A Killing in Van Diemen's Land E-Book

Douglas Watt

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: John MacKenzie
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 332

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Set in Edinburgh in 1690. The body of a wealthy merchant is discovered in his home in the city centre. Was his killing the result of a robbery gone wrong? The vicious mode of his death seems to suggest otherwise. Scotland is in upheaval as political and religious tensions boil, and there is mystery concealed behind the walls of Van Diemen's Land. MacKenzie and Scougall investigate.

Leseprobe

DOUGLAS WATTwas born in Edinburgh and brought up there andin Aberdeen. He was educated at the University of Edinburghwhere he gained anMAandPhDin Scottish History. Douglas is the author of a series of historical crime novels set in late 17th century Scotland featuring investigative advocate JohnMacKenzie and his sidekick Davie Scougall. He is also the authorofThe Price of Scotland,a prize-winning history of Scotland’s Darien Disaster. He lives in Midlothian with hiswife Julie.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

HISTORICAL CRIME FICTION:

Death of a Chief

Testament of a Witch

Pilgrim of Slaughter

The Unnatural Death of a Jacobite

HISTORY:

The Price of Scotland

Watt conjures up a pungent atmosphere of darkness and period detail.

THE HERALD

A whodunnit satisfyingly rich in unfamiliar period detail.

MORNING STAR

Historical crime doesn’t come much better. Walking the streets of17th century Edinburgh has never been so vivid.

LIAM RUDDEN

Paints the period vividly in a gripping read.

EDINBURGH EVENING NEWS

Think Rebus for the17th century, in a tense mystery.

SCOTTISH FIELD

Watt really sinks his teeth into the drama unfolding at the time… Watt is an intelligent writer. The strength and quality of his writing is maintained throughout the book, ensuring it remains an intriguing read.

THE COURIER & ADVERTISER

Move over Rebus. There’s a new – or should that be old – detective in town.

I-ON EDINBURGHonDeath of a Chief

This is Ian Rankin meets Sir Walter Scott (but without the academic monologues): dastardly deeds, men and women with twisted motives, dynastic struggles, bitter religious factionalism, all leavened with some hints of romance, but the essence of the tale remains the mystery of MacLean’s death and its unravelling… a rollicking good read.

LOTHIAN LIFEonDeath of a Chief

Very evocative and atmospheric.

CRIMESQUADonDeath of a Chief

Conjures up an Edinburgh which is strangely familiar but also somewhat different to the present-day city.

EDINBURGH EVENING NEWSonDeath of a Chief

Conjures up a convincingly dark atmosphere at this cusp of the age of reason.

THE HERALDonTestament of a Witch

A thoroughly well told and entertaining historical crime drama… Historical fiction needs to be well researched, but from a reader’s point of view the results of the research need to be woven into a narrative in a way that appears effortless. Douglas Watt has succeeded admirably in immersing the reader in a Scotland very alien to the one we see around us today. The historical settings and characters feel just right, and the result is a book which both entertains and informs.

UNDISCOVERED SCOTLANDonTestament of a Witch

The book is well written, well plotted and the main characters engage our sympathies from the outset. The murder and detection elements are woven well into the historical aspects of the book. The descriptions of how witches were identified and dealt with are both fascinating and horrifying.

FICTIONFANonTestament of a Witch

Edinburgh is one of the book’s main characters, and Douglas Watt has caught the rhythms of the great city – its pulsating politics, its strict religious codes tempered by bawdiness, and its grasping love of commerce and money.

CRIMESQUADonPilgrim of Slaughter

Watt skilfully reconstructs the political events of the period and weaves a convincing mystery around them.

LOTHIAN LIFEonPilgrim of Slaughter

The identity of the murderer will keep you guessing until the very end and the idea a murderer is on the loose during the turmoil of the revolution keeps the pages turning. A must-read if either murder mysteries or history are your thing.

