The Fourth Crow

by Pat McIntosh

  ‘None o those that slept in the men’s hostel left their beds,’ said the doctor in Scots after a moment. ‘I suppose Sir Edward’s daughters might ha slipped past Dame Ellen, though who they would go out to meet I canny imagine.’

  ‘Were you out of the hostel yourself?’

  ‘I had a patient to care for,’ said Januar, the blue gaze very direct this time.

  ‘Has any of the family ever mentioned a connection in Glasgow? Anyone Annie might turn to?’

  ‘No that I recall. But mind, magister, I have little conversation with the most part of the household. My patient, obviously, and his manservant, some of the outside servants when I have need of herbs from the garden, but otherwise the rest of them come little in my way.’

  That isn’t what you said earlier, Gil reflected.

  ‘Mistress Gibb is abroad in Glasgow,’ he said, ‘barefoot in her shift. Are you not concerned for her?’

  ‘Aye,’ said the doctor, ‘concerned indeed, but I’m also concerned for my patient, and I’m a stranger here. You and the Provost’s men can seek Annie Gibb more effectively than I can.’

  ‘Not noticeably, this far,’ said Gil wryly. ‘Very well, maister, I’ll let you back to your patient. Have you any idea where John Lockhart might be?’

  Chapter Six

  Lockhart, despatched from the men’s hall, appeared less formally clad than he had been this morning, his shirt cuffs rolled up over the short sleeves of a leather doublet.

  ‘I’ve had the men out, searching the green out there,’ he said, waving a muscular arm. ‘What d’ye call it, the Stablegreen? And asking questions all up the street here as far’s the port ayont the Castle. I ken it’s no much, but it’s about all we can do, seeing we’re no familiar wi the burgh.’

  And muddying the waters for anyone seeking Peg Simpson, Gil thought resignedly.

  ‘What have you been asking? Have you learned anything?’

  ‘Nothing useful,’ admitted Lockhart. ‘One or two folks saw a lassie on her own coming down Castle Street, but that was well afore midnight. There’s no woman been seen coming away from St Mungo’s kirkyard in the night, and those that were seen this morning were all kent faces, folk could put a name to them.’

  ‘Who saw the lassie on Castle Street?’

  ‘Oh, I couldny tell you. Just folk we asked, I never made a note. Why?’

  ‘Because that might ha been the lassie that’s lying dead in the chapel here,’ Gil said patiently. ‘I need to trace her, find where she went.’

  ‘That’s little enough o my concern,’ said Lockhart.

  ‘Oh, I think you’re wrong,’ said Gil very politely. ‘I’d say it’s likely that whoever loosed Annie Gibb from the Cross tied Peg Simpson to it afterwards, so if we learn more about the one, we’ll ken more about the other.’

  ‘Oh!’ Lockhart digested this. ‘I see what you mean. I’ll ask at the men, see if they recall who it was.’

  ‘Did you find anything else? What were you asking, anyway?’

  ‘No that I mind.’ The other man screwed up his face in an effort of recollection. ‘We were saying to folk, had they been abroad late yestreen, or early the day morn, or even looked out at door or window, and had they seen aught unfamiliar. And none had.’

  It could be worse, Gil thought, and drew out his tablets.

  ‘Give me a note o where you asked, who you spoke to if you can recall it. No sense in me going over the same ground.’

  Listing these took some time, but eventually Lockhart ran to a halt, blew out his cheeks and said,

  ‘I canny think where or who we spoke to more than that. Oh, maybe a couple houses round into, is it the Drygate? And we did tell folk, if they minded aught after we’d gone on, they should bring it here. So likely if there’s anything useful, it’ll turn up at the yett.’

  ‘Very likely,’ said Gil, concealing scepticism. He closed his tablets and put them back in his purse. ‘Let me know if you mind anything else that might help. And another thing you might tell me – was anyone out of the hostel in the night?’

  ‘Out of the hostel?’ Lockhart stared. ‘Why would— What, you think it was one of us? What would we do that for, after all the trouble it’s taken to get the lassie to St Mungo’s?’

  ‘Nevertheless, the hostel door went three times, I’m tellt. More than one person was out, and if they were nothing to do wi Annie or the dead woman they might still ha seen something to the purpose.’

  ‘Well, it wasny me, or any from the men’s hall,’ asserted Lockhart, ‘for I was right by the door, and I’d ha heard any leaving, and I’ll never believe that any o the lassies got past Dame Ellen, she takes right good care o my good-sisters and the rest o the household.’

