Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

Goudie crossed himself, and in the tail of his eye Gil saw the other man do the same.

‘That’s a kindness, sir. Aye. A shock that was, I can tell you. When they brought Davie home, weeping his heart out, the poor lad, and tellt me — aye, aye, a shock like no other.’ He paused, and peered hard at Gil. ‘Did Tammas Bowster tell me you were present when it happened, maister? I wonder, would you come up and let me know what came about, and maybe the mistress and all? Billy, you’ll mind the shop a while, man? I’d be right grateful, Maister Cunningham. Davie’s made very little sense, I’m sure we can all understand that, but I’d thought better o Tammas than the fool’s tale he gave me.’

‘I’d be glad to,’ Gil said. And thank you, St Giles, he thought. What a piece of good fortune.

He found himself bustled through the drawing-shop, past rows of hanging parchment measuring-strips and wooden patterns, past a well-thumbed book of designs on the wide bench, and up the stairs to the living quarters. Here a lean, motherly woman in striped homespun exclaimed at Goudie’s introduction, and pressed him to sit down by the brazier and accept oatcakes and a cup of buttered ale while he explained all to them. He went over the tale of Danny Gibson’s death, and they heard him out with more exclamations and sighs.

‘So Tammas had the right of it,’ said Goudie. ‘I couldny credit it myself, that he just fell down and died. And at Nanty’s hand, forbye. Is that no dreadful, mistress?’

His wife nodded, wiping at her eyes with the tail of her headdress.

‘The poor lad,’ she said. ‘But it wasny Davie’s fault, that’s clear enough. I’m grateful for you telling us that, maister.’

‘I wish I’d never let them practise in my yard,’ said Goudie glumly.

‘How is Davie?’ Gil asked.

‘Laid down on his bed wi a draught,’ said Mistress Goudie. ‘I’m no one to coddle the lads, you’ll ken, maister, but he’s in no state to work. He said he never slept. Poor laddie, he sat here at the fire weeping and telling me he wanted to dee hissel, I think he’s feart it was something he’d done that caused Danny’s death.’

‘He’s aye been soft, that lad. Billy’s fit to work the day, why not Davie?’

‘William Goudie, you shed a tear or two yoursel last night,’ challenged his lady.

‘Tell me about Danny,’ Gil requested. ‘What kind of a lad was he? Was he well liked? Had he any enemies?’

‘Not that I ken,’ said Mistress Goudie firmly. ‘He was a bonnie lad, not out of the ordinar in any way, civil enough round the house and in the work place,’ Goudie nodded agreement to this, ‘got on well wi his fellows. Behaved hissel as well as a lad that age will do, went to Mass wi the rest of us. A bit fussy to feed, he would never touch anything wi nuts in, couldny stand nuts. It made fast days a wee bit difficult, but no more than that.’

‘Did he make jokes, play tricks, anything that might have annoyed someone?’

‘No that I ever heard,’ she said doubtfully. ‘He was — he was aye sic a kind laddie,’ she finished, and sighed and dabbed at her eyes again.

‘What did he do for his leisure?’

‘Went drinking,’ supplied Goudie, ‘went out to the butts on a Sunday, played at the football on a holiday. Much like his fellows, as Mistress Goudie says.’

‘Did he belong to any league or band?’ Gil asked. ‘Any of the altar companies, or a football side, anything of the sort?’

‘No that he ever mentioned,’ said Mistress Goudie, thinking. ‘He supported St Eloi’s altar along at St Mary’s, like all the hammermen, but I never heard him speak of any other league he had to do wi. And the lads do talk, the three of them,’ she bit her lip, ‘times they’d forget I was present, as if I was their mother.’ The end of her headdress came into use again, and she turned her face away.

‘Did he have anything of any value?’ Gil asked. ‘I’m still trying to find a reason why he would be killed.’

‘But surely they’re saying it was Nanty Bothwell’s doing?’ questioned the armourer.

‘I’m casting all round about,’ Gil said. ‘I’ll look at all the possibilities. Did the lad have anything worth stealing, mistress?’

‘No that I ever saw.’ She looked across the chamber. ‘I packed his gear all up into his scrip, for his faither to collect when he — aye. So it’s there, maister, if you wish a look at it. He hadny that much.’

This was true. Two spare shirts, one badly worn, two pairs of hose, two doublets and a leather jerkin; comb and shaving gear, a woodcut of St Eloi brandishing the newly shod leg of the horse which stood docilely beside him on the remaining three. Drawers and other linen, a pair of shoes, a pair of boots, made a separate bundle. On one of the doublets was pinned a pewter badge of St Mirren.

‘Did he have a bow?’ Gil asked.

‘I arm my laddies myself,’ said Maister Goudie. ‘So I keep a half-dozen bows for their use. He’d his choice of any one of them, and the same for blade and buckler, to take out to the butts.’

Gil shook his head. ‘There’s nothing here to kill for, that I can see,’ he said.

‘Bothwell must ha done it,’ said Goudie. ‘But it’s a strange way to go about getting rid of your rival, to use poison on him wi half the burgh looking on.’

‘I can’t make sense of that,’ Gil said. ‘Were they rivals right enough? Did Danny ever talk to you about it, mistress?’

‘Oh, they were rivals,’ agreed Mistress Goudie. ‘At least so far as they both had a notion to the lass, and she had a notion to the both of them. I saw her a time or two at the market, wi a maidservant at her heels,’ she divulged, with a rueful smile. ‘She’d stop by the potyngar booth at the Tolbooth, and pass the time of the morning, and then she’d be along here not a quarter hour later and keeking in at our shop door, though what business a young lass would have in an armourer’s shop — well, it did no harm, or so I thought, though it’s led the lass into grief after all. But the two lads was friendly enough about it, and as good friends as ever when the lass wasny about.’

‘Perhaps she was even-handed then,’ Gil said. ‘Bothwell told me she was. He said they had an agreement, too — he and Danny Gibson, I mean.’

‘Young fools,’ said Goudie, without heat. ‘Danny naught but a journeyman, Nanty Bothwell still to make his way in his trade — her father thinks by far too well of himself to wed her to either, and so I told them both a time or two.’

‘Aye, you did that, Goudie,’ agreed his wife, ‘but did you expect them to listen?’ She sighed again. ‘Och, poor laddies. The both of them. What a business.’

‘Where did he go drinking?’ Gil asked as he rose to leave.

‘Now that I can say,’ pronounced Mistress Goudie. ‘He and Billy would argue over the best alehouse, and Danny aye swore by Maggie Bell’s house, just across Glasgow Brig.’

Tammas Bowster the glover was seated at the window of his shop, stitching intently at the many scraps of fine leather which went into a glove. Gil recalled the white kidskin he had bought in Perth in the summer. Perhaps this man could make it into something suitable for Alys, he thought.

When he stepped into the shop Bowster raised his head with a sour look, but his expression lightened as he saw Gil and he got to his feet, saying hopefully, ‘Is there any word, maister?’

‘The Serjeant hadny heard from the Castle when I was there,’ Gil said. ‘I came by to see if you’d recalled anything new that might help me.’

‘You’ll take it on, maister? You’ll see into how poor Danny came to be pysont?’

‘I seem to be doing that,’ Gil admitted. The glover set aside his work and put a stool nearer the brazier.