by Pat McIntosh
‘Most of Ayrshire. Half Lanarkshire. Boyds, Muirs, Somervilles.’ One of those faint smiles. ‘Lost count a while back.’
‘None of them seemed more determined than others? More persistent?’
A soundless No. Whether that was the case or not, Sir Edward was clearly not the one to ask. Gil was considering his next question when hasty feet sounded in the courtyard, Socrates wuffed a greeting beneath the window, and Lowrie entered, rattling at the pin as he opened the door.
‘Forgive me, maisters,’ he said, bowing briefly. ‘Maister Gil, I think we have a name for the dead lassie.’
Out in the yard he was a little more explicit.
‘One of the alehouses out near the Stablegreen Port. Seems the bellman stopped there to wet his thrapple, and cried his tale by the door as he came and went, and naturally they all came up here to see the sight, and recognised her kirtle where we’ve spread it out to dry on the grass.’ Gil nodded, acknowledging his dog’s salutation. ‘They think it’s one of the lassies from the next tavern, just inside the Port. Someone’s gone out there to tell them, fetch her man, maybe get the alewife here too. I thought you’d wish to witness that.’
‘You’re right,’ said Gil. ‘What is her name, then? Assuming they’re right, and assuming the dead lassie is the owner of the kirtle,’ he qualified.
‘Peg, they called her. Peg Simpson. She works at the sign of the Trindle, so they thought, and her man’s a porter in the town.’
In the chapel, a small group who might or might not be different from the previous group was discussing this, while the woman who had been praying earlier sat on her heels, her beads wrapped round her hand, listening to the comments. Her husband had vanished, presumably to his duties about the hostel.
‘Likely one o their regulars tried it on a bit far,’ said a man in a cowhide apron as Gil entered. ‘You ken what the place is like, after all.’
‘I don’t know it,’ said Gil. ‘Tell me about it.’
All the heads turned, and the man in the apron, taken aback, swallowed once or twice and then said,
‘Aye, well, it’s no the most— It’s no a— It’s no like the Mitre that Ep Davison keeps, that’s a clean house and well ordered.’
‘A true word, Willie,’ agreed a woman in a striped kirtle. ‘Eppie keeps a well-ordered house, right enough. Her las sies are all decent folk, a woman can take a drink in there and never be troubled by other folk’s husbands. Unless she wants to be,’ she added thoughtfully.
‘Jean Howie’s ale isny the wonder o the town neither,’ said a man with a bright green hood rolled down on his shoulders. ‘That’s her that keeps the Trindle,’ he added.
‘Aye it is,’ contradicted someone else, ‘it’s a wonder that folks goes back there after they’ve tasted it once.’
‘That’s no what they go back for,’ said another voice.
‘I heard that, William Pringle,’ said a stout woman at the chapel door. She pushed past Gil without apology, taking her beads in her hand as she went. ‘Now what’s this about Peg? She should ha been at her work hours since. What’s she doing here, and dead wi it?’
‘Here she’s, Jean,’ said the man in the hide apron. ‘That’s if it is her, she’s been beat that bad you wouldny ken her.’
Mistress Howie halted at sight of the dead woman’s face, crossed herself, and went forward more slowly.
‘Oh, in the Name,’ she said after a moment. ‘What a beating she’s taen. The poor lass. I’ll wager it’s that man o hers, raised his fist to her once too often.’
‘More than his fist, I’d ha said,’ offered the woman in the striped kirtle. ‘She’s black and blue, head to foot. Take a look, Jean.’
Bessie, the hostel servant, got to her feet and raised the shroud, glaring at the male bystanders. Mistress Howie cast a cautious glance under the linen at the hunched length of the corpse, and nodded grimly, pursing her lips.
‘Have you sent to take him up?’ she demanded of Gil, unerringly scenting authority. ‘Her man. Billy Baird. Makes his living carrying other folks’ goods on his back, such as doesny fall into his pouch on the way to where he’s going. Scrawny black-haired creature wi a scar across his lug.’ She raked one finger across the folds of her linen headdress, over her ear and down her cheek. ‘It’s hardly murder, if a man slays his own wife wi his fists, but he should face the Provost for it any road.’
‘They’ve sent after him, Jean,’ said the man in the hide apron. ‘Likely he’ll be here to gie a name to her.’
