‘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.
‘He’ll be off about some ploy of his own,’ he said when the breakfast was brought in. ‘I’ll have a word or two to say to him when he does come home. Either he’s serving me or he’s not, and if he’s not he can take himself off. I could ha done wi his help today dealing wi Barnabas’ death, to let Lowrie carry on with the other business.’
‘Yes, indeed you must look into that. It seems astonishing,’ said Alys, ladling porridge into the new earthenware bowls, ‘that the man should have been thieving from the Almoner’s stores for so long and never been found out.’
‘Particularly when Alan Jamieson keeps a record of everything.’ Gil accepted a bowl and horn spoon, helped himself to a generous portion of butter from the dish on the plate-cupboard and strolled off across the hall, prodding the melting butter into the greyish mass of the oatmeal. Socrates followed him, looking hopeful.
‘I wonder how he got it out of the kirk,’ said Alys. ‘Surely he must have been seen.’
‘I wondered that too,’ said Lowrie. ‘There must be folk in and out that hall all the hours of daylight. Ah!’
‘Perhaps by darkness,’ Gil agreed. ‘Or perhaps it’s simply that a verger moving a sack of meal or the like is nothing to remark on.’
‘And he left his task, the Almoner said,’ persisted Alys, ‘taking the length of cord with him, and saying, I see it now. What was it that he saw? How the girl Peg was killed? Or who tried to strangle her?’ She sat down by the little table where the crocks were laid, waiting till her own porridge had cooled.
‘I thought at first,’ Gil admitted, ‘it was how the thefts were taking place, but it looks as if he knew all about those, even if he wasn’t solely responsible for them himself. It must be something else, I agree.’
‘So who did he go to meet? Or perhaps,’ she dug thoughtfully with the ladle into the crock of porridge, ‘perhaps we had better ask, who did he think he was going to meet? And why? Did he go to speak to his accomplice? Did he plan to accuse someone of throttling the girl who was at the Cross? And which of these would strangle him only for what he said?’