Pat McIntosh - The Stolen Voice

‘If you can tell me a thing or two,’ Gil prompted, ‘it might help him.’

‘I’ll try,’ she said, staring at him, her grasp on his hand tightening. ‘But I’m that dizzy, my head’s going round like a mill, I canny think clearly.’

‘That’s no wonder,’ he said with sympathy, and she managed a weak smile in response. ‘What man was it they arrested with your husband?’

‘Oh — ’ she said faintly, groping for the answer.

‘That was Robin Hutchie,’ supplied Eppie. ‘He found the corp, so Martin prentice said, and Willie Reid said he should ha raised the hue and cry instead of just telling our maister, so he must be arrested.’

Gil nodded. The constable was following the proper procedures, but it was hard on the man Rob.

‘And then he arrested Maister Cornton,’ he said.

‘Well, no at first,’ said Eppie, ‘by what Martin said, for he didny find it easy. But he lifted him away in the end.’ She became aware that her mistress was weeping, and said awkwardly, ‘We’ll make him regret it, mistress, dinna fear.’

‘Tell me, mistress,’ said Gil, ‘The day you last saw Maister Stirling, can you mind if your husband was home that evening?’

‘Oh,’ she said again through her tears. ‘Oh, what evening would that be? I canny mind, maister.’

‘It was the third evening the bairns was here,’ said Eppie. ‘You mind, mistress, the maister said that was two wet beds and he wasny sleeping in a flood again, and — ’ She bit off the words, looking embarrassed, and Gil pulled a face.

‘It’s hardly to be wondered at, poor bairns,’ he said, ‘but you can see his point. Where are they today?’

‘I took them to my sister’s,’ said Eppie a little defiantly. ‘She’s got two near the same age, she said she’d take them the now till we’re a bit — ’

‘My poor lassie’s bairns,’ whispered Mistress Cornton.

‘That was wise, when the house is as troubled. But that evening,’ Gil returned to the point, ‘Maister Cornton was wanting to talk about where the bairns would sleep, is that right?’ Mistress Cornton nodded. ‘Was he home all the evening?’

‘Oh, he was,’ agreed Eppie, ‘for once it was decided we’d to move a couple of kists and a truckle-bed, and me and Rob Hutchie was kept busy all the evening shifting them, and the Maister taking charge and telling Rob he was doing it wrong.’

‘Would you swear to that, lass?’ Gil asked her. She nodded emphatically. ‘That ought to be enough. Tell me another thing, though. Is Maister Cornton a good shot?’

‘A shot?’ Mistress Cornton stared at him. ‘What wi, a shot?’

‘Wi an arrow,’ said Eppie. ‘Aye, he’s no bad. He goes to the butts of a Sunday, maister, like the rest o them, though I’ll say this,’ she gave a subdued giggle, ‘he’s soberer when he comes home than my last maister.’

‘A course he is,’ said Mistress Cornton, with dawning indignation.

‘Aye, that’s better,’ said Eppie obscurely.

‘Does he have a bow?’ Gil asked.

‘Oh, aye, he’s got a right good one,’ Eppie said.

Her mistress nodded. ‘From William Pitmedden, that’s the armourer along the street, one of a batch he brought in from the Low Countries.’ The quilted covering fell away from her arms as her fingers described a long elegant curve. ‘It’s a right bonnie thing, the way the grain shows in the layers and the different colours of the wood.’

‘You mean it’s a longbow?’ Gil said hopefully.

‘Oh. aye. He doesny like a crossbow. He’s aye said there’s nothing like a longbow.’

‘He’s aye arguing wi Brother Dickon about it,’ said Eppie, with another subdued laugh. ‘You’d no think a lay brother would be in favour of a crossbow, would you?’

‘Does Brother Dickon shoot at the butts too?’ Gil asked, amused by the idea.

‘Shoot at them?’ said Eppie scornfully. ‘He oversees it all, orders who’ll shoot next, tells them how to do better. He’s in charge, is Brother Dickon.’

