Authors: Pat McIntosh
The Sub-Almoner led them into the undercroft of the Vicars’ hall, and picked his way between the pillars and the stored ecclesiastical bibelots to the far end, where he unlocked a padlock which fastened a sturdy door.
‘This is the dry store, you see,’ he said, ‘and there’s the Vicars’ store alongside it. I’ve the key here, but there’s still goods walking out when my back’s turned, and out the Vicars’ store and all, so they tell me.’
‘Alan?’ Gil turned at the voice. It was William Craigie, descending the stairs from the hall above. ‘What’s amiss, Alan? The vergers is all at sixes and sevens. They should ha locked up by this.’
‘Oh, William!’ said Jamieson. ‘Plenty’s amiss. There’s no wonder the vergers is in disarray, here’s Barnabas dead and drowned in St Mungo’s own well.’
‘What
?’ Craigie’s rich bass rose a couple of octaves. ‘In the
well?
What’s he doing there?’
‘Not drowned, in effect,’ said Maistre Pierre, sounding annoyed, ‘but strangled with a cord, a sack-tie—’
‘A sack-tie? Like the girl at the Cross?’ Craigie came closer, into the circle of their several lights. He looked shaken, his eyes huge with astonishment. ‘Here, is that someone slain within St Mungo’s? That’s— Does the Dean ken?’
‘The Dean is very clear that it happened outside St Mungo’s,’ said Gil without inflection.
‘But how did it happen? Who? When?’ Craigie shook his head. ‘I canny believe it.’
‘And I was talking to him no an hour since,’ said Jamieson.
‘It’s been some time afore Vespers,’ Gil supplied, ‘maybe a couple of hours ago.’ He considered the songman. ‘Where were you the now, William? Had you company? When did you last see the man?’
‘Me? I’ve seen no sign o Barnabas since this morning. Are you certain it’s him? Certain he’s dead?’ Gil continued to look hard at him, and Craigie’s tone became defensive. ‘I was in our hall the now, been there since Vespers, conning some o the morn’s music. You saw me there, Habbie, I spoke to you.’
‘Aye, so you did,’ agreed Maister Sim.
‘Are we to see inside this store, or no?’ Maistre Pierre demanded. ‘I wish to know what the dead man was seeking.’
The store was not large, and was uncomfortably crowded when they all tried to get inside. Lowrie backed out of the door again; Gil, thinking that it would have been more use for his father-in-law or the two songmen to withdraw, stood looking about him. The Almoner’s stock was neatly set out, like that in the office in the tower where he had been – was it only this morning? Sacks of grain hung out of reach of vermin, their canvas labelled with a stencilled tree in imitation of the badge the vergers bore and a single letter, O or B or W for the contents; barrels of donated goods stood against the wall, the contents identified in chalk on the lid.
Rys, resns, aples, hering,
read the nearest few. A grey sugar-loaf hung in a net beyond the barley, the nippers wedged in beside it.
‘You were checking the stores,’ he said again. ‘Where were you working?’
‘I was down that end, see,’ Jamieson waved a hand, craning to see past Maister Sim, ‘and Barnabas was here, checking the level of the barrel o rice, and I said to him, gie’s a hand to get this barley down. So he came and helped me lower the sack, and it was when he loosed it he held the sack-tie in his two hands, and says,
It canny be!’
Jamieson looked from one hand to the other in illustration of this. ‘And then he up and went out of here, and the next I saw him, there he was stretched on the floor by St John’s chapel.’ He crossed himself, shaking his head sadly. ‘Aye, we none o us ken when our moment will come, though there’s no so many o us meet an end like that. You need to sort it, Gil, it willny do!’
‘How did you raise the sack, Maister Jamieson?’ asked Lowrie from the door. Jamieson looked blankly at him. ‘You said you needed Barnabas to help you lower it. Did you get it back up by yoursel?’
‘Oh, aye.’ Jamieson gestured at the ropes. ‘It goes up slow, that’s no trouble. But lowering it, when you lowse the rope it can run away, burn your hands, and then the sack splits if it hits the floor. So it’s best to ha someone to take a bit of the weight. Oh, I got it back up no bother.’
Beyond Lowrie, the shadows in the undercroft shifted, and he turned to look over his shoulder as footsteps approached. Keys clinked.
‘Maister Jamieson?’ It was one of the two vergers they had left in the Lower Kirk. ‘Maister Galston sent me. Is Maister Jamieson there? Only Maister Galston thought you’d maybe better take charge o this.’ The man ducked past Lowrie, peering about in the crowded little space for the Sub-Almoner. ‘See, it’s his keys, Barnabas’ keys, and is this no the key to your bonnie new padlock? You’ll want that.’
