Hue and Cry (21 page)

‘At last we have the chance to speak in private. I have questions I would put to you.’

‘What questions?’ Tom was defiant. ‘I don’t know you, sir.’ His voice was low enough, but Hew saw twin spots of anger colour his cheeks. The boy had not been softened by his morning on the cutty stool. It was bravado, perhaps, but Hew sensed he would not be bullied.

‘But I know
you
. I was in your master’s shop when Alexander’s corpse was found, and again on the day that you were arrested. I am a man of law, and I have been watching you. You were witness to a crime and must give evidence in court. I am here to take your statement.’

‘I was cleared of the crime,’ Tom said stubbornly. ‘None can say otherwise.’

‘Nonetheless, you are a witness. If you are cited and will not compear, the penalties are most severe; the least of which may see you put to the horn. For bearing false witness in so grave a case you will forfeit your hand or your tongue.’ He spoke in a light tone, almost offhand, as if he saw this happen all the time. From the corner of his eye he saw it met its mark.

‘I swear to you, sir, I have nothing to tell.’

‘Then you have nothing to fear. Nonetheless,’ Hew feigned a yawn, ‘it is my job to read your answers to the court. Now we can do this several ways. You can answer now, and willingly submit to question, or I can come back to your master’s house, and hold the inquisition there, or I can report that you refuse my questions. In that case you will be summoned in person to give your account, on pain of the aforementioned penalties. Perhaps you would prefer that? Then you may go home. And thank you for your trouble with the chair.’

‘Wait!’ Tom cried, bewildered. ‘You might ask your questions, if they won’t take too much time.’

‘Indeed?’ Hew glanced carelessly out at the sun. ‘I’ve little time myself. So let’s be done. Sit on the bench there. I’ll fetch ink and paper. I’ll write what you say, and you may find a friend to read it to you later if you will, when you have made your mark. Comfortable? What shall we say?’ He chewed the quill. ‘You are Tom Begbie, prenticed to the weaver Archie Strachan, taken up in error for the murder of his nephew, and present when the body was discovered in your bed.’ Tom nodded cautiously.

‘So far so good. Now tell me what happened that day.’

‘We were in Crail for the market,’ the boy remembered. ‘Alexander was meant to come too, but he didn’t appear. We thought he was asleep in bed.’

‘And no one went to wake him?’

‘The master said to leave him. Not for pity, but to spite him. He cared little for the boy.’

‘Did you like Alexander?’ Hew enquired.

Tom’s reply was guarded. ‘I had little to do with him, sir, but had no cause to wish him ill . . . in truth . . . in truth, is this private, sir? I mean from my master.’

Hew nodded. ‘If you give a full account, then he need not know it.’

‘I had reason to like him, sir, for he drew off the attentions of Tibbie – she’s my master’s daughter – which were troublesome to me, for I had . . .’ The sentence trailed away.

Hew smiled sympathetically. ‘You had attachments of your own, which brought you to a sorry state, as I infer. Well, it’s atoned for. The courts will not trouble with that. Did Alexander return the girl’s affections?’

‘No, I don’t think so. Not that that stopped her. You must not think . . . she’s a flirt, sir, a sport. Her passions have no depth.’

‘I understand.’ He made a note. ‘Who was the last person to see Alexander?’

‘My master, his uncle, spoke to him on Saturday, and told him to be sure to be ready at dawn. They quarrelled about something. It was his work, I think. He had been taking lessons with his tutor, and I don’t think they were going all that well. In the morning he cursed him and called out his name. But he didn’t go up to his room.’

‘Could your master have killed him?’

Tom looked confused. ‘Was it not Master Colp?’

‘
That
, Tom, is slander,’ Hew said severely. ‘The writ is not served.’

‘It’s what my master said,’ Tom stammered. ‘But I hoped it was a lie. I saw him in the gaol.’

‘Aye, so you did. What did he want there?’

‘Like you, sir, the truth. And he went to tell Katrin. In truth, though he meant well, I wish he had not. But my master . . . why would he kill him? For he could not profit from it. He was reliant on his brother for a good share of his income, which he has lost since Alexander’s death. We’ve all felt the loss, in more ways than one.’

‘Suppose it was an accident?’ Hew put to him. ‘Suppose he struck the boy, so hard it killed him, and then placed the body in your closet, hoping to incriminate you?’

‘It’s possible . . . but no, my master did not come into the shop. And besides, he would not have put him in the closet. He expected me to be asleep there.’

‘He did not know you had gone out?’

‘I cannot think he did. I should have felt it,’ Tom said meaningfully. ‘I do not think that he dissembled, when he
did
discover it.’
He winced. ‘Truly, sir, when I look back, I cannot think that he killed Alexander, even in the foulest temper. You will not write I thought it possible?’ he added anxiously.

‘Since you retract it, no.’ Hew pretended to have made a mark upon the paper. Mentally, he made a different note.

‘Was there anyone else who knew you left the shop unlocked at night? Apart from Katrin?’ he continued.

‘No one. Only Alexander.’

‘
Alexander
knew?’

‘Aye.’ The boy looked up at him. ‘He liked to walk about at night. Sometimes he came home to find the house was locked and then he slept below the counter. In summer months, I lie there myself. It’s far less warm and choking than the bed. I kept his secret. He kept mine.’

‘Then is it possible he slept there on the night that he was murdered?’

‘It’s possible. I know that he felt hot and closed up in the loft. But he would not have climbed into the bed. He disliked the walls around him and could never bear to be enclosed.’

‘And all the night, you left the place unlocked?’

‘Until just before the dawn. If he was there, I did not see him. Though it’s possible he kept beneath the counter. He had the knack to lie there very small and silent when his uncle was around. I left my
wife
,’ he spoke the word defiantly, ‘a little before the dawn, loaded up the cart with cloths for the market, and made fast the doors. I left the keys with Agnes. My mistress must have come into the shop while we were gone, for when we returned from Crail I found the doors unlocked.’

‘You’re sure of this? And certain that you locked them?’

‘Certain, sir.’ He flushed unhappily. ‘My master has gone into this most rigorously. He no longer allows me the use of the keys.’

‘I thank you,’ Hew said thoughtfully. ‘You have been most helpful.’

‘Then there need not be a summons, sir?’ the boy asked anxiously.

‘In all probability, not. There may be further questions. I shall have to speak to Katrin. Can you tell me where she lives?’

The boy shook his head, so hopelessly that Hew could scarcely doubt he told the truth, and whispered, ‘I went to the cottage to look for her, to look after her and make her my wife. The hearth had blown cold and the chimney pot was empty, sir. She and her father are gone.’

As Tom returned home, Hew arrived at the Kinness Burn. Jennie Dyer sat on the grass a little way from the house, up wind from the lye pot, hugging her knees in her dress. He could not read her expression.

‘Ma’s done with her crying,’ she said, ‘but ye canna go in.’

He dropped down beside her. ‘How does she now?’

She rolled her eyes upwards. ‘She’s cast out the bairn. Wee crabbit scrap of a thing, skin boiling red, an’ it roars.’ Hew felt for her, remembering her struggles with the fat untrammelled infant in the kirk. He looked through his pockets and offered a sticky sweet plum, stolen from the merchant’s house. She nibbled it cautiously.

‘Candies. You came here before.’

‘Aye. I remembered you like to eat sweetmeats.’

She feigned indifference. ‘That’s for the babies. They’re down at the burn with my brother Jem. The lassie says, “Go wash the sheets,” for she wants to be rid of them. Gurning and greeting they were, my brother the worst of them. Not any help to her.’

‘I expect
you
were, though.’ He had taken out a little box of fruits, and she reached out a greedy thin arm.

‘Mebbe I was. Will I sit on your lap?’

He was startled. ‘Aren’t you a little old for that?’

‘I’m twelve. I’m not too young.’

Hew decided to ignore this. ‘Twelve’s too old for sitting on a stranger’s lap, don’t you think?’

‘I thought that you might like it,’ she seemed chastened for a moment, and then quickly recovered, ‘in return for the candies. My dada liked me to.’

‘But that’s a different matter, as I think you know. Here, you may have the whole box. I’ve no taste for sweetmeats. My cousin is a merchant, and he brings these by the shipload for his lady wife, peaches and damsons and pippins and pears. She fears she grows so fat and foul of tooth he will take his sweets elsewhere, and so she palms them off on me.’

This forced a grudging smile. ‘Does he live in a grand house with pictures and paint on the ceilings?’

‘He does indeed. I think you must have met him.’

‘No. But one day I will live in a house like that.’ She had crammed her mouth with sticky marmalades.

‘I wouldn’t eat them all at once,’ Hew winked, ‘they might be useful in the kirk come Sunday next.’

Jennie scowled. ‘I won’t go back.’

‘I don’t blame you. Won’t you have to, though? I thought you were very brave, to stand up there and tell them all.’

‘My brother didna think so.’ She pulled back her sleeve and revealed a new bruise, shiny and blue as the plum.

‘I’m sorry. Are your brothers not kind to you?’

She considered it, sucking the sweets. ‘Will’s alright. But he only cares about the dyes. He went for the midwife, and never came back. James is after being prenticed to the Strachans. He thinks that if he sits by them in kirk and makes eyes at Strachan’s daughter he will take him for his son, but they’ll not take him. No one wants to know the dyers, Dada says . . .’ She frowned. ‘Yon lassie,’ she turned quickly to the house, ‘says the bairn will want a wet nurse, for my mother has no milk. Do you think that we will find one in the town?’

‘It’s not a thing I know about. But I suppose they may be had.’

‘When there’s a
hoor
with child.’

‘You ought not to speak so,’ he chided.

‘Why not?’ She seemed puzzled. ‘If there’s a hoor in milk, she may give suck to pay off her penance. It’s in the kirk I heard it. How can it be wrong? You heard the confession. Yon went with hoors. Twas his lass, did I tell you, came by here the day that my father died.’

‘Katrin? Are you sure?’

‘I saw her at the Strachans’ house, on Thursday last. Mammie sent me to buy threads. And she was standing by the door. I recognised her face. Archie Strachan came out bawling, called her hoor, and strumpet. She was crying. Agnes came and whispered to her. Then she went away.’

‘On Thursday last? And since she’s fled,’ Hew muttered thoughtfully.

‘Aye, so she has. And if
I
had to marry, I’d make off myself. Who will we have, if there aren’t any whores? You saw how it was. None come to help but a stranger, who’d not smelt the stink.’

‘She’s my sister, and strong in the lung. I hope you don’t call her a whore,’ he teased her.

She stuck out her lip, unrepentant. ‘You know that I don’t. I did not know she was your sister, though. She says my mother needs some herbs, and she’ll come back with them tomorrow. Do you think that she will?’

‘If she says it.’

‘She’s kind to us, then.’ She fell silent. Hew felt once more in his pocket and brought out a purse.

‘How many children are there now?’

‘Eight living, and three in the kirkyard with Da.’

You’ll no doubt want some money with another mouth to feed.’

Jennie Dyer coloured. ‘I’m not to take your money. We don’t need it.’

‘I’m not saying you need it, but perhaps you deserve it? You like pretty things. And you took it before.’

‘Aye. And my brothers did not like it. I was not to tell you things.’

‘You don’t always do what they tell you, I think. How did they know what you had said?’

‘The weans told the boys ’bout the pennies, and Jem said not to go talking to strangers, nor taking their money.’ She had closed in a corner, nursing her arm. Hew sighed and put the purse away.

‘Well, do what you will. For I think you’ve a mind enough to do that anyway. I will ask you a question and you can answer or ignore it as you please, and since you won’t accept a penny then you can’t be said to break your brothers’ rule. You remember me asking about the day your father died. You told me a lie, and I’m not sure what the lie was, or why you told it to me, but I do know you told me a lie about something. Now, you and I do not have many friends here in the town. A friend of mine, who was taken ill the day your father died, has been accused of killing him. I don’t believe that he did so, and nor, for that matter, does your brother Will. You were here on that day. If you know anything to help me help my friend, then please remember it and tell me. We both need all our friends now, don’t you think?’

The child’s eyes had grown very wide. ‘My father was drowned, though,’ she whimpered. ‘He slipped in the pots. It was an accident.’

‘Is that what they told you? Come now, you’re a clever girl, you can’t believe that. Why do you think there are whispers and gossiping still in the church? You’ve seen the size of the dye pots. How could your dada fall in? Was he drunk? Of course he was not. He was struck from behind, and mercifully dead before he hit the water. I am sorry. You loved him. But someone did not.’

‘There was a man here,’ she said softly, biting back the tears, ‘there was a man, with a beard and green cloak, who wanted the piss pot. He’s not from our kirk, and his voice was quite fine.’

‘A gentleman, think you? A merchant? A scholar?’

‘I don’t know. I’d not seen him before.’