NICKY COOPER BROWNonPilgrim of Slaughter

First published 2020

eISBN: 978-1-910022-28-3

The author’s right to be identified as author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

Typeset in 10.5 point Sabon by Lapiz

© Douglas Watt 2020

To Julie

All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven. Matthew 12:31

List of Main Characters

JOHN MacKENZIE – advocate

DAVIE SCOUGALL– writer

CHRISSIE SCOUGALL – wife of Davie Scougall

JOHNDALRYMPLE, MASTER OF STAIR– Lord Advocate

JACOB KERR – merchant

MARGARET KERR– wife of Jacob Kerr

MARY KERR– daughter of Jacob Kerr

JANE MONTGOMERY – servant of Jacob Kerr

AGNES CAIRNS – servant of Jacob Kerr

THOMAS CAIRNS – son of Agnes Cairns

ALEXANDER FRASER – student

Contents

Prologue: Scotland, 1690

Chapter 1: A Meeting with the Lord Advocate

Chapter 2: The Body of a Merchant

Chapter 3: Van Diemen’s Land

Chapter 4: The Household of Van Diemen’s Land

Chapter 5: Investigations in Cumming’s Court

Chapter 6: A Visit to St Giles Kirk

Chapter 7: A Pint with Thomas Cairns

Chapter 8: A Sermon in Cramond Kirk

Chapter 9: The Testimony of an Apothecary

Chapter 10: The Spiritual Exercises of Jane Montgomery

Chapter 11: Further Revelations

Chapter 12: The Execution of a Blasphemer

Chapter 13: A Killing in Van Diemen’s Land

Epilogue: The Hawthorns

Acknowledgements

PROLOGUE

Scotland, 1690

CORRUPTION FIRST STIRRED in my soul long ago and has grown like a tumour within me ever since. One moment I am happy in the worship of the Lord, the next fallen into deepest despair. I become a creature tossed and turned by every wind of temptation, blown here and there like a boat upon the ocean of the world.

When I blow out my candle in my chamber at night, I tremble in the darkness, my mind filling with dreadful visions which will not leave me all night long. I get no rest during the hours of blackness. I am beholden to my thoughts and ruled by them, sometimes until the light of dawn peeps through the awning and birds begin to sing.

During the night, all my sins are presented to me. I know them like the lines on my hands. My sins are these: my want of the love of Christ, my pride, both natural and spiritual, my hypocrisy and my backsliding. In the wake of these lesser transgressions comes much worse – the perverse notion of disbelief infects my thoughts. God help me through this vale of tears!

When I am afflicted by sin, whether in my chamber at night, or on the causeway during the day, or even in the house, I hear words spoken inside my head. They are so clear that I know not if they are from my own being or from some other creature biding within me. Such loathsome words that I dare not commit them to paper.I believe there is no other creature in the whole world so bound to sinning than me. There is no temptation out of Hell that I am not bewitched by. When Satan sees all his temptations are yielded to, he presents the final sin to me. It is the worst sin of all. It is the mother of all sins. It is the sin of atheism.

As my corruption grows day after day, night after night, I am tempted more and more to call out aloud and blaspheme to the wide world, proclaiming my sinning nature to all, even during the hour of holy prayer, or in the Kirk as the minister preaches, or even at the table during Holy Communion, when I should be covenanted with the Lord. I have an aching desire to shout out such things as: The words written in the Bible are fancy. They are not the words of God, but the contrivance of men. The ministers are not servants of God but seducers of the people. These words are on the tip of my tongue. At such times, I fear I am not known by Him. I am cast out of His house. You are nothing, I say to myself. You come from nothing. You pass to nothing. You deserve nothing. How can you be promised everlasting life when you are a vile sinning creature who doubts the existence of God?

I cannot be rid of such thoughts. The temptation to think them is always with me, especially at night when it rises to fever pitch. But more and more, such thoughts spring up, unbidden, during the day. I desire more and more to proclaim my life is a sham, holy form without, while at my core, I am festered by sin.

I know who is responsible for my torture. I know who speaks within my head. I see him in my mind’s eye. Sometimes he is just a presence, a sense of foreboding. Other times, he is a corporeal creature who watches me in the fields beyond the city walls or in the woods. Satan walks among us, the minister tells us. We must be on our guard for him. We must watch out for the Tempter. Satan throws stones of sin at us. Some are pebbles which I swat away like flies, others are rocks which pierce my skin and send me reeling.

