‘Oh.’ Lowrie followed him a few paces further, then asked, ‘How can you tell?’
‘Later,’ Gil said, very aware of the busy street. Half of Glasgow was going home for its midday meal, and this was no moment to discuss the signs of the afflictions of Venus: the privy itching, the burning water. It occurred to him that he had not foreseen this aspect of educating a young man when he took on an assistant.
Andro, the captain of the castle guard, was crossing the outer yard when they emerged from the gatehouse. He received the news with resignation, and promised to put the Trindle out of bounds to his men.
‘No that it’ll make much difference,’ he said. ‘Once that’s abroad in a town there’s only one way to avoid it, and they’re never all going to take that road.’ He eyed Gil. ‘Where have you got to wi this missing woman, maister? Or the other one?’
‘That’s what took me to the Trindle. The dead girl is one of theirs, Peg Simpson, last seen last night when they closed up. I need to find who she went off to meet. As for the other, I was hoping you might have something for me.’
‘No a thing.’ Andro shook his head gloomily. ‘We tramped all down the Girth Burn to the mill-burn, we’ve looked in sheds and outhouses and cellars and all, we’ve had as many sweirings from kitchen-wives. They’re still out searching, but we’re far enough fro the Cross now that if she was carried there to be hidden, you’d wonder why they bothered going so far. If you ken what I mean.’
‘You think she’s alive, then?’
‘Or hid somewhere right cunning. Tell you truth, I think she’s run off wi her lover. She never got untied fro the Cross hersel, somebody helped her and took her off. Likely she’s at Edinburgh by now, though how she got out o Glasgow’s anyone’s guess, for she never passed the ports this morning, I’ve checked wi all my lads.’
‘And the other lass? The dead one?’
‘No, that’s your problem, maister, none o mine.’
‘Just the same, if any of your men was in the Trindle last night, I’d like a word.’
‘You’ll get it,’ said Andro. ‘And I’ll get a word wi him too, whoever he is.’
‘So you have one lassie vanished away without trace,’ said Alys in her accented Scots, ‘apparently in her shift, and another lassie who left her. her place of work to speak to someone unknown, and turns up beaten to death, tied to the Cross, and strangled. In that order?’
‘In that order,’ Gil confirmed.
‘But are these the same matter?’ She clasped her hands together, then spread them apart, looking from one to the other. ‘Or are they separate?
‘You tell me,’ said Gil.
They were in the little solar at the back of the house, where they had retired after the midday repast along with small John and his toy horse, the last of the ale and a dish of sweetmeats. Now Lowrie handed the pewter dish to Catherine, who took a lozenge of apricot leather and said in disapproving French,
‘The girl who has vanished must have been melancholy indeed, to make such a vow as you describe, maistre. I do not know why her priest permitted it.’
‘But why?’ said Alys. ‘I can understand if she wished to live without candles, though doing without coal in Scotland in winter seems to me a great folly, but why would she vow never to wash or comb her hair? She must have been crawling with-’ She made a fastidious movement as if crushing something.
Lowrie offered,
‘The Provost’s captain was certain it would make her easy to trace, but I’m not so sure. She only has to wash herself and find some clothes, after all, to alter all that.’
‘She must also be absolved of the vow,’ Alys observed, ‘or be guilty of perjury.’ She withdrew her feet as John’s little wooden horse galloped over them, and went on, ‘Where would she find a priest for that? And would he see it as a moment to break the seal of confession and inform her friends?’
‘This is the upper town,’ Gil said ruefully. He seized John as the boy came within reach, and hauled him onto his knee. The harper’s son, Ealasaidh’s nephew and Gil’s ward, was a handsome child nearing three years old, tall for his age with sparkling blue eyes and a mop of dark curls. ‘Sit quiet a moment, John. She needny trouble the Cathedral or St Nicholas’, she just has to rattle at the nearest door to find a priest behind it.’
‘C’est vrai, maistre,’ said Catherine. ‘And his servant would not be bound by the seal of confession.’
‘John down! No cuddle!’
‘A good point, madame.’ Gil let the child go, and looked at Lowrie. ‘A task for you, then. Work your way out from the Cross, talking to servants, asking a different lot of questions. Not, Are they hiding Annie Gibb, but, Have they seen a woman in her shift at all?’
Lowrie pulled a face.
‘Andro and his men will have crossed that trail,’ he pointed out.
‘I’ve every confidence in you.’
‘But,’ persisted Lowrie, reddening at the comment, ‘you mind we thought they put the other lassie at the Cross to gain time. Is it worth hunting for her close by, or do we look further afield? Could she have left the burgh?’
‘How would one get out of Glasgow in the night?’ Alys wondered. ‘The ports would all be barred, but I suppose some of the vennels lead out where one could get onto the Dow Hill or the Stablegreen.’
‘In the dark,’ said Lowrie. ‘Here, John, horsie could run along the windowsill.’
‘Someone that knows Glasgow, and well, could do it,’ Gil said as the horse’s wooden legs clattered on the sill. ‘I don’t think that applies to any of the party at St Catherine’s, but I need to check. The brothers Muir might be more familiar wi the place, I’d say, given their kinsman’s office at St Mungo’s. I’d best get a word wi them and find out where they spent the night.’
‘She might also have left by boat, or on a horse,’ Alys said. ‘But surely, if she has spent the last year or two dwelling in one chamber, not taking even her share of the work about the house, she has no strength to walk any distance.’
‘That’s a good point. Aye, I think we make sure of whether she’s still within the burgh,’ Gil said, ‘afore we start looking outside.’
‘Much depends,’ said Catherine, ‘on just how much help the lady had, as well as where it came from.’
Gil nodded, and downed the last of his cup of ale.
‘I’ll get a word wi Otterburn,’ he said, ‘and call on Canon Muir. Then I’ll go and trouble St Catherine’s some more. I’m not convinced the whole answer’s there, but some of the questions lead back there, at least. Oh, and I need to find this ropewinder out towards Partick, and ask him about the cord.’
Alys rose, holding her hand out to the child. ‘Come, John, shall we see if Nancy has finished helping Kittock with the crocks? You could take Euan out with you,’ she added hopefully. ‘Kittock finds him no use about the kitchen.’
‘There’s a coincidence,’ said Gil.
‘Och, indeed I was working hard on Maister Cunningham’s behalf all the morning,’ protested Euan. He nodded towards the honey-coloured bulk of St Mungo’s where it loomed above the houses on the north side of the Drygate. ‘We was making certain, me and the vergers, that the lady was not hid about the High Kirk anywhere. I was never searching so big a building afore,’ he added earnestly. ‘You would be having no idea how many corners and stairs and chambers there are about the place, it is nothing like St Comghan’s wee kirk at home.’
‘Did you search the towers and all?’ Gil asked, irritation giving way to amusement.
‘Indeed we did. That Barnabas was saying there was no need, so naturally I would be making certain,’ said Euan virtuously. ‘Maister Cunningham has no need to concern himself wi St Mungo’s now, the lady is never hidden there.’
‘Thank you,’ said Gil. He took a wide course round a tethered pig, with the dog adhering to his heels, and looked up and down the Drygate. Chickens and another pig or two foraged in the street, children were playing, a few stragglers were returning to work after their midday meal. Little knots of women made their way to call on one house or another for the afternoon, many with spindle or sewing or other handwork bundled in an apron. The conversation Gil caught was mostly about Annie Gibb, though the dead girl was mentioned.