CHAPTER 12

MacLeod’s Chambers

WHILE SCOUGALL WAS busy in Mrs Hair’s office MacKenzie made for Lorimer’s Close in the Lawnmarket. Johnstone’s Land, where MacLeod had rented chambers, was a large, seven-storey tenement in the courtyard at the bottom of the close. MacKenzie found MacLeod’s landlord John Aitken, an old man with long whiskers and a hunched back who invited him into his snug, a small room which acted as an office, sitting room and kitchen. They were soon both puffing away on their pipes in front of a fire which was lit to keep the old man warm although it was a summer’s day.

‘How did you find MacLeod as a tenant, Mr Aitken?’ asked MacKenzie, removing his jacket because it was so warm in the room.

‘I found him a good one, Mr MacKenzie. He always paid rent on time. He had done so for many years. He was my tenant for five years or more.’

‘Was there ever any trouble with him?’

‘Very little compared to the other young men who have taken chambers with me. He was quiet enough, although during his apprentice days, a few years back, there was the usual stuff with drink and whores.’ The old man nodded, knowingly.

‘Is there anything he might have done or have been involved in that comes to mind in relation to his murder?’

The old man put his index finger on his temple and closed his eyes, still sucking on his pipe. ‘One incident springs to mind, sir,’ he said. ‘On the night of the riot last year, a couple of men came looking for him. I remember it because I was scared about what might happen to my property. The mob was out smashing windows. Anyone suspected of being Papist, or of knowing a Papist, was in danger. We were told to put candles in our windows to support the opposition to the government. I made sure one was lit in every window in every floor to avoid the mob’s rage. But MacLeod refused to put one in his window, despite my request. I was annoyed by this. I thought the visit might be related to it. They could be checking whose window it was.’

MacKenzie loosened his necktie. He was beginning to sweat. ‘What exactly happened, Mr Aitken?’

‘The men kept banging on his door until I was forced to go upstairs to see who it was. I was surprised to find the Captain of the Guard with one of his regulars. They were looking for MacLeod. They had to find him as soon as possible. There was urgency in the request. It made an impression on me. I told them he was away and that he had left in the afternoon to observe events on the street. The Captain said they would be back if they couldn’t find him. But I didn’t see them at his door again. Fortunately, my window was not smashed. I told MacLeod about their visit the next day. He said it was nothing, just a minor business matter which had been quickly resolved. They had found him. A debt had to be redeemed quickly. I never saw them at his door again. But I remember that occasion well. They looked anxious to find him, as if a life depended on it.’

‘You’re sure they were Town Guards?’ asked MacKenzie, wondering about the possible association between MacLeod and Stein which had also been mentioned by Galbraith. And why was Stein visiting MacLeod on the night of the riot rather than seeing to the security of the city?

‘Of course. I’ve seen them often in uniform. The younger one, the Captain, was a soldier – I think his name is Stein. The other was one of the older ones, I don’t know his name, a gangly fellow with an ugly face. I’ve seen him staggering drunk down the High Street many times.’ Aitken pulled a key out of his pocked and handed it to MacKenzie. ‘MacLeod’s room is on the third floor, Mr MacKenzie.’

‘How many copies of this key are there?’ he asked.

‘Two. This and MacLeod’s,’ Aitken replied.

‘Has anyone else come to look at his chamber?’

‘I had a quick look around myself when a boy came from his office asking for him. Everything appeared in order but there was no sign of MacLeod.’

‘Did the boy go inside?’

‘No. He just asked me if MacLeod was there. I had a quick look and told him there was no sign of him.’

MacKenzie thanked him, rose from his chair and left the snug. He climbed the turnpike stair at the back of the tenement, relieved to be out of the stifling heat. He found the climb a struggle. He recalled scrambling up mountains with his foster brothers as a boy in the Highlands and running along the narrow ridges without a care in the world. Now he was having difficulties with a three-storey climb. He was growing old. It seemed like another world back then. It many ways it was. It was the old world before the civil wars. It was a world written in Gaelic. His foster parents barely spoke a word of English. He looked back on it with a piercing nostalgia. Once he had reached the third floor and located MacLeod’s room, he paused for a few moments to gather his breath, then inserted the key into the lock and opened the door slowly. It was immediately obvious that MacLeod’s chambers had been ransacked. Furniture was overturned, glasses smashed, pictures knocked off walls, clothing thrown about. He closed the door behind him. This must have occurred after Aitken had come in to look for MacLeod. He looked at the lock on the door. It showed no signs of being forced. He stepped around the debris on the floor and examined the windows in the main room. None were open or broken. They were three storeys up so the chances of someone entering or leaving through one of the windows would have been unlikely. The window was also locked in the bedchamber. He concluded that the rooms must have been turned over after MacLeod’s death and a key had been used to enter, probably MacLeod’s.

