The Rough Collier (10 page)

‘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.’