The Devil's Recruit (20 page)

‘We thought at first, as you do, that he had been driven mad by the drink, that the visions he claimed were the product of a mind destroyed. He swore to us then he would never touch another drop. It was not the first time he had done so, I grant you, but he had been so frightened out of his wits we believed him. And then, he did not touch a drop all week, is that not right?’

The man who spoke looked around him for affirmation, and many heads nodded in assent. ‘Even his wife confirmed it. He had taken it ill a few days, but by the fifth day, Saturday, he was beginning to look more like a man in health – in mind and body too, and he praised the Lord for it, and begged our leave to do his penance before the whole kirk, in the seat of repentance on the Sabbath. That was what we allowed – it was from that seat, and not the pulpit, that we dragged him.’

I had noticed it earlier, below the altar table, facing the whole kirk, a small, wooden stool. By a kitchen hearth, in a barn, it would have drawn little attention, but in a kirk it drew every eye, for that was where notorious sinners must sit, in shame and sack-cloth, to do their penance. I remembered John Leslie on the day eight years ago when he had been inducted into this charge, and wondered that
such a man could have brought himself so low as to be forced to sit before his own congregation in this manner to proclaim his ruin.

‘He deceived you then,’ said William.

‘What?’

‘When he feigned sobriety.’

The clerk shook his head. ‘He was as sober as you or I, Mr Cargill. Clean-shaven, not the merest taste of drink upon his breath. His wife had sworn that he had taken no drink in five days. She said he had gone early, and with a firmness of purpose she had not seen in him in a long time, to the kirk. He wished to prepare himself in prayer for his public repentance, there was a kind of peace and joy about him, she said. That was an hour before the service. By the time the precentor came in and found him here, his sack-cloth rent and ashes in his hair, he was not in his wits. He was howling to God for deliverance from his torment, from the visitations of the walking dead. The precentor could not shift him, and those of the congregation that arrived first were too terrified to go near him. It took us some time to get him down from the stool and away to the vestry before the people could hear much more.’

‘What more was there?’ I asked, not certain that I wished to hear the answer.

The others looked to the session clerk. ‘It was not easily that we calmed him, put an end to the ranting.’

I was becoming impatient. ‘What did he say to you then?’

The man’s face was almost defiant. ‘That he had seen the dead walk. As sober as I am standing here, and yet he looked me in the eye and told me, in words well measured, that he had seen the dead walk.’

William’s face paled. ‘When? When did he say he had seen them?’

‘Yesterday morning. In the kirkyard. From the grave behind Jessie Goudie’s. He saw a creature, dreadful, rotted, rise from it and call to him.’

My mouth was dry. ‘What did it say?’

The clerk shook his head. ‘He did not know. It croaked at him in strange tongues. He fled to the church for sanctuary.’

‘And did the thing he saw not follow after him?’

‘He said it never entered the church.’

As petrified as their minister, they pointed out Jessie Goudie’s grave, but would not take a step closer to it. It was there, clearly marked, a spinster not dead two years. But behind hers was another, much older stone, tilted at an angle to the ground, beset by lichen. Whatever it told of the body whose last resting place it marked was long worn away by wind and salt rain. The stone showed no cracks, and the ground around it was undisturbed.

William surveyed the ground around, and I was about to turn back to the kirk when his voice stopped me.

‘Alexander, the well.’

I looked over to the spring where the waters of St Fittick’s Well, that place of resort for the superstitious and the
desperate, trickled from the earth. I saw nothing there I had not seen before.

‘No,’ he said, animated now. ‘Not that one. But there, the Lady Well.’

Some way back and off to the right from behind the old and unmarked grave was the vaulted stone casing of a well dedicated long ago to the mother of Christ. No miraculous or magical properties being claimed for it, it had fallen into disuse and been all but forgotten by those who thronged the other. We walked towards it, pulled back the bush whose twigs and branches had recently been snapped and trampled upon, and descended the stone steps down to the spring of the well itself. A foul smell, not just of damp but of animal filth came to us.

‘There must be a beast dead in here,’ said William. ‘Mind your feet there – the steps are covered in slime.’ But when we got to the bottom of the steps, we found no dead beast, just the excrement and blood of one who, for its time in this shelter at least, had lived.

