The Fourth Crow

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘Who is it we’re after?’ Lowrie asked.

  ‘Four names.’ Gil counted them off on his fingers. ‘Allen, Shearer, Syme and, er, Thomson. You can get on home, if you’d rather. It may not be easy to get them talking.’

  ‘I can at least watch your back, unless you want me to let Mistress Alys know where you are.’

  ‘Once was enough,’ said Gil elliptically, and Lowrie snorted.

  Inside the house there was firelight, the stink of tallow candles, a powerful smell of unwashed people. Mistress Howie was presiding over the two barrels of ale, much as she had been that morning. Gil nodded to her, and to the girl – was it Mysie? – who picked her way over, avoiding the familiar hands of the customers, to ask what they wanted.

  ‘A jug of ale, lass,’ he said, ‘and can you point out any of Peg’s regulars to me?’

  She gave him a sharp look, but did not answer directly.

  ‘If you sit ower there,’ she said, ‘on they two stools at the wall, I’ll bring your ale.’

  Gil led the way obediently to a shadowy corner beyond the hearth, well aware that most of those present were watching him. He nodded to the groups on either side of the vacant stools Mysie had pointed out, getting a reluctant nod from those on one side, an unreadable glower on the other. Mysie returned, bearing a jug, accepted a coin from him, and looked beyond Lowrie at the less friendly neighbour.

  ‘Tammas Syme, will ye be wanting more ale?’ she demanded. There was a surly growl from the shadows. ‘Or you, Daniel Shearer? No? Then I’ll take that jug away.’

  She bore the empty jug off, and Gil set his down by his feet, reluctant to drink from it when the house was so busy. The likelihood that it had been washed between customers did not seem good.

  ‘A fine night,’ he said to the two whom Mysie had addressed.

  ‘Well enough,’ said one of the men.

  ‘Never seen you in here afore,’ said the other sourly. His voice was hoarse. ‘Come to see the sights, are ye?’

  ‘I was here this morning,’ said Gil. ‘Getting a word wi the mistress and her lassies.’ He let that hang in the air for a moment, aware of ambiguity, then went on, ‘We were at St Mungo’s Cross this morning. The two of us.’

  There was a faint stirring of interest in the shadows.

  ‘The lassie that worked here,’ he continued, ‘the one that was found at the Cross wi her face beaten so you’d not know her, left here last night to get a word wi someone.’

  ‘I heard that,’ said the less hostile of his hearers. Lowrie, beside him, was motionless.

  ‘I’m charged wi finding who did that to her,’ Gil persisted. ‘We ken it was never a man from this tavern, for she said to the other lassies that someone she never named was back in the town and she wanted to speak to him.’ Beyond Lowrie the silence grew deeper. ‘I’m hoping maybe she’d said something to one or another of the folk that were in here last night, might give me a hint who she’d gone to meet.’

  He paused, and looked down at the ale-jug by his feet. After a moment one of his hearers rose, saying, still in that sour tone,

  ‘Well. I wish you good fortune, neighbour.’

  He tramped off across the crowded tavern, stepping on any feet which were not withdrawn from his path. Nobody tried to object.

  ‘A bad business,’ said the man who had remained. He leaned forward and indicated the jug. ‘Are you—?’

  ‘Be my guest,’ invited Gil.

  Perhaps the length of a Te Deum later they left the tavern, stepping into the street to find the twilight deepened into moonlit night. The sky was clear, with stars sprinkled about where the moonlight permitted; the shadows were very black, and Lowrie stared about warily, his hand near his whinger.

  ‘Yonder,’ said Gil quietly. ‘Between the two houses across the way.’

  ‘I see him. Do we go to him, or wait?’

  ‘We go part way.’ Gil stepped into the middle of the roadway, and stood still, casually studying the sky. The man lurking in the shadows waited a moment, and then came forward reluctantly, staying in the shadows.

  ‘I’m no coming out in the street.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Gil. It was the voice of the man who had left the tavern.

  ‘You’re looking for who that lassie wanted to speak wi.’

  ‘We are.’

  ‘Aye.’ Feet shuffled. ‘Mind, I’m no saying I heard this mysel.’

  ‘A course not.’