  ‘Did all the servants sleep in the guest-halls?’ Gil asked. ‘None in the stables?’

  ‘Aye, we’re all in the two halls.’ Lockhart stared at him a little longer, then said, ‘No, I canny think that any o the men would ha got by me either. I heard the doctor moving about, and the like, he was to be my bedfellow but I think he never lay down all night, though he did at least change his clothes, he’s in his second-best gown the day, that red-and-yellow, no the gold. Looks like a papingo, does he no! I think he let the man Doddie get his rest after seeing to my good-faither on the journey. I’d ha noticed the hall door opening.’

  Gil nodded.

  ‘Would you ken,’ he asked carefully, ‘whether Mistress Gibb had any friends or kindred about Glasgow? Anyone she could turn to? Someone must ha taken her in, if she’s not lying under a dyke somewhere.’

  ‘No that I ever heard mentioned,’ said the other man firmly. ‘But I’d little conversation wi the lassie hersel, y’ken, and never a lot wi her good-sisters. I’d not say my wife has spoken of it either.’

  ‘Or any who’ve asked Sir Edward for her, that might have gone this length to make certain of her and her lands?’

  Lockhart stared at him, blew out his cheeks again, and said,

  ‘Well! That’s a thought, maister. I’d need to chew on it a bit, there’s been one or two folk hoping for her hand in the past year, by what my wife has heard.’

  ‘Sir Edward hinted as much,’ Gil agreed, ‘though he’s not fit to recall names.’

  Lockhart grimaced, and nodded.

  ‘I’ll think on it, try if I can mind who it was. It was all Ayrshire names my wife mentioned, you understand, smaller lairds, no folk I’d ken well. As for who she might turn to, you’d do better to ask at Dame Ellen, or at Nicholas or Ursula. They’d likely mind if she mentioned sic a thing when she was first living in that house, for I think she was more inclined to speak o hersel then. Or her woman might have some knowledge. Aye, you should talk to them.’

  Dame Ellen was not inclined to be helpful.

  ‘Oh, no, maister. None of the lassies left the hall in the night,’ she stated, in a tone that invited no discussion. ‘Neither Meggot nor my nieces. By Our Lady’s mantle, I’d ha known the reason why if any had tried it. Ask at Sir Simon, why don’t you,’ she added, with another dreadful simper, ‘maybe it was him on some errand. Priests ha calls on their time the rest o us areny troubled wi. No, I’ve never a notion o friends Annie might turn to round here. Her mother? Why are you asking me about her mother? She’s long deid, poor lass.’

  ‘I’d like to know where she was from.’

  Dame Ellen gave a little thought to this, eyes cast piously upward.

  ‘I believe she was a Renfrew woman. Long deid, as I say. Was she a Wallace, maybe?’ She shook her head. ‘If she wasny a Wallace, I’ve no idea who she was. Sir, you’d surely be better out hunting for the lassie, instead o harassing me wi questions I’ve no answer to?’

  ‘I need a word wi Meggot,’ said Gil, ‘and maybe wi your own woman.’

  ‘Oh, no, maister, you’ll ha to go into Ayrshire for that, then,’ she divulged, ‘for I never brought her wi me, daft piece that she is, I reckoned to do better without her. I’ll fetch Meggot out to you.’

  But intervi
ewed across the courtyard from Dame Ellen’s watchful eye and tapping foot, Meggot could add little to this.

  ‘I think her mammy was a Wallace,’ she agreed, ‘though no from Elderslie. Somewhere else in Renfrewshire, I’m sure she said once. I’m sorry, maister, I canny mind clearer than that. As to friends around Glasgow, no, she never mentioned any. Her daddy was an Ayrshire man, had no kindred in these parts, nor her mammy neither that I recall.’

  ‘Meggot.’ Gil looked directly at her. She held his gaze for a moment, then blushed and looked away. ‘You’re fond of her, you said that.’ She nodded, tightening her lips. ‘She’s adrift in a strange place, wi no clothes to her back. I want to find her. Can you tell me nothing that would help her?’

  She shook her head, whispering,

  ‘No, maister, I canny.’ Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘If I knew aught I’d tell you it, so I would. I—’ Her glance slid sideways, to where Dame Ellen still glared attentively. ‘It seems to me, sir,’ she went on, still whispering, ‘she must ha had help, maybe she had plans made, but who it was helped her or where she’s gone I canny think, it was none o the household that Sawney or me can discover.’ She looked up earnestly at Gil. ‘Wherever she is, I hope she’s safe, the poor lass.’

