‘They’ve sent after him, Jean,’ said the man in the hide apron. ‘Likely he’ll be here to gie a name to her.’
‘Aye, but who did ye send?’ she said sceptically.
‘Where do they dwell, mistress?’ Gil asked. ‘Have you any notion where the fellow Baird might be working this morning? Have you seen him the day?’
‘No to say seen him.’ Mistress Howie folded her arms under her substantial bosom, slightly relieving the strain on her red kirtle. ‘When I threw out the night’s stop-overs, maybe an hour afore Prime, I seen him keeking out at their door, but he ducked back as soon as he seen me look at him. They dwell on our back lands,’ she enlarged, ‘got a room in one o the wee sheds. Right handy for. ’ Her voice tailed off, and she glanced at the corpse and crossed herself. ‘Poor lass,’ she said again.
Gil, listening to what was not said, could only agree with her. How did the man Baird feel if his wife brought her clients home, he wondered. Indeed, was she his wife?
‘Would you swear this is Peg Simpson?’ he asked.
She gave him a sharp look, then made another inspection of the shrouded corpse, obviously seeking something.
‘Aye, I would,’ she said at length. ‘She’s got the mark o a burn on her arm, that I recall her getting at my fireside last Yule. That’s Peg. But her man should ken her and all,’ she added, changing her tune slightly.
‘And when did you see her last?’ Gil persisted.
‘I seen her yesterday afternoon,’ said the man in the hide apron. ‘I seen her in that blue kirtle that’s lying outside on the grass, fetching a basket of bread home to your tavern, Jean.’
‘Aye, that would be right,’ said Mistress Howie after a moment’s thought. ‘I sent her for bread, maybe an hour after noon. She was ower long about it-’
‘Aye, she would be,’ said the man with the apron, ‘seeing she was standing at the Wyndheid watching the procession come in, all the fine folks and their braw clothes on horseback coming here, and the horse-litter for the poor man that’s on his deathbed, quite an entertainment it was.’
‘Aye, it would be,’ agreed Mistress Howie. ‘So that’s where she was, right enough? She denied it to me. Wait till I get a word wi her. ’ Her voice cracked as she realised what she was saying, and she suddenly pulled the tail of her linen headdress up across her face. ‘Och, the poor lassie,’ she said from behind it, muffled. ‘She never deserved this.’
‘Come away, Jean, and get a seat.’ The woman in the striped kirtle drew her aside, and the hostel servant Bessie drew the shroud with care over the dead woman’s face. Gil waited till Mistress Howie was settled on the stone bench at the wall-foot and then asked her again:
‘When did you last see Peg Simpson, then? You saw her when she brought the bread back, I take it.’
‘Oh, aye, for I’d to get the change off her. Then she was about the tavern, her and the other lassies, all the evening I’d ha said, though she took a couple trips out the back wi one fellow or another, her regulars they were,’ Mistress Howie sniffed, and swallowed hard, ‘but as to when I seen her last, it would ha been when we closed up, put the shutters up. After Compline, that would be.’
‘Oh, well after it,’ said the man in the green hood helpfully. ‘Near midnight, it would ha been, Jean.’
‘Nothing o the sort,’ she said repressively.
‘She was about at the end of the evening?’ Gil persisted. ‘You’re certain you saw her then?’
‘Well, I must ha done, for I never missed her. You could ask at the other lassies, if you’re-’ She paused, staring up at him. ‘Are you saying maybe it was one o her regulars that’s put her here? Is that why you’re asking?’ Gil nodded. ‘Oh, I wouldny say that, maister. They’re wild enough lads, but none o my customers would-’
‘Someone did,’ observed the man in the hide apron. Mistress Howie would have answered him, but there was a disturbance at the door of the chapel, where more spectators had gathered; a pushing and elbowing, a rising tide of indignant comments suddenly swallowed, heralded the arrival of a scrawny man with lank black hair and a scarred face, his blue bonnet clamped to his head by a stiff leather hood with a short cape. He dragged both these off as he emerged from the crowd, looking round desperately.
‘Peg!’ he said. ‘Where is she? What’s come to her?’
‘You ken well enough what’s come to her, Billy Baird,’ responded Mistress Howie tartly. ‘There she lies, dead and cold, covered in the marks you laid on her. You’ll not raise your hand to her again, you ill-doer.’
‘Peg!’ said the newcomer again, ignoring all of this but the most significant point. He flung himself at the bier and pulled back the linen, stared for a horrified moment, and turned to the crowd.
‘Who the hell did this? I swear by all the saints, if I find who’s treated my Peg like that I’ll have his lights for garters. Who did it?’ he demanded, as if someone present was concealing the information.
‘Listen to you!’ said Mistress Howie scornfully. ‘You’ll be telling us next you never put a bruise on her yoursel!’
‘I never put these on her,’ said Baird fiercely. ‘I never did more than show her what was right. A man can chastise his own woman, I suppose. Look at that, she’s taen a vicious beating, way ayont what’s reasonable!’
Gil, trying to imagine how one might find beating one’s wife reasonable, said,
‘When did you last see her?’
Baird turned dark eyes on him.
‘Who’re you?’ he demanded aggressively. Several voices told him, with varying degrees of triumph, that this was the Archbishop’s quaestor. He considered Gil with contempt, scratched at his codpiece, then said, ‘Aye well, I hope you’re on the trail of whoever slew her already.’
‘I’m still trying to pick up the trail,’ said Gil. ‘So when did you see her last?’
The dark gaze slid away from his.
‘That would be last night,’ he said. ‘No long after the alehouse closed.’
‘Oh, the leear!’ said Mistress Howie. ‘When she slept at home wi you!’
‘She never!’ said the man desperately. ‘She never, she went away out, and I wish she hadny! I tried to stop her!’
‘A good tale that is,’ said the man in the green hood.
‘When did she go out?’ Gil asked.
‘After the alehouse closed. I said.’ Baird brushed something from his eye. ‘She came down the back to our place, and then she went out again.’
‘Why?’ Gil asked patiently. ‘What took her out again, in the dark, after an evening’s work?’
‘He’s having you on, maister,’ said the woman in the striped kirtle. ‘He’s slew her himself, no doubt of it. Ask them ’at dwells down the same pend.’
‘No I never!’ protested Baird. ‘I never did! She left me, she left our house, and I looked for her to come back, and she never did, no afore I had to go out to my work afore Prime. I never saw her again, till.’ He stopped, staring at the bier, and scratched behind his codpiece again. ‘Till now.’
‘Why did she go out?’ Gil asked again.
‘She said she had to see someone. She wanted a word wi someone.’
‘At that hour?’ said the man in the hide apron. ‘When decent folks are all in their beds? What was she about?’
‘Maybe in someone’s bed and all,’ suggested another man, grinning. Baird lunged at him, roaring, and was restrained with difficulty by the man in the hide apron and his fellow with the green hood.
‘Let me go!’ he shouted, writhing in their grip. ‘Let me at him, he’ll no- Let me at him!’
‘Who was it she went to see?’ Gil asked him. ‘What did she tell you about where she was going?’
‘Nothing!’ he said rather desperately. ‘Just it was- She said something about he was back in town, she would get a word wi him.’ He paused in his struggles and stared at Gil, and added, ‘She didny sound as if he would enjoy it, but.’ He read scepticism in Gil’s face, and offered, ‘Maybe she said more to the other lassies?’