Authors: Pat McIntosh
‘Helping Alan Jamieson, by what Galston says,’ offered Maister Sim, going back to Maistre Pierre’s question, ‘if he was still on duty.’ Galston nodded, without comment.
‘Tell me how you came to find him,’ Gil said again. His friend waved a hand at the well in the southeast corner of the wide vaulted space.
‘By chance, Gil. I cam in here from the Chapter House, seeing as,’ his voice trailed off, and he swallowed. ‘Aye. We’d sung Vespers and Compline, and we were tidying up in the Sacristy above there, and one of the other vergers—’
‘Which one?’ Gil prompted, aware of Galston’s disapproving scrutiny.
‘The useless one. What’s his name, Robert?
Oh, I dinna ken, Canon,
’ he mimicked, waving his hands jerkily. ‘Never gets a thing right. That one. Had left the small candle-box down here in the Chapter House, so he said, so I cam down the wheel stair to seek it seeing it was easier than sending him, and a course it wasny there. So I cam out here to take a look in the several chapels,’ he waved a hand again, more cogently, at the row of small chapels off this cross-aisle at the eastward end of the lower church. ‘Found it laid on Bishop Wishart’s breast and was just coming away when I saw the well-cover standing open, came in to shut it down and, well, found I couldny.’ He grimaced, and kicked the candle-box at his feet. ‘Just as well it was me seeking this rather than Robert.’
‘It is unusual to find a well within a kirk,’ Maistre Pierre observed. ‘I know one such at Chartres, in the crypt, where one must sleep to obtain a cure, and also at St Pierre in Lisieux, but otherwise they are rare. This is not a healing well, I think?’
‘Never heard that of it,’ said Maister Sim doubtfully. ‘It’s John Baptist’s chapel, he doesny usually do healing, does he?’
‘He must ha been seeing to the lights,’ said Gil, looking at the effigy of Bishop Wishart on his tomb-chest between the two middle chapels, ‘Robert I mean, and laid the box down. When was he here, d’you suppose? Galston?’
‘Robert’s duties should ha brought him down here three hours afore Vespers,’ returned Galston promptly. His tone was wooden, but conveyed very clearly all that he would not say. Sim said it for him.
‘Aye, very like. But he’d never ha noticed whether Barnabas was head down in the well or no, Gil, it would tell you nothing even if you got the right time off him.’
‘He must surely have noticed if the killer was here at the same time,’ suggested Maistre Pierre. ‘I think it was not long since, a matter of an hour or two, three at most. Gilbert, I should say this has been a matter of opportunity. Many people come down here to the Lady Chapel—’ he paused, and Galston turned his head, frowning, as an argument floated down the stair from the Upper Kirk where another verger had been placed like Cerberus to prevent access. ‘Also many come past the
chantier
to come in by that door, we see them go by.’
‘I suppose you saw nobody from there,’ said Gil.
‘This has happened since I and my men all went home, I think. No, this fellow and his killer must have simply chanced to be in here at the one time, and nobody with them, rather than his being enticed here to be killed. Too much danger of someone entering at the wrong moment.’
‘You think it was here in the kirk?’ said Galston, frowning.
‘If he was killed outside,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘there are many places to hide the corpse more easily, without bringing him in here and heaving him into the well. I think he was killed here and hidden in the nearest spot out of immediate sight.’
‘I agree,’ said Gil. He looked down at the corpse, sprawled in the candlelight, the fading daylight from the traceried windows making no impression on the scene now. ‘So you came in here, Habbie, found him in the well. How was he placed? He’d wedged on the bucket, you said.’
‘Aye, head in the bucket, which I think must ha had water in it, and his bum in the air. Feet jammed further down either side the bucket. He was pretty well wedged in the width of the well, he’d ha gone no further down I’d think, whoever put him there must ha kenned he’d be found soon or late.’ Maister Sim, like Gil, considered the corpse, and grimaced. ‘I’m glad it was sooner.’
‘There is no other injury on him.’ Maistre Pierre got to his feet, straightening his back with care. ‘Only the mark of the cord. I would say he was taken by surprise. It will have been quick.’
‘Thank Christ for that,’ muttered Maister Sim, crossing himself. ‘And then,’ he went on, ‘I called for help, and these two lads,’ he jerked his head at the two men still standing by the Chapter House doorway, ‘Matthew and Davie here cam down and lent a hand to get him out o the well. Wasny easy, I can tell you. And then Matthew went for Galston, and found Dean Henderson on his way, and he cam down and offered Conditional Absolution while we waited for you, though I think he was almost that angry he couldny speak. It isny good for St Mungo’s, Gil, another death.’
