Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

‘She denied any connection with it,’ Gil said. ‘She’s not been questioned yet since the Serjeant took her up. She might change her tune once Sir Thomas gets to work on her.’

Bothwell winced at the thought, but said helplessly, ‘I still canny believe it. It’s all tapsalteerie in my head, Maister Cunningham. And Danny’s dead, and now young Robert, though there’s no many will shed a tear for him. I keep hoping I’ll wake up.’

Sir Thomas, huddled over his brazier again, sniffed gloomily and agreed with Gil.

‘If he’s telling us the truth, which is aye the question,’ he qualified, ‘then the lassie never knew what she’d gied him on Hallowe’en, that was Thursday. But having seen it was lethal she knew to go back to get some more on Friday to use it on Saturday, so there must ha been more of it. The question is, where? Is it somewhere in the house?’

‘It’s the place to start, at least,’ Gil said. ‘Otherwise it’s search the whole of Glasgow, wi the entire Gallowgate bringing us flasks of one shape or another for the reward. And what about Agnes and the maidservant? Has either girl anything useful to say?’

‘They’re both swearing they’ve nothing to do with it. I’ve no palate for a long stand down in the questioning-chamber,’ said Sir Thomas, sniffing again. ‘It’s gey cold down there, even wi the fire to heat the pincers, but I’d as soon have the quest on Robert Renfrew the morn as well as Danny Gibson, get them both out the way.’

‘It’s a bit — ’ began Gil, but the Provost dabbed his nose and went on, ignoring him:

‘Seems to me whichever lassie’s guilty, she’ll talk faster if we have the evidence to show her, so I’ll have you and Andro go and search the Renfrew house yoursels, Gil, and make a thorough job of it. And maybe question the rest of the household while you’re about it. If John Anderson can do your work, you can do his,’ he added sourly.

‘You might as well have gone home for your dinner, for all the good that’s done you,’ said Grace Gordon with quiet sympathy.

‘It had to be done, just the same,’ said Gil, setting a stool for her. She sat down and looked up at him, folding her hands in her lap.

‘Aye, I see that,’ she agreed, ‘and though Frankie may not say it I will: it was good of you to make so much effort no to distress Meg. You were doing fine up till the man wanted to see into the cradle.’

Gil grimaced. Young Mistress Mathieson had accepted his careful explanation of the need to search her chamber, and risen from her bed willingly enough, to sit clasping her swaddled infant with her mother on guard at her side. It was only when Andro had begun poking in the embroidered coverings of the cradle that she had grasped the reality of their intent.

‘I think what owerset her was that you might suspect her of hiding such a nasty thing among her bairn’s bedding,’ added Grace. ‘Will you not sit down, sir? It’s a long way up to see your face, I’ll get a kink in my neck.’

‘Is she calmer now?’ Gil asked. He sat down facing her, and drew his tablets from his sleeve.

‘Aye, she was asleep when I looked in on her. Now, what is it you’re to ask us all? Am I the first?’

‘I’ve spoken to Maister Renfrew.’ Gil paused, assembling his thoughts. ‘We’ve gone through the house,’ he said, and she nodded, with a wry smile, ‘and found nothing that tells us aught about how Agnes came by the poison, either on Thursday or later. Can you shed any light on the question?’

‘What, you think I’ve been handing poisons out to the half of Glasgow?’ She met his eye, an ironic amusement gleaming in her expression. ‘I’ve no notion how Agnes got her hands on the stuff, maister. Do you know what it is yet?’

‘I do not. Have you no idea yourself?’

‘I’ve no suggestions to make, maister. It’s in none of Frankie’s books.’

‘Could it be something she brewed herself? Her father says not, but I think he underestimates her.’

‘I think he does and all.’ She considered the question. ‘She could have done, but if she had, you’d not find a trace of her working. Jess might have something to tell you about that, if you’re present when the Provost questions her, poor lass.’

Gil nodded, thinking of what Alys had reported yesterday. ‘If Agnes did make the stuff up, does she have anywhere particular she might hide it?’

‘I’d not know if she did,’ Grace pointed out. She pulled the corners of her mouth down in a rueful grimace. ‘The likeliest to know where she hid her secrets was her brother Robert, aye spying on her and the rest of the household. Yet another reason for her to have poisoned him, if it was her that did it.’

‘No love lost between them, then.’

‘Not atween any of them,’ she assured him. ‘I never knew sic a family. I’ll be glad to take Nicol away from them and back to Middelburgh.’

‘What, are you leaving Glasgow? Is Nicol not to stay and take a part in the business?’ Gil asked innocently, although Maister Renfrew had already expressed himself forcefully on this subject.

Grace shook her head. ‘It doesny seem like it. They’ll never agree, him and his father, and Frankie has sic an opinion of Nicol I’d not want him to stay in the same house.’ She studied Gil carefully with those light grey eyes. ‘You were boys wi him, maister, I’ve no doubt you’ll understand me when I say Nicol’s no daftheid, he’s a clever man and a good one, but he needs to be among folk who think well of him, if he’s to do well himself. If he’s abused and made a fool of, he gets — he gets foolish.’

Gil thought of Nicol Renfrew as a boy, and nodded.

‘He’s calmer by far than he was,’ he observed. ‘Is it something he’s taking, or is he just grown out of his trouble?’

She opened her mouth to answer, checked, and finally said, ‘Both, maybe. He has drops to take, that our maister in Middelburgh ordered for him, and Frankie makes up now. They help him greatly, but I think when I met him he was already better by far than he’d been, by what Eleanor and Agnes has told me.’

‘So he had taken a dose yesterday, had he?’

‘Yes,’ she said. Another check, and then she continued, ‘So he slept the entire day. He was newly wakened when I went up and told him his brother was deid.’

‘Could he have poisoned Robert, do you think? Or supplied Agnes with the poison?’

Her eyes sharpened on his. After a moment she said, ‘It would be not at all like the man I know. He and Robert got on well enough, at least,’ she corrected herself, ‘Nicol did no more than laugh at Robert’s ways. The craft is for healing, not for harm, maister, and Nicol holds that as strongly as any. As for Agnes asking him for it, she’d as soon ask the man in the moon, I’d have thought.’

‘Anyone else in the household?’ he asked, without much hope.

She considered the question, but shook her head. ‘None is more like than another, and some less.’ She smiled wryly. ‘The girl Jess, or Meg and her minnie, for instance. Unless you think Meg poisoned the laddie in the expectation he’d leave his goods to wee Marion.’ She closed her eyes, and her mouth twisted again. ‘Poor laddie, I can hear him saying it yet.’

‘Had he much to leave?’ Gil asked.

‘At that age? They spend it as soon as make it. We’ll likely sell his clothes on, and Meg can save the coin for the bairn along wi his prayer-book and his Sunday beads. If it comes to more than a few merks I’ll be much surprised. Did you not search his kist?’

‘Andro did that. He reports there was no pig of poison hidden among the laddie’s clean drawers.’ Only some grubby woodcuts, enough to make Andro’s eyes pop but nothing to what Gil had encountered in Paris. Those, he suspected, were now in Andro’s doublet, and unlikely to reach the Provost’s desk.