The Green Man (26 page)

It had started to rain by now, not the torrential downpour promised earlier by the gathering clouds, but a steady pitter-pattering on the cobbles that washed away some of the dirt and excrement, yet not hard enough to send the scavenging wild dogs and cats scurrying for shelter.

I stopped at one of the stalls and asked for Master Buchanan's direction. Five minutes or so later, after a good deal of shouting and gesticulating, after sorting out which particular Master Buchanan was meant, and, finally, after being spat at for the bastard Sassenach I so obviously was, I found myself knocking at the door of a solid, two-storey house near the West Port.

My summons was answered by a little maid with a soiled apron over her grey worsted dress and a general air of untidiness that suggested there was no mistress of the establishment, only a bachelor master. I had not enquired whether John Buchanan were married or no, but my guess was proved to be correct when I was at last shown into his presence by the flustered young girl who had failed to understand a word that I was saying. Only my continued shouts of ‘Master Buchanan!' had eventually produced the desired result.

The man who rose to greet me in the front, downstairs parlour, from behind a table littered with papers, was clad in funereal black from neck to toe and wore a large and ostentatious mourning ring on one of his fingers. I judged him to be around thirty years of age, blue-eyed, with shoulder-length brown hair; good-looking without being handsome. In short, the sort of man who would be passed in the street every day of the week without exciting a great deal of notice.

‘Master Buchanan! Sir!' I bowed, but not too low. ‘Do you speak English?'

He raised thin eyebrows. ‘Tolerably well. Are you one of our English conquerors?' There was a slight sneer as he said it. I was so patently not someone of any great importance, but, equally obviously, I was one of the hated enemy, so what was I doing there?

I hastened to explain, making my story as brief as clarity would allow for my own sake as well as his. It was the third time I had repeated it that day. He heard me out in a frowning silence that grew more oppressive by the minute and which lasted for some thirty or so seconds after I had finished speaking.

‘So!' he said at last. ‘My lord Albany's back, is he? And in the company of his country's enemies, the treacherous bastard! And if that's not enough, he wants to prove that murdering brother-in-law of mine innocent of Aline's killing. A secret diary you say? What sort of lying nonsense is this? A secret diary that tells of a secret lover?' He brought his fist slamming down on the table top, making the papers jump, a few sliding over the edge on to the floor. I would have stooped to pick them up, but he yelled at me to let them alone. He was working himself up into a fine lather of rage, spittle flecking his lips. ‘Miserable cur!' I wasn't sure whether he was referring to me, Albany or Master Sinclair. Perhaps it was meant for all three of us. Master Buchanan didn't pause to elucidate, raging on, ‘My poor sister never had eyes but for one man, and that was her husband. The fool adored him! Worshipped him! And don't tell me it was mutual!' I hadn't been about to utter a word. ‘That … That … That dung-beetle, that piece of horse-shit, that gooseturd never adored or worshipped anyone but himself!'

He was slavering at the mouth now and I began to be afraid that he was having a fit. I pushed him gently back into his chair and looked around for a wine jug. Unable to see one, I went in search of the little maid, running her to earth in the kitchen, and told her to bring some wine and two beakers to the parlour. I realized that I was in need of some refreshment myself.

Master Buchanan was quieter now, slumped forward, one elbow resting on the table and supporting his chin. Tears were coursing down his cheeks and his whole body was racked by sobs. I suddenly felt uncomfortable; an intruder on another person's private grief.

It did strike me, though, that his grief seemed somewhat excessive, and yet what right had I to think so? I knew little of grieving. My father had been killed when I was four years old, following a fall from the nave roof of Wells Cathedral. I had shed a few dutiful tears when my mother died, but her death had touched me no more deeply than had the subsequent death in childbed of my first wife, my daughter Elizabeth's mother, Lillis Walker. I tried to conjure up how I would feel if something were to happen to Adela or one of the children and began to understand in some small measure the agony of loss. Perhaps I was being too severe.

