Pat McIntosh - The Fourth Crow

Lowrie obeyed, elbowing the dog aside to study the scraps of colour caught under the flattened stems.

‘That’s it,’ he agreed. ‘That must be it. She was cut out of the gown here.’

Gil used his fingernails to extract one wispy blue thread, and laid it on his palm, trying not to breathe on it.

‘Or at least, the gown was cut,’ he amended scrupulously. ‘She was probably still in it, but we have no proof.’

‘Here’s a bigger bit,’ said Lowrie, now on hands and knees. He pinched something up from a mat of grasses, and turned back to Gil. ‘Look, Maister Gil, it’s a bit of the weave, not just an odd thread.’

Gil took the fragment, turning it over carefully.

‘How did that happen?’ he wondered.

‘He used shears,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘One sleeve has been cut using shears, quite small ones such as a needlewoman carries, and the other using a knife.’

‘Two people, then,’ said Gil.

‘Mistress Gibb herself, with the scissors from her hussif?’ Lowrie said in surprise, and answered his own question. ‘Hardly, she had naught on her but that sacking gown I suppose. Unless whoever freed her brought her clothes to her. No, the tirewoman said her clothes were all in the hostel.’ He looked down at the wisps of cloth in Gil’s hand. ‘I wonder they never kept this whole for Annie to wear, at least till she found shelter.’

‘Not so easy,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘to strip a corpse in the dark. I suppose it was quicker this way.’

‘Nonetheless,’ said Gil, ‘it fits. We have our two people at least, as we reckoned it would take to bind the corp to the Cross, and one of them carried a pair of small shears. Our corp was dead when she was brought here, and then stripped of that blue gown, the sacking gown put on her, and I suppose one held her up while the other tied the ropes.’

‘Well, that is clear enough,’ agreed Maistre Pierre, straightening up cautiously. ‘It only leaves the one question, and that greater than all the rest together.’

‘Well, I think there are others we’ve not asked yet,’ said Gil, ‘but that is certainly the biggest one right now. Why? What did they gain by it? Why that lassie in particular, why any corp at all, why change her dress? What was the purpose?’

‘Time,’ said Lowrie, sitting back on his heels. ‘Did the man Sawney no say he came down to the gate wi a light every hour or so? If he’d found nobody here he’d surely ha raised the alarm immediately. They must have won several hours that way, between making the exchange and Sawney and Rab finally coming to free their mistress.’

‘And if we knew how long that was,’ said Gil, ‘we’d have some idea how far afield we’ll need to search for Annie Gibb. I think you must be right, Lowrie.’

‘Do we seek her?’ asked Maistre Pierre, still studying the wet kirtle. ‘It is not against the law to run from friends and family.’

‘Mistress Gibb, or whoever freed her,’ said Gil deliberately, ‘kens more than we do about the lassie in St Catherine’s chapel and how she died. I want a word wi her and her friends.’

Lowrie nodded. Maistre Pierre cocked his head, and said,

‘Well, for now you may seek her on your own. It is more than time I went back to work if those pillars are to be set up this side of Judgement Day. I have not heard a chisel for the quarter of an hour. Moreover,’ he added, ‘that boy Berthold is no use today. Boys will be boys, I accept that he and Luke went out last night after supper, but Luke came home at a reasonable hour, just before midnight indeed. Saints alone know when Berthold came in, and this morning he cannot lift so much as a mell without dropping it. I wish you joy of him when he serves you, young Lowrie.’

‘The good Doctor Chrysostom has told me the news,’ said Sir Edward in the thread of a voice. Chrysostom Januar, fingers on his patient’s pulse, nodded encouragement, and a man in the decent plain clothing of an upper servant, presumably a body-servant, stood by watching jealously. Sir Edward breathed carefully, in and out, in again, and went on, ‘Maister, I couldny say where Annie might be. I hoped,’ another cautious breath, ‘to meet her again freed of her ills, though no as I shall be of mine afore long.’

Gil studied the sick man with sympathy. This was the wreckage of a warrior, he thought; the flesh had fallen away from a broad frame with a sturdy ribcage and big-boned hands. Silver scars on the yellowish flesh of neck and brow below the linen nightcap told their own story.

‘She never said anything to you about friends in Glasgow or hereabouts?’ he asked. Sir Edward considered briefly, but answered a soundless No. ‘Did she speak of her future at all?’ Another No. ‘What had you intended for her, sir? Lockhart thought you planned to treat her the same as your own lassies when you divide the property.’

This time the answer was Aye. Sir Edward collected himself, lifted a hand slightly and added, ‘My will. Show him.’

‘In the small leather kist, I think,’ said Doctor Januar, and received an infinitesimal nod.

The men’s hall was a big, open chamber with two rows of beds, wide troughs of Norway pine set on short legs against the long walls. Most of them were bare but one opposite and three at the far end held straw mattresses which now, by daylight, were humped up like caterpillars to air, with a clutter of bags and boxes on the floor round them. Here, nearest the door and the light, Sir Edward lay on good linen, propped on a mound of pillows, a featherbed under him and a fine woollen blanket about his shoulders. More kists were stacked on either side of the bedhead; there was a tray with spoons, a beaker, a jug of water on top of one pile.

Turning away, the servant extracted a leather-bound box from the other stack. He searched briefly in it and drew out a folded parchment, which he handed to Gil, returning to his post. Gil unfolded the document and tilted the writing to the light. It was not the original, which was presumably lodged with the man of law Lockhart had mentioned, but a full copy.

‘This is well drawn up,’ he said after a moment. Sir Edward’s thin mouth twitched in a faint smile. ‘It makes matters quite out of doubt.’

The will was also very wordy, but the testator’s intentions were unmistakable. There were bequests to the servants, to Dame Ellen, to the parish kirk and its priest; then in a long preamble Sir Edward’s affection for his daughters and his good-daughter were set out in terms which could only gratify the four women concerned, and the quite significant property which Sir Edward held was allocated, feu by feu, with reasons given for each bequest.

‘Would you by any chance,’ Gil asked, still perusing the list, assembling the blocks of land in his head, ‘would you by any chance have any of Annie’s papers wi you? Her contract, the lands from her own faither, that sort of-’ He broke off, as Sir Edward signalled with one finger and pointed at the kist again.

The servant, searching through it as if he knew what he sought, extracted several documents which he bundled together and handed to Gil. Over his head as he did so the doctor met Gil’s eye with a significant look. Significant of what? wondered Gil, preserving a blank expression. He turned to the papers, skimming through them. Anna Gibb, daughter of James Gibb and Mariana Wallace his spouse, was a wealthy woman, that was immediately obvious; she had no need to live in one room like an anchorite. These documents were the originals, and seemed to be the complete set of her titles to everything that was hers outright, along with a short copy of the deeds to several conjunct fees and a number of properties in which she had the life interest. He raised his eyes to the three men watching him, and met another of those intent looks from the doctor.