The Blackfriars’ Infirmary had its own small garden, where Brother Euan the Infirmarer grew his herbs and where his patients might take the air. On a day like this it was warm and peaceful, full of the scents of the herbs and the chirping of a colony of sparrows in the holly tree which stood at one corner. Both of the day’s ambulants were sitting there when Gil found the place, Ned dozing and Tam with his injured leg propped on a stool and a stout stick beside him. He looked up when Gil approached, and pushed the fair hair out of his eyes. His face was drawn, and pale under the tan, but he seemed to have no fever.

‘I hoped you’d come back, Maister Gil,’ he said. ‘There’s things you ought to hear, I couldny tell you at the time.’

‘I thought that,’ said Gil. ‘How’s the leg, first?’

‘None so bad,’ the man claimed.

‘Poor way to get a day off,’ Gil said. ‘Tell me these things I ought to hear, then. Start at the beginning. What happened when you got to Dunkeld? Was it easy to find the man?’

‘Oh, aye, no problem. He was lodged in the Bishop’s palace, one of the household, just as you surmised. So we went there, the three of us, and spoke to the heid-bummer, fellow called Geddes, the depute steward, and showed him your letter.’

‘How did he take that?’ Gil asked.

Tam grinned crookedly. ‘He wasny best pleased, for it seems Mitchel had been helping wi some heavy work needed about the place, shifting bales and sacks of goods and that, and he seemed to think you might wait till he’d finished.’ He shifted his foot on the stool, and went on, ‘We came to an agreement about that, wi a wee bit persuasion, and he swore to it that the fellow has been in Dunkeld since the date you asked him about in the letter, and then he sent for the man, and after a bit he came to this fellow’s chamber.’ He hesitated again. ‘I’m no glad I did that, maister, for all it was by your command.’

‘Tam, I think he killed James Stirling and hid the corp,’ Gil said, irritated by this. ‘If I’m right, he’d have hung for it. Instead he’s had a quick death, and been shriven at that.’

‘Aye, but he said he never,’ said Tam. ‘See, maister, he took one look at us, still in pot and plate,’ he gestured to indicate a helmet, ‘and the letter in the other fellow’s hand, and he goes, I never done it. I never killed him .’

‘Well, that’s a bad conscience speaking!’

‘That’s what the other fellow said. What’s his name, Geddes. And Ned and Donal made certain to be atween Mitchel and the door. But he said it again, no, he never killed him, he just helped put him away. And he’s carrying on, and swearing by all sorts and more besides, and he keeps saying he never killed him.’

‘Put him away,’ repeated Gil.

‘That’s what he said. So then Ned says, How did you put him away? Where did you put him? And he says, Into the tan-pit where Doig showed me. We cut a hurdle out the fence , he says, and carried him into the yard wi’t, and then he tells us they took the planks off a tanpit and tipped him in, and covered him up. Filthy job it was, too, and the dogs barking all the time, but he said it never took them that long, and Doig tied the hurdle back into the fence, and you’d never ha known he was there. He said he’d show you what tanpit it was, and he swore to the whole tale, offered to go up the High Kirk and swear by Columba’s relics.’

‘He’s right,’ said Gil, staring at Tam. ‘You’d never have known it. So who did kill Stirling? Did you ask him that?’

‘Oh, we did. Often and often. He aye said he didny see who shot him, all he saw was the man fall down among the dog-pens and when he got to him he was dead. He said, he didny ken what to do, whether to set up the hue and cry or no, for it seemed to him it could ha been someone on the track or in any of the yards or houses about, he said, but just then Doig cam back to the yard and found him there wi the corp, and created a stushie. Wouldny have a dead man found on his ground. And I think,’ said Tam, the crooked grin appearing again, ‘Mitchel wasny too keen what Doig’s woman would say when she found out. Is she some kind o kin? And that’s why he went along wi Doig’s plans to hide the corp.’