  Gil dismissed the woman, thanked Dame Ellen without real gratitude, and looked at the sky. The sunny morning had changed into a cloudy afternoon with a brisk, chilly wind; it would probably rain before dark, but meantime he could tell that it was getting towards dinnertime. If he could track down the cordmaker on the Drygate, he might just catch the man before his day’s work ended.

  George Paterson’s ropewalk was easier to find than he expected; the second passer-by he asked directed him onto the back-lands behind a sagging wooden house not far down the hill from the House of the Mermaiden. Rounding the crooked gable he found himself looking down a long toft, with the trees lining the Girth Burn at its foot and – could that be the back of the Sub-Dean’s house opposite?

  ‘Oh, aye,’ agreed Paterson himself when he located him. ‘Tell truth, that’s how I got the St Mungo’s trade. If you don’t ask, you don’t get, see, and I just took a couple hanks a good cord ower the burn and showed it to Dean Henderson, and he tellt me to take it to the Almoner, and Almoner Jamieson was pleased wi’t as a donation, and said he’d take more as a purchase. Three year syne, that was, three year at Michaelmas next. No, lad, leave that bale sep’rate, I haveny proved it yet.’ He scowled at his son, and said aside to Gil, ‘Him and his friends were up to some mischief last night, he’s no use to me the day. Laddies, eh?’

  They were in the ropewalk itself, a long shed like the one out towards Partick, though narrower and less cluttered. The machinery was less ponderous as well; presumably this reflected the fact that Paterson made cord rather than rope. His son obediently put down the bale of raw hemp, and pulled the canvas wrapping over the fibre. He was a gangling, slow-moving boy of fifteen or so, all hands and feet and elbows, but would be very like his father when he stopped growing; both were tall for Glasgow men, though shorter than Gil, with ragged mouse-coloured hair and well-worn working clothes.

  ‘You deal wi St Mungo’s?’ Gil said.

  ‘Oh, aye. They take all the twelve-ply and most o the six-ply we can make. I ask a fair price, maister, and the Almoner gets fair value, we’re all satisfied wi the outcome.’ Gil nodded at this, and produced the length of cord from his purse. Paterson looked sharply at it. ‘That looks like some o my six-ply.’

  Gil handed the coils over, and the man studied it much as Matt Dickson had done, untwisting the tight spirals, picking at the fibres, inspecting the lashed ends.

  ‘Aye, I’d say it’s mine,’ he pronounced at last. ‘The colour’s gey like the last batch o hemp we had, that I’d to put some flax to a cause it was that coarse. Here, is this what they used to throttle that lassie at the Cross? Some o my cord?’ His son looked round, then hastily back to his work when his father glared at him.

  ‘It was,’ Gil admitted. ‘So I’d like to ken where it came from. Did you send all that batch to St Mungo’s, or did some of it go elsewhere?’

  ‘Well, this has been to St Mungo’s, for certain,’ observed Paterson, ‘for that’s how they finish it when they’ve to cut a length, bound off wi some o my single twine so it willny ravel. See, most folks just ties a knot, but if you’re wanting your length to last a while and do you duty you need to finish it off right. Jamieson understands that, and so does his vergers, those that help him in his office.’

  ‘So I should have shown it to Alan Jamieson when I saw him,’ Gil said. ‘How d’you deliver it?’ Paterson looked puzzled. ‘In hanks, of course, but do you take it to Maister Jamieson himself, or to the Vicars’ hall, or just leave it at the tower door?’

  ‘Oh, I see! No, the lad takes it round to the hall, time when we ken the Almoner’s going to be there, so he can mark the tally for him. Given into Alan Jamieson’s hands, it is, maister. George!’ The boy looked up from the cord he was winding. ‘Mind this lot? You gave it to the Almoner hissel, did you no?’

  The youngster came closer and touched his blue bonnet to Gil, peering at the loops of cord in his father’s hand.

  ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Likely.’

  ‘Did you or no?’ Paterson demanded. His heir shrugged.

  ‘Likely,’ he said. ‘I canny mind, Da!’ he protested as his father drew breath to remonstrate.