As I grow in my sinning, there comes into my mind one sin more agreeable to my nature than all the rest. It squeezes the others out of my thoughts, like the cuckoo displaces its rivals from the nest. I call it my predominant. It is like a beautiful jewel absorbing the eye and which the heart desires. I encourage it. I keep it in my heart hidden from all. It returns each night. I fight it with all my strength but cannot be rid of it. It enflames my mind with visions so depraved that, when I recall them in the light of day, I shudder to the pith of my bones.

When sin has me in its grasp, tight as a vice, I grow weary of everything and fall into lassitude. I feel a deadness of spirit. I am overcome with a desire to sleep, even during secret prayer, when I am usually full of vigour and joyous in the Lord. I am like a stone at the bottom of the ocean, crushed by the vast weight of water above. I am nothing but a hypocrite. I am the vilest creature ever born in the world. God has surely cast me from his holy vessel and abandoned me to drown in an ocean of sin. Then, the temptation to misbelieve sweeps through me. It is irresistible unto my mind. There is nothing, there is no God, I say to myself again and again. There is no Saviour. There is no Christ. There is no Redemption.I forget the mighty works of the Lord. The wise words of the ministers are sand in the wind. I see only the corruptions in my nature which render me vile. I dare not look at my face in the glass lest I see the Devil’s mark on my countenance. I repeat the words again and again, countless times in the chamber of my mind. There is no Christ. There is no Redemption. There is no God.

CHAPTER 1

A Meeting with the Lord Advocate

‘CONGRATULATIONS ON BECOMING a grandfather’, said Dalrymple, looking up with a hint of a smile on his pale face. He sat behind a huge desk, on which two candles flickered, the only source of light in the dark, windowless chamber. Dressed entirely in black, his body seemed to meld with the surrounding darkness, accentuating his ghostly features and the whiteness of his wig.

Rosehaugh was Lord Advocate the last time MacKenzie had sat in this room. Rosehaugh was now gone – swept out by the revolution two years before, just as MacKenzie was swept out of the Court of Session. The world was indeed turned upside down, although some things remained the same. The Lord Advocate’s office was the same dismal, stuffy chamber. The same grim paintings covered the walls, depicting previous Advocates, just perceptible in the shadows. MacKenzie doubted Rosehaugh’s portrait hung among them yet. The revolution was still raw and its final outcome was perhaps uncertain.

‘I’m twice blessed, my Lord’, MacKenzie replied. ‘My daughter is returned to me after her…’, he hesitated for a moment, searching for the right words to describe Elizabeth’s elopement with Ruairidh MacKenzie, ‘…adventure in the Highlands. And I have a grandson at the Hawthorns.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it.’ Dalrymple’s expression reverted to its usual stoniness. ‘Have you heard anything of your chief?’ he asked casually, rotating the quill in his right hand.

MacKenzie had to be careful with what he said. Dalrymple supported the revolution that had brought William to the throne. MacKenzie did not, but neither was he committed to the Jacobites who sought the restoration of James Stuart, the previous King. His chief Seaforth was, however, a devoted Jacobite. ‘Seaforth is with James in Ireland, my Lord’, said MacKenzie. ‘It’s common knowledge. I have no time for plots. I’m done with politics. I’m happy to tend my plants and play with my grandson in my garden. I fear the revolution is a… fait accompli.’

Dalrymple nodded in satisfaction and sat back, observing MacKenzie carefully. He returned his quill to the stand and said smugly, ‘James will never return as King of this country or any other. King William will crush the fools who support him. Your clan must accept King William. Everyone will accept King William eventually. A few clans hold out, but I will bring them into the fold… soon.’

MacKenzie smiled ruefully. ‘I cannot say I’m happy with William as King. But what can I do about it? I’m too old to fight in the field. I’m content in my retirement at the Hawthorns.’

He remembered the letter that had arrived earlier from a client in the Highlands, delivered clandestinely by a MacKenzie clan agent, requesting advice on how to finance a son in exile and raise money to pay for muskets. Dalrymple would have loved to get his hands on the missive which was safely consigned to the flames of his fire.