‘No, no, Matthew, he never had—’ began Jamieson, reaching automatically for the jangling assemblage.
‘No, this one, see. I’d swear it was as like, we all said that.’ The verger picked one out of the keys and held it up, the remainder of the bunch swinging from it. Jamieson checked, staring at it, then groped at his belt for his own ring of keys.
‘It is,’ he said. ‘It’s as like.’ He sorted out the right key, and held it against the other one. ‘It’s the same key, it is.’ He looked from Matthew to Gil, and back at the keys, incredulity fading slowly into stricken comprehension. ‘Christ aid us all, it’s surely no Barnabas has been thieving the stores all this while? The man I trusted?’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Gil, striding through the twilight up towards the Stablegreen Port. ‘But it looks very much like it.’
‘That was a rare amount of money for a man like that to have in his kist,’ said Lowrie.
‘Either too much or not enough,’ said Gil.
‘What, you think he wasny acting alone?’
‘He canny have been.’ Gil paused, looking about them, and dropped his voice. ‘He’d been on duty since dawn, his turn to open up the building as Galston said, and that was him about to go off duty when he went to confront whoever throttled him. By what Galston told me, he’s tied to St Mungo’s all the hours of daylight, so when would he get the goods he’s pilfered off the policies and somewhere they could be sold? He must have had a confederate.’
‘Could that be who killed him?’
‘No telling, for now,’ said Gil resignedly. ‘It might be, it might ha been somebody else. We’ll see if Galston learns anything.’
‘And his chamber,’ said Lowrie, as they turned to move on.
Galston had listened in grim silence to the Almoner’s tale, and then had accompanied Gil and Lowrie to Barnabas’ lodging, a meticulously tidy chamber in the stone undercroft of one of the larger houses by the tennis court. Here he had watched bleakly while they had inspected the man’s belongings, which contained some surprises. There had been the coin in his kist to which Lowrie had already referred, along with two or three jewels carefully wrapped in scraps of brocade like relics; there had been a number of garments of good quality, several pairs of expensive shoes, a pile of handsome blankets on the bed. Gil, having heard Alys lately on the subject of blankets, was well able to estimate what those alone might have cost. Clearly the man was making a good income from whatever he was doing.
‘He’d kept back quite a bit, as well as selling the stuff on,’ Lowrie went on. ‘I saw a barrel of dried figs in his chamber, and another o apricots.’ Gil grunted agreement. ‘Galston did say he’d aye had a sweet tooth.’
The head verger had been burning with suppressed anger; Gil thought it was the man’s reaction to finding that one of his staff had injured St Mungo’s in such a way. The two songmen, on the other hand, had been full of indignation at the abuse of privilege, and Maister Sim had been proposing an immediate stock-take of the Vicars’ dry stores as well.
‘It might help us to know if anyone saw him, after he left the Almoner and before he was found dead,’ Gil had said as they locked Barnabas’ door again. ‘He might ha said something about who he was seeking.’
‘If anyone saw him,’ said Galston with quiet determination, ‘I’ll uncover it. And we’ll search the building the morn first thing, Maister Cunningham, my men by threes and reporting to me every quarter-hour. I’ll learn how he’s been getting the stuff out o St Mungo’s, if it’s the last thing I do. And soon’s I learn it, I’ll send you word, maister.’
‘Mind you,’ said Lowrie now, ‘those were maybe from the other store, the Vicars’ store, as Maister Sim said. I canny see who’d donate a barrel o figs to the poor, and if they did it would be right conspicuous, Sir Alan would ha noticed if it went missing.’
‘You can check that wi Alan in the morning,’ said Gil.
They went on through the gathering summer twilight, past lit windows and raucous alehouses, and halted within sight of the Trindle. Business seemed to be brisk despite the house’s bereavement; there was loud conversation inside the little building, and a group of men drinking companionably outside, under the sign.
‘Who is it we’re after?’ Lowrie asked.
‘Four names.’ Gil counted them off on his fingers. ‘Allen, Shearer, Syme and, er, Thomson. You can get on home, if you’d rather. It may not be easy to get them talking.’
‘I can at least watch your back, unless you want me to let Mistress Alys know where you are.’
‘Once was enough,’ said Gil elliptically, and Lowrie snorted.
