Even in the hard-beaten earth you could see signs of a struggle, the marks of a shoe well-made and sharp about the heel as if new. Murray, rising, set his own foot contemplatively beside the footprint: it was smaller than his own shoe. He glanced around. Dunnet and Robbins both wore boots, Dunnet’s old and as far as he could see under the groom’s coat tails, needing building up around the heel. In the print on the floor, the toe was well pushed in, the pressure on the heel lighter. Murray manoeuvred his own feet quietly into the same position, and thought that it would give him purchase to shove hard, or to keep his balance against being pushed back.
Who would come to a well-lit stable in good shoes to struggle with a stable boy? If it had been a thief, he had apparently killed in vain, for of the five stalls, the farthest two held his father’s carriage horses, a fine, almost matching pair of very dark bays, and the next held a saddle horse suitable for town use, calm and steady. The fourth and fifth were empty, swept and clean, and Murray knew of few horse thieves who cleaned up after themselves.
Perhaps it was an opportunist horse thief interrupted in his work by Dunnet. But having already killed the boy, it would seem an easy task to knock over a man who was not large and who, by the smell of ale about him, would not have been too steady on his feet.
The horses were growing peaceful enough now, though, made a little nervous by the fuss and so many people, and perhaps by a warning scent of death that only they could smell. Evidently the thief, if thief it had been, had not disturbed them. The lock on the press housing the expensive harness was also as it should be. Yet what reason could there be for Jamie’s death but that he had attempted, however unintentionally, to stop a thief?
‘What was his surname?’ he asked suddenly. The cat looked up, affronted at the unexpected noise. Robbins blinked, but remembered that Jamie had not been with the family long.
‘Paterson, sir. His parents live off the Grassmarket.’ Robbins had pulled Dunnet back on to a heap of straw and stood beside him, mindful of the presence of his master. Dunnet seemed oblivious to everything but Jamie.
‘I’ll send for them when one of the men comes back.’ A father dies and then a son, he thought, involuntarily.
Footsteps he had barely registered as distant sounds on the cobbled street grew abruptly immediate, and William led the police officer into the warm pool of oil lamplight.
‘Aye,’ was the police officer’s first reaction. ‘Well.’ He appeared to be addressing the black heap of the corpse on the floor, as he had no eyes for anything else. William, too, stood wide-eyed in the doorway, cheeks cold-pinched as he had run straight off on his errand with no overcoat.
‘William,’ said Murray, ‘do you know where Jamie’s parents live?’
‘Aye, sir, off the Grassmarket.’
‘Then bring them here, please. Tell them only that there has been an accident and that Jamie is dead. There is no need to distress them with further details at the moment.’ He could hear his father’s voice in his own, and did not know whether to be proud of it or irritated by it. ‘And fetch a coat for yourself first.’ William tore himself reluctantly away from the doorway, deprived once more of legitimate access to the scene of the action. As he left, there was a further sound at the door and Daniel arrived with Dr. Harker, still in black from the funeral.
‘Good evening, Mr. Murray,’ said the physician. He was a gentle man, and appeared somewhat embarrassed by the situation: perhaps he felt it to be indelicate to be summoned to a second death in a household where the bills had not yet been paid on the first one. ‘This is the unfortunate lad, then?’ He knelt in the straw with courageous disregard for the knees of his breeches, and gently pulled back the shoulders of Murray’s overcoat from the base of the corn bing and Jamie’s unnaturally laid head. In doing so, he obscured Dunnet’s view, but the groom stared still as if he had not noticed.
‘Right, then,’ said the policeman, whose concentration on the corpse was, by contrast, broken by the arrival of the doctor. ‘What happened here?’ He addressed the question generally, but Robbins naturally allowed Murray to answer.
‘I came into the stables and found Jamie Paterson here dead, and Dunnet, this man here, crouched over the body.’
‘Seems a simple case, then, sir,’ said the police officer, confidently. ‘And who are you, sir?’
‘Charles Murray. Of Letho,’ he added. ‘This is my stable, and Jamie was my stable boy.’ He felt as if he were making false claims to his father’s estate, and the police officer evidently heard the note of doubt in his voice for he was directing a dubious eye at him when a shout came from the open stable door.