‘No,’ agreed Gil. He found Lowrie in the shadows. ‘Go and find Alan Jamieson, if you will,’ he requested, ‘let him know what’s happened, ask him when he last saw Barnabas.’ The younger man ducked his head in a bow and left by the same door the Sub-Dean had used, and Gil lifted the pricket-stand with its remaining candle and turned to the chapel of John the Baptist. It was a small rectangular space, bounded on two sides by the south and east walls of the building, on its north side by an arcaded partition wall which separated it from the next chapel. The well, its cover standing open, was a dark shadow on the wall-foot bench in the south-east corner, surrounded by wet patches where the corpse had been dragged out. The bucket, still tethered to its rope, stood forlornly by. Gil took the candle over and peered into the well; past the glow of the light he could see a faint glitter of its reflection, a pale glimpse of his own face cross-lit. The water was not far down.
‘Sheer luck he wedged on the bucket rather than going right in,’ said Maistre Pierre grimly at his elbow. ‘I know this is not a well for drinking, but nevertheless—!’
‘What happened?’ Gil said aloud. ‘Some kind of encounter here in the Lower Kirk, whatever Dean Henderson thinks, and the man strangled with a cord and then thrust into the well for concealment.’
‘He was not a big man,’ said his father-in-law, ‘but nevertheless I should think it needs another grown man to lift him and put him in there. Or perhaps two people.’
‘Two?’ said Gil in dismay. ‘I suppose it might be. Some kind of conspiracy, maybe.’
He turned away from the dark cavity and took the candle into the next chapel. Wooden in the carved altarpiece, St Andrew supported his white-painted cross on one shoulder and raised the other hand in blessing; Bishop Wishart, that warlike man of God, lay austerely under the arch of his tomb between this chapel and that of Saints Peter and Paul beyond him. Nothing which might be of any help showed up in the leaping light.
‘But why?’ asked Maister Sim from where he still stood near the corpse. ‘He was a right scunner, never did aught you asked him without arguing, and times no even then,’ Galston stirred; Sim glanced at him, and went on, ‘but that’s no reason to throttle the man. He must ha done something to provoke it!’
‘Did anyone know he was here?’ asked Maistre Pierre. ‘Did you fellows know?’
‘He should ha been off duty by now,’ said Galston, ‘seeing he’s on early this week.’
The two vergers still standing by the Chapter House doorway looked at each other in the candlelight.
‘Aye, he was here first thing,’ said one of them, ‘he was, it’s— It was his turn to open up this week, he was here afore the songmen cam in for Prime.’
‘That’s right,’ said Maister Sim. ‘He was.’
‘He’d ha been free to get off home an hour or two since,’ Galston continued, ‘unless Maister Jamieson had work for him. When did you see him last, Davie?’
‘Afore Vespers?’ the man offered.
‘And who of the clergy should have been down here?’ Gil moved past the two men into the chapel of St Nicholas next to the Chapter House door, holding the candle high to look about him. Nothing seemed to be out of place here either. ‘There’s these four chapels, there’s Our Lady, there’s St Mungo himself.’ He nodded towards the other two shrines, placed in the middle of the pillared space, their banked lights showing gaps now as the candles set by the faithful burned out. ‘Which of the canons or their vicars is responsible for these altars? I’ll need to ask them when they said Mass, though I suspect none of them would be late enough in the day to be any help.’
‘I could do that,’ offered Maister Sim, ‘though maybe no till the morn’s morn now.’
‘Indeed,’ said Maistre Pierre, ‘surely the most of them will be under their own roofs, thinking of retiring for the night by this.’
Or of going out to start the evening’s drinking, thought Gil, not meeting his friend’s eye in the candlelight.
‘Aye, Habbie, if you would,’ he said with gratitude, and would have continued, but beyond St Mungo’s shrine hasty feet sounded on the north stair, the stair which led out to the Vicars’ hall as well as the main church.
‘Maister Gil?’ Lowrie’s voice. ‘Here’s Maister Jamieson. He’s something to tell us.’
‘Indeed aye!’ Jamieson was right behind Lowrie as they threaded their way through the forest of stone, to emerge in the candlelight beside the corpse. ‘What’s this? Is the man deid in truth? How can that be? I was speaking wi him no an hour since! Galston, is that right?’
‘Aye, deid right enough, Alan,’ said Maister Sim.