  ‘I never spoke wi the lassie. You understand that.’ Gil nodded, then wondered if the movement would show in the moonlight and made an agreeing noise. ‘But I heard. Someone said.’ He swallowed noisily and then said in a rush, ‘She never mentioned a name, just some fellow had been gone fro Glasgow three month, and was back, and she’d have something out wi him if it killed her.’

  Lowrie made a small sound of pity. Gil waited.

  ‘That’s all,’ said the hoarse voice.

  ‘What did she call him?’ Gil asked. ‘She never used his name, she must ha called him something.’

  ‘No.’ A pause. ‘Aye, maybe she— Maybe she said, My fine gentleman, or the like. Kind a sharp, as if he was anything but.’

  ‘Thanks, friend,’ said Gil.

  ‘Neighbour,’ said the hoarse voice. Gil tilted his head, waiting. ‘Get him. She was just— She was just a tavern lassie, but she never deserved—’

  ‘No,’ agreed Gil. ‘She never deserved that.’

  Matters did not seem much clearer in the morning. Nor had Euan come home, to Gil’s irritation.

  ‘He’ll be off about some ploy of his own,’ he said when the breakfast was brought in. ‘I’ll have a word or two to say to him when he does come home. Either he’s serving me or he’s not, and if he’s not he can take himself off. I could ha done wi his help today dealing wi Barnabas’ death, to let Lowrie carry on with the other business.’

  ‘Yes, indeed you must look into that. It seems astonishing,’ said Alys, ladling porridge into the new earthenware bowls, ‘that the man should have been thieving from the Almoner’s stores for so long and never been found out.’

  ‘Particularly when Alan Jamieson keeps a record of everything.’ Gil accepted a bowl and horn spoon, helped himself to a generous portion of butter from the dish on the plate-cupboard and strolled off across the hall, prodding the melting butter into the greyish mass of the oatmeal. Socrates followed him, looking hopeful.

  ‘I wonder how he got it out of the kirk,’ said Alys. ‘Surely he must have been seen.’

  ‘I wondered that too,’ said Lowrie. ‘There must be folk in and out that hall all the hours of daylight. Ah!’

  ‘Perhaps by darkness,’ Gil agreed. ‘Or perhaps it’s simply that a verger moving a sack of meal or the like is nothing to remark on.’

  ‘And he left his task, the Almoner said,’ persisted Alys, ‘taking the length of cord with him, and saying, I see it now. What was it that he saw? How the girl Peg was killed? Or who tried to strangle her?’ She sat down by the little table where the crocks were laid, waiting till her own porridge had cooled.

  ‘I thought at first,’ Gil admitted, ‘it was how the thefts were taking place, but it looks as if he knew all about those, even if he wasn’t solely responsible for them himself. It must be something else, I agree.’

  ‘So who did he go to meet? Or perhaps,’ she dug thoughtfully with the ladle into the crock of porridge, ‘perhaps we had better ask, who did he think he was going to meet? And why? Did he go to speak to his accomplice? Did he plan to accuse someone of throttling the girl who was at the Cross? And which of these would strangle him only for what he said?’

  Gil set his bowl on the floor for the dog, and turned to the platter of oatcakes set on the plate-cupboard. Smearing more butter on one of these he observed,

  ‘Habbie asked around yestreen while we were searching the man’s chamber. He may not have spoken to everyone yet, but it seems plenty of folk were about. Most of the songmen, half the priests, Canon Goudie who’s Hebdomader
, were all in and out. All the Masses to be said in the Lower Kirk were over by Nones, in the proper way. Anyone or no one could have been down there.’ He bit into the oatcake, catching the crumbs with his other hand.

  ‘It was not no one, clearly,’ said Alys. ‘Maister Lowrie, there is more porridge. Do you wish some?’

  ‘Galston might have learned something useful,’ said Lowrie, holding his bowl out. ‘Is that for this morning, then?’

  ‘Among other things.’ Gil tipped crumbs into his mouth, and reached for another oatcake. ‘Ask more questions about St Mungo’s. I wonder where all these goods were going to, whoever it was thieved it. I need to talk to the folk at St Catherine’s again, ask again about Annie’s background, who might have taken her in. I canny believe she’s sleeping in a ditch somewhere, a gently reared lassie, even in high summer. I need to talk to Otterburn, and we need to ask about, see if we can track down where Peg Simpson met her death. You could see to that, if you would. Someone must ha heard her being beaten so badly, it can hardly ha been done in silence.’ He bit into the second oatcake, and added through it, ‘I should never ha gone chasing after the cord yesterday afternoon, I’d ha done better pursuing Peg’s matter.’

