Pat McIntosh: The Rough Collier

‘Aye, but we’ll make you set her free,’ said one of the miners, ‘and make someone sorry he ever thought of calling our Beattie a witch, priest or no priest.’

‘Will you look at the corp, Mistress Brownlie?’ asked Alys. She put her free hand out encouragingly. The girl in the linen headdress looked at the wiry man beside her. He gave her a heartening nod and sprang into the cutting, reaching up to swing her easily down beside him. She came forward from his clasp with obvious reluctance. ‘He’s not a bonnie sight,’ Alys warned her in her accented Scots, and took her hand. ‘Come, I will show you.’

The miners, Phemie among them, crowded after her towards the corpse on its hurdle and the guard of peat-cutters. Gil took up a position between the two groups, assessing just what he would do if things turned violent. Over the heads he could see Henry the groom, plainly making similar plans.

‘Is that him?’ said Joanna Brownlie, checking as they approached. ‘No, madam, that’s surely never Thomas. His hair’s the wrong colour.’

‘It’s bleached wi’ the air, like linen,’ said Fleming from his post at Mistress Lithgo’s side. Gil saw a flicker of amusement cross Beatrice Lithgo’s bony face, but she did not speak. Joanna curtsied distractedly to the priest, but stayed where she was, eyeing the corpse with misgiving, and dug her heels in against Alys’s coaxing hand.

‘That canny be Thomas,’ she said after a moment. ‘His hair’s away too light, he’s thinner than a Death on a monument, he’s — ’

‘The body is shrivelled with lying buried in the peat,’ Alys explained.

‘Thomas was well when I last saw him,’ said Joanna rather desperately. ‘I canny think this is him, I see no purpose in my looking closer — ’

‘Has this woman bewitched you and all?’ demanded Fleming, shaking Mistress Lithgo’s arm. Joanna looked properly at them both for the first time, and crossed herself.

‘Our Lady protect us, Beattie, what have they done to you?’ she exclaimed, and turned to Gil, a pleading look in her wide blue eyes. ‘I don’t understand, maister. What’s all this about anyway? Phemie came running into the house no an hour since saying the Thorn men had come and taken her mother for a witch, and we called out the day shift and made haste to follow, but we never heard aught about a corp, or Thomas — what has this to do wi’ Beattie? Sir David, why have you bound her like that?’

‘It isny Thomas Murray,’ said another voice. The man who had been at Joanna’s elbow was on one knee beside the hurdle, inspecting the corpse, easing the cramped limbs with a careful touch. ‘I’ll swear to that, on any relic you can produce,’ he added significantly, and turned to look hard at the priest, who snorted indignantly, though Gil could see no reason why.

‘How no, Jamesie?’ asked someone from the miners’ group.

‘This lad’s never held a mell in his life.’ Jamesie indicated the corpse’s hands. ‘Look here. His arms are shrunk to the bone but his hands and feet have the flesh on them yet, and you can see the skin. It’s as soft as a priest’s a- it’s got no calluses,’ he amended, and displayed his own palms, the coal-dust ingrained in their hardened skin. He was a sturdy, well-made fellow, his hair fair where it straggled from under his padded bonnet, his teeth very white in his blackened face when he spoke. ‘What’s more,’ he added, after a moment’s thought, ‘was Thomas no lacking a couple of joints?’ He raised his left hand.

Beatrice Lithgo nodded, and Joanna said, ‘You’re right, Jamesie. These two are short.’ She touched the last two fingers on her left hand. ‘From a mishap when he was a sinker in Fife, so he told me.’

What is a sinker? Gil wondered, as some of the colliers agreed behind him.

‘Well, this one’s got all the fingers he was born wi’, and the nails on them and all.’ Jamesie jerked his head at the corpse again. ‘It’s never Thomas Murray, whoever it is.’

‘Aye, it is Thomas Murray,’ argued one of the peat-cutters. Jamesie turned to look at him. ‘If it isny Murray, then where is he, Jamesie, tell me that?’

‘I’ve no the least idea where Thomas is,’ said the collier, ‘no being his keeper. All I ken is he’s no lying here on this hurdle wi’ his throat cut. Right, Geordie?’ he ended in a threatening tone, and the other man quailed.

‘Throat cut?’ said Alys quickly. ‘Show me!’

‘Is there no end to this?’ demanded Fleming. Ignoring him, Jamesie turned back to the corpse and eased it over a little so that the cords of the neck were visible where they ran under the misplaced jaw. Gil stayed where he was, alert for sudden movements on the part of either group of supporters, but Alys bent to look closely, and suddenly straightened up, biting at the back of her glove, and met Gil’s eye in some distress.

‘As he says,’ she confirmed. ‘His throat has been cut.’

‘Aye, I tellt you he was no sight for a young lady,’ said Fleming in that condescending tone. ‘I’m sorry if it grieves you, mistress, but I did warn you.’

Thomas was well when I last saw him,’ said Joanna again, ‘he canny be lying here wi’ his throat cut, and that’s never — ’

‘And how no? I’ll believe it isny Murray when you produce the man alive,’ declared Fleming, his grip still tight on Beatrice Lithgo’s arm. ‘You’re all in collusion, is what I say, the same as before.’

‘Before? What do you mean by that?’ said Mistress Lithgo, turning her head to stare at him down her sharp nose.

‘You know very well what I mean. Are you to pay these women any mind at all, Maister Cunningham?’

Gil tightened his lips on the first reply which came to him. After a moment he said, ‘Whatever we do, I’ve no wish to stand out here on a windy hillside much longer. I want the corp taken somewhere I can examine it closer, and I want to hear more about Thomas Murray and when he was last seen — ’

‘That’s easy enough,’ said Joanna Brownlie. ‘He set out on the round the morrow of St Patrick, after Sir David here had come up and said a Mass for us the evening before, and confessed him and the two that were to ride wi’ him. And we looked for him — ’ She bit her lip, an action which became her well though she seemed unaware of it, and turned to exchange a glance with Mistress Lithgo. ‘We looked for him by Pace-tide. Near three weeks since,’ she finished.

‘Indeed aye,’ trumpeted Fleming. ‘He never came home to the Good Friday Mass, and that’s when I became right concerned, Maister Cunningham.’

‘Seventeenth — no, eighteenth of March. A Monday. So he’s been gone better than five weeks,’ Gil calcu lated. Joanna nodded. ‘Has no one ridden out to look for him?’

‘Mistress Arbella willny spare the men,’ said the collier Jamesie, getting to his feet. ‘There’s a delivery more than due to leave, and we’ve been building up the coal-hill ready for it. As it is, he’s away wi’ our two best sinkers.’

‘You’re saying there are three of them missing?’ prompted Gil.

‘What have you done wi’ them, woman?’ demanded Fleming, shaking Beatrice Lithgo’s arm. She said nothing.

‘Three of them,’ said Phemie from her post at her mother’s other side. ‘And whatever coin he’s collected. He’s not away wi’ a string of horse, maister,’ she elaborated, ‘he’s gone to collect the fee for last winter’s deliveries.’

‘Arbella will have his head when he returns,’ whispered Joanna, knotting her hands together at her breast. Jamesie looked down at her, but did not speak.

‘Arbella?’ queried Gil.

‘My grandmother,’ said Phemie. ‘Who’s in charge up yonder. Whatever Thomas bloody Murray thinks.’