Pat McIntosh - St Mungo's Robin

‘His — his hands?’ echoed Millar. ‘Why do you want to see his hands? They’re clean enough. What can you learn from that?’

‘Then I think we’d best get him in out of the rain. Maister Millar, is there a cart or something of the sort stowed away, that we could move him on, or should we try to lift him by his gown between us?’

‘I–I — ’ began Millar.

‘Sissie might have such a thing,’ prompted Maister Kennedy.

‘I’ll go ask her,’ volunteered Lowrie, and hurried off through the drizzle without waiting for a reply.

‘You could get a closer look at him under cover, Pierre,’ Gil prompted, ‘and I’ll cast about this place where he’s lying before it gets any wetter. And then we’d best start asking questions.’

Maistre Pierre nodded morosely, and pushed the hood of his heavy cloak back a little so he could see the sky.

‘Wetter it assuredly will be,’ he said. Gil looked from his friend to the body.

‘Where’s his hat?’ he said suddenly. ‘He’s bareheaded.’

‘I was wondering that,’ said Maister Kennedy. ‘And how about a cloak and all?’

‘He aye wears — wore a cloak,’ said Millar. ‘His bedehouse cloak. Like — like mine, only with the Deacon’s braid on. And a velvet hat wi a brim.’

‘We need to find those,’ said Gil. ‘We’ll need to make a search. Michael, could you — Michael? Where is he?’

‘He came out behind me,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Has he slipped away?’

‘I’ll find him later,’ said Gil. ‘Maister Millar, I believe you should be present while the body is examined.’ Millar grimaced, and clutched his cloak tighter round him, but nodded agreement. ‘Nick, when must you and these fellows be back at the college? Have you time to spare?’

‘I need to get down the road,’ said Maister Kennedy. ‘The joys of Peter of Spain are waiting for the bachelors at nine o’clock, though I dare say they’d not be sorry either if I missed their lecture. But Lowrie and Michael could stay and gie you a hand, Gil, if they’re any use, for I ken they’ve no lectures till eleven this day.’

There was a rumbling and clattering in the passageway through the main range. Socrates growled warily, his hackles rising. ‘Quiet,’ Gil said to him, as a woman’s voice joined the sounds. Lowrie appeared, pushing a small handcart and hindered by a stout woman bundled in a blue checked plaid over her black gown and white linen headdress, who trotted beside him exclaiming in annoyance all the way down the path.

‘It’s no right, he should be washed and made decent, what need have you to meddle wi the corp anyhow? Maister Millar, can you no put a stop to this? It’s no right at all, my old men are fair owerset wi it, the souls, keeping him lying out here in the rain like this, and standing about staring at him — ’

Millar turned to look at her, opening and closing his mouth like a carp in a pond, but failed to produce any sound. Maister Kennedy gave him a moment, then broke in:

‘Deacon Naismith’s been stabbed, Sissie, no dropped down with a seizure. We need to find who killed him. Here’s Maister Cunningham, that’s Robert Blacader’s man and responsible for finding out what we can. He needs a sight of the place where it happened, afore we can do anything at all wi the corp. And I’d say your old men wereny greatly harmed by the excitement,’ he added, glancing at the windows of the hall, where a row of elderly faces peered avidly out at them.

‘This is not where it happened,’ said Maistre Pierre authoritatively. Gil nodded, but everyone else stared at him. Mistress Mudie recovered first.

‘Well, if that’s so, we can take him in-by, out this rain, and make him decent,’ she proposed. ‘At least somebody wi a sense o what’s right has closed his een, but what prayers he’s had I canny tell, what wi you heathens poking and prodding at him, no better than Saracens — ’

With some difficulty, the body was hoisted on to the cart and wheeled away by Maistre Pierre and Andrew Millar, with Mistress Mudie hurrying behind them like a sheepdog, talking unceasingly about the washhouse, the laying-out board and the bedehouse mort-cloth. Maister Kennedy watched them go, then glanced automatically at the unhelpful grey sky and said to Gil, ‘I’d best lift my gear from the chapel and be away down the road. Come by the college and find me when you get a chance, and I’ll tell you what I can.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Gil agreed.

‘Make it an hour when I’m no teaching,’ Maister Kennedy added, ‘and we’ll try a jug of the new Malvoisie.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ Gil said, grinning. His friend nodded, and strode off, leaving Lowrie Livingstone standing by the gate to the Stablegreen.

‘What are we looking for, maister?’ he asked.

‘Anything out of place,’ Gil answered, noting the pronoun with interest. He hunkered down again and confirmed for himself Maistre Pierre’s finding that the grass was no more than damp where the corpse had lain, then leaned forward to sniff at the flattened blades. Lowrie had stepped back along the wall, away from the gate, and was looking along its length, fair head on one side.

‘You said,’ he continued, elaborately casual, ‘that is, Maister Mason said, he died yesternight. Or after sunset, anyhow. Is that sure?’

‘He was well set.’

‘Mm.’ Lowrie walked cautiously round the yew-tree and looked at the scene from the other end. ‘He couldny have set quicker for some reason? Does that happen?’

Gil sat back on his heels and looked at the younger man.

‘Possible,’ he admitted, ‘but unlikely. How much quicker?’

‘And you thought he might not have died here.’

‘That’s for certain,’ Gil said. ‘Even with all the trampling there’s been, the traces are clear enough, or the lack of them. There’s never a drop of blood on the grass, nor any trace of where he voided himself as he died, though his hose stank of it and his gown was up round his waist. And I can see no sign of either hat or cloak.’

‘I see.’ Lowrie looked about him. ‘You think he was carried here? When?’

‘That’s what I have to work out.’

‘None of these footprints is deep enough for someone carrying something.’

‘That’s what worries me.’ Gil got to his feet and stepped across the Deacon’s resting-place. ‘He can hardly have flown here, before or after death, unless he was some kind of saint.’

‘No,’ said Lowrie, in positive tones. ‘That he wasny.’ He was surveying the gate now, peering closely at its interlaced iron straps. ‘This was locked. It still is.’ Gil grunted. ‘And that was sometime yesternight he was put here, you think?’

‘All we can say the now,’ said Gil, ‘is that it was between whatever time he was killed and the time he was found.’

‘But do we ken when he was killed?’

‘Not yet.’

‘How will you find who killed him, then?’

‘By asking questions.’ Gil stood up. ‘Let’s go in out of the rain. I wonder what Pierre has discovered from the corp?’

Socrates was sniffing intently at the door of one of the little houses, but when Gil whistled he came to join him with an amiable grin. Lowrie offered his hand for inspection, then followed Gil into the main range, slipping past him to open the heavy wooden door to the outer yard. As it swung open, the sound of raised voices met their ears.

‘I canny believe it! Let me see my brother, he must — ’

‘- no the now, it’s no suitable, they’ll go to offer prayers for him in a — ’

Andrew Millar was standing by the chapel door, in lively discussion with Mistress Mudie and a stocky man in legal dress whom Gil had often seen about the Consistory tower. Noticing him emerge from the main range, Millar said in relief, ‘Here’s Gil Cunningham, that’s the man that’s dealing wi it. Maister Cunningham, here’s Humphrey’s brother, Maister Thomas Agnew, wanting to know what’s going on.’