Pat McIntosh - The Fourth Crow

‘St Mungo’s should ha took better care o my mistress, then,’ retorted Meggot, and turned back the two sides of the gown to reveal the shift beneath it. She drew a sharp breath. ‘Oh, that settles it, it’s never Annie! This is none of our linen, I’d think black shame o mysel to send my mistress anywhere in a clout like yon. It’s not fit for a floor-cloth!’

Gil had to agree. As well as the stains from her death, which had not transferred themselves to the outer garment, the dead woman’s shift was torn and dirty, marked with sweat under the arms, and rubbed blue from a woad-dyed gown at the neckband and seams; it had probably not been washed in several months. He could not imagine any of the women he knew wearing such a garment, other than in the direst need.

‘She herself is no less ill used,’ observed Maistre Pierre. Reaching past Gil he pulled the neckband of the shift down to display a dark bruise and several scars on the thin back. ‘Her life has not been kind.’

‘Now do you see?’ demanded Meggot of Dame Ellen. She eased the gown away from the hunched shoulders, down over the rigid arm. The older woman stared at the bruises thus exposed, her expression grim. ‘I’ve never a notion who it is, but it’s no more my mistress than the Queen of Elfland.’

‘She what?’ said Canon James Henderson, Sub-Dean of St Mungo’s Cathedral. He stared at Gil over a laden table; he had been interrupted breaking his fast on smoked fish, white bread and new milk, with a dish of quince marmalade and another of raisins set by his elbow. ‘How can she be so sure? If the face is unrecognisable-’

‘A course she’s sure o’t, if she’s going by the shift,’ said the plump maidservant at his elbow. ‘There’s no a woman in Scotland wouldny ken her own linen from another’s. I’d pick your shirts out anywhere.’

‘Be silent, woman,’ ordered Canon Henderson. He broke off another piece of bread and buttered it with irritable, jerky movements. ‘I don’t like the way you keep turning up corpses — female corpses, at that — on St Mungo’s land, Gil. We’ll ha no more of them, if you don’t mind.’

Gil preserved a careful silence in the face of this injustice; there had been one other female corpse, two years since in rather different circumstances.

‘But what’s come to the lassie that was there?’ entreated the maidservant. ‘Surely St Mungo never carried her away to Paradise?’

‘Will you be quiet?’ demanded her master. ‘Where has that woman gone, Gil? What’s her name again, Annie Gibb. I could see this nonsense wi the Cross far enough, it never does them any good, and now see what’s come of it!’

‘I’ll set up a search,’ said Gil. ‘I need to let the Provost hear of this, since we’ll have to have an inquest on the dead woman, try to find a name for her, find out how she came to be at the Cross. Will I borrow some men from him, or will we use Cathedral servants to search?’

‘To search?’ Canon Henderson frowned. ‘What kind o a search did you have in mind? Rattling at doors, or looking under bushes, or searching outbuildings?’

‘All three, I’d say.’

‘Aye, you’re right, I suppose. She could be anywhere in Glasgow, and dead or alive come to that. Better see what the Provost can do, our men haveny the same powers outside St Mungo’s land.’ A child wailed, elsewhere in the house, and the Canon glanced at the maidservant and gestured at the door. ‘Away and deal wi that bairn, Kirsty, and see if you canny keep it quieter.’

‘Takes after his faither,’ retorted Kirsty with a toss of her head, but left the room with reluctance.

‘Tell me it again,’ said the Canon. ‘Annie Gibb was bound to the cross wi a new rope, and it’s been untied and tied again, you say.’ Gil nodded. ‘So someone freed her, and throttled this woman to put in her place.’ He crossed himself. ‘Wickedness! What would make anyone act that way? And her friends never saw a thing?’

‘Not till they came to untie her in the morning,’ agreed Gil. ‘It makes little sense. We’ve two problems, I think. Who is the corpse, and how did she die and come to be bound to the cross, and where is Annie Gibb and who freed her?’

‘That’s more than two,’ Henderson said fretfully. He took a draught of milk, emerging from the beaker with a white moustache. ‘Well, you sort it out, Gil. If you need folk to help you, likely some o the songmen would be glad o a change of duties. Sim and Craigie are already involved, you can ask them. And the vergers are aye useful men in a stushie, the younger ones at least, though I hope it’ll no come to that.’

‘So do I,’ agreed Gil.

‘Away and speak to the Provost. He’ll need to hear about it all, I suppose.’

‘I was looking for you to call by,’ said Maister Andrew Otterburn, depute Provost of Glasgow, waving at a stool beside his desk. Gil raised an eyebrow. ‘Aye, I’ve heard about it. Andro brought the word in earlier. Did you ever?’

‘Extraordinary business.’ Gil sat down. Socrates sprawled at his feet, grinning up at Otterburn.

‘Tell me about it, then. What have you discerned?’

‘Very little. The women have the corp stripped now. She’s much of an age with their kinswoman, thin as a lath, has probably borne at least one child so Dame Ellen says. How do they tell that?’

Otterburn glanced at him, but said only, ‘Likely some women’s knowledge. Ask at your wife, I should.’

Perhaps not, thought Gil.

‘We’ve no idea yet what killed her, unless the beating,’ he went on, ‘let alone who she is or how she came to be there. As for where Mistress Annie Gibb might have got to, that’s anyone’s guess. St Mungo’s isny best pleased about the matter.’

‘I’ll wager.’ Otterburn glanced out of the window at the cathedral towers, visible above the warm sandstone outer wall of the castle. He was a lanky man in his forties with a long gloomy face and a wry sense of humour; he was not fully appreciated in the burgh, but Gil had found him easier to work with than his predecessor. ‘Let Walter have a description of the corp-’ His clerk looked up from the end of the desk and nodded, his pen pausing in its eternal squeaking progress. ‘He’ll get her cried round the town, see if anyone’s missed her. Now tell me what you’ve found, maister, and what you’re doing about it.’

Gil obeyed, summarising the little information they had gathered so far.

‘I’ve yet to speak wi the rest of Mistress Gibb’s family or friends,’ he ended. ‘I thought you’d as soon hear about it now rather than later. Young Lowrie’s talked wi the servants, but all he’s learned so far confirms what the family says. They all arrived together, they seem to ha stayed within the hostel walls, other than Mistress Shaw’s two young kinsmen and two fellows that were sent out on an errand for the doctor and were back within the half-hour, until Mistress Gibb was led out wi the whole household, save Sir Edward and his man, to go to St Mungo’s for confession. I’ll set Lowrie to track down the bystanders from this morning and find out if they know anything, and my man Euan’s away to talk the vergers into searching St Mungo’s, but I’m not hopeful.’

‘Aye.’ Otterburn turned the sand-pot on his desk, frowning at it. ‘So the one we have was beaten till she’s beyond recognising, and slain some way we don’t know yet. Could the beating ha killed her?’

‘It might,’ said Gil cautiously. ‘Pierre found no trace of a head injury, but we won’t know for sure till she softens. There’s no sign she was stabbed or the like.’

Otterburn grunted.

‘And then she was throttled, but no till after she was dead, and then she was tied to the Cross. Why? It makes no sense! And where’s the other one got to?’