servant would not be bound by the seal of confession.’

‘John
down
! No cuddle!’

‘A good point, madame.’ Gil let the child go, and looked at Lowrie. ‘A task for you, then. Work your way out from the Cross, talking to servants, asking a different lot of questions. Not, Are they hiding Annie Gibb, but, Have they seen a woman in her shift at all?’

Lowrie pulled a face.

‘Andro and his men will have crossed that trail,’ he pointed out.

‘I’ve every confidence in you.’

‘But,’ persisted Lowrie, reddening at the comment, ‘you mind we thought they put the other lassie at the Cross to gain time. Is it worth hunting for her close by, or do we look further afield? Could she have left the burgh?’

‘How would one get out of Glasgow in the night?’ Alys wondered. ‘The ports would all be barred, but I suppose some of the vennels lead out where one could get onto the Dow Hill or the Stablegreen.’

‘In the dark,’ said Lowrie. ‘Here, John, horsie could run along the windowsill.’

‘Someone that knows Glasgow, and well, could do it,’ Gil said as the horse’s wooden legs clattered on the sill. ‘I don’t think that applies to any of the party at St Catherine’s, but I need to check. The brothers Muir might be more familiar wi the place, I’d say, given their kinsman’s office at St Mungo’s. I’d best get a word wi them and find out where they spent the night.’

‘She might also have left by boat, or on a horse,’ Alys said. ‘But surely, if she has spent the last year or two dwelling in one chamber, not taking even her share of the work about the house, she has no strength to walk any distance.’

‘That’s a good point. Aye, I think we make sure of whether she’s still within the burgh,’ Gil said, ‘afore we start looking outside.’

‘Much depends,’ said Catherine, ‘on just how much help the lady had, as well as where it came from.’

Gil nodded, and downed the last of his cup of ale.

‘I’ll get a word wi Otterburn,’ he said, ‘and call on Canon Muir. Then I’ll go and trouble St Catherine’s some more. I’m not convinced the whole answer’s there, but some of the questions lead back there, at least. Oh, and I need to find this ropewinder out towards Partick, and ask him about the cord.’

Alys rose, holding her hand out to the child. ‘Come, John, shall we see if Nancy has finished helping Kittock with the crocks? You could take Euan out with you,’ she added hopefully. ‘Kittock finds him no use about the kitchen.’

‘There’s a coincidence,’ said Gil.

‘Och, indeed I was working hard on Maister Cunningham’s behalf all the morning,’ protested Euan. He nodded towards the honey-coloured bulk of St Mungo’s where it loomed above the houses on the north side of the Drygate. ‘We was making certain, me and the vergers, that the lady was not hid about the High Kirk anywhere. I was never searching so big a building afore,’ he added earnestly. ‘You would be having no idea how many corners and stairs and chambers there are about the place, it is nothing like St Comghan’s wee kirk at home.’

‘Did you search the towers and all?’ Gil asked, irritation giving way to amusement.

‘Indeed we did. That Barnabas was saying there was no need, so naturally I would be making certain,’ said Euan virtuously. ‘Maister Cunningham has no need to concern himself wi St Mungo’s now, the lady is never hidden there.’

‘Thank you,’ said Gil. He took a wide course round a tethered pig, with the dog adhering to his heels, and looked up and down the Drygate. Chickens and another pig or two foraged in the street, children were playing, a few stragglers were returning to work after their midday meal. Little knots of women made their way to call on one house or another for the afternoon, many with spindle or sewing or other handwork bundled in an apron. The conversation Gil caught was mostly about Annie Gibb, though the dead girl was mentioned.

‘Away down to the Clyde,’ he said to Euan, with sudden inspiration, ‘and get a word wi the fisher-folk. See if any of them took a passenger anywhere out of Glasgow in the night.’

‘You think she might ha sailed away out of Glasgow?’ said Euan intelligently. ‘Och, the cunning! Never you worry, maister, if that’s what she did I’ll be tracking her down.’ He touched his blue felted bonnet and loped off towards the Wyndhead. Gil watched him go, suppressing relief. Euan had made himself moderately useful a few weeks since, when Gil had been summoned on the King’s hunting trip to the Western Isles, but now he seemed to have attached himself to the household where he was a great deal less help.

Wondering what to do with the man, Gil followed him more slowly, to turn up along Rottenrow towards Canon Muir’s manse.