The maid came in with a tarnished silver jug and beakers on an equally tarnished silver tray which she put down on the table so carelessly that some of the wine slopped over, staining one or two of the documents lying scattered around. Even this didn't rouse Master Buchanan to a protest, so I poured and handed him a beaker of wine, at the same time adjuring him to pull himself together.

‘Your sorrow undoubtedly does you credit,' I remarked sententiously, ‘but it won't help to discover the truth about your sister's death.'

‘We know the truth about my sister's death,' he answered in a voice harsh with suppressed anger. ‘Rab killed her.'

‘But why?' I demanded. ‘Have you asked yourself that? Everyone seems to be of the opinion that he adored her. So why would he take a knife to her if that were true? Unless, of course, his explanation of what happened is the correct one.'

John Buchanan said something under his breath. I couldn't quite catch the words but they sounded vicious. His fingers curled around the beaker he was holding, and I thought for a moment that he was going to throw its contents in my face, but he evidently thought better of such a gesture and swallowed the wine in three quick gulps. He replaced the empty beaker on the tray and sat up, wiping his mouth and the rest of his face on the back of his hand.

It had occurred to me, while I was watching him, to wonder if he had had an incestuous relationship with his sister. His name, after all, began with the letter J and it would explain why Aline's lover seemed to have been invisible to both Mistress Callender and Maria Beton, and why no suspicion of infidelity had been aroused in Master Sinclair's mind. What could be more natural than for her to be constantly in the company of her brother? It was not something that I wanted to believe. Like sodomy, incest was a sin punishable by death, but such things were not unknown, and were practised more often than many people imagined. It might also explain other things, like Aline's reluctance to name her lover and Master Buchanan's excessive grief.

But almost immediately, I began to feel ashamed of myself for harbouring any such thoughts. Particularly when he rounded on me with a face like thunder, almost as if he knew what I had been thinking.

‘You ask me why Rab killed my sister?' he said. ‘I'll tell you if you're really serious about discovering the truth. He killed her and then cooked up this cock-and-bull story of a secret diary and secret lover because he's the one who's playing her false with that housekeeper of theirs. Rab wanted Aline dead, not the other way around.'

There was a moment's sheer, astonished silence on my part before I burst out laughing.

‘Mistress Beton?' I gasped. ‘No! No, I don't believe it!'

And I didn't believe it. It was not simply that Maria Beton was a plain woman and Rab Sinclair a handsome man. (Well, he would be handsome enough when he was not pinched with fear and grimed from rough handling by his prison guards.) In my time, I have encountered plenty of such mismatched couples where I would have thought it almost impossible for either the man or the woman to have chosen such an unlikely partner. But always the plainer of the two had some obvious attraction; a beautiful voice perhaps, a lovely smile, fascinating eyes or, most potent of all, an indefinable promise of giving pleasure in bed. But as far as I could tell, Maria Beton had none of those attributes. She had struck me as a peculiarly charmless woman.

John Buchanan slapped the arm of his chair.

‘You may laugh,' he snapped, ‘but I assure you that it's true.'

‘Do you have proof?' I asked.

He looked uncomfortable. ‘If you mean have I seen them kissing or holding hands or giving any outward signs of affection, then I suppose the answer must be no. But once or twice when I've been visiting Aline, I've caught them whispering together in corners, and breaking off hurriedly – guiltily, more like – as soon as they've become aware of my presence. And not only in the house. On two occasions at least I've seen them from my window here, deep in conversation on the other side of the street.'

I shrugged. I could see nothing extraordinary in a man being caught conversing with his housekeeper. Indeed, it seemed a perfectly normal occurrence, and I suspected that Master Buchanan was reading more into what was an entirely acceptable situation in order to convince himself of his sister's innocence and his brother-in-law's guilt. I therefore decided that no advantage could be gained by pursuing this line of enquiry and abruptly changed the subject, asking, ‘When you and Mistress Sinclair returned home on Monday, after visiting your aunt, were you and she alone at any point in the house?'

