Gil considered this. Landsman that he was, he had not thought of this route.
‘Aye, but when would slack tide be?’ he wondered. ‘Would there be a mariner down at the haven who might recall?’
‘Midnight,’ said Peter confidently, ‘or no so long after.’
‘You mind that, do you?’ asked Gil in surprise.
The man grinned sidelong at him. ‘Aye, I mind it fine. It so happens I’d a night on the Tay wi my cousin that dwells down the river a wee bittie, and we’d some trouble wi the water-bailies, and I was late back.’
Fishing, Gil thought, probably without a permit. ‘You’re certain it was the same day?’
‘Aye, well, Maister Currie had a word to say about my absence,’ Peter explained, ‘and I had to see to the horses afore I could eat, and by the time I got to the buttery two of the songmen doing a flit was all they could speak of. So I mind it well as being the same day.’
Did the time add up? Gil wondered. He looked at the fore-stair again. It would certainly be easy enough to make one’s way down, perhaps by lantern-light, and across the square to one or the other of the vennels which led out between the houses.
‘Is it far to the haven?’
‘Our Lady love you, maister, it’s no but a step. Down this vennel here, see,’ Peter beckoned, and dived down the narrow entry like a rabbit, ‘and out on to the Northgate, and yon’s the haven at the street’s end.’ He emerged at the vennel’s end and pointed. Gil, following him, looked over the heads of the passers-by at the rocking masts, and nodded. ‘And yon’s the Skinnergate, just across the way,’ the man ended.
‘And when you had your night on the Tay,’ said Gil. Peter gave him a wary look. ‘Do you mind if there were any vessels went down the river?’
‘Aye, there were.’ Peter stepped aside out of the path of two men with a barrel slung on a pole between them. ‘Two or three, there was.’
‘Who would know who they were?’ Gil asked. ‘Would your cousin be able to name them?’
‘Oh, aye, likely, if he can mind who they were,’ said Peter with confidence. ‘He kens all the traffic on the Tay, does our Danny. I’ve no doubt if he can mind them he can name them and who’s the skipper. Excepting one,’ he added doubtfully, ‘I mind he said was a Hollander and he’d no notion who skippered it.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Gil. ‘Now about Maister Stirling.’
With a lot of circumstantial detail, Peter explained how he had tracked James Stirling, from these properties to that one, to this house next to where they stood, and finally into the Skinnergate. He was still annoyed by his failure to follow the man far enough, ‘but if even Wat Currie never knew of his having rents of his own to collect, there’s none of us would know of it,’ he said, more than once. ‘I still wonder that he never took any of us wi him, even if he wasny expecting to gather in the money that day.’
‘Did he often go about alone?’ Gil asked.
‘Sometimes aye, sometimes no. This time it was no, I suppose.’
Gil nodded, then clapped the man on the shoulder and said, ‘There’s more experienced huntsmen than you been caught out the same way. Never mind it now, man, and show me where you were cast at fault.’
The Bishop’s Skinnergate properties were the first two houses on the street, a narrow prosperous way lined with leatherworkers’ shops, shoemakers, glovers, a bookbinder, several saddlers, all making use of the proceeds of the skinner’s trade and the tanyards which made their presence known beyond the town Ditch. In Glasgow the stinking trades were banished east of the burgh, so that the prevailing westerly winds carried the worst of the smell away, but on this side of the country the wind blew as often from the east as from the west. It made sense of a sort, Gil supposed, to put the tanners out to the north. He ducked a set of harness dangling from the overhang of a saddler’s house, avoided an apprentice who was trying to sell him a pair of hawking-gloves, and said over his shoulder:
‘I’m not surprised nobody saw what way he went along here. Is it always as busy as this?’
‘Times it’s busier,’ said Peter. ‘Now that’s where I tracked our man last,’ he pointed to a sagging wooden building, ‘and the wife there said he’d passed the time of day, civil enough, agreed when he’d be back to uplift what was due to my lord, and she shut the door as he got to the foot o the step, so she never saw what way he turned after.’ He nodded at the bustling street. ‘And if he went on to the Red Brig Port, it’s this way.’
The two properties at the end of the street, next to the port, were quite different in aspect. The first they came to was a narrow toft, barely wider than the gable of the low stone house at the street end. A goat’s skull complete with horns hung at the corner of the building and a well-trampled path led past the door. There was a number of workshops visible down its length, with smoke and hammering and the various signs of metalworking. From the house itself, a persistent rasping and the pungent smell of burnt horn told Gil what trade the occupant followed, long before Peter said:
‘Aye, that’s Francis Dewar the horner. Right good combs he makes, and wee boxes and all sorts, maister, you’d get a fairing to take home to your wife if you wanted one.’
‘A good thought,’ said Gil, looking about him. No wonder Stirling had paid back the loan so prompt; the many small rents from this subdivided property would add up very nicely.
The next toft was much wider and was obviously occupied by a tanner; there was a stretched hide in a frame slung from the eaves of the well-built house and the long yard behind it was full of stacks of half-cured skins. Next to the house was the Red Brig Port, a more businesslike affair than those Glasgow found adequate. The massive leaves of the gate stood open at this time of day, and its custodian was sitting in the sunshine, his back against one of the two great posts. He opened his eyes as they passed him, but did not move. A laden cart rumbled ponderously towards them, on to the wooden bridge, and Gil stopped at the near end of the creaking structure to wait for it, looking down into the Town Ditch. It was both wide and deep, full of greenish murky water and streaming weeds. There seemed to be a strong current.
‘The town’s well defended,’ he commented.
‘Oh, aye,’ agreed Peter. ‘That’s why my lord spends the most o his time here. The wild Ersche come down raiding at Dunkeld, three weeks out o four, but they’ll no bother coming this far just for a wetting.’
‘How wide is the Ditch?’
‘Four fathom? It began as the leat for the town mills,’ Peter offered, ‘and then Edward Longshanks had it dug to this size when he fortified Perth, or so they say. Had all the able men o Perth working at it for weeks, and oversaw them hissel in case they ran away or laid a trap.’
Gil looked at the Ditch again. That would account for its size, he thought. Beyond it was a typical suburb, the usual mix of hovels and larger houses along with the working yards of tanner and skinner, a dyer over yonder, all the stinking trades, as he had surmised. The sound of barking floated over the noises of industry.
‘The Bishop got his wee dog out here somewhere?’ he recalled.
‘Aye, that’s right,’ agreed Peter. ‘It’s a woman, a cousin o Mitchel MacGregor that’s Maister Currie’s own man, which would likely be how my lord heard o her. She’s got a place over yonder, at the back o the dyeyard. The most o her dogs is no bad,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘Were ye wishing a word wi her, or will it be Andy Cornton the tanner’s house?’
‘I’ll see her after,’ Gil decided. ‘Is she on her own? No sign of her man?’
‘I’ve never set eyes on him,’ said Peter, following him back towards the gate. ‘He’s a mimmerkin, they say. A duarch.’ He held his hand out, waist high, to demonstrate. ‘They’ve no bairns, but.’
Maister Cornton was evidently doing well. The house was well maintained, the fore-stair swept clean and a tub of flowers set by the door. When Gil rattled at the tirlingpin the maidservant who leaned out above them to answer took one look at Peter’s livery and vanished, reappearing at the door a moment later.