  ‘Do you ken Maister Mason’s boy Luke?’ Gil asked. Young George considered the question, and shrugged again.

  ‘Likely,’ he admitted. This time he was not fast enough to avoid his father’s hand.

  ‘You be civil to Maister Cunningham, that’s our neighbour and a freen o the Almoner!’ commanded the elder George.

  ‘Aye,’ said the boy, sulkily rubbing his ear. ‘I ken him,’ he expanded. ‘He’s wi the High Street band, in’t he no?’

  ‘Ah.’ Gil considered this aspect of burgh life, recollections of his student days rising in his memory. The apprentices of the burgh banded together by street, High Street against Gallowgate or Thenewgate, Drygate against the small Upper Town group; the younger students of the College formed another, larger band. In general the rivalry confined itself to chanting, thrown stones and the occasional scuffle or game of football, but from time to time it exploded into violence. Several apprentices seemed to have been abroad yesterday evening. ‘Was it a battle?’ he asked. ‘Last night, I mean. The moon was, what, well past the quarter, there would be plenty light.’

  Another shrug and a, ‘Likely.’

  ‘Who was it? The Drygate and who else?’

  ‘Answer Maister Cunningham,’ ordered Paterson. After a moment his son mumbled something which might have been,

  ‘High Street. Stablegreen.’

  ‘I hope the Drygate won.’ This earned a reluctant grin, delivered sideways under the mouse-coloured thatch. Encouraged, Gil went on, ‘If you mind anything more about this cord, you can let me hear it, or bring it to my man Lowrie. Or aught else you think of that might help me. I want to find who killed the lassie at the Cross.’

  ‘Aye, wi some o our cord!’ said the elder Paterson energetically. ‘Aught we can do to help, maister, we’ll do right willingly, me and the boy both!’

  ‘And what did the Almoner say?’ asked Alys.

  ‘He agreed it was likely some of his,’ Gil said, carving a slice off the roast before him. ‘When it comes into the store, one of the vergers, a fellow called Matthew, cuts it down into lengths of an ell or an ell and a half, and whips the ends. It’s kept on a shelf in the dry store, a box for each length, very methodical. The piece we have is gey like the longer lengths that Jamieson uses to bind up the great sacks of donated goods, though I’d not say he knew which one it came off.’

  ‘That would be too much to expect,’ said Alys gravely. She accepted a second slice of meat, and held her platter while Gil spooned gravy from around the roast. ‘And what have you learned, Lowrie?’

  ‘Some new oaths,’ sai
d Lowrie ruefully. ‘Nobody had seen a lady in her shift in any of the houses near the kirk-yard, much though some of them might have wanted to.’

  ‘So we can discount that idea, and give thought to something else,’ said Gil. ‘Good work.’

  ‘Maistre le notaire, votr’ valet n’est pas rentré,’ observed Catherine as Gil helped her to a share of the gravy to savour her platter of pounded roots.

  ‘Euan knows when the dinner goes on the table,’ said Alys. ‘Gil, surely the woman at the Cross is not connected with the theft from the Almoner’s stores? It did not sound as if she had any means at all, much less what she should not have had.’

  ‘No, I agree.’ Gil served Lowrie and then himself with slices of the roast. ‘She may be connected, but not because she was involved in the thieving.’

  ‘So what do we know, maister?’ asked Lowrie.

  ‘I’ve told you often enough,’ said Gil, ‘use my name. We’re both sons of the College of Glasgow, whatever else is between us.’ He used his eating-knife to cut the meat on his platter into smaller pieces, while Lowrie muttered something in embarrassment. ‘We’re still at the stage where we have a great handful of facts which might or might not be related, and no idea how they join up. One lassie was freed from the Cross in the middle of the night, by one or more people, and then vanished in her shift. Nobody seems to have heard of any friends she might have hereabouts, and nobody admits to having seen her.’

  ‘Why?’ prompted Alys.

  ‘We don’t know that either.’

  ‘The reason,’ said Catherine in her elegant toothless French, ‘that the girl was freed and has vanished may indicate the person who freed her.’

  ‘Very true, madame,’ agreed Gil, and translated quickly for Lowrie, ‘but I’d be grateful for hearing anything at all about her.’

  ‘And the other lassie,’ said Alys. ‘Peg, is that her name?’

  ‘Last seen about ten o’clock leaving the Trindle, turned up dead and bound to the Cross wearing Annie Gibb’s sacking gown and her own plaid—’