Pat McIntosh - St Mungo's Robin

‘More logical to assume it is,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘And how far have you got with that?’

‘Not very. Oh, Maggie handed me back this.’ He dug in his purse and drew out the length of linen they had found in the trees. Was it really only the previous day? ‘Cluttering up her kitchen long enough, she said.’ He spread it out across his knee. Maistre Pierre reached out and drew the stand of candles closer, and they all peered at the strip of cloth. Stiff from drying above the kitchen fire, it was creased and marked, but the quality of the cloth was obvious.

‘And the stitching,’ said Alys, leaning forward to touch the hemming. ‘This is fine work. And see, a little ornament at either end, done in the same thread.’

‘Are you sure it’s a neck-kerchief and not a household towel or such?’ said Dorothea.

‘No,’ said Gil. ‘All I know is where we found it and what the dog thought of these.’ He traced the dark stains on the cloth. ‘Hard to be sure in this light, but by daylight it certainly looked like blood.’ Catherine crossed herself again and renewed her efforts with her beads. ‘I’d say someone had wiped his blade here, but this bigger stain is more as if he had staunched a wound.’

‘Or wiped up a splash of — of whatever it was,’ said Alys. ‘May I see?’

Gil handed it over. Their eyes met, but she took the piece without any attempt to touch his fingers. She and Dorothea scrutinized it carefully, paying close attention to the embroidered ends. After a moment Dorothea said, ‘Look here, Alys. Is it an initial? A mark of some sort?’

‘You are right,’ said Alys, tilting her head. ‘What is it? Could it be N ?’

‘It could,’ said Dorothea doubtfully, ‘or it could be two letters. What about I V ?’

‘For John Veitch?’ said Gil with reluctance.

‘Marion does fine sewing,’ said Dorothea. Brother and sister looked at one another.

‘John had cause to kill the man, for certain, though I don’t know yet what Marion inherits under Naismith’s original will, and he lied to me about where he was that night.’

‘Could he have done it?’ asked Alys.

Gil nodded, sighing. ‘Not only could he have done it, I don’t know who else might, since the last person to see Naismith has someone to swear to his whereabouts later.’

‘We have two deaths to consider now,’ said Alys. Gil looked up at the We and she smiled faintly at him. ‘If the Deacon was killed outside the bedehouse it could have been almost anyone, I suppose — ’

‘Except that whoever it was, he knew a lot about the customs of the house,’ said Dorothea.

Alys nodded. ‘John Veitch had good reason to kill him, as you say, Gil, and he has lied about where he was that night, and here is this scarf which may be his, found in the Stablegreen, but would he have known all the things the killer evidently knew?’

‘His uncle could tell him those,’ said Gil.

‘Or the woman helped him,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Surely if it was his uncle who helped, John had no need to carry the body round to the Stablegreen,’ objected Dorothea. ‘The old man could have told him enough to put it in the Deacon’s lodging, where it would never have been found till the morning.’

‘Maister Veitch would have known Sissie was listening,’ said Gil. ‘All would have to sound as usual.’

‘And why would John find it needful to kill Humphrey?’ said Alys.

‘We know he was at the bedehouse this evening,’ said Gil. ‘I met him on the Drygate, Pierre, just before I met you. Oh, and there was a man above in Marion’s house when I called, teaching the child another song. I wonder if it was this fellow Elder.’

‘Why might John Veitch kill Humphrey?’ asked Maistre Pierre rhetorically. ‘Had Humphrey perhaps seen or heard something to his disadvantage?’

‘Humphrey said nothing that made any sense about the night the Deacon died,’ said Gil, ‘except something about seeing a light in the Deacon’s lodging, but that only confirmed Sissie’s account.’

‘Perhaps he had said something to the other bedesmen,’ offered Dorothea.

‘I need to ask,’ agreed Gil. ‘I must question them about this afternoon, but it was hardly the moment when we were there, what with Duncan demanding his supper and my godfather arriving at the door.’

‘It doesn’t work, does it?’ said Alys. ‘What about Humphrey’s brother? He was the last man to see the Deacon, so far as we know. Could it have been him?’

‘I haven’t yet found a reason, and I doubt now if he had time,’ said Gil. ‘His mistress says he was with her that night, from an hour after supper — he must have gone straight there after Naismith left him.’

‘But he could have killed his brother,’ said Alys thoughtfully.

‘Why?’

‘You don’t need a sensible reason to want to kill a brother,’ said Dorothea. Gil looked at her in astonishment. ‘Or a sister,’ she qualified the statement, and smiled at him. ‘Not a sensible reason, just a strong one.’

‘He had the opportunity,’ persisted Alys, ‘if he was in the bedehouse just before Humphrey was found, and he might have managed to get the better of him and — ’ She pulled a face, and Dorothea nodded.

‘Or what of the bedesmen?’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘I should say the only one with the strength is your teacher, Gil.’

‘He had a strong arm when I was a boy,’ agreed Gil, ‘but he’s past sixty now, could he have carried Naismith any distance, or lifted Humphrey to get him suspended the way we found him? I admit he’d enough reason to kill Naismith, and living with Humphrey would drive anyone to murder I would think, poor soul.’

‘Still questions to ask,’ said Maistre Pierre.

‘Many questions,’ said Gil. Tomorrow I’d like to find this mysterious friend of John’s, who might tell us something to the purpose, and locating the weapon and the place Naismith was killed would be good.’

‘And the ladder,’ supplied Maistre Pierre.

‘Look for an unclaimed lantern and a patch of blood somewhere about the old men’s houses. Question the old men themselves about Humphrey. And there is probably more. But chiefly, what I would like to find would be a clear reason for someone to kill either man. I still think Naismith’s death may lie in the accounts.’

‘Yes,’ said Alys. ‘It hangs on that. Too many had the opportunity.’

Dorothea nodded agreement.

‘I wish you were free to help me,’ Gil said, looking at Alys. She met his eye and nodded seriously.

‘There is all to supervise here,’ said Catherine in French, breaking off her prayers.

Gil studied the row of faces opposite him. He was certain that Catherine approved of Dorothea, and that Dorothea liked Alys; he no longer trusted his ability to read Alys’s response to his sister. He tried to tell himself it hardly mattered, that Dorothea would return to Haddington and he might not see her face to face again in this life, but it was still important.

‘I have been thinking,’ announced Maistre Pierre, ‘that a likely place to find two sailors is in a tavern, no? Suppose after we escort Sister Dorothea back to the castle, you and I were to go drinking?’

There was a thunderous sound, somehow entangled with a dream about Paris. He knew it must be a dream, because he had not had a drinking head like this since he left France. The thunder went on, and on. So did the dream, which became more vivid. Not only a headache as if an axe was buried in his brow, but a tongue too big for his mouth which tasted like an ashpit. Socrates barked near at hand, once, then again, and a voice exclaimed,

‘Maister Cunningham! Maister Cunningham, can you waken!’