Free The Harper's Quine by Pat McIntosh

of how she had purchased the linen. Her waitingwoman nodded in time to her words.
    ‘Did you see anybody in the kirkyard after the Office?’
Gil asked. The men exchanged glances, and all shook their
heads.
    ‘Not even Bess, damn her,’ said Sempill. ‘I told you -
Neil came into the kirk, said he’d left her in the hawbushes, but when I went out she’d gone.’ He stared at the
empty fireplace, chewing his lip. ‘Not a sign of her.
I checked through the bushes - you can see right through,
but I went to the other side. I looked down the kirkyard,
and not a thing was stirring.’
    ‘You are sure of that?’ said Gil.
    ‘I keep telling you. Besides,’ he added, undermining this
statement, ‘I assumed she’d run off. If she could do me an
ill turn she would.’
    ‘We were close enough behind to see him moving about
in the haw-bushes,’ said his cousin, and James Campbell
nodded and muttered something that might have been
agreement.
    ‘And were you all together during Compline?’
    Once more they exchanged glances. After a moment
Campbell said, fiddling with his embroidered shirt-duffs,
‘There was some coming and going to other altars. You know the style of thing. I was gone long enough myself to
say a prayer to St James and come back to the others.’

    ‘I left money for candles to St Thomas,’ agreed Philip
Sempill. ‘It took me the length of a Gloria, I suppose. John
was the only one who stood the Office through. Oh, and
one of the men. Euan, maybe.’
    ‘I thought you were watching us, Maister Cunningham,’
said Lady Euphemia, looking up with her needle poised
above her seam. ‘Did you not see where we all were?’
    ‘My attention may have wandered,’ said Gil drily.
Sempill frowned, looking for the insult, but Lady
Euphemia cast her eyes down again, and the dimple
flashed. ‘And the wee dark fellow?’ Gil continued. ‘What
is he, a musician? Where was he?’
    ‘Antonio?’ said James Campbell dismissively. ‘He’d
likely be listening to the music. I’ll swear he thinks in
tablature.’
    ‘Never in Scots, that’s for certain,’ said Sempill. Gil,
turning to set down his wine-cup, caught sight of
Euphemia’s expression. She was listening to her companion, but her needle had paused again, and her mouth
curved, softly crooked as if she was recalling the taste of
stolen fruit.
    ‘And afterwards?’ he continued. ‘ou all came back to
the house together?’
    ‘Oh, yes. And sat together afterwards. We were up here
for an hour or so listening to lute music.’ Philip Sempill
looked round, and Campbell of Glenstriven said,
    ‘Aye, that sounds about right. And playing at the cards;
he added.
    ‘Even the two gallowglasses?’
    ‘Neil and Euan?’ said John Sempill dismissively. ‘They’d
be in the kitchen, likely, you could ask Marriott
Kennedy.’
    ‘And what about the dead woman?’ Gil asked. ‘Tell me
about her. Why would anybody want to kill her?’
    Three pairs of eyes stared, and there was a pause in the
chatter behind him.

    ‘I took it to be some beggar or broken man,’ said Sempill
after a moment. ‘Why should it have been deliberate?’
    ‘I hoped you could tell me that.’
    ‘She was a quiet body,’ said Philip Sempill thickly, shaking his head.
    ‘Quiet!’ exploded his cousin. ‘She scarcely had a word,
and that not civil.’
    ‘That was after you took your belt to her.’
    ‘And why would I not? I needed an heir - she knew
I needed an heir - and then she lost it, the clumsy bitch. So
after that she never spoke to me. And if she had I’d have
clouted her round the lug for what she cost me.’
    Rage boiled up, a physical presence in Gil’s chest. He
put up a hand to finger his upper lip in concealment,
taking a moment to compose himself, astonished at the
strength of the response. Never condemn, his uncle had said,
you’ll get the story clearer. He had been referring to pleas of
divorce, but it applied just as firmly