I thought he would be bound to follow the drift of my questioning and avoid the trap, but he replied angrily, ‘Yes. Neither of them were there to greet her, although they knew to expect us. You might have thought that if Rab were as fond of my sister as he professed to be, and as everyone considered him, he would have been waiting to welcome her back after three days deprived of her company. But some time elapsed before he put in an appearance, and longer again before Maria Beton came in. Her excuse was that she'd been in the garden picking herbs for some new dish she was making for supper. Something of that sort. I didn't stop to hear all of their reasons for their absence. I wanted to get home. My nag was tired after the journey and needed his stable. So I exchanged a brief word with Rab and left.' He took a great gulp of air and tears gathered again in the corners of his eyes. ‘Not knowing,' he added in a shaking voice, ‘that that was the last time I was to see my dear sister alive.'

‘I'm sorry,' I said mechanically, but my thoughts were otherwise occupied.

If John Buchanan and Aline Sinclair had indeed had some time alone together in the Sinclair house, could she not have passed the diary to him for safekeeping? It would have been the work of only a few minutes for her to run upstairs – so simple with that indoor staircase – unlock the cupboard and bring it down. If he was already aware of its contents for whatever reason, her lover or her confidant, he could have slipped it beneath his travelling cloak and taken it away with him. I found myself glancing around the room, half expecting to see the diary carelessly dropped in a corner or amidst the welter of papers littering the table.

I breathed deeply and told myself not to be so foolish. If what I suspected was indeed the truth, the foolishly incriminating diary had probably been destroyed by now. But then a niggling doubt raised its unwelcome head. Why would Aline suddenly have taken fright and passed her confession of intent to murder to her brother? She knew nothing of what had happened while she had been away. So what would have been the reason for her sudden panic?

‘Why are you staring around like that?' my companion asked aggressively. ‘What are you looking for?' I didn't know what to answer and stood there, appearing no doubt more than a little foolish, trying to conjure up a suitable reply. But my companion, who proved to be sharper than I had given him credit for, exclaimed indignantly, ‘You're thinking that Aline might have given the diary to me, aren't you? That's what those questions were about. To find out if we were alone; if Aline had time to pass the wretched thing to me?' He jumped up from his chair, bringing his fist crashing down on the table top for a second time. (That right hand of his was taking a lot of unnecessary punishment. He would have some bruises, I reckoned, in the morning.) ‘Can't you understand, you great ungainly Sassenach, that there never was, never has been, a diary? I'd stake my life on it! I told you! It's something Rab's thought up to explain his murder of my sister!'

I had to admit to myself that it was a possibility that had begun to nudge at the edges of my own mind, but as yet I could see no alternative reason for Rab Sinclair wanting to kill his wife. The one offered by Master Buchanan I dismissed. I didn't know why – as I've said, I'd known some very strange matings and couplings in my life – but some deep-rooted instinct told me that, in this instance, it was not the case. And I have, to a large extent, learned to trust that instinct. So, if Master Sinclair were lying, I had yet to discover his purpose.

Nevertheless, I had a nagging feeling that I was missing a vital clue; that I had been told something of significance that I had ignored, that had not made the impact on my consciousness that it should have done. But the more I struggled to remember what it was, the more it eluded me.

‘Well, say something!' John Buchanan barked. ‘Don't just stand there, staring, like a stuffed duck!'

I have been called some names in my time, most of them unrepeatable, but to be likened to a duck (and a stuffed one at that) insulted me beyond measure. I opened my mouth to retaliate in kind, but instead, to my own great surprise, as well as that of my host, I heard myself ask, ‘What do you know of the Green Man?'

‘What?' Master Buchanan was regarding me in astonishment at a question that seemed to him to be a total irrelevancy. His bewilderment was not to be wondered at. I was confused myself.

‘The Green Man,' I repeated feebly.

‘The Green Man?'

‘Yes.'

His face suffused with colour. He was getting angrier by the minute.

‘Is this a joke?' he demanded scathingly. ‘And if not, what does the Green Man have to do with my sister and this diary that she is supposed to have written?'