Inside the house there was firelight, the stink of tallow candles, a powerful smell of unwashed people. Mistress Howie was presiding over the two barrels of ale, much as she had been that morning. Gil nodded to her, and to the girl – was it Mysie? – who picked her way over, avoiding the familiar hands of the customers, to ask what they wanted.
‘A jug of ale, lass,’ he said, ‘and can you point out any of Peg’s regulars to me?’
She gave him a sharp look, but did not answer directly.
‘If you sit ower there,’ she said, ‘on they two stools at the wall, I’ll bring your ale.’
Gil led the way obediently to a shadowy corner beyond the hearth, well aware that most of those present were watching him. He nodded to the groups on either side of the vacant stools Mysie had pointed out, getting a reluctant nod from those on one side, an unreadable glower on the other. Mysie returned, bearing a jug, accepted a coin from him, and looked beyond Lowrie at the less friendly neighbour.
‘Tammas Syme, will ye be wanting more ale?’ she demanded. There was a surly growl from the shadows. ‘Or you, Daniel Shearer? No? Then I’ll take that jug away.’
She bore the empty jug off, and Gil set his down by his feet, reluctant to drink from it when the house was so busy. The likelihood that it had been washed between customers did not seem good.
‘A fine night,’ he said to the two whom Mysie had addressed.
‘Well enough,’ said one of the men.
‘Never seen you in here afore,’ said the other sourly. His voice was hoarse. ‘Come to see the sights, are ye?’
‘I was here this morning,’ said Gil. ‘Getting a word wi the mistress and her lassies.’ He let that hang in the air for a moment, aware of ambiguity, then went on, ‘We were at St Mungo’s Cross this morning. The two of us.’
There was a faint stirring of interest in the shadows.
‘The lassie that worked here,’ he continued, ‘the one that was found at the Cross wi her face beaten so you’d not know her, left here last night to get a word wi someone.’
‘I heard that,’ said the less hostile of his hearers. Lowrie, beside him, was motionless.
‘I’m charged wi finding who did that to her,’ Gil persisted. ‘We ken it was never a man from this tavern, for she said to the other lassies that someone she never named was back in the town and she wanted to speak to him.’ Beyond Lowrie the silence grew deeper. ‘I’m hoping maybe she’d said something to one or another of the folk that were in here last night, might give me a hint who she’d gone to meet.’
He paused, and looked down at the ale-jug by his feet. After a moment one of his hearers rose, saying, still in that sour tone,
‘Well. I wish you good fortune, neighbour.’
He tramped off across the crowded tavern, stepping on any feet which were not withdrawn from his path. Nobody tried to object.
‘A bad business,’ said the man who had remained. He leaned forward and indicated the jug. ‘Are you—?’
‘Be my guest,’ invited Gil.
Perhaps the length of a
Te Deum
later they left the tavern, stepping into the street to find the twilight deepened into moonlit night. The sky was clear, with stars sprinkled about where the moonlight permitted; the shadows were very black, and Lowrie stared about warily, his hand near his whinger.
‘Yonder,’ said Gil quietly. ‘Between the two houses across the way.’
‘I see him. Do we go to him, or wait?’
‘We go part way.’ Gil stepped into the middle of the roadway, and stood still, casually studying the sky. The man lurking in the shadows waited a moment, and then came forward reluctantly, staying in the shadows.
‘I’m no coming out in the street.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Gil. It was the voice of the man who had left the tavern.
‘You’re looking for who that lassie wanted to speak wi.’
‘We are.’
‘Aye.’ Feet shuffled. ‘Mind, I’m no saying I heard this mysel.’
‘A course not.’
‘I never spoke wi the lassie. You understand that.’ Gil nodded, then wondered if the movement would show in the moonlight and made an agreeing noise. ‘But I heard. Someone said.’ He swallowed noisily and then said in a rush, ‘She never mentioned a name, just some fellow had been gone fro Glasgow three month, and was back, and she’d have something out wi him if it killed her.’
Lowrie made a small sound of pity. Gil waited.
‘That’s all,’ said the hoarse voice.
‘What did she call him?’ Gil asked. ‘She never used his name, she must ha called him something.’
‘No.’ A pause. ‘Aye, maybe she— Maybe she said,
My fine gentleman,
or the like. Kind a sharp, as if he was anything but.’
‘Thanks, friend,’ said Gil.
‘Neighbour,’ said the hoarse voice. Gil tilted his head, waiting. ‘Get him. She was just— She was just a tavern lassie, but she never deserved—’
‘No,’ agreed Gil. ‘She never deserved that.’
Matters did not seem much clearer in the morning. Nor had Euan come home, to Gil’s irritation.