  ‘So it’s Otterburn first?’ said Lowrie, scraping the last of the porridge. He set his bowl down for the dog as Gil had done. ‘Or d’you wish me to make a start on that immediately?’

  Otterburn was in the courtyard of the castle, under a familiar striped awning.

  ‘There you are,’ he said as they approached. ‘I was going to send out to you.’ He nodded at the shrouded form set out in the shelter of the canvas. ‘Had her moved over here early on, seeing the quest’s for this morning. We ken what killed her now.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Aye.’ Otterburn pulled back the shroud, revealing the battered face. Gil winced. Some of Peg’s injuries had faded as the swelling reduced, but the pallor of death was increasing and others were made more hideous by the contrast. The Provost glanced at him, nodded, and lifted the corpse’s head to swivel it on the thin neck. It moved easily, and much too far.

  ‘A broken neck,’ said Lowrie. ‘Poor lass.’

  ‘Aye.’ Otterburn set the head down gently and drew the shroud up. ‘And the women say she’d lain wi some man or other no long afore her death, but she hadny been forced.’

  ‘We know she was working that day,’ said Gil. Otterburn grunted. ‘She’d been out the back wi at least one man during the evening. No saying whether she lay with her killer or no, but I’d assume it was the same man broke her neck as left those marks on her.’ Otterburn grunted again, possibly in agreement. ‘We’ve left it a bit late, but I’d like Lowrie to see if he can find where she died. We’ve a sighting o a lassie on her own coming down from the Stablegreen Port about ten o the clock, and no idea where she went from there, assuming it was Peg. He can ask about, find out if anyone noticed a tussle or an argument outside their windows. Your men have heard o nothing like that, I suppose?’

  ‘No that Andro’s mentioned,’ said the Provost. ‘You can check wi him.’

  ‘And Annie Gibb?’

  ‘No a whisper. The men are saying St Mungo himsel has carried her off to Paradise, and the way things are going, it wouldny surprise me. And I’d a man Lockhart here afore Prime, wanting to hear what we’ve done about her. The good-brother, is that?’ Gil nodded. ‘Tellt him to ask you, bade him go and think what he or the rest o the party might ken that would help us.’ Otterburn grimaced. ‘Seems the old man’s in a poor way, this Sir Edward. No long to go, by the sound o it. Here, this is the lassie’s kirtle, or the kirtle you took out the Girth Burn, any road. What was it you were saying about it?’

  He hauled the bundle of blue cloth out from under the bier, checked himself in the act of setting it on top of the shrouded corpse, and turned away to the mounting-block by the main door of the Archbishop’s apartments.

  ‘It’s near dry,’ Lowrie commented, and went to help him, spreading the tattered garment out in the sunshine with a proprietary air. ‘You see, the two sleeves have been laid open, from cuff to neck, and the laces cut and all.’ He turned the folds of wool. ‘And we thought – Maister Mason thought – this sleeve was cut wi shears, small ones such as a woman might have at her belt, and that one wi a knife, or at least a single blade. You see how different the cuts are?’

  ‘Aye.’ Otterburn bent to examine the frayed edges. ‘I see it. So, if this is this lassie’s kirtle right enough, you reckon it was two people stripped her, and then tied her to the Cross?’

  ‘That’s what we thought,’ agreed Lowrie, with a diffident glance at Gil. He looked down at the damp wool, then leaned closer, peering at something which he picked at with a forefinger.

  ‘What d’you see?’ asked Otterburn.

  ‘I’m no certain.’ Lowrie straightened up, studying his fingertip. ‘What do you think, sir? Maister Gil? It’s like wee sparkles of gold.’

  ‘Of gold?’ Gil bent to look. Otterburn craned over the mounting block, but shook his head.

  ‘I canny see that close,’ he confessed. ‘What’s he found?’

  ‘He’s right. Spangles, or powdered gold, or something.’ Gil touched his forefinger to Lowrie’s and inspected the result, a couple of minute gleams of colour. ‘Where on earth has that come from? Peg was hardly like to have gold dust about her, poor lass. The braid on her sleeves is coloured floss, no gilt there. I’d ha thought if she came by such a thing as a scrap o gold braid she’d ha sold it on the rag market.’