‘Rigg!’ the voice exclaimed richly, every consonant furred with disgust. ‘I might have guessed.’
A thin, shadowy figure, oddly shaped about the head, made its way forward into the light, and was revealed as a member of the Town Guard, cold and meagre under an over-sized cocked hat, in an old red uniform coat, faced with blue, of little more substance than the barrel of the worn musket in his matching blue-knuckled hand.
‘Och, Bain, you’re the plague of my life,’ said Police Officer Rigg, with a fine disregard for the others around him. ‘Can you no see I’m busy? There’s been a murder, or would you no ken what one of them was?’
‘I ken well enough, for I’ve considered it in connexion with yourself many a time,’ replied Bain, propping his musket against the wall and folding his bony arms across his chest. Daniel looked questions at Robbins, who glanced at Mr. Murray, but Mr. Murray did not seem anxious to have either officer removed. He was scowling, in truth, but Robbins, who had the instincts of a good servant, suspected that Mr. Murray was having difficulty in stopping himself from laughing out loud. The element of complete unreality, coming at the end of such a dark day, was too much for him.
Rigg was allowing Bain’s last remark to percolate through his cosy thatch of black hair. He turned in plumply assumed dignity.
‘Are you threatening me, Davie Bain? Because a threat issued in front of another or third party is damned –’
Daniel’s eyes widened in delight.
‘Deemed, ye gowk, not damned!’ Rigg gave a high cackle. ‘No, the only reason, you ken, why I would think of murder in connexion with yourself – never, you would understand, meaning to wish you any permanent damage – is how the number of murders in the town has strangely increased, by my reckoning, since your police force started last summer. Would you agree, Police Officer Rigg?’
‘So you’ve learned the counting in this last year, have you?’ asked Rigg, pleased with this taunt. Daniel grinned openly, and was frowned at by Robbins, as aware as the gentlemen of the gross inappropriateness of this contest.
‘It’s time you did, Police Officer Rigg, so you could add up the number of murders and other dire crimes, and then take away – oh, aye, a wee tiny number indeed! – the ones where you’ve caught the man that did it, and that would leave you,’ he grew solemn, ‘that would leave you with the great number of restless souls, wrested from their bodies early and unavenged by the might of the law, that you’ll have to answer to on the Day of Judgement!’
Rigg, who had lost the thread of this calculation somewhere about the mention of the second number, fell back on his knowledge of the law.
‘You’re in this stable without the permission of the owner. Do you ken who this is?’ He threw a chubby but dramatic hand towards Murray.
‘Oh, aye, I ken fine Mr. Murray,’ said Bain coolly. ‘Though I haven’t seen you for a while, sir. I was sorry to hear about your faither, Mr. Murray, sir. He was a fine gentleman.’
Murray managed to nod his thanks.
‘I should maybe explain, sir,’ Bain continued confidentially, ‘that this person is my brother-in-law – my sister, the Lord save her, is soft in the head and married him for the company – and he requires a kind of constant watch in case he does himself some damage. The police office took him in for kindness.’ His voice was bitter enough for Murray to doubt at least the sur
face meaning of his words. ‘Now,’ said Bain, turning back towards Rigg and warming to his mathematical task, ‘Do you want to hear a few more numbers, Police Officer Rigg? Now that you have the idea, right? If you take away four hundred and thirteen from four hundred and fifty, what do you imagine you might have left? You look a wee thing bumbazed, so I’ll help you out.’ He drew breath, and then shouted at the top of his thin voice. ‘Thirty-seven! That’s what you have left. That’s all the Town Guard has left now that your new, valiant police force is set up! Thirty-seven men who served this town well – and four hundred and thirteen left with no uniform to their backs or axes to their hands, to defend this town from the works of the Devil! And left with no coin in their pocket or bread in their bairns’ mouths!’
In the ensuing silence, the doctor rose with a rustle from the straw and gave a polite cough.