‘Aye, but who did ye send?’ she said sceptically.
‘Where do they dwell, mistress?’ Gil asked. ‘Have you any notion where the fellow Baird might be working this morning? Have you seen him the day?’
‘No to say seen him.’ Mistress Howie folded her arms under her substantial bosom, slightly relieving the strain on her red kirtle. ‘When I threw out the night’s stop-overs, maybe an hour afore Prime, I seen him keeking out at their door, but he ducked back as soon as he seen me look at him. They dwell on our back lands,’ she enlarged, ‘got a room in one o the wee sheds. Right handy for . . .’ Her voice tailed off, and she glanced at the corpse and crossed herself. ‘Poor lass,’ she said again.
Gil, listening to what was not said, could only agree with her. How did the man Baird feel if his wife brought her clients home, he wondered. Indeed, was she his wife?
‘Would you swear this is Peg Simpson?’ he asked.
She gave him a sharp look, then made another inspection of the shrouded corpse, obviously seeking something.
‘Aye, I would,’ she said at length. ‘She’s got the mark o a burn on her arm, that I recall her getting at my fireside last Yule. That’s Peg. But her man should ken her and all,’ she added, changing her tune slightly.
‘And when did you see her last?’ Gil persisted.
‘I seen her yesterday afternoon,’ said the man in the hide apron. ‘I seen her in that blue kirtle that’s lying outside on the grass, fetching a basket of bread home to your tavern, Jean.’
‘Aye, that would be right,’ said Mistress Howie after a moment’s thought. ‘I sent her for bread, maybe an hour after noon. She was ower long about it—’
‘Aye, she would be,’ said the man with the apron, ‘seeing she was standing at the Wyndheid watching the procession come in, all the fine folks and their braw clothes on horseback coming here, and the horse-litter for the poor man that’s on his deathbed, quite an entertainment it was.’
‘Aye, it would be,’ agreed Mistress Howie. ‘So that’s where she was, right enough? She denied it to me. Wait till I get a word wi her . . .’ Her voice cracked as she realised what she was saying, and she suddenly pulled the tail of her linen headdress up across her face. ‘Och, the poor lassie,’ she said from behind it, muffled. ‘She never deserved this.’
‘Come away, Jean, and get a seat.’ The woman in the striped kirtle drew her aside, and the hostel servant Bessie drew the shroud with care over the dead woman’s face. Gil waited till Mistress Howie was settled on the stone bench at the wall-foot and then asked her again:
‘When did you last see Peg Simpson, then? You saw her when she brought the bread back, I take it.’
‘Oh, aye, for I’d to get the change off her. Then she was about the tavern, her and the other lassies, all the evening I’d ha said, though she took a couple trips out the back wi one fellow or another, her regulars they were,’ Mistress Howie sniffed, and swallowed hard, ‘but as to when I seen her last, it would ha been when we closed up, put the shutters up. After Compline, that would be.’
‘Oh, well after it,’ said the man in the green hood helpfully. ‘Near midnight, it would ha been, Jean.’
‘Nothing o the sort,’ she said repressively.
‘She was about at the end of the evening?’ Gil persisted. ‘You’re certain you saw her then?’
‘Well, I must ha done, for I never missed her. You could ask at the other lassies, if you’re—’ She paused, staring up at him. ‘Are you s
aying maybe it was one o her regulars that’s put her here? Is that why you’re asking?’ Gil nodded. ‘Oh, I wouldny say that, maister. They’re wild enough lads, but none o my customers would—’
‘Someone did,’ observed the man in the hide apron. Mistress Howie would have answered him, but there was a disturbance at the door of the chapel, where more spectators had gathered; a pushing and elbowing, a rising tide of indignant comments suddenly swallowed, heralded the arrival of a scrawny man with lank black hair and a scarred face, his blue bonnet clamped to his head by a stiff leather hood with a short cape. He dragged both these off as he emerged from the crowd, looking round desperately.
‘Peg!’ he said. ‘Where is she? What’s come to her?’
‘You ken well enough what’s come to her, Billy Baird,’ responded Mistress Howie tartly. ‘There she lies, dead and cold, covered in the marks you laid on her. You’ll not raise your hand to her again, you ill-doer.’