‘An hour since?’ said Gil, hastening to join them. ‘Are you certain, man?’ Behind him he could hear his father-in-law rumbling dissent, and was aware of relief. An hour was hardly possible, given all that must have happened here. Jamieson, bending to look closer at the body of his henchman, said,
‘Aye, aye, Gil, it canny be longer, I’d stake my— How is he all wet like this? What’s come to him? Has he had Conditional Absolution?’
‘Tell me when you last saw him,’ Gil said. Jamieson straightened up, crossed himself, muttered a brief prayer and turned away.
‘No that long since,’ he said, frowning. ‘Let me see, it was afore Vespers I’d say, but no so long afore it.’ So at least two hours since, thought Gil. That’s more like it. ‘We’d been telling the dry stores, him and me, and trying to account what might ha gone missing this week. And it seems to me,’ he frowned, ‘as if something he saw, or something one o us said to the other, put him in mind o a thing, for he suddenly up and said,
It canny be! It canny be!
Like that, ye ken, all astonished.
Surely no,
he says. What canny be, Barnabas? says I, but he stood there like a stock wi one o the sack-ties in his hand, and then he says,
Forgie me, Maister Jamieson, I’ll no be long,
and starts out the door. I cried after him, Where are ye going, and he says ower his shoulder,
I’ll no be long, I see it now,
and that’s the last I saw him.’
‘What did you do?’ Gil asked, fascinated.
‘Oh, I gaed on wi the task. The poor we ha aye wi us, after all, I need to be sure o how much I can gie out in alms. To tell truth,’ Jamieson looked down at the corpse again and crossed himself, ‘I forgot about him, and about the time. It gied me quite a start when your man here chapped at the almonry door, let alone what he had to tell me.’
‘The length of cord, the sack-tie you called it,’ said Maistre Pierre. ‘Did he take it away with him?’
‘Aye, for I’d to find another to the second boll o barley. Canny leave it lying open all night.’ He bent to touch the corpse, tracing a cross on the darkened forehead. ‘Poor fellow, I canny believe it. Talking wi me, he was, no an hour since. I canny believe it. What came to him, Gil? You’ve no tellt me yet. He’s dreadful to see, he looks as though he’s been throttled, but he’s wringing wet forbye. Was he in the Girth Burn, or something?’
‘He was in the well,’ said Maister Sim. ‘St Mungo’s own well, yonder in the corner.’
Jamieson looked at him in astonishment, then turned to Lowrie who was watching quietly from the top of the steps.
‘You said that!’ he said. ‘I mind now. Throttled and put into the well, you said that, I mind it. Why? Who’d ha done that? It makes no sense!’
‘We need to find out,’ said Gil. ‘By what you say, it looks as though he left you to find someone. Given that he’s been dead well over an hour, I think it’s likely that person killed him, probably throttled him wi the sack-tie he was carrying. Aye, that one,’ he added as Maistre Pierre produced the cord he had unwound from the corpse’s neck. Pausing to acknowledge Jamieson’s shocked identification, he went on, ‘Can you mind anything more about when the fellow left you? What were you talking of? Did either of you say something that set him thinking, or was it something you handled, or—?’
‘No, no that I can think,’ said Jamieson doubtfully.
‘Maisters,’ interrupted Galston, ‘maisters, would you maybe take your questions away somewhere else?’ Gil looked round at the man, startled, and he bowed politely. ‘We’ll ha to shift Barnabas out o here, Maister Cunningham, and get tidied up, all afore locking-up time, and there’s no denying it would be a help if you clergy wasny here.’
‘I can see that,’ said Gil. He looked about him. ‘Aye, I think we’re done here, but I need a word afore I leave the building.’
Galston nodded.
‘We’ll be in the vestry,’ he said, and gestured his minions forward.
Lighting the way out to the Vicars’ hall, Gil was suddenly aware of the empty spaces round him, of the echoes from the upper church, the air movement between the squat pillars. The atmosphere of the place was tense, watchful, as if the whole building was waiting for him to move, to ask the right questions, to find the truth of what had just happened. As if its patron himself was looking for an answer. He paused as he went under the arch to the stairs, and glanced over his shoulder at the brightly painted shrine within its wrought-iron fence. Blessed St Mungo, he said to the saint in his head, I’ll do what I can, but you’ll have to help me. I need to know what to ask, who to speak to.
Just for a moment the shadows shifted in the elaborate vaulting above the shrine, like a stirring of tree branches in the wind.