Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

‘It’s on her hair; he said finally. ‘Mally wouldn’t wash that. It smells of …’ He tested the air again. ‘Aye, like a privy. Stale. Not from when she voided herself but older, like the spillage outside a dyer’s shop. But there’s something else.’ He frowned. ‘It’s familiar, but I can’t place it.’

Maistre Pierre came forward curiously, peered at the wound, and sniffed cautiously at the lank brown locks coiled by the dead girl’s shoulders.

‘How did she wear her hair?’ he asked, and sneezed.

‘Like any other lass,’ said Mistress Hamilton. ‘Loose down her back, with a little kerchief tied over it for going outside.’

‘Is her kerchief here?’

‘It’s yonder,’ said the maidservant still standing by the wall, pointing at the side of the room. Gil looked around, and found a pile of garments on a barrel.

‘Is this it?’

‘Aye, likely. Yes, take it, if you need it.’ There were voices out in the yard, and Agnes Hamilton turned her head. ‘That’s likely the serjeant. He sent word he’d come by before he had his supper.’

Gil hastily folded the kerchief and stowed it in his pouch as Serjeant Anderson proceeded into the store-room.

‘Good evening, maisters,’ he said, nodding. ‘What’s all this then? One dead lass, as notified.’ He touched Bridie’s cold cheek with a massive hand, twitched back the linen shroud to look at the wound, and nodded again. ‘Aye, aye. She’s dead, for certain. Between Sext and Nones, eh? A wee foreign kind of knife, would it be, maybe?’

‘Maybe,’ said Gil despite himself.

‘Found in Blackfriars yard, you tell me,’ said the serjeant, covering the corpse’s face again. ‘Simple enough. Knifed in Blackfriars yard this forenoon by some foreigner, no doubt when she wouldny do his will. Murder chaud- melle. A lesson to all Glasgow lassies no to take up with foreigners. No offence, maister,’ he said belatedly to the mason, who eyed him quizzically, and sneezed.

‘But is that — ‘ Gil began.

The serjeant smiled indulgently. ‘See, Maister Cunningham, I’ve a burgh to watch and ward. I’ve no time to run about the streets asking questions. Now, once I’ve called to mind what foreigners are in Glasgow the now, I can lift someone for it, and get a confession, and that’s the end of it.’

‘But suppose he was somewhere else at the time?’ said Gil helplessly.

‘Who?’

‘This man you’re going to seize for the killing.’

‘How could he have been elsewhere,’ said Serjeant Anderson, ‘when he was in Blackfriars yard knifing Bridie Miller? Now, I’ve more to do than stand around all evening. God save ye, maisters.’

He raised his bonnet to them, and left. Gil stared after him, and Agnes Hamilton drew a gusty breath.

‘I must set someone to watch,’ she said. ‘The lassies are barely fit for it, what with the last two-three days. Alys, Maister Mason, Gil, I must not keep you. You’ve been good neighbours. Candles,’ she muttered, leading the way from the store-room. ‘Flowers. Would St Thenew’s send someone to watch?’

She ushered them out with incoherent thanks and shut the door with great firmness behind them. Out on the step, at the head of the Hamiltons’ handsome fore-stair, they all paused, Gil watching the serjeant’s back retreating towards the Tolbooth as he headed majestically for home and supper. Alys said, ‘I think she was no more than eighteen.’

‘Hush a moment,’ said her father softly. ‘Maister Cunningham, look here.’

Gil turned to look up the High Street. There were not many people abroad, although it was still full daylight, but a few stalwarts drifted from door to door in search of variety in their evening’s drinking. Among them, conspicuously sober and wearing a short gown of blue velvet which must have cost a quarter’s rents, was James Campbell of Glenstriven.

‘He has seen us,’ said Maistre Pierre. The comment was unnecessary. Gil had also recognized the tiny pause in the sauntering gait. He moved forward, to descend the forestair, and Campbell altered direction to meet him, waving his blue velvet hat in a bow. The dark hair was receding unkindly up his high forehead.

‘What, are you still at your questions? Don’t say you suspect Andrew Hamilton?’ he asked, with slightly artificial lightness.

‘No,’ said Gil, as Alys and her father came down the stair behind him. ‘But someone suspected Bridie Miller of knowing too much.’

The handsome, narrow face froze.

‘Bridie Miller?’ Campbell repeated. ‘Is Bridie dead? But she — are you saying that’s the girl that was in St Mungo’s yard?’

‘The point is that she wasn’t in St Mungo’s,’ Gil reiterated. ‘She had quarrelled with Maister Mason’s laddie before Easter. Someone else was in St Mungo’s yard with the boy, and not Bridie. Nevertheless, she is dead.’

‘Poor lassie,’ said Campbell, with a hollow note to his voice. ‘What happened? When was this?’

‘She was found stabbed in Blackfriars yard,’ said Maistre Pierre behind Gil.

‘Stabbed,’ repeated James Campbell. ‘Like Bess, you mean? Then surely the same broken man or — When did this happen?’

‘She never came back from the market this morning,’ said Gil.

‘Oh,’ said Campbell, his face changing.

‘Do you know something to the purpose?’ asked the mason. James Campbell glanced at him and shook his head.

‘She was found this evening.’ Gil gestured down the hill. ‘Are you for the lower town? Maister Mason goes home, I believe.’

‘Poor wee trollop,’ said Campbell. ‘Had she been forced?’

‘It seems not.’

Campbell looked about him, and frowned.

‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘I must away back up the hill. I am forgetting. I–I’m to meet Sempill before Compline. Good e’en to ye, maisters. Good e’en, demoiselle.’

He raised the hat again, bent the knee briefly and strode off rapidly up the High Street, the breadths of velvet in the back of his gown swinging.

‘That is a very unpleasant man,’ said Alys, ‘and his eyes are too close together, but I think he was upset to hear about Bridie.’

‘I thought so too,’ said Gil.

Maistre Pierre tucked his daughter’s hand under his arm, and drew her down the street, saying with rough sympathy, ‘You go home now and help Catherine. She is still praying for Davie, no?’

‘She is.’ Alys looked up at him. ‘What did you think of that man, father?’

‘He was hiding something,’ said the mason firmly.

Gil, with a covert look over his shoulder, said, ‘He has just stepped into Greyfriars’ Wynd. I wonder where he is meeting Sempill?’

‘We have already questioned him,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘and I can think of a better errand.’

‘Where are you going, father?’

‘There is yet an hour to Compline; said the mason, glancing at the sky. Maister lawyer, are you of a mind with me?’

‘We must find Annie Thomson,’ Gil agreed. ‘Thirsty, are you?’

‘I knew I could depend on you.’ Maistre Pierre stopped outside his own house, and patted his daughter’s hand. ‘Go in, ma mie, and we will go drinking. You will not be shocked, I hope.’

‘Catherine says one should never be shocked by the things men do,’ she reported primly. ‘I wish I could come to the ale-house too.’

‘Now Maister Cunningham will be shocked,’ reproved her father. She smiled wryly, tilting her face to share the joke with Gil.

‘Women are always restricted in what they can do,’ she complained. ‘Like priests. You must make the most of this visit, Maister Cunningham, for you won’t be able to make many more. You should join the Franciscans or the Blackfriars instead of being a priest — they like the inside of an ale-house, by what I hear.’