He made a close examination of the apartment. A writing desk was overturned and smashed up in the living chamber. The hearth stood cold with the remnants of coal and ashes lying in the grate. He checked to see if any documents or papers had been burnt in the fire but there was no sign of any. He moved gingerly over the debris on the floor. He checked the pieces of clothing, the books strewn everywhere, old copies of the Gazette. In the bedchamber there was a bed, press, table, some wine glasses and rotting food on a plate. A few jackets and some breeches had been thrown onto the floor next to a spilled chamber pot. There was a reek of stale urine. He took out a notebook and made a few jottings. It was clear that most of the activity had been focused around the desk in the living chamber. It was pulverised and it looked like its contents had been taken. No private papers, documents or letters were left in or around the smashed drawers.

After spending half an hour in MacLeod’s chambers, he returned the key to the landlord and met Scougall in the Periwig, where they shared a bottle of claret and some oysters.

‘Tell me what you’ve found out, Davie.’

‘There was little of interest in MacLeod’s office,’ began Scougall, hesitantly. ‘There was nothing in his desk except the instrument book and, in the other desk, only a copy of the Gazette. I went carefully through the instruments in the book. MacLeod was obviously working on a series of property acquisitions for Mrs Hair. I’ve noted them down here.’ He handed a piece of paper to MacKenzie who read the following:

The sale of Barber’s Land by Robert Sinclair to

James Brown for 100 pounds.

The sale of a tenement in Byres’s Close by Alexander

Cockburn to John Butler for 50 pounds.

The sale of Mason’s Land in Libberton’s Wynd by

Patrick Young to Richard Cairns for 75 pounds.

Scougall then described his interviews with Betty McGrain and Billy Farquharson while MacKenzie listened with interest. Once Scougall had recalled everything, MacKenzie sat back in his seat and lit a pipe.

‘I’m impressed, Davie,’ he said. ‘You’ve been busy. Now, let me tell you about my visit to MacLeod’s rooms. The door was not damaged, nor were the windows, but the interior had been ransacked; MacLeod’s desk destroyed. The intruder entered using a key which he or she obtained, no doubt, from MacLeod’s pocket. The intruder, who we might postulate was MacLeod’s killer, was looking for something in the desk. All MacLeod’s papers were taken. The landlord told me he was visited by Captain Stein and his man on the night of the riot.’ They sat in silence for a few minutes. MacKenzie puffed on his pipe, pondering what they had learned, and drinking the wine. Scougall, observing MacKenzie, reflected that he was smoking much more since Elizabeth’s disappearance. He must have a word with him when the case was finished, encourage him to smoke less. It was a vile habit!

MacKenzie ordered another bottle of wine and sat back. ‘We’re making some progress at least, Davie. We have suspects to focus our attention on: Betty McGrain, Galbraith, Scobie and Stein. Perhaps even the boy Farquharson, although I think it’s doubtful a youth could have killed MacLeod and transported his body to Craigleith or arranged someone to do it. However, we must keep him in mind.’

‘What about Mrs Hair?’ Scougall was pleased to be complemented and was enjoying the effects of the wine.

‘Of course, Davie. We must not exclude her. Let us consider motives. Betty McGrain might have wanted revenge for her assault. Scobie was insulted by the engravings and challenged him to a duel. Galbraith was upset by remarks about his wife. But was that enough to drive him to commit murder? And let us not forget Mrs Hair?’

‘Do you think he did something to upset her, sir?’

‘I do not know. And then there’s the boy, Farquharson. He’s also a possibility, but then, realistically, how many apprentices kill their master for a little bullying?’ MacKenzie shook his head. ‘I think Stein is definitely connected to MacLeod in some way but we do need to learn more about them all. I propose we first visit the spot where his body was found.’

The next morning, they hired horses in the Cowgate and left the city by the West Port, crossing the Water of Leith at the Dean. It was a pleasant journey in the warm sunshine of a summer afternoon. MacKenzie rode ahead, deep in thought. An unattractive picture was emerging of MacLeod. He was ambitious, duplicitous, arrogant, aggressive, shrewd and calculating, and was not liked by anyone outside his clan. MacKenzie knew many Highlanders like him. The harshness of life there turned many into grasping individuals who would do anything to advance their own interests and cared as much for their fellow creatures as though they were slugs in a garden. But Highlanders could also be loyal, generous, hospitable.

Scougall’s mind wandered from the case as his horse trotted along the path. Thoughts of a future wife took hold of him – an end to his loneliness and a focus for his desires. He must marry someone soon, he reflected. He wondered what the lass found by his mother would be like. What he desired above all was a change to his life, something different from his routine of legal work and nights alone at Mrs Baird’s.