He knew all the resident members of Chapter, having encountered them often enough in his uncle’s house. As the Official of Glasgow, the senior judge of the diocese, David Cunningham had a certain level of state to keep up, and entertained his fellow-clerics regularly. While Gil had been his pupil, learning those secrets of the notary’s craft which he was about to transmit to Lowrie, he had assisted at many such occasions, and recalled Canon Muir as elderly, slightly foolish, and a little too fond of his wine.

This was still the case.

‘My cousin Dandy’s boys,’ the Canon agreed, smiling indulgently. ‘Are they no the dearest laddies, Gilbert? And so handsome as they both are.’ He sighed. ‘They used to tell me I was bonnie-looking, but I’m sure I was never the equal o those two. They ought to be wed by now,’ he went on, ‘indeed Will Craigie’s been quite urgent wi me on that head, to promote a marriage wi some kin o his for one or other, but as I said to him, you canny force a young man, it takes time to these things. I think they’re ower fond o their freedom yet.’

Gil, seated on an uncomfortable carved wooden back-stool with the dog at his feet, preserved silence, and after a moment Canon Muir went on,

‘And what was it you wished me to tell you? You think they’re connected wi all this at St Mungo’s Cross? No, no, I hardly think it. Two sic sweet-tempered laddies, they’d never be mixed up in the likes o that.’

‘They’re connected wi it already,’ Gil pointed out, ‘seeing they escorted the missing lady into Glasgow, and they claim kinship wi her aunt.’

‘That’s very true. There’s much in what you’re saying.’ The Canon took refuge in his glass of claret. Emerging after a moment he said triumphantly, ‘But they’re no true kin o Ellen Shaw’s, only by marriage. I think Will Craigie’s closer kin to her. No that she hasny been a good friend to the laddies, looking about her for aught she can do for them, a good friend. Any road, Gilbert, they lay here last night, and I saw them to their bed mysel. Will you have more o this wine? It’s right good, I had it from John Shaw at the College. And a wee cake, maybe?’

‘They’ve a servant wi them, I think,’ Gil said. ‘Your kinsmen, I mean.’ He accepted more of the claret, admiring the colour in the little glass.

‘Aye, that’s so. A good fellow, keeps those bonnie clothes right well, though I think, to tell truth, he might be a wee bit fond o his ale. No that I like to criticise a good worker, but my man William said he’d the deil’s own task to rouse the fellow this morning.’

‘He didny share the brothers’ chamber, then?’

‘Oh, aye, but William went in to waken him, that he might fetch the laddies their hot water to wash in, and a bite o bread and ale to break their fast. We ken well how to keep guests in this house, Gilbert. And they were all asleep, their man on his straw plett and Henry and Austin like mice in a nest in the shut-bed, so William said, so you needny suspicion they were out in the night snatching a lady off the Cross in the kirkyard. Beside,’ concluded Canon Muir triumphantly, ‘where would they put her? There’s no lady hidden about this house, I assure you, son, and nowhere to put one if they tried.’

Gil had to admit to the truth of this. The manse was commodious, but the upper floor contained only one large hall and two small chambers. One of these was clearly Canon Muir’s bedchamber, since his prayer-desk with two books propped on it and the corner of his box bed were visible round the open door. The other was the guest chamber in which the brothers were lodged, to judge by the way the Canon had gestured towards it. Here in the hall was one of those great beds which in Gil’s experience were rarely used and never comfortable, its hangings of green dornick elaborate and rather dusty, and also the set of carved back-stools and the benches and trestles for the long table where the household ate. The plate-cupboard at the far end of the hall bore a decent array of silver, including a large and very ugly salt, and a tall press in the corner suggested stored linen for the table. On the ground floor, the servant who admitted him had said, there was one huge storeroom and the kitchen from which the rather stale little cakes had emerged. Canon Muir’s benefice was a rewarding one, Gil concluded.

‘So Henry and Austin were here, were they,’ he said, ‘from when they arrived in Glasgow to the time they came out this morning, to ask after Annie Gibb’s health? The lady that was tied to the Cross,’ he elucidated, seeing the old man’s blank expression.

‘Oh! Oh, I see what you’re asking me. Aye, a course they were, for they’d all the news o Ayrshire to let me hear, and word o our kin, and so forth, so they sat and talked wi me after dinner a long time afore they went out to see their friends. But the lady wasny there to ask after, was she? She’d been snatched away. Is that no a strange thing? Who’d want to carry off a mad lady? Is she very wealthy?’