‘Mr. Murray,’ he began, ‘the boy’s neck is broken, and there is bruising about his face and arms, and on the back of his head where he struck the corn bing. In addition, his nails are broken back as if he scratched at something, perhaps in his own defence, but all I can see beneath the nails is embedded dirt, there for quite a while, I’m afraid.’ He smiled slightly and apologetically at the floor. ‘It does not seem possible that he died an accidental or natural death.’
Murray took in this information slowly, noting each point on the body before Dr. Harker once more covered it over, finding it astonishing that a man who had not even known Jamie could tell in so short a time so much about the way of his death. Robbins glanced at Dunnet, then at the floor, eyes pale in his skull-white face.
Rigg also digested the information, then stepped determinedly across and seized Dunnet by the arm.
‘I’m arresting you for the murder of Jamie Paterson.’
‘He was found with the boy’s body, wasn’t he?’ asked Dr. Harker diffidently, moving to look into Dunnet’s empty face.
‘He was,’ Murray agreed.
‘How long ago?’ asked the physician. He picked Dunnet’s hands one by one from his side, and examined the nails and knuckles carefully. Charles, resisting the urge to tell him that Dunnet was not also a corpse, took out his pocket watch.
‘A matter of less than half an hour.’ It was four o’clock, and nearly time for him to leave to receive his guests at Fortune’s.
‘Where was this man two hours ago?’ asked Dr. Harker, holding Dunnet still by one wrist. Securely held on the other side by Rigg, Dunnet might have been a newly-stuffed scarecrow, the straw adhering still to his coat and breeches.
‘Why two hours?’ asked Murray, puzzled.
‘The lad’s body is cold,’ explained the doctor. ‘I’d say he died rather more than half an hour ago, and two hours is more likely. Where was this man then?’
Murray and Robbins looked at one another.
‘Where we all were,’ replied Murray slowly. ‘We were on the way to the kirkyard.’
‘No, sir,’ Robbins replied stony-faced, ‘not Dunnet. He was the worse for ale, and Mrs. Chambers made him stay in the kitchen with Jamie and the women. He took Mr. Murray’s death very badly, sir,’ he added as an excuse.
‘I see,’ said Murray, after a moment. ‘Daniel, will you be so good as to ask Mrs. Chambers and Mrs. Mack to come here?’
Daniel darted away, and they waited in silent tableau. A horse shifted, and Murray could hear the ferrets scuffling in their bedding. William had evidently broken the news before he had left for the Grassmarket: the women, when they arrived, were already pale and tearful and avoided looking at the black bundle by the corn bing.
‘Two hours ago,’ said Murray, ‘at two o’clock the funeral procession set out, and you were left here. When my father’s coffin left the house, what did you do?’
Mrs. Chambers frowned, but answered,
‘We – that is, the maids and I – saw the ladies back up to the drawing room and settled. Mrs. Mack here and Iphigenia and Euphemia returned to the kitchen.’
‘And Dunnet?’
‘He did not leave the kitchen, Mr. Murray. He was – unwell.’ She tried not to emphasise the word, and ended up half-swallowing it instead.
‘What about Jamie?’
‘He also remained in the kitchen, sir.’ She coughed and despite herself, glanced down at Murray’s coat in the straw. ‘He smelled rather strongly of the stables, Mr. Murray.’
‘And you, Mrs. Mack.’ Murray had known her, too, all of his life, and felt as though he was hiding behind his new authority like a mask. ‘When you returned to the kitchen, who was there?’
‘Dunnet and Jamie, sir. Dunnet was asleep by the fire, and Jamie complained that the stable was cold and he wanted to stay in the kitchen.’ She pressed a sodden handkerchief to her nose and went on, indistinctly, through it. ‘And the Lord help me, I told him he was a lazy wee boy and sent him back here!’ Tears squeezed out of her currant eyes and meandered in channels across plump cheeks. Murray gave her a moment to sob before asking, to make sure,
‘And have you been in the kitchen ever since?’
‘Kitchen or pantry, sir, making the evening meal for us, sir.’
‘And Dunnet?’
‘Asleep by the fire until half an hour ago, sir, when he rose and said he’d have to see about the horses.’
