Pat McIntosh - The Harper's Quine

‘Why are we being sidetracked by this money and plate?’ asked Maistre Pierre. ‘Is it relevant? Will it tell us who stabbed Bess Stewart in my building site?’

‘I feel it is involved,’ said Gil, hitching his plaid up against the fine smirr of rain. ‘I don’t know about you, but I am beginning to see a pattern. One name keeps coming to our attention.’

‘How does he benefit?’

‘If Campbell of Glenstriven has been diverting the rents to his own use rather than give them to Sempill, it was in his interest to prevent Sempill speaking to Bess.’

‘Killing her is rather final.’

‘Nevertheless, it is effective. Since he did not know about the bairn, he could assume the Ettrick lands would go back to his wife as Bess’s surviving kin. The house in Rothesay might go to Sempill of Muirend, which could not be helped, and so would the conjunct fee lands, but since in law Sempill could not dispose of those without first offering them to Bess’s kin, Campbell’s next step, I should think, would be to buy them in at a bargain price, so his lies might not be detected.’

‘And the plate?’

‘It is at least curious that he was the first on the scene after Bess left her house to run off with the harper.’

‘But what of the other girl? Surely if he was with Bridie on the High Street before Compline, he must know she was not in the kirkyard during the Office. He had no need to kill her. And I thought he was distressed to learn of her death.’

‘I thought about that.’ Gil counted off the points. ‘Imprimis, he might not be certain of where she went after he left her. She could have been in the kirkyard, half the town heard us say she was there, he might have killed her to be certain.’

‘A poor reason.’

‘Someone killed her. Secundus, perhaps she did know something. What if she followed him and saw what happened — ‘

‘Whatever that was.’

‘Whatever that was, and when they met, yesterday at the market — no, the day before, now — she tried to threaten him, or get money from him.’

‘Give me some ribbons or I’ll tell what I saw, you mean?’

‘Precisely. Let’s step aside here and discuss this, my doo. And in goes the knife.’

‘Are there more possibilities?’

‘Perhaps he was simply tired of her, and thought her death could be blamed on the same broken man as killed Bess.’

‘Not so probable, surely. Do we know him to have behaved like this in the past?’

‘No, but we don’t know him to have knifed his sister-inlaw before this either. He was concealing some strong emotion when he heard of Bridie’s death,’ Gil pointed out. ‘It is hard to be sure whether it was grief, or alarm that we knew of it already, or something else. Even if he killed her, he might have felt grief for her death.’

‘Hmm.’ The mason rode in silence for a few minutes, considering this. Then, looking about him at the woodland through which they rode, he said in some alarm, ‘This is not the path we took! Where are we?’

‘The track’s about a half-mile that way.’ Gil nodded to their left. ‘I don’t think this fellow means us any harm. I’ve been keeping an eye on him, and Sir William knows where we are.’

Lachie Mor, obviously understanding this, grinned his unreliable grin and pointed ahead.

‘Eagleis,’ he enunciated. ‘Eagleis Chattan.’

‘A church?’ said the mason.

Gil nodded. The church of the cat?’ he hazarded.

Their guide shook his head emphatically. ‘Chattan,’ he repeated, and gestured: a halo, a benediction.

‘St Chattan?’ Gil offered, and got another grin and a nod. ‘How far?’

‘Not far,’ said the mason. ‘We are here.’

They emerged into the open, and the ponies stopped and all three raised their heads, ears pricked, as if they had seen someone they knew approaching. Gil stared round him in the sunshine. They were in a circular clearing in the trees, perhaps fifty paces across. A small burn trickled at their feet, and a grassy bank beyond it sloped gently up to the remains of a small stone building. It was now roofless, but the walls and the two gables with their slit windows still stood, silent witness to the craft of the old builders who had fitted silver-grey slabs and red field-stones together, course after ragged course, apparently without benefit of chisel.

‘Eagleis Chattan,’ said their guide again. He dismounted, and from his scrip produced a cloth bundle. He mimed eating this, with an inclusive gesture, then led his pony across the burn and tethered it within reach of the water.

‘A good idea,’ said the mason, dismounting likewise, ‘and a pleasant spot for a meal.’

It was indeed pleasant enough to make stale oatmeal bannocks and hard cheese palatable. They shared out the food and ate, seated on the grass bank while the bum chattered at their feet and birds darted among the branches. The ponies drowsed in the shade. Then Lachie Mor lay back on the grass and drew his plaid over his face in a way that brooked no argument.

‘A valuable example,’ said the mason, brushing crumbs from his hose. ‘I think I also rest a little. I have not slept well.’ He lay back and tipped his round hat forward, hiding all but the neat black beard.

Gil, though he forbore from contradicting this statement, did not feel like joining the soporific scene. Instead he rose, checked the ponies’ tethers, and strolled up to investigate St Chattan’s Kirk.

A grassy path led round the little building to a narrow doorway in one side. Gil stepped in, and found that the place was in use.

It had the same impact on him as stepping into one of Glasgow’s little chapels. The walls blazed with colour, and a dark figure bent over the lit and furnished altar. He could hear the rhythmic mutter of the Office.

Astonished, he dropped to his knees on the packed bare earth, groping for words of prayer as his beads almost fell into his hands. Gradually, as the familiar phrases slipped past, he realized that he had seen something other than what was there. The red-and-silver walls were not painted, but dappled with the sunlight which came through the overhanging trees; the crucifix on the clean-swept altar was not of silver, but worked from a gleaming slab of rock, and the bright-coloured candle flame beside it was in fact a bunch of wildflowers in a horn cup. And the sound of the Office was the bum, bubbling away somewhere.

He completed the last paternoster, and turned to his own prayers. But in this extraordinary place his habitual request for freedom from doubt seemed inappropriate. He emptied his mind, and after a while words floated up. Thank you for showing me this. Please show me the next step.

He had no idea how long he knelt. After a while the light changed, and he saw without surprise that what bent over the altar was not a priest but a briar-bush, the only thing growing inside the walls. There were no other furnishings. Crossing himself, he rose, bent the knee to the silver stone image, and went out of the narrow door.

Lachie Mor and the mason still lay on the grass. One of them was snoring. Gil grinned to himself and turned to pick his way round the church right-handed.

Clearly, others did the same. The grassy path which led to the door continued round the west gable and into the trees. The sound of water grew louder as he rounded the corner, and he found himself looking at the spring from which the bum rose. The well had been built up with red and silver stones, now mossy, and the water spilled out and chattered away round the other gable of the little building. A thorn tree bent over the pool, shedding mayblossom into the water, its branches decked with rags and ribbons. Clumps of primroses studded the grass.

‘A clootie well,’ he said aloud, and bent to drink. As he raised a dripping palm to his mouth a twig cracked sharply in the trees. He froze, staring, and the shadows congealed into the form of a red deer hind, her head up, staring back at him unafraid. She stood for five or six heartbeats, then wheeled and trotted off between two beech-trees, her little feet brushing among the pale primroses. Gil stared after her, open-mouthed. Almost he could believe he had seen St Giles’s own pet. And something else — a message…