Hue and Cry (37 page)

‘Katrin posed a threat,’ he iterated slowly, ‘so he saw to her.’

‘Ah, but not like that!’ cried Agnes. ‘Sir, you must not think it. Katrin was to be denounced before the kirk, and her father too, for his delinquencies. She could not marry Tom. My husband would not loose him from his bonds.’

‘The kirk would force the marriage,’ argued Hew.

‘There were moves against her father. He foresaw the future, and was glad to leave. Gilbert gave them passage on his ship. We offered them a new life overseas, for they had nothing here.’

‘The
Angel
’s secret cargo!’ Hew exclaimed.

‘I do not understand you.’

‘Where is Katrin now?’

‘That is the worst part. She was distraught at the parting from Tom. We did not count it safe to let her say goodbye to him. The sailors forced the lass to board the ship. Once they had set sail she seemed to be resigned to it. She seemed to settle down. Then on the third night, without sight of land, she threw herself into the water and was drowned. Gilbert wrote to me. The captain turned his sail and searched for several days. They did not find her, though.’

Hew shook his head. ‘And you believed this?’

‘Aye, of course. You cannot think otherwise? Gilbert told me what had happened. He is not . . .’

‘A murderer?’

Agnes shuddered. ‘That was a mistake. The dyer had provoked him. But he would not harm the girl.’

‘What happened to her father?’

‘They set him down on foreign shores. Gilbert offered him a place, but he declined it. There are sheep in Holland, are there not?’

Hew did not reply. ‘Madam, this dismays me,’ he concluded bleakly.

‘Aye, it is a tragedy. Gilbert felt it keenly. And we feel for Tom, who looks for Katrin still.’

‘Have you not told him?’

‘How could I?’ she smiled at him faintly. ‘I believe he loves her, after all.’

‘What does it mean,’ Hew thought aloud, ‘to be caught
red-hand
?’

‘Why then,’ Giles looked up from his breakfast, ‘to be taken in the act.’

‘Aye, but
literally
?’

‘With bloodied hands.’

‘Precisely so. Will Dyer told me it could not be Nicholas that killed his father, though Nicholas was caught red-hand, for he had nothing
on
his hands.’

‘Gilbert Strachan killed his father,’ his friend reminded him.

‘Aye, and
he
wore gloves. And he wore a long green cloak, which protected him from the dye.’

‘Which would imply,’ suggested Giles, ‘he did premeditate the crime.’

‘It does imply it. According to Agnes, a single spot of dye had splashed his face, configured like a bruise. What colour is a bruise?’

‘Hew, we have lectures at ten.’

‘Ah, humour me. This is your field. What colour is a bruise?’

‘A bruise may be a rainbow made of yellows, purples, blues . . .’

‘A rainbow, aye. Agnes said the dyer had defiled her. She did not mean just the rape. She meant he left his mark upon her like a bruise, a purple stain. I saw it on her wrists. I thought her husband had been cruel to her. But I was mistaken.’

‘Where does this lead?’ Giles tore off and buttered a fat chunk of bread.

Hew answered with a question. ‘Why was Alexander wrapped in wool?’

‘No doubt you mean to tell me.’

‘I think it was to stop the blood. The murderer had split his skull. Then it would bleed, no doubt.’

‘For certain, a good deal,’ assented Giles. ‘Head wounds bleed profusely. Since he smashed the skull, there would be matter too.’ He spoke through a splutter of crumbs.

‘It would stain his clothes and his hands.’

‘They would be thick with it.’

‘I think the murderer used the cloth to wipe his hands and face,’ continued Hew, ‘and then he wrapped the boy to staunch the blood. There was no water in the shop. He could not wash. Then what were the colour of blood?’

Giles gave up his breakfast and sighed. ‘
Blood-colour
. I once bought a blood-colour coat. I did not care for it. It showed up all the smears.’

‘Tactless, for a man of your profession.’

‘Disconcerting, aye.’

‘What colour was your coat?’

‘It was an ox-blood red, a sort of curdled wine,’ Giles answered wistfully.

‘And yet it did not mask the spots of blood,’ persisted Hew. ‘The spirit from the arteries is light red, bright and spouting. Venous blood is dark and coursing, almost black. Dried, it makes a sullen brown.’

‘That is correct.’

‘Then blood in all those colours marked the killer’s clothes as he walked home through the town that Sunday afternoon.’