It was a two-mile ride to the quarry at Craigleith, a great hole gouged out of the ground by generations of quarriers which was the main source of honey-coloured sandstone for the city. As they approached the amphitheatre of rock, they could hear the ringing of hammers on the stone. An army of quarriers was busy at work. At the edge of the quarry was an ancient wooden shack. Smoke drifted from a metal chimney. MacKenzie knocked on the ramshackle door and shouted that he was looking for the man who had found MacLeod’s body. A disgruntled quarrier appeared. ‘I found him, sir. Dod Shanks is my name. What’s it to do with you?’

MacKenzie explained the reason for their visit. ‘Could you show us where you found the body, Mr Shanks? I have a shilling here, if you’ll help us.’ The quarrier looked down on the coin avariciously, then went back inside. They could hear muffled conversation before he reappeared, wearing his jacket and hat. ‘The master has given me permission. This way, gentlemen.’

They followed Shanks out of the quarry and along a path to the south which wound through the rolling countryside; nature was at its most prolific in the heavy summer. Emerging from a copse of birch, they came into an open piece of land facing a sandstone cliff about twenty feet in height. At the top of the rockface was a clump of birch trees, their roots dangling out of the earth. Beneath them was a mound of stone and earth.

‘The storm caused a landslide here,’ said Shanks, indicating the cliff.

‘What happened on the day after the storm?’ asked MacKenzie.

‘Everywhere was flooded as far as the eye could see, especially the lower ground,’ replied Shanks. ‘The whole place was like a huge loch with wee islands sticking up here and there. The quarry was completely under water. We couldn’t get in to work the stone until the water had gone down. The master told me to have a wander round to see if any damage had been done to the surrounding land. The landslide drew my attention right away – it was something different from the usual view. I came up to get a closer look and then saw a body lying face down amongst the rubble.’

‘Can you show me where exactly you saw him?’ asked MacKenzie.

Shanks walked forward a couple of yards and indicated with his stick. ‘He lay about here. His head was pointing west.’

‘Did you move the body?’ asked Scougall.

Shanks shook his head. ‘I went straight back to tell the master and then some men came for him with a cart. We lifted him in and he was taken back to Edinburgh.’

‘Did anyone see anything suspicious around here before or after the storm?’ asked MacKenzie, observing Shanks.

‘How do you mean, sir?’

‘In the days or weeks before the storm, was anyone seen looking around, as if searching for a place to bury a body?’

‘I don’t believe so, sir.’

Scougall turned to MacKenzie, ‘Why do you think he was brought out here specifically, sir?’

‘A convenient place to dispose of a body. A wild piece of land not far from the city.’ MacKenzie shrugged. ‘MacLeod would still be under the earth if it wasn’t for the storm – the killer was unlucky. MacLeod might’ve lain buried for a thousand years.’

The three men turned and retraced their steps towards the quarry. On the way, something caught MacKenzie’s eye. It looked incongruous lying in the grass at the side of the path. He knelt down to see what it was, then picked it up and slipped it into his pocket. It was strange to find it there, so out of place in the grass. Back at the quarry, they had another look around. Scougall noticed a line of carts near the entrance. The horses had been taken away to be fed. ‘Do these take the stone to the city, Mr Shanks?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What happens to the empty ones once the stone is delivered to Edinburgh?’ asked MacKenzie.

‘They’re brought back in the late afternoon or evening by the cart man.’

MacKenzie turned to Scougall. ‘There you go, Davie; a convenient way to transport a body out of the city with little suspicion, on the back of a cart, preferably in the dark.’

MacKenzie walked over to the first cart. He rummaged in the back, pulling back filthy tarpaulins, then moved onto the next one and the next. He called Scougall over. ‘Look here, Davie, on the floor at the back. They look like bloodstains!’ Scougall climbed up to get a close look. There was a large dark stain across the bottom of the cart.

‘Who took this cart back to the quarry before the storm?’ asked MacKenzie, turning to look back at Shanks.

‘Our cart driver, Rab Christie,’ answered Shanks, who had joined them at the bloodstained cart.

‘I would like to speak with him,’ said MacKenzie.

‘That won’t be possible, sir. He’s disappeared into thin air. That was the last job he did. We’re looking for another carter to replace him.’

‘Do you know what’s happened to him?’ MacKenzie said quickly, climbing back out of the cart and looking alarmed.

‘No idea. He never turned up for work one day. The master was furious. Fortunately, it’s quiet just now because of all the disruptions.’

‘When was this, Mr Shanks?’

‘He disappeared a couple of days before the storm. No sign of him since.’

‘Did he live in the city?’

‘I believe so. He rented a chamber in the Cowgate with his young brother in a tenement in Leitch’s Close. There’s no sign of him there though or his brother. They’ve both disappeared into thin air.’