Read Online The Stolen Voice by Pat McIntosh - Free Book Online Page A

over the bridge of his nose gave him a strange predatory look, like a crow. He peered at Gil through them, listening to his cautious introduction, then removed them and rubbed at the marks they had left on his nose.
    ‘Aye,’ he said.
    Since this was not a wholly adequate response, Gil waited. After a moment the soutar rose from his last, set down his needles and reel of waxed thread, and put his head out at the open window beside him. ‘Walter! Wal terr! ’ he shouted, then sat down without looking at his visitor, replaced the spectacles and took up his work again.
    Gil continued to wait. In a few moments, the sound of running feet heralded a much younger man, very like the soutar in appearance though without the spectacles.
    ‘Is it my maister?’ he demanded as he burst into the shop. Seeing Gil he stopped abruptly, and his shoulders sagged. ‘No,’ he answered himself, and then warily, ducking his head in a rudimentary bow, ‘You haveny brought news of him, have you?’
    ‘No,’ said Gil. ‘I’m trying to find out what might have happened to him. Can you help?’
    The brothers looked at one another, and the soutar nodded.
    ‘You help the man, Walter,’ he directed.
    ‘Can I see his chamber,’ Gil asked, ‘or is it let again?’
    ‘Oh, aye, it’s let,’ said Walter with a resentful look at his brother. ‘ He ’d no see it lie beyond the month.’
    ‘He’s out,’ said the soutar, biting his thread with notched teeth. ‘No harm in looking, if you don’t go poking about. Show the man, Walter.’
    Walter obediently led Gil into the flagged passage which led from street to yard, and along to the next door. This he opened cautiously, peered round it, then flung it wide and stood back for Gil to look. The chamber within was much the size of the workshop, furnished with a low bed, a kist, a bench and table and a couple of stools. Its present occupant’s plaid was flung over the bed, some worn liturgical garments were heaped on the bench, and there was music, a pen-case and some ruled sheets of paper on the table.
    ‘It’s let to another quireman,’ Gil said. The boy looked at him in amazement.
    ‘Aye, it is,’ he agreed. ‘How did you ken that?’
    ‘Tell me what you saw when you came in here the morning your maister vanished,’ Gil prompted. ‘Was it like this?’
    ‘No, no, it was quite different,’ said Walter earnestly, ‘for my maister’s gear was all here, and none of Maister Allan’s.’
    Careful questioning got Gil a clearer description. The bed had not been slept in, for Walter’s brother had checked and it was cold. The two wee pictures, which were right bonnie things, had gone, and so had Maister Rattray’s two books, that lived on that shelf there. Walter’s wages were set on the table, on a piece of paper with his name writ on it clear so he could read it, and beside them was Maister Rattray’s own key to the front door.
    ‘And there was no smell of burning nor sulphur,’ added Walter, ‘for all it was the Deil himsel carried him off.’
    ‘Why do you say that, Walter?’ Gil asked, looking at him curiously.
    ‘Is that you at that nonsense again?’ demanded Walter’s brother loudly from his shop. ‘Pay him no mind, maister, he’s been on about that since ever Rattray gaed off, for all we’ve had half the Chapter in telling him it was no sic a thing.’
    ‘Where does the window of this chamber look on?’ Gil asked.
    ‘Out in the yard.’ Walter closed the chamber door and led him to the end of the passage, where another door revealed a small yard, with two ramshackle sheds and several tubs of daisies. A gate in the fence seemed to lead out on to the cattle track. ‘Maister Allan grows these flowers. They’re bonnie, aren’t they?’
    ‘Why do you say it was the Deil carried your maister away?’ Gil asked again. The young man glanced over his shoulder, and moved further into the yard.
    ‘Acos I saw him mysel,’ he said earnestly. ‘That’s how I’m