‘You’d swear to that, would you?’ asked Murray. Mrs. Mack, half his height, looked up at him, shocked.
‘Of course, sir! The kitchen clock is my constant companion, you ken that yourself, Mr. Charles!’
Murray felt abashed. The thin Town Guard chuckled hollowly, scratching his fingers across his ribs.
‘Well, Police Officer Rigg, what might you do now?’
Rigg looked as if the entire conversation with the women had bypassed him completely.
‘Dunnet, I am arresting you for the murder of Jamie Paterson,’ he repeated, shaking the oblivious groom by the arm. Dr. Harker held tightly to the other wrist and shook his head gently.
‘He cannot understand you, Rigg. He is quite deeply shocked.’
‘Besides, we have just proved that he is innocent,’ added Murray. ‘You cannot arrest him.’
Bain tutted, grinning.
‘You’ll have to excuse my friend here, Mr. Murray, sir. You ken, he’s assured that the reformed police force can do no wrong, so he believes that some kind of divine judgement is granted him with his office. It’s no his fault he wouldna ken divine judgement if he saw it this instant with St. Peter joogling his keys.’
Rigg turned angrily on the Town Guard, letting Dunnet go. The groom would have sagged back on to the straw but that Robbins caught his free arm and flung it over his own shoulders, holding Dunnet by the waist. Suddenly Murray remembered the tricks of tutoring small boys, and took control.
‘Understand this,’ he said firmly, breaking into Rigg’s tirade at Bain. ‘You have no grounds for arresting my groom, and you will not do so. If you wish to carry this further you may tell your superior officer to wait upon me at my house, tomorrow morning at eleven. Now, Daniel, when you have removed these persons from the stable, please assist Robbins to carry Dunnet to his room. You’ll do your best for him, won’t you, Dr. Harker?’ he asked, and as the physician nodded, he added, ‘Although I think perhaps you have already saved his life this evening.’
The police officer, properly subdued, and the Town Guard, reunited with his musket, were propelled into the street. The doctor and the men departed towards the house, and Murray was left with Mrs. Chambers, Mrs. Mack and the bundle that had been Jamie. The cat, who had regarded the foregoing events with dispassionate interest, began to wash. Murray looked up at the hayloft.
‘He slept in here, did he?’ he asked. Mrs. Chambers nodded her black lace cap. Murray turned and bolted the stable door, saw the two women through to the yard with their candle, and turned back to see that the horses were sufficiently provisioned. He glanced again at the hayloft, and a thought struck him. He climbed quickly up the ladder and peered around, but there was nowhere for a man
to hide: all was neat and straight. In the corner nearest the little window a heap of straw covered with a couple of grey English blankets formed what had been Jamie’s bed. Murray clambered into the loft and approached it, stooping, but could see little beyond a chamber pot, very correct and New Town in a stable, and an old tin mug, empty. A series of misshapen objects along the windowsill were unidentifiable by sight in the darkness: Murray felt them cautiously, found them to be inanimate and apparently harmless, and gathered them into his pocket for future investigation in better light. If they were Jamie’s, they should be returned to his family.
Back on the ground, he paused, then crouched down to lift the collar of his coat back from the face of the stable boy he had not known. Fair hair, pale skin, dark lashes, still only a boy. This would have been his first post, his first steps into a man’s world.
Even in Murray’s own short life, he had seen other bodies, blameless and broken like this. When evil walked, the innocent were kicked aside like so many dead leaves. He knew that he would try his best to solve the puzzle of this boy’s death, that he would not be able to resist, but not tonight. Not tonight.
He extinguished the lamp, then in the darkness lifted the body of the stable boy who had kept the place so well, and carried it in his arms through the yard to the kitchen, his black coat hanging in folds about the body like the mortcloth on his father’s coffin.
Chapter Four
Robbins had given his coat a vigorous brushing while Murray washed carefully and pulled on a fresh linen shirt, clamping the high collar around his throat with a clean black neckcloth. Robbins thought his master looked older, and did not wonder at it.
Service of the Heir: An Edinburgh Murder (Murray of Letho Book 3) Page 4