‘Peg!’ said the newcomer again, ignoring all of this but the most significant point. He flung himself at the bier and pulled back the linen, stared for a horrified moment, and turned to the crowd.
‘Who the hell did this? I swear by all the saints, if I find who’s treated my Peg like that I’ll have his lights for garters. Who did it?’ he demanded, as if someone present was concealing the information.
‘Listen to you!’ said Mistress Howie scornfully. ‘You’ll be telling us next you never put a bruise on her yoursel!’
‘I never put these on her,’ said Baird fiercely. ‘I never did more than show her what was right. A man can chastise his own woman, I suppose. Look at that, she’s taen a vicious beating, way ayont what’s reasonable!’
Gil, trying to imagine how one might find beating one’s wife reasonable, said,
‘When did you last see her?’
Baird turned dark eyes on him.
‘Who’re you?’ he demanded aggressively. Several voices told him, with varying degrees of triumph, that this was the Archbishop’s quaestor. He considered Gil with contempt, scratched at his codpiece, then said, ‘Aye well, I hope you’re on the trail of whoever slew her already.’
‘I’m still trying to pick up the trail,’ said Gil. ‘So when did you see her last?’
The dark gaze slid away from his.
‘That would be last night,’ he said. ‘No long after the alehouse closed.’
‘Oh, the leear!’ said Mistress Howie. ‘When she slept at home wi you!’
‘She never!’ said the man desperately. ‘She never, she went away out, and I wish she hadny! I tried to stop her!’
‘A good tale that is,’ said the man in the green hood.
‘When did she go out?’ Gil asked.
‘After the alehouse closed. I said.’ Baird brushed something from his eye. ‘She came down the back to our place, and then she went out again.’
‘Why?’ Gil asked patiently. ‘What took her out again, in the dark, after an evening’s work?’
‘He’s having you on, maister,’ said the woman in the striped kirtle. ‘He’s slew her himself, no doubt of it. Ask them ’at dwells down the same pend.’
‘No I never!’ protested Baird. ‘I never did! She left me, she left our house, and I looked for her to come back, and she never did, no afore I had to go out to my work afore Prime. I never saw her again, till.’ He stopped, staring at the bier, and scratched behind his codpiece again. ‘Till now.’
‘Why did she go out?’ Gil asked again.
‘She said she had to see someone. She wanted a word wi someone.’
‘At that hour?’ said the man in the hide apron. ‘When decent folks are all in their beds? What was she about?’
‘Maybe in someone’s bed and all,’ suggested another man, grinning. Baird lunged at him, roaring, and was restrained with difficulty by the man in the hide apron and his fellow with the green hood.
‘Let me go!’ he shouted, writhing in their grip. ‘Let me at him, he’ll no— Let me at him!’
‘Who was it she went to see?’ Gil asked him. ‘What did she tell you about where she was going?’
‘Nothing!’ he said rather desperately. ‘Just it was— She said something about he was back in town, she would get a word wi him.’ He paused in his struggles and stared at Gil, and added, ‘She didny sound as if he would enjoy it, but.’ He read scepticism in Gil’s face, and offered, ‘Maybe she said more to the other lassies?’
‘Likely she did,’ agreed Mistress Howie with another of her abrupt changes of direction. ‘You could ask at them, maister. I’ll bid them tell you the truth.’
‘Aye, where are your lassies, Jean?’ asked the man in the green hood. ‘I’m surprised they’re no here and all, to see the show. Pay their respec’s,’ he corrected himself.
‘I tellt them to get the house swep’ and the day’s kale on the fire, that’s how they’re no here,’ retorted Mistress Howie.
‘So are you going to take him up, maister?’ asked the man in the hide apron. ‘I’d say he slew her, myself, he should come afore the Provost for it, though I suppose he’ll no hang.’
‘Whoever killed her tied her to the Cross in place of Mistress Gibb,’ Gil said. ‘That could be seen as attempting to conceal it, which makes it secret murder—’
‘Secret? Out in the open at the Cross like that?’ said the woman in the striped kirtle, laughing.
‘At the Cross?’ repeated Baird incredulously. ‘Are you saying that was my Peg they were talking about? Bound at the Wyndheid and left in the midnight? Will you two let me go?’