‘But how? It would be seen.’

‘No doubt it was.’

At ten o’clock, Hew read his lecture to the magistrands. ‘I see that Duncan Stewart remains absent,’ he concluded. ‘Can he be unwell?’

The students exchanged glances. One of them said, ‘I believe Principal Gilchrist has excused him, sir. His father is in town. He will hear the reading-over.’

‘He has not mentioned it to me. Pray tell him when you see him there will be no reading-over. Since the rest of you attend, I see no need for it.’

The boy hesitated. ‘Is it to be examined, sir?’

‘Indeed it is. You may tell him I’ll be here tomorrow morning, after six, if he would like to discuss it. But I do not intend to give this lecture again. Now work on quietly, for I have business in the town, and may not return before the dinner hour. This afternoon I will hear you argue on the theme of whether women can have souls. I see you smile. I do assure you, tis no jest. Practise in your pairs. I thank you, gentlemen.’

It had begun to rain. Against the blackened sky, the dyer’s cottage seemed more isolated still, more resolutely desolate. The children were playing in the yard, eyes watering in the wind. A smaller girl had taken Jennie’s place. Her features were set hard. They threw pebbles at the water butt in some haphazard game, the youngest brother snivelling listlessly. They did not look up from their play.

Inside, the house was quiet, the children’s voices fleeting, dropping like the gulls. At first he did not see her though he sensed her watching him. She sat shadowed in the stoor, shrinking in her chair beside the fire. Without recognition, without curiosity, she acknowledged him. ‘My sons are gone to market, sir. Come back another day.’

‘I do not want your sons.’ He pulled up a stool and sat in the midst of it, snatching in his breath amid the thickness of the stench. He wondered she could breathe in it, so close before the fire. Dung-clots of dyestuff clung to the hearth. He smelled the mordant and the lye.

‘What do you want?’ she whispered.

‘We have met before. I came here with my sister on the day your child was born. I’m sorry for your loss.’

She did not reply to this, and he went on, ‘I am a man of law, and I make enquiries into your husband’s death.’

‘Aye?’ she asked, uncurious. ‘It is resolved. They have the man.’

‘Yet it is not resolved. I know who killed your husband. It was not Nicholas Colp.’

Without hope or interest, she said simply, ‘Aye?’

‘It was Gilbert Strachan.’

He heard her mirthless laughter. Then, ‘That’s fair enough,’ she answered quietly.

‘Aye. There was a black deed done. I think you know.’

She shook her head. ‘My man is dead.’

‘You know that he raped Agnes Ford?’

‘There can be no proof of that. Besides, she was a whore.’

He could not read the flatness in her tone. He sensed indifference, resignation, patience, lack of care. ‘Why do you protect him still?’ he challenged her.

Her eyes were open wide. She watched him pale and colourless, as if convention, like a hand, had moved her face. He saw no feeling there. She spoke complacently. ‘I have good sons, who hope to have some standing in the town. Will’s an honest lad. How should I condemn their father, when he is not here to answer? Let God judge.’

‘But others here must answer, if you will not tell the truth. You told it to your daughter, I believe.’

‘Told Nan?’ She laughed a little scornfully. ‘What should I tell her? She’s only a bairn.’

‘No, not Nan. You told your daughter Jennie that her father was a wicked man, that he had blackness in his heart.’

‘I have no daughter Jennie. She is dead.’

‘I have seen her, though,’ he contradicted. ‘She has spoken to me. Would you not know how she lives?’

‘I can imagine how she
lives
,’ she answered bitterly. ‘She’s her father’s child. I have no daughter Jennie, for she’s dead.’

He rose from the stool and walked to the window, drinking in the air. Standing with his back to her, he proceeded quietly, ‘You told her she was like her father.
How
was she like him? And you would not suffer your dead infant to be buried in his grave. You preferred him to lie without Christian burial. Why?’

He felt grateful for the air. In part, he did not want to look
upon her face. He sensed a change in her. He knew she held the answer. He was coming close to it. And somewhere, in this house dark-steeped among the lye, would lie the proofs. He knew, and was afraid it might dissolve into the stew. Like Jennie, when he found it, it might disappear. But she was talking still.

‘She is like her father. Wicked, bold and lustful.
Whore
.’

He pictured her there, thin and resentful, stirring the ashes, stirring the lye.

