Pat McIntosh - The Counterfeit Madam

‘When did he leave here?’ Lowrie asked. That took a lot of sign language and pointing, but eventually the boy pointed at the sun and tracked it back to where it had been when he left. ‘Five, maybe six hours,’ Lowrie estimated. ‘And you thought these two were dead three or four hours. This laddie’s been fortunate.’

‘You think it was not him who slew his uncle,’ Alys stated. He looked at her.

‘I think he’s the third man living in the shelter,’ he said. ‘There’s been another here the day, by what Frank sees, and this one touched both corps without a qualm. And their shoon came from the same soutar, all three pair. I think we seek the fourth man.’ He looked again at the sky. ‘We should leave here. We’ve to ride back to Glasgow, after all, wi an extra-’

‘Glasgow?’ repeated the prisoner. He was sitting shivering on the ground now, one of the blankets from the shelter wrapped about him, clutching his beads like a lifeline.

‘Aye, Glasgow. You know that word, do you?’ Lowrie said. The boy looked up at him, apparently trying to read his expression; then he looked at his father’s body again, bent his head meekly and nodded. Tears fell on the rough wool of the blanket.

‘So give me the tale again,’ said Otterburn. ‘Were you alone? I find that hard to believe.’

‘I’ve no doubt of that,’ said Gil politely. The clerk Walter glanced up briefly, and down again at his work. Gil thought the man was smiling. Himself, he had little to smile at. It was nearing Sext, and the day was going much too fast.

On last leaving the Castle, not really that long since, he had found Luke sound asleep beside Cato in the kitchen behind the House of the Mermaiden, the pair of them curled up on a straw mat like a pair of puppies. Helped by a disapproving dog he had roused the boy, steered him homeward, and eventually fallen into his own bed. By the time he woke, the sun was pouring in at the windows, Alys’s side of the mattress was cold, and no one in the household appeared to know where she was. Ealasaidh McIan seemed to want to talk to him, but he had excused himself to his duties.

‘You and — one other? decided in the midnight that you’d find Dod Muir in his own kist,’ said Otterburn. ‘Then you set up a shouting match wi the rest o the folk on Clerk’s Land, and bade the Watch rouse me. Have I that right?’

Gil bit back the first reply that rose to his lips, and after a moment said, with formality,

‘As I told you last night, Provost, I searched Dod Muir’s premises in pursuit of information concerning the person who killed Dame Isabella. I found Muir himself while I was doing that, and dropped the lid o the kist from surprise. That was what roused the neighbours.’

Otterburn glared at him, but rose, lifting his tablets from the table before him.

‘Come and we’ll look at Muir,’ he said. ‘Assuming it wasny you put him in there, you need to see what we found when we got him out his kist.’

‘I’m grateful,’ said Gil, following the man down the fore-stair from his lodging. ‘Provost,’ he added quietly, as they reached the centre of the courtyard, far enough from the various passing servants to go unheard. Otterburn swung round to stare at him. ‘How well are you acquaint wi Madam Xanthe?’

The narrow gaze sharpened. Then the other man nodded briefly and moved on, but when he next spoke his manner was less curt.

‘It’s as well I seen the man last night,’ he said. ‘It’s clear enough he’d had time to set and soften again, he’d been dead since some time on,’ he counted, ‘this is Saturday, must ha been Thursday. We took him out as soon as it was light, for I want to get on and get the quest on him dealt wi as soon as we’ve sorted the old dame this morning, and here he is.’ He stepped into the shelter where both corpses were laid out, nodding to the man on guard, and pulled one of the linen cloths back from the form it shrouded.

Muir was a small man, dark-haired and spare of build. He had been stripped and washed, and the greenish tinge of decomposition could clearly be seen spreading across his hairy belly. There was no mark on his chest or abdomen; Gil bent and peered the length of the body, holding his breath, but could recognize nothing like a death-wound. Conscious of Otterburn’s gaze, he walked round the bier, lifted the scarred and calloused hands to study them, turned the head to search for a wound.

‘Ah,’ he said, as the bones of the skull shifted like gravel under his fingers. ‘That’s it. Was there any mark on his hands? Had he fought? Was there aught under his nails?’

‘Nothing,’ said Otterburn. ‘I looked.’

No huntsman, Gil thought, liked to take another’s word for the sign he found, but in this case he had no choice.

‘He’s been struck down,’ he said slowly, ‘likely from behind, by a man he knew.’ He felt again at the crushed bones of the head, and ruffled through the short locks to expose the scalp. ‘The weapon must ha been a heavy thing, but maybe padded, for the skin’s not broken.’ He grimaced. ‘The man’s workshop has any number o mells. Indeed, there was one laid on the bench, a monstrous great thing.’ He demonstrated the size of the mell head as he recalled it, and Otterburn nodded.

‘I sent a couple o the lads round to take a look,’ he said, ‘and they cam back wi one like that. They’d a look round, found the other fellow’s scrip that was lying in the loft, nothing else untoward. You’re welcome to take one o them and get a look yoursel,’ he added, ‘but I wanted the place checked afore the neighbours stripped it.’

‘I’d sooner question the neighbours themselves,’ Gil admitted. ‘What about this fellow’s clothes? Was there aught useful on him?’

‘You could say so.’ Otterburn looked modestly triumphant. ‘Nothing to speak of in his purse, but in the bottom o the kist — well, come and see.’

Back in his lodging, he made for the great kist by the wall. Walter looked up again as he unlocked it, but did not speak.

‘We need a stronger place to keep the likes o this,’ Otter-burn pronounced, delving under the lid. Gil repressed a shudder, thinking of the way he had put his hand on Dod Muir’s cold face doing the same thing. ‘Aye, here it is. Now what d’ye make o that, maister?’

It was a small column of brass, as long as Gil’s thumb, surprisingly heavy. One end was splayed like the top of a fence-post, as if from repeated blows of a hammer; the other -

‘Ah!’ he said, as James Third leapt briefly in the light. ‘This is what we were — this is one of the dies they’ve been using.’ He tilted it against the light, so that the image came and went. ‘Is it the first one, the worn one? The king has no ringlets that I can see.’

‘So I thought,’ agreed the Provost. ‘And it was in the bottom o the kist, like I said.’

‘What, just lying there? Had it fallen out of his clothing or his purse, maybe?’

‘I wouldny ha said so,’ Otterburn considered. ‘Maybe as if he’d been holding it, or the like, when he was struck down.’

‘He’d ha dropped it, surely.’ Gil looked at the object. ‘I’d think it’s been hidden on purpose along wi the corp, or — no, for it would be found when the corp was found, and that wouldny ha been much longer.’

‘He’s a bit ripe already,’ Otterburn agreed. ‘So’s the old dame.’

‘So why was it in there? I wonder what the man kept in that kist for usual? Was there anything under him?’

‘A blanket wi the moth. And no, nothing under the blanket, we looked.’ He glanced at the window. ‘Here, I’ve the quest on the two o them called as soon as dinner’s done wi. If you’re wanting to question any of the neighbours afore that you’d best get about it. They’re down in the cells, you’d best speak to Andro about it.’