My stomach lurched, and I pushed past William up the steps for air. He was up there soon after me. ‘Dear God, the stench.’

‘Perhaps, if they had done something to the horse …’

William shook his head, and said what I knew already to be true. ‘Whatever detritus was there came from no horse, and no spectre either. Someone has cowered here, and bled. John Leslie may not be as mad as we have thought him.’

The reluctant elders were brought to view what we had found. Rabbits, foxes, large wildcats, all were suggested, the latter beast thought most likely to have been that seen and heard by the deranged minister on the morning before. The question of why such an animal might have come from the mountains to the very edge of the sea did not much trouble these good men of Torry, now that they had an explanation for the deranged visions of their minister that left the Devil happily to his devices elsewhere.

It was agreed that John Leslie should not be allowed back in the kirk until after the matter had been brought fully before the presbytery. I volunteered to do that myself, determined that Leslie should face his brethren on charges of drunkenness and not witchcraft. In no way did I believe that the kirk of St Fittick’s had been the site of any demonic Sabbath such as its minister claimed to witness. Yet, as William and I readied ourselves to leave Nigg Bay for Torry and the ferry that would take us back to Aberdeen, I could not persuade myself that what the terrified minister had seen on that early Sabbath morning had been a wildcat, nor any other dumb animal.

‘One thing more,’ said William, as the session clerk shut the kirkyard gate behind us. ‘Has the horse been found?’

‘It was found wandering about over by Dounies. It’s a wonder the poor beast never went over the cliff. It took three men to get it by the bridle. It’s stabled now at Brown’s Inn, and if no one claims it within the week, it will be sold for the poor box.’

Back down in the village, we made our way to the inn, which was hardly worthy of the name. The innkeeper snorted.

‘Sell it, they think? no one will ever saddle that beast again. Boiling for glue’ll be the best they’ll make of it.’

He showed us round to the stable where the miserable creature whinnied and tried to rear back in its stall. It could only get up so far, as a rope tied its bridle tight to an iron pole.

‘I cannot think that rope will help calm the poor beast,’ said William, making soothing noises as he approached the horse.

‘It was on him when they found him, eight feet of it trailing behind him. We managed to cut away a length of it, but couldn’t get close enough to get the rest untied. You may try if you wish, but he’ll knock you senseless.’

‘Not I, but Davy Durno,’ murmured William.

‘What?’

‘This is Davy Durno in Woolmanhill’s horse. The one that he accused his neighbour of stealing. I’ve seen it trail a cart behind it up to the Stockethill often enough.’ He turned to the innkeeper. ‘Let no one else claim this horse. It is the property of Davy Durno in Aberdeen. He will be here before tomorrow night to collect it.’

‘And welcome he is to it,’ grumbled the innkeeper as he went back to his duties. ‘And mind you tell him to bring the money for its stabling.’

I was not sorry to get back on the ferry, away from Torry
and the grim things we had found at the other side of Girdle Ness, yet had I known what awaited us when we set foot back in Aberdeen, I would have bid the ferryman tarry longer in his work.

We could tell there was something amiss before we even stepped off the ferry at Futty. Two of the burgh constables were at the landing shore, and there was nothing in their aspect that suggested they were passengers waiting to make the crossing. As the ferryman docked at the pier, the taller of the two constables called down that he should come up but that no one else should leave the boat until given permission.

‘What has happened?’ asked William Cargill.

‘We are searching after two people who might have tried to leave the burgh by night.’

‘Who?’

‘The French master’s sister, and George Jamesone’s gardener, who lodged with them. Neither has been seen since last night.’

The constable was able to tell us nothing more, and neither the ferryman, nor any of the other passengers, had any information of use to offer. ‘This is very bad,’ I said as we headed back in to town as quickly as we could.

‘Louis must be going out of his mind,’ said William. ‘But what is this about the gardener?’

Assuming it was Charpentier and not St Clair who was the man in question, I told him briefly what I knew of him, and of Christiane’s liking for him.

‘Surely you don’t think the girl would have gone away with him?’

