Pat McIntosh - The Fourth Crow

‘We’re looking for traces of at least two people, then,’ said Gil.

‘There were more than two about here last evening,’ declared Maistre Pierre.

Gil stepped cautiously over to the Cross and stood with his back to it, looking about him.

‘Unless they crossed the burn,’ he said slowly, ‘whoever released her came down the slope from the gate, and the ground’s by far too trampled to tell how many they were. I wonder, was she awake, expecting them?’

‘Like Maister Craigie,’ said Lowrie. Gil, who had already seen the songman making his way towards them, made no comment, but Maistre Pierre tutted audibly. ‘It makes less and less sense, doesn’t it?’ Lowrie went on.

‘It never has made sense,’ grumbled the mason. ‘Everything we have learned so far has made the matter more confusing.’

‘Well, well, Gilbert,’ said Craigie in Latin, coming close enough to speak. ‘And what have you learned so far? A sad matter, a sad matter, and not good for St Mungo’s.’

‘The Sub-Dean is very displeased,’ agreed Gil, accurate but uninformative.

‘Very sad,’ repeated Craigie. ‘I little thought, when I offered prayers for Mistress Gibb’s healing, that this would be the consequence of her petition to our saint.’

‘It was you offered prayers?’

‘It was. Her family wished it, and I was free. And now this has happened.’

Gil considered him. He was a handsome, stocky man with a wide grin, dressed with less flamboyance than Maister Sim in a fashionably cut long gown of dark green cloth faced with black velvet. His belt was shod with silver, the brim of his round felt hat was pinned up with a bright enamel brooch, and altogether he was the image of a prosperous, modest cleric. Now, becoming slightly uncomfortable under Gil’s gaze, he said, switching to Scots,

‘Is that right, what the bellman’s crying? Does it mean someone throttled a complete stranger? Surely not! I canny believe it!’

‘She is certainly a stranger so far,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘We have not yet a name for her.’

‘But what was she doing here? Where is Mistress Gibb?’

‘If I knew that I’d be rattling at her door,’ Gil observed. ‘What did you see when they called you down here this morning, William?’

‘What did I see? Well, her men were here at her side, and there the woman was bound to the Cross. You saw her yoursel, Gil. How did the men no recognise her? That’s gey strange!’

‘You saw her too,’ Gil pointed out. ‘You must mind how badly she was beaten. Her men saw what they expected to, I suppose. Nobody else was about?’

‘No at that moment, though a good few gathered once they saw us.’

‘Which of the men came up to St Mungo’s? How did he get in? What did he say?’

‘Oh.’ Craigie paused to consider. ‘Well, we were all in the vestry robing up for Prime, and this fellow came in from the nave wi one of the vergers on his heels, likely he’d got in at the west door, crying that his mistress was dead. I’ve no idea which of them it was, likely the one that spoke to you when you got here. And seeing there was only us songmen and Canon Muir in the place, Adam Goudie told off Habbie and me to go and deal wi the matter. We could see at once there was naught to be done, she was cold and stiff, so I began an act of Conditional Absolution and Habbie went to fetch you.’

‘Who found the cord about her neck?’

‘Oh, that would be Habbie. He was for trying to revive her, patting her face and the like, and here were the ends hanging.’ He crossed himself. ‘A bad business, a very bad business. And no good for St Mungo’s,’ he repeated.

Gil dug in his purse for the coiled cord. Shaking it loose he said,

‘This is what was about her neck. Have you seen the like before? Have you any idea where it might have come from?’

‘What, an ell and a half of stout cord?’ said Craigie. ‘Just about anywhere, I’d have thought. Try the candlemakers, they use string and cord, all sorts.’

Gil nodded, and wound the cord about his fingers again, turning back to the Cross. Its massive sandstone pillar gave nothing away, and the trampled grass around it showed no useful signs, as Lowrie had commented earlier. There was a long silence, into which Maister Craigie finally said,

‘Well, I’ll let you get on. But tell me if you learn aught, Gil, so I can put it in my prayers.’

‘Do that, William,’ agreed Gil. He turned to raise his hat politely, but Craigie was already on his way up the slope towards St Mungo’s. Maistre Pierre, staring at the man’s green cloth back, remarked in French,

‘Does he think we suspect him?’

‘He seems concerned,’ Gil agreed. He waited a moment longer, till Craigie was well out of earshot, then said to Lowrie, ‘So what have you got there?’

Lowrie rose from where he had hunkered down in the shadows twenty yards along the bank of the Girth Burn. Socrates, who had been sitting beside him looking where he looked, splashed into the water and waited hopefully for a stick to be thrown.

‘Someone cut across there to the waterside,’ said Lowrie, pointing upstream of where he stood. ‘And I wonder if this is why? It looks like a garment, blue woollen cloth any road. It’s caught under the other bank here, where the Provost’s men would likely ha missed it. Could it be her gown? And someone came down this way to throw it into the burn?’

‘Ah!’ Maistre Pierre made for the burn, avoiding the line Lowrie had indicated. Gil followed him more slowly, picking out the signs the younger man had found. They were slight, a matter of bent and flattened grasses, the print of a heel in a softer patch; whoever left them had contrived to avoid the bluebells’ juicier, more easily damaged leaves. Was that luck, he wondered, or good judgement? ‘Or was it daylight by then?’ he said aloud.

‘No,’ said Maistre Pierre firmly. He was calf-deep in the burn, fending off the interested dog and gathering up the waterlogged cloth which Lowrie had seen. ‘Not if this was put in the water at the same time as the body we have was bound to the Cross. Lend a hand here.’ Lowrie sprang to help him, with a quick apology. ‘She was put there within perhaps an hour of her death, and then she was throttled, and left to stiffen like that. After midnight, but long before dawn, I should say.’

‘Someone who kens the kirkyard well?’ Lowrie offered. He and the mason splashed out of the burn with the heavy wet garment between them and began to spread it out.

‘This has been cut off her,’ said Maistre Pierre, unfurling a ragged sleeve. ‘See, cut the whole length from cuff to neck, and the braid at the elbow too.’

‘And the other sleeve,’ said Lowrie, unfolding it to match. ‘The laces are cut and all.’

‘So likely she was dead already when she was brought here,’ said Gil. He stared about him, then moved carefully back to the Cross and began quartering the trampled area about its foot. Socrates joined him, and after a moment so did Lowrie, while Maistre Pierre continued to arrange the folds of wet blue wool.

‘It is a working woman’s kirtle,’ he said at length, ‘with such short sleeves, and in this cheap woollen stuff, though this bit of braid at the sleeve may help us to identify her. The hem is much worn and stained. And also- Pah! Full of insects. The seams are thick with their eggs. Lice, I suppose. I wonder where she worked.’

‘A flesher’s? One of the cookhouses?’ Gil suggested. ‘Somewhere the floor is wet and dirty, at any rate, and not in the better parts of the town either.’

‘Peut-être . Do we seek her in the alehouses, perhaps?’

‘That would certainly account for why nobody has come forward yet to name her.’ Gil was crouched, peering at the ground. ‘We might learn more once they open up for the day’s trade. Lowrie, come and tell me what you see here.’