  ‘It’s only here, on the one sleeve,’ said Lowrie, turning the ragged cloth carefully, tilting his head to see where the bright specks caught the light. ‘I can see none on the other sleeve, nor on the body.’

  ‘Has it come off whoever cut her out her gown?’ suggested Otterburn. ‘Who goes about shedding gold dust?’

  ‘That would fit,’ said Gil. ‘If whichever one wielded the knife was scattering flakes of gold, that would explain why it’s only on that sleeve. But where’s it coming from? Off his hat? Off his clothes?’

  ‘Could be.’ Otterburn nodded gloomily. ‘Could be either. Is there any in the case clad in gold so far, Maister Cunningham?’

  ‘No that I’ve noticed,’ said Gil. ‘Silver braid on a doublet, but no gold braid so far.’

  ‘This is certainly gold,’ said Lowrie, still peering at the folds of cloth. ‘What about brocade? Could it be off a gold brocade sleeve?’

  ‘It could as easy be off a cope or a vestment, I’d ha thought,’ said Otterburn, ‘given she was found in the kirkyard.’

  ‘What, you’re suggesting it was one of the clerks stripped her?’ said Lowrie, startled. ‘But they’d never be wearing gold vestments out in the kirkyard?’

  ‘And she was certainly stripped in the kirkyard,’ Gil concurred. ‘We found the scraps of cloth in the grass.’

  Otterburn grunted sceptically, and stepped away from the mounting-block.

  ‘Well, maisters,’ he said, ‘I’ll bring these specks o gold to the assize the day, but I doubt they’ll no see it as important. I’m hoping to bring it in persons unknown, for I’m inclined to agree wi you, her man’s no the one that’s broke her neck. He maybe knocked her about a bit but he touched her corp afore me willingly enough. Mind you, it’s going to confuse them,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘if I start talking about folk wi gold brocade sleeves. We’ll need to see who we get for the assize. Here, you better get on, if you’re to be back here for the quest.’

  Leaving Lowrie to ask along the length of the Stablegreen whether anyone had heard an argument in the street on the night Peg Simpson died, Gil made his way to the cathedral, and tracked Galston to his covert, not in the vestry which was the domain of the Vicars Choral and the clergy but in the base of the north-west tower, on the floor below the Sub-Almoner’s office.

  Here, under the vaulted ceiling, surrounded by stacks of lumber, a broken altarpiece, the benches for the college meetings in the Chapter House, the planks and beams for the s
eating before the west door at Pentecost, the vergers had made themselves comfortable. Several suspiciously ecclesiastical chairs had been padded with folds of elderly brocade, two lamps and a row of candle-stands were lit by wax candles, a brazier of glowing charcoal contested the chill of the ancient stones. The ropes for the cathedral’s three bells descended through a suitable aperture in the vault, and were gathered up to one side of the door.

  There were only two people in the chamber, the useless Robert sitting with a cup of ale which must have come from the barrel set up under one of the narrow windows, and Galston, moving counters about on a cloth spread on a tall desk beside another candle-stand. When Gil tapped on the heavy door of the chamber Robert clambered to his feet, bleating some sort of welcome, and Galston looked up and came forward immediately.

  ‘Maister Cunningham,’ he said, raising his hat.

  ‘Finish your accounts,’ Gil recommended, ‘or you’ll lose your tally.’

  ‘Not accounts, maister,’ said Galston, ‘but the week’s duties to be rearranged.’ He crossed himself, frowning, and Robert said something faint about Aye, poor Barnabas! ‘I’ve questioned the men,’ Galston went on, ‘and put the fear o God into them, no to mention the fear o Tam Galston, and I have to say, maister, I’ve learned little enough to aid you, save that Robert here caught sight o Barnabas hastening through the kirk.’ Robert nodded eagerly. ‘He’d the cord in his hand, so he says, and when he spoke to him he said he couldny wait, he’d to catch someone afore he left the kirk.’

  ‘Did he say who it was?’ Gil asked Robert directly. The man nodded again.

  ‘Oh, aye, he did, poor Barnabas, at least he said, Where is he? I’ve to catch him afore he leaves the place.’

  ‘Did he name the man he was seeking?’

  ‘Oh, no, he never said a name.’

  Gil met Galston’s glance over the blue-clad shoulder.

  ‘Did he say aught else, Robert?’ asked the head verger.