‘No the Wyndheid,’ several voices contradicted him. ‘St Mungo’s Cross in the kirkyard,’ added the man in the green hood. Baird stared at him, then looked at Gil, who nodded confirmation.
‘She was tied to St Mungo’s Cross in place of the mad lady,’ he agreed.
‘What was she doing in the kirkyard?’ Baird asked blankly. ‘She hated the place, she’d never ha gone there in the daylight, far less in the dark, no for any money. She was feart for bogles, ever since someone tellt her some daft tale about a hand coming out a grave. What would take her there, maister?’
‘That’s right,’ affirmed Mistress Howie. ‘She’d never go near the High Kirk, aye worshipped in St Thomas’ wee chapel out ayont the Port.’
‘She’d ha been feart to death,’ said Baird, his voice sounding constricted. ‘Bound there and left to die. St Peter’s bones, if I find who did that to my lassie I’ll throttle him mysel, I’ll no wait for the hangman to do it.’
‘You stop that, you filthy leear,’ said the man in the hide apron, shaking him. ‘Right, maister, will we just take him round to the Provost the now while we’ve got our hands on him? Saves hunting for him later on.’
‘No,’ said Gil. There were indignant exclamations. ‘No, let him go. I need a right word wi him, and I’m not doing it here with half the upper town looking on.’
‘He’ll run as soon as he’s loosed,’ said the woman in the striped kirtle.
‘I will not, Agnes Wilkie,’ said Baird, ‘for that I’ll be hunting for him that did that to Peg.’
‘Let him go,’ Gil repeated, and was obeyed with reluctance. ‘And leave me wi him.’
Lowrie began to clear the chapel of the various bystanders, eventually persuading them that there was no more excitement to be had. When all that remained were Gil and Lowrie himself, the hostel servant Bess, and the man Baird, Gil led the porter over to the head of the bier and deliberately turned back the sheet to show the dead woman’s face.
‘Tell me when she went out,’ he said. Baird looked down at the battered countenance, his mouth twisting.
‘No much to tell,’ he said, with fractured bravado. ‘She cam round fro the alehouse when they’d put up the shutters, lifted her plaid and said she’d be away out.’
‘Her plaid?’ Gil repeated. ‘What like is her plaid? You’re certain she took it?’
‘Well, it’s no in the lodging, I’d to sleep cold. Just ordinar. Kind o brown checkit
thing. Aye, that’s it.’ He nodded at the bundle Gil lifted from below the bier. ‘That’s hers. Can I get it back, maister? I was— I was right cold last night.’
‘And what did you say when she said she would go out?’ Gil prompted.
‘I said, Away out? At this hour? and she said, Aye. There’s someone back in the town I need a word wi.’ He paused, scratching at his groin again, his face sour as if the memory tasted bad. As well it might, Gil thought. ‘So I says, Who would that be? and she says, Nobody you ken, Billy, though he’s afflicted the both o us. Then she goes away out. Don’t wait up, she says, I’ll likely be a while. And I never,’ he dashed impatiently at his eye, ‘I never seen her again. Till now.’ He put out a hand and touched the bruised cheek with surprising tenderness. ‘Peggy, lass, who was he? What did you do that he slew you this way?’
‘She didny tell you who he was?’
‘No a word.’
Gil went back over the man’s statement in his mind.
‘She said there was someone back in the town,’ he repeated, ‘and someone who had afflicted both of you. What did she mean by that? Your landlord, maybe?’
‘No likely,’ said Baird dismissively, ‘it’s Jean Howie rents us the place, or rents it to Peg any road. Likely she’ll want me out o there now,’ he added, ‘seeing I canny bring in custom to her alehouse.’
‘You think it might have been a matter of picking a fight with this man? Of having something out wi him?’
‘It looks like it, doesn’t it no?’ retorted Baird with grim humour. ‘No, I canny add aught to what I’ve tellt you, maister. The lassies ’at worked wi her might have more to say, she maybe told them whatever it was that was eating at her.’
‘You’re saying she was worried about something?’
‘No worried,’ contradicted Baird. ‘More like annoyed. Something wasny right. I never asked her,’ he said a little desperately, ‘I thought she’d tell me when she cam in, maybe wi money in her purse. I’d naught but those few words wi her afore she went off into the night and I never seen her again till this. It’s no right, maister! It’s no justice!’