Pat McIntosh - A Pig of Cold Poison

He had been surprised, returning to the house with his father-in-law, not to find Alys waiting to hear what they had observed. (Though that was little enough, commented a small part of his mind now.) Seeing their lodging in darkness, he had assumed she must be abed already. He and Pierre had sat down to discuss the evening over a jug of ale without reaching any new conclusions, and he had made his way through the drawing-loft to join his wife, only to find the bed cold and empty, and an apologetic dog trying to explain that his mistress had gone out without him, and he needed to go down to the courtyard urgently.

Pierre and the maidservants had been as astonished as Gil. They had searched anxiously for Alys through the sprawling house, half-certain she had fallen on one of the stairs or fainted in a deserted storeroom; they had checked the garden, the bathhouse, the privy. Catherine, finally disturbed at her prayers, had not seen Alys since shortly after he and Pierre had left the house, but suggested that she might have gone to see Kate.

‘She gains great comfort from talking to your sister, maistre ,’ she said formally to Gil. ‘She may not have noticed how late it is. Or perhaps,’ she added, ‘she had more questions for the women at the apothecary’s house.’

‘But to go out alone!’ worried Maistre Pierre. ‘She never does so, not this late!’

‘I’ll step round to Kate’s house now,’ said Gil, ‘and then try the Renfrew house. Though I’d have thought their woman would have said if she was there before we left.’

The dog at his heels, he made his way down the dark street. The torches on the house corners were burning low, but there was enough light to see by; at Morison’s Yard he found the double gates barred, and scrambled up long enough to crane over them and check that the house was in darkness. It must be past eleven o’clock, small wonder they were all abed. Alys could not be here.

There were still lights in the Renfrew house. He banged on the shop door with the hilt of his dagger, and after a while a shutter opened overhead and Syme’s voice said warily, ‘Who’s that at the door?’

‘It’s me, Gil Cunningham,’ he said, stepping back to see the man as a dark shape leaning from the window. ‘Has my wife been here?’

‘Your wife ?’ Syme repeated. ‘No that I ever — bide there and I’ll ask.’

Gil stood on the doorstep, fidgeting, wondering where to seek next if there was no trace here. After a surprising length of time he heard the house door unbarred, and a streak of light fell out. He took one long step into the pend and found himself face to tearstained face with Eleanor Renfrew, fully clothed and holding a candle.

‘She’s not here,’ she said. ‘But nor is my fool of a brother nor his wife.’

‘It’s true,’ agreed Syme behind her. ‘Nicol and Mistress Grace are gone, and taken all their gear wi them. And afore the funeral, too! I can see no sign that Mistress Mason was here the day.’

‘No sign,’ Gil said blankly. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Sure enough,’ said Eleanor. She peered at him over the candle, then stood back. ‘Is she not at home? You’d best come in out the cold and make certain yoursel.’

‘My wife has been here all day,’ said Syme, putting a possessive hand on her shoulder, ‘but maybe Mistress Mason wouldny disturb her if she was resting. I’ve not seen her myself.’

‘Have you asked the servants if they saw her?’ Gil demanded abruptly. ‘Or Mistress Baillie? Or Mistress Grace?’ At Grace’s name the sense of Syme’s first remark finally reached him. ‘Grace and Nicol? Did you say they’ve left the house?’

‘Taken their gear and gone, and my faither no buried yet,’ Eleanor said, nodding. She looked like someone who had taken one blow too many to the head. ‘It’s like the bairns’ rhyme, first one goes and then another. There’s just me and wee Marion left of the family.’ She giggled faintly, sounding very like her brother, and turned away to light the candles on the pricket-stand. The shadows retreated into the corners of the hall, and Syme said gently:

‘And your good-mother, and me, lass. And your own bairn soon.’

‘Alys has been here,’ said Gil with certainty. Both Eleanor and her husband turned to look at him. He nodded at the plate-cupboard, where a candle-box and two wooden candlestocks stood waiting for whoever needed them. Next to them was a lantern, a square copper object with real glass windows and a trailing chain. ‘That’s our lantern. I know it well. Pierre has four like that which he brought from France.’

In the chamber which Nicol and his wife had occupied the hangings were still on the bed, the furnishings still in place, but kist and shelf were empty, no clothes hung on the pegs behind the door, a cavernous space under the bed spoke of items removed.

‘You see?’ said Eleanor triumphantly. ‘I was right, they’ve left, and taken all wi them.’ She stepped past him, holding her candle high, and the shadows bobbed as she crossed the room to open a further door. ‘Even her workroom stripped bare, though gie her her due, she’s left Frankie’s glassware.’

‘Workroom?’ repeated Gil, following her, the dog’s claws clicking at his heels. Andro had never mentioned a workroom; had he even searched it? ‘This was Mistress Grace’s workroom?’

‘Oh, aye,’ said Eleanor. ‘See, Agnes and me lodged here afore I was wedded, and made use of the workroom for making of sweetmeats and the like, so we wereny under Frankie’s feet. Which suited us just fine, I can tell you,’ she added with a flicker of her usual manner. ‘So Agnes being lodged in the main house, in the end chamber under Frankie’s eye ever since I left, Meg put Nicol and Grace in here when they came home.’

Never say that , Nicol had said. Gil did not comment, but looked round the small closet in the candlelight. Bulbous glass gleamed, jars of glazed pottery caught the light, a microcosm of the workroom behind the shop. The brazier was cold. There was a lingering smell of -

Yes, of apples.

‘Their passage was booked from Dumbarton,’ he said over the sudden thumping of his heart. ‘Do you know what vessel? How would they get there?’

‘Surely by boat,’ said Syme from the doorway. ‘They had such a quantity of baggage, it would take two days to reach Dumbarton on a cart at this time of year.’

‘They came upriver by boat in May,’ said Eleanor, and giggled again. Socrates emerged from the workroom and cast about the main chamber, pausing at the bench with his long nose jammed against the cushion. He padded back to Gil’s side and nudged his hand, whining faintly.

Syme, consigning his wife to the care of a weary Mistress Baillie, had accompanied him to the riverbank. They had gained little there; the fisher community, its hours dictated by the tides as much as by the daylight, was awake and stirring but the best information Gil could extract was of a great stushie two or three hours since, when Stockfish Tam’s passengers, bound for Dumbarton, had turned up wi a great load of boxes and barrels on a handcart and an extra -

‘An extra passenger?’ he repeated, heart thumping again. ‘Who was it, do you ken?’

His informant spat inaccurately in the direction of the river. ‘Naw. Just I heard what he was telling them. More boxes than they’d tellt him, an extra chiel to carry, lucky if the boatie reached Partick. Mind, there was only the two of them standing there arguing,’ he added.

‘Did they — ’ Gil swallowed — ‘did all go in the boat in the end?’

‘There’s the handcart yonder, standing empty. Once they’d agreed the extra groat,’ said the man, grinning in the light of Gil’s lantern, ‘it all packed in right enough. They’ll be past Renfrew by now, wi this wind, seeing they left just afore the top o the tide.’