‘Yet she was not to blame,’ he said, just soft enough.

She rose to it. ‘He could not help his lusts, for he was moist and hot. But she is cold and dry. She preys on men like him. He could not help himself.’

‘Poor Jennie,’ he said inwardly. Aloud, he said, ‘When you told her what her father was, she did not believe you.’

‘Her father dealt in filth. He saw filth where’er he turned. Her father’s daughter! Aye, I telt her. She’d have none of it.’

‘When was it that you knew?’ he asked.

‘I knew when Agnes told me. You cannot think he kept me privy to his ain foul filthie secrets. I was full with child.’

‘I do not mean the rape. For that did not dismay you. There was something more.’

‘My husband an adulterer, a fornicator, not dismay me? How could there be more? If Jennie told you more, she lied to you.’ There was uncertainty, a high note marking fear, behind the voice.

He counselled quietly, ‘You were not to blame.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘It was not your fault that he left you while you were with child. That he had to look elsewhere.’

He had gone too far now to retreat. He turned on her. ‘Were you
grateful
for it?’ he persisted. ‘That it was Agnes he forced, and let you be? Agnes was a whore, he told you that. Did she not deserve it, then?’

‘He told me nothing,’ Janet cried.

‘Did you feel responsible? But you were not responsible. Did you feel guilty? Did you feel glad? I imagine you felt both.
You understood his needs. Yet you could not fulfil them. You could condone the rape. It was the other thing that you could not forgive.’

‘I don’t know what you speak of,’ she insisted.

‘Then I’ll tell you.’ He had returned to face her, speaking fast and low. ‘When your husband forced his lust on Agnes Ford, it was witnessed by her nephew, Alexander Strachan. He was hiding in the shop. Your husband found him there, and took his life. And when he had killed him, he came home to you. He walked through the marketplace, spattered with blood. But because he was the dyer, he was not remarkable. No one wondered at his clothes. He hid behind the mask that was himself.’

She was shivering. Yet still she answered stubbornly. ‘It was the Sabbath day. His clothes were clean.’

‘Aye, that’s true. He took the risk that those who saw him in the town there would not remark the change. For he was always stained. Even when he wore his Sunday clothes, he could not rid his fingers of the dye. He was despised for it. Men would not shake his hand. Then why would anyone look twice, when he came through the marketplace crusted in gore? And yet to you, who were his wife, it must have seemed irregular. You must have known.’

‘I swear I did not know it at the time,’ she whispered hopelessly. ‘I asked him what had happened to his Sunday coat and he answered he had worn it to the pots. Will was working on a shade and was anxious lest he lost it, and it needed something adding in the afternoon. George had spilled the dye. His coat and breeks were stiff with it. It was not until your sister came with blood upon her sleeve I understood the truth for what it was. My husband, sir, would never stir the pots upon the Sabbath, even to preserve the dye. He did not work on Sundays. He had told a lie.’

‘Do you have them still?’ Hew demanded urgently. ‘The bloodied coat and hose?’

He knew before she spoke it would be hopeless, and before
she shook her head. ‘He wore them afterwards for dyeing,’ she replied. ‘For they were ruined. He was wearing them the day he died. And since his skin was purple and his face . . . It did not seem worth the expense of a fresh suit of clothes, and he was buried in them. It was more than he deserved.’

There was no solace in the truth. He knew the whole. It did not comfort him.

Janet saw it in his face, for she returned complacently, ‘There’s justice of a sort if Gilbert Strachan killed him.’ Then she smiled a little. ‘Now I understand that Agnes was protecting him. She wanted me to help her prove the crimes were linked. She begged me to give evidence in court.’

‘That served you both,’ reflected Hew, ‘though neither you nor Agnes realised it. She asked you to swear against Nicholas Colp, because she knew that Gilbert Strachan killed your husband, and you no doubt agreed to it, because you knew your husband had killed Gilbert’s Strachan’s son.’

‘So you say, sir.’ Janet shrugged. ‘Let the dead lie. What you accuse will never be proved.’

It was almost two o’clock when Hew returned to St Leonard’s. The students had dispersed and Gilchrist scowled at him across the lecture room. ‘You keep peculiar hours. I looked for you and found your magistrands alone.’

Hew smiled apologetically. ‘I left them to rehearse their theme. If I overhear their practising, I find that it inhibits them. I trust you found them working hard?’