Pat McIntosh - St Mungo's Robin

Everyone present heard the faint groan which escaped the dead man under the blow. Gil felt the hair on his neck stand up.

‘Christ and Our Lady protect us!’ said Willie, stepping back and crossing himself.

‘Look! Look!’ crowed Agnew, white-faced. ‘I said — I said he slew Hob, and Hob himsel has tellt us it’s the truth!’

Veitch stared where he pointed, and then looked up at Gil, horrified. From the pallid lips of the corpse a thread of fresh blood was trickling.

‘It was the force of the blow caused him to groan,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘As I told the Sheriff. The last breath was still in the man’s lungs, and the blow forced it out.’

Gil nodded, aware of a level of relief at the explanation quite ridiculous in a rational man. ‘As if I punched you in the breastbone.’

‘Precisely. And if there was still liquid blood from where he bled inwardly, it might have gathered when you and I moved him, and that also was released by the blow. But I suppose,’ the mason continued gloomily, stepping over the puddle at the castle gatehouse, ‘there is no use in telling it to the witnesses.’ He looked back over his shoulder at the tower where John Veitch was now imprisoned, still vehemently protesting his innocence. ‘How long have we got?’

‘The morn’s morn, Sir Thomas said,’ Gil quoted in Scots. ‘Properly the law should be done on him within this sun, wi no more ado.’

‘If we ever see the sun,’ commented his friend in French.

‘Indeed. But since he won’t confess to guilt, and you’ve cast some doubt on it, there must be a more formal quest, and it might as well follow on from the quest on Deacon Naismith. I wish Sir Thomas had let me question John just now, but he was within his rights to refuse it. What worries me is that with three deaths in the Upper Town within three days, John may simply hang for the lot and the investigation will be closed whether I like it or no.’

‘Can the Sheriff do that? Surely your commission is direct from the Archbishop.’

‘Aye, and as Archbishop not as overlord,’ Gil agreed, ‘but ultimately, in Blacader’s absence, Sir Thomas represents the law in the burgh.’ They reached the Wyndhead, and he paused, looking down the Drygate. ‘Look at this. Someone must have taken the news to her.’

Marion Veitch was hurrying towards them, skirts gathered up, the ends of her plaid flying, the kitchenmaid Bel at her side. Seeing them she changed direction and halted in front of them, panting.

‘Gil Cunningham, what’s this they tell me about my brother?’ she demanded. ‘He never slew a man in Vicars’ Alley! I’ll no believe it!’

‘I don’t believe it either, but he was found standing above the body,’ said Gil, and she clapped both hands over her open mouth. ‘I tried to act for him, Marion, but the bystanders insisted he touch the dead and the corp bled. He’s in the castle now, and there’s to be a quest on it the morn’s morn.’

She swayed, and Bel jumped forward to support her.

‘There, mistress, hold up!’ she said. ‘Come and sit down yonder.’

Maistre Pierre took her other arm, and they helped her to the foot of the Girth Cross where she sat limply on the steps, staring at Gil.

‘He never,’ she said. ‘He never.’

‘Why did he go to Agnew’s house?’ Gil asked. She shook her head. Socrates sat down beside her, and she patted him mechanically.

‘To ask about the will. Is it Agnew that’s slain? What happened, Gil? Why’s John been taken?’

‘Agnew came back to his house, so he says,’ Gil related precisely, ‘and found his man Hob stabbed and bled to death, and John standing above the corp.’

‘When did your brother leave you?’ Maistre Pierre asked. She rubbed a hand across her brow, pushing her linen cap askew.

‘Kind o late in the morning. After Sext, maybe?’ She shivered, pulling her plaid closer about her, and Bel bent to put an arm round her.

‘Come back to the house, mistress,’ she urged. ‘There’s nothing you can do the now.’

‘No — no, I want to see John. He’ll be — ’

‘They’ll no let you in, mistress. Come back and get warm,’ Bel coaxed.

‘Indeed I think it wiser,’ offered Maistre Pierre. ‘Come, we will walk with you.’

After a little more argument she got to her feet and set off weakly down the Drygate, her maid supporting her protectively. The street was busy, with people returning from the market further down the High Street, but she made her way among the passers-by without apparently seeing them.

‘I’ll no believe it,’ she said again. ‘He’d no call to. He’d not been to the man’s house afore, he’d likely have to ask the way. Why should he kill someone he never saw afore?’

‘Ah!’ said Gil. ‘Now if we can find whoever he asked — ’

‘Would you?’ She turned her blue eyes on him. ‘Would you ask about, Gil?’

‘I will,’ he said, ‘if you’ll answer a few things for me.’

‘Aye,’ she said after a moment. ‘I suppose. Fair’s fair.’

Back at the house she seemed to have recovered a little from the shock of John’s arrest, and dismissed Bel with affectionate thanks, though the girl would have stayed with her. Seated in the hall, upright and formal in the great chair which must have been Naismith’s, her visitors on the tapestry-upholstered stools, she said, ‘Did you find that woman you were asking for?’

‘I did,’ said Gil. ‘I’m sorry to have bothered you at a bad moment yestreen. This is no a lot better.’

‘Oh, I’m no much occupied right now,’ she said, with faint irony. ‘What are these questions you’ve got?’

Gil looked at Maistre Pierre, but found his friend’s attention on the ceiling, beyond which Frankie was talking to someone. Occasional sounds of sweeping suggested it was Eppie.

‘One or two things,’ Gil said, and hesitated. ‘Marion, you said John went to ask about the will. Do you ken what the Deacon’s original will was like?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘He never showed you it?’

‘No,’ she said again. Under the crooked cap her oval face was pale and pinched. Above them the child began singing again, the same tune as last night. Socrates cocked his ears to listen, but did not move from his position at Gil’s feet.

‘I know what the new one was to have been,’ Gil persisted, and checked as he realized that Agnew’s tablets were still in his sleeve. Well, it had been no moment to return them. ‘I wondered how much you were to lose by it,’ he went on.

‘He said he’d see me right,’ she said indifferently. ‘I aye trusted him.’

‘But the trust was misplaced,’ said Maistre Pierre. She flicked a quick glance at him — was she startled? Gil wondered.

‘Yes,’ she said, and shivered.

‘He never settled any property on you?’ Gil asked. She shook her head. ‘Or got you to witness any of his papers?’ Another shake of the head. ‘Did you sign anything for him?’

‘He kept all his business separate,’ she said at last. ‘I kent nothing about the bedehouse, nor his transactions in the burgh. Thomas Agnew tells me they’re considerable, but I never heard of any of them.’

‘Agnew’s spoken to you?’ said Gil, startled. ‘What was that about?’

‘Oh, aye. This morning.’

‘This morning ?’ repeated Gil. ‘Before or after John went to see him?’

‘Oh, long afore. That’s why he went, see,’ she explained. ‘The man was here and spoke to me about the Deacon’s business, explained that all he left uncompleted would be void now, but he never said aught about the will. So John gaed to ask him when he came back fro the bedehouse.’

Gil waited, but no more was forthcoming. After a moment he changed the subject.