‘No, I don’t,’ I said. ‘But the baillies obviously do. I should have listened to her, I should have paid her more heed.’

William stopped for a moment and turned to me. ‘Alexander, what on earth are you talking about?’

I told him then about Christiane’s fear of Seoras, her belief that he was watching her.

‘Surely,’ he said, ‘Seoras MacKay is dead.’

‘I wish I could be as certain. I am going to George’s. I think they must search that garden.’

We found at George’s house that searches were under way in every quarter in the town as well as at the entrance gates and the harbour and ferry landings. The artist himself had gone with Christiane’s distracted brother to question Jean St Clair on what he might know about the disappearance of the pair.

We found them in the workshed. George was pacing around the small floor space while Louis was hunched before the fire in front of a tight-lipped St Clair. George was greatly relieved to see us.

‘Alexander, William. Thank goodness you are here. I
think we will go mad with this fellow. Louis can get practically nothing out of him.’

‘What have you been able to find out?’

‘Louis was out at Pitfodels last night. He goes every Monday evening to tutor Menzies’ daughters. Menzies himself was at home and invited Louis to stay for a hand of cards. It was after eleven before he got back to his own house. He could hear snoring from the schoolroom – where the Frenchmen sleep – and assumed they were both in there.’ Almost as an aside, George said, ‘Guillaume had been here with me, working on the planting schemes until well after seven. Then we had left together and said our goodnights on Schoolhill. He went his way towards Louis’ house and I turned into my own. Anyway, it also didn’t cross Louis’ mind that Christiane would not also be safely sleeping in her own chamber. He went straight to bed and did not wake until after eight this morning. Of course, at that hour there was nothing strange in St Clair and Charpentier being long gone to their work, but he was surprised that Christiane had let him sleep so long. When he went to look for her, he could not find her in the house. She had not been seen out in the street, or the marketplace either. That is when he began to worry. He went to Lumsden’s house, thinking Lady Rothiemay or Isabella might have sent for her for some reason – for she has been much in company there of late, despite her failure in the trials.’

‘And they had not,’ finished William.

‘No,’ said George wearily, ‘they had not. The baillie began
to organise a search – on a small scale at first, and only because her Ladyship was almost as concerned as Louis – and Louis came to me, looking for Jean and Guillaume. I took him down to the maze, where they were to be working, and found Jean there alone. He said he had not seen Guillaume since last night. I sent word of this to Lumsden and that is when we took Jean up here, to try to get something sensible out of him.’

Louis stood up. He looked dreadful, despite the night’s sleep that appeared to have cost him so dear. His face was almost grey and his eyes set in dark hollows that had not been there the last time I had seen him. Apprehension was sketched deep in his face, and when he spoke he sounded hopeless.

‘I think she must have gone away with him.’

‘Non.’ It was the first word I had ever heard Jean St Clair utter.

‘But what else can it be?’ Louis almost yelled in frustration, and in English. ‘After all you have told me, what else can it be?’

The Frenchman sat impassive once more.

‘Come and sit down,’ said William, pulling a stool out from beneath the workbench, ‘and tell us what it is he has told you.’

Louis was shivering, and George took down one of the gardeners’ capes from its nail behind the door and set it about his shoulders.

‘He says he returned to my house at around six last night,
that Guillaume was to be labelling plants and seeds that he had already sorted and then was to work on the planting schemes with you.’ He looked at George, who nodded.

‘Christiane had already written the necessary translations. We managed well enough between us and finished sometime after seven.’

‘How did Charpentier seem to you?’ I asked George.

George considered. ‘Perhaps a little quieter than usual. We could never converse very much, but there was always a geniality about him that made our time together very pleasant. Last night though, when I think about it, he did seem to be a little more pensive than usual, and in a hurry to get away.’

This revelation did not cheer Louis. ‘Well might he have been. Jean St Clair says that sometime before seven, while he and Christiane were having their supper, a note was brought for Christiane. A town’s urchin. St Clair has no clue what it said, but at the stroke of eight by St Nicholas Kirk bell Christiane put on her outer clothing and went out, not telling him where she was going, but only that she would be back in an hour, and he was to tell me not to concern myself if she was still out when I arrived home.’