Pat McIntosh - The Fourth Crow

‘Come away, Jean, and get a seat.’ The woman in the striped kirtle drew her aside, and the hostel servant Bessie drew the shroud with care over the dead woman’s face. Gil waited till Mistress Howie was settled on the stone bench at the wall-foot and then asked her again:

‘When did you last see Peg Simpson, then? You saw her when she brought the bread back, I take it.’

‘Oh, aye, for I’d to get the change off her. Then she was about the tavern, her and the other lassies, all the evening I’d ha said, though she took a couple trips out the back wi one fellow or another, her regulars they were,’ Mistress Howie sniffed, and swallowed hard, ‘but as to when I seen her last, it would ha been when we closed up, put the shutters up. After Compline, that would be.’

‘Oh, well after it,’ said the man in the green hood helpfully. ‘Near midnight, it would ha been, Jean.’

‘Nothing o the sort,’ she said repressively.

‘She was about at the end of the evening?’ Gil persisted. ‘You’re certain you saw her then?’

‘Well, I must ha done, for I never missed her. You could ask at the other lassies, if you’re-’ She paused, staring up at him. ‘Are you saying maybe it was one o her regulars that’s put her here? Is that why you’re asking?’ Gil nodded. ‘Oh, I wouldny say that, maister. They’re wild enough lads, but none o my customers would-’

‘Someone did,’ observed the man in the hide apron. Mistress Howie would have answered him, but there was a disturbance at the door of the chapel, where more spectators had gathered; a pushing and elbowing, a rising tide of indignant comments suddenly swallowed, heralded the arrival of a scrawny man with lank black hair and a scarred face, his blue bonnet clamped to his head by a stiff leather hood with a short cape. He dragged both these off as he emerged from the crowd, looking round desperately.

‘Peg!’ he said. ‘Where is she? What’s come to her?’

‘You ken well enough what’s come to her, Billy Baird,’ responded Mistress Howie tartly. ‘There she lies, dead and cold, covered in the marks you laid on her. You’ll not raise your hand to her again, you ill-doer.’

‘Peg!’ said the newcomer again, ignoring all of this but the most significant point. He flung himself at the bier and pulled back the linen, stared for a horrified moment, and turned to the crowd.

‘Who the hell did this? I swear by all the saints, if I find who’s treated my Peg like that I’ll have his lights for garters. Who did it?’ he demanded, as if someone present was concealing the information.

‘Listen to you!’ said Mistress Howie scornfully. ‘You’ll be telling us next you never put a bruise on her yoursel!’

‘I never put these on her,’ said Baird fiercely. ‘I never did more than show her what was right. A man can chastise his own woman, I suppose. Look at that, she’s taen a vicious beating, way ayont what’s reasonable!’

Gil, trying to imagine how one might find beating one’s wife reasonable, said,

‘When did you last see her?’

Baird turned dark eyes on him.

‘Who’re you?’ he demanded aggressively. Several voices told him, with varying degrees of triumph, that this was the Archbishop’s quaestor. He considered Gil with contempt, scratched at his codpiece, then said, ‘Aye well, I hope you’re on the trail of whoever slew her already.’

‘I’m still trying to pick up the trail,’ said Gil. ‘So when did you see her last?’

The dark gaze slid away from his.

‘That would be last night,’ he said. ‘No long after the alehouse closed.’

‘Oh, the leear!’ said Mistress Howie. ‘When she slept at home wi you!’

‘She never!’ said the man desperately. ‘She never, she went away out, and I wish she hadny! I tried to stop her!’

‘A good tale that is,’ said the man in the green hood.

‘When did she go out?’ Gil asked.

‘After the alehouse closed. I said.’ Baird brushed something from his eye. ‘She came down the back to our place, and then she went out again.’

‘Why?’ Gil asked patiently. ‘What took her out again, in the dark, after an evening’s work?’

‘He’s having you on, maister,’ said the woman in the striped kirtle. ‘He’s slew her himself, no doubt of it. Ask them ’at dwells down the same pend.’

‘No I never!’ protested Baird. ‘I never did! She left me, she left our house, and I looked for her to come back, and she never did, no afore I had to go out to my work afore Prime. I never saw her again, till.’ He stopped, staring at the bier, and scratched behind his codpiece again. ‘Till now.’

‘Why did she go out?’ Gil asked again.

‘She said she had to see someone. She wanted a word wi someone.’

‘At that hour?’ said the man in the hide apron. ‘When decent folks are all in their beds? What was she about?’

‘Maybe in someone’s bed and all,’ suggested another man, grinning. Baird lunged at him, roaring, and was restrained with difficulty by the man in the hide apron and his fellow with the green hood.

‘Let me go!’ he shouted, writhing in their grip. ‘Let me at him, he’ll no- Let me at him!’

‘Who was it she went to see?’ Gil asked him. ‘What did she tell you about where she was going?’

‘Nothing!’ he said rather desperately. ‘Just it was- She said something about he was back in town, she would get a word wi him.’ He paused in his struggles and stared at Gil, and added, ‘She didny sound as if he would enjoy it, but.’ He read scepticism in Gil’s face, and offered, ‘Maybe she said more to the other lassies?’

‘Likely she did,’ agreed Mistress Howie with another of her abrupt changes of direction. ‘You could ask at them, maister. I’ll bid them tell you the truth.’

‘Aye, where are your lassies, Jean?’ asked the man in the green hood. ‘I’m surprised they’re no here and all, to see the show. Pay their respec’s,’ he corrected himself.

‘I tellt them to get the house swep’ and the day’s kale on the fire, that’s how they’re no here,’ retorted Mistress Howie.

‘So are you going to take him up, maister?’ asked the man in the hide apron. ‘I’d say he slew her, myself, he should come afore the Provost for it, though I suppose he’ll no hang.’

‘Whoever killed her tied her to the Cross in place of Mistress Gibb,’ Gil said. ‘That could be seen as attempting to conceal it, which makes it secret murder-’

‘Secret? Out in the open at the Cross like that?’ said the woman in the striped kirtle, laughing.

‘At the Cross?’ repeated Baird incredulously. ‘Are you saying that was my Peg they were talking about? Bound at the Wyndheid and left in the midnight? Will you two let me go?’

‘No the Wyndheid,’ several voices contradicted him. ‘St Mungo’s Cross in the kirkyard,’ added the man in the green hood. Baird stared at him, then looked at Gil, who nodded confirmation.

‘She was tied to St Mungo’s Cross in place of the mad lady,’ he agreed.

‘What was she doing in the kirkyard?’ Baird asked blankly. ‘She hated the place, she’d never ha gone there in the daylight, far less in the dark, no for any money. She was feart for bogles, ever since someone tellt her some daft tale about a hand coming out a grave. What would take her there, maister?’

‘That’s right,’ affirmed Mistress Howie. ‘She’d never go near the High Kirk, aye worshipped in St Thomas’ wee chapel out ayont the Port.’

‘She’d ha been feart to death,’ said Baird, his voice sounding constricted. ‘Bound there and left to die. St Peter’s bones, if I find who did that to my lassie I’ll throttle him mysel, I’ll no wait for the hangman to do it.’