‘Why have you asked me here, my Lord?’ MacKenzie asked. It was time to get down to business. Dalrymple never asked to see you for purely social reasons. ‘I spend little time in the city these days. I’m thinking of selling my apartments.’

Dalrymple rested his elbows on the desk and sighed. ‘Have a glass of wine, MacKenzie.’ Filling two glasses from a bottle, he passed one to MacKenzie and drank deeply from the other.

‘Let me explain myself. You were no doubt surprised to receive my summons this morning. We are not men who usually share the same interests. But these are unusual days. Political business consumes my time at the moment. The King, or rather his servant Portland, demands I keep him informed about Scottish policy, day and night. The secretaries are lazy and unreliable. The King’s desire is to pacify Scotland and settle the church swiftly. Much business is required to achieve this end: commissioners persuaded to support the court, ministers cajoled, fanatics kept at bay. The new Crown Officer has been dismissed. He was even more useless than your dead friend Archibald Stirling. I’m too busy to concern myself with individual criminal cases.’

Dalrymple took another sip of wine, before raising his handkerchief to dab his thin, black lips. ‘I want your help, MacKenzie. There, I’ve said it. I don’t like asking any of your clan – indeed, any Highlander – for help. I’ve no liking for the Highlands. It’s a barbarous wasteland and nursery of Popery!’

MacKenzie considered pointing out the fertility of land in Ross-shire and that only a tiny proportion of clans were Catholic, most being Protestant, but decided against it. Dalrymple was so full of Presbyterian prejudice it would make no difference.

Dalrymple continued gravely. ‘There’s been a killing in the city this very morning. There’s been a killing in Van Diemen’s Land. In a house in Cumming’s Court off the Lawnmarket. A merchant called Jacob Kerr has been murdered… brutally. Dr Lawtie will provide the anatomical details. Kerr was an elder in the Kirk who sat quietly on the Session. I’ve no time to examine the case myself, but it must be seen to be investigated to assuage the Presbyterians.’ He stopped again to drink some wine and then shook his head. ‘My enemies are circling like vultures, MacKenzie. It is jealousy of the Dalrymple family that drives them on. But mark my words. Presbytery will be re-established in Scotland. I will let nothing disrupt progress of the legislation through Parliament. I want Kerr’s case investigated quickly and with little noise.’

‘Surely a new Officer should consider it, my Lord’, said MacKenzie, reflecting that the previous Crown Officer had lasted only a few months. Dalrymple spent long hours in the office and was often at his desk after midnight. Ordinary mortals could not put up with his demands. He lived only to work and further the interests of his family.

‘I find it difficult to find a reasonable candidate’, Dalrymple replied. ‘Everyone is blemished in some way. Everyone represents some faction. Any appointee will displease someone. Things are carefully balanced. I don’t want to upset any members of Parliament before the Kirk legislation is passed and we’ve raised supply. So, I need your help, MacKenzie – in an unofficial capacity, of course. I could not make you an official deputy. You are tainted by your service to the previous regime. It would ruffle too many feathers. An appointment on an ad hoc basis, however, providing authority to investigate a single case, is politically acceptable. You will, of course, be paid.’

MacKenzie took his glass and sat back, sipping the claret. ‘I don’t need the money, my Lord’, he said.

‘Consider it a way of serving the King’, added Dalrymple, a wry smile spreading over his cold features. ‘It would help you and your family. After all, your grandson is the son of a Papist who died on the wrong side at Killiecrankie.’

‘My daughter is no Papist, my Lord.’ MacKenzie had to admit it was not the best start in life for young Geordie. The boy’s father was dead and would have no opinion on his son’s religious upbringing, but his brother Seaforth, a staunch Catholic, might try to interfere. ‘Let me think on the matter, my Lord.’

‘I can give you a day, MacKenzie. I need the case tidied up now.’ MacKenzie finished his wine and excused himself.

He emerged from the Parliament House into a bright June morning. He walked up the bustling High Street of Edinburgh, through the teeming Luckenbooths surrounding St Giles Kirk, towards the mass of the castle.

Business was booming after the mayhem of the last couple of years. Merchants and lawyers, who mostly followed the Presbyterian interest, were content with the new regime. William was backed by the wealthy merchants of Amsterdam and London. James faced years in exile, unless there was a miraculous turn of events in Ireland. Most Jacobites had already left for their estates in the country or joined the old King in exile; only a few of the most loyal supporters still plotted in the city.

MacKenzie shook his head in despair. Seaforth had, unsurprisingly, chosen the losing side. Fortunately, he had not committed himself one way or the other. If he had openly sided with the Jacobites, he might have faced exile and forfeiture, the Hawthorns given to some Presbyterian lackey. MacKenzie had prevaricated over providing money. The Jacobite cause was in dire need of funds. Rents from MacKenzie lands in the north were being transferred to Seaforth. The expense of maintaining the chief overseas was vast and causing disquiet among the clansfolk.

James was the rightful King of Scotland, mused MacKenzie, but he would not take up arms to restore him. In his heart, he was convinced it was over for the House of Stuart. It grieved him but they had to face reality. The Stuarts had been Kings of Scotland since Robert II, but recent members of the family had proved useless monarchs, except perhaps Charles II. Maybe Scotland should accept a future under the Dutchman William. Dalrymple was determined to crush Jacobitism in the Highlands. MacKenzie sighed. How had it come to this? He recalled the jubilation in London on the Restoration of Charles in 1660, which he had witnessed as a young man.

MacKenzie found himself in the Lawnmarket, the part of the High Street nearest the castle, where tenements rose to seven storeys on both sides. He stood at the opening of Cockburn’s Wynd, on the north side of the street, a long, narrow vennel between the tenements, leading to the courtyard of Cumming’s Court about a hundred yards away. At the bottom he could see a black door. It was the front door of a five-storey dwelling, or land, called Van Diemen’s Land. It was the house where Jacob Kerr had lived and died.

He knew the building was named after a Dutch merchant called Van Diemen who had built it. Van Diemen had married a Scottish woman and come to Edinburgh to trade with his homeland. He had died childless and the property had passed through a number of owners, while keeping its name.

MacKenzie knew little about Jacob Kerr except that he was a merchant of the middle rank, a Presbyterian and regular church goer. He knew nothing else about his family or business. MacKenzie had never crossed the threshold of Van Diemen’s Land in his life. He turned to leave and was about to head off, dismissing Dalrymple’s request, when some impulse made him look down the vennel again.

He did not have to take the case. He disliked the Dalrymple family and everything they stood for. He missed his job as Clerk of the Session. He would never return to it unless there was a miracle. But he was already wondering what had happened behind the door. It crossed his mind that Dalrymple might be using him for some purpose. But if he took the case, would he not be using Dalrymple? He had a sudden desire to be involved in an investigation again. The last few months since Geordie’s birth had been delightful, but it would be good to have something else to think about. He had to admit that a murder had a magnetic pull over him.

He marched up the Lawnmarket, turned right into Merton’s Close and entered the Periwig, a drinking den of advocates and writers, where he asked for ink and paper. Taking the table at the back of the low-ceilinged tavern where he usually sat, he wrote two short notes: one to Dalrymple accepting the case; the other to his friend and assistant Davie Scougall, asking him to meet him immediately in the Lawnmarket. He called a boy to deliver the messages, sat back with satisfaction and ordered a glass of claret.

CHAPTER 2

The Body of a Merchant

SCOUGALL WAS HARD at work in the office and was annoyed by the presumption of MacKenzie’s request that he meet him. MacKenzie should know he no longer worked for himself. He had moved on to better things, having taken a position with Mrs Hair six months before as a senior writer. As a result, he was busier than he had ever been before and it was difficult – indeed, impossible – for him to drop everything when he worked for someone else.

Mrs Hair’s business was expanding; property transactions reviving, trade finance growing strongly. Scougall was enjoying his new role. He relished meeting merchants to seal deals and was fascinated by the foreign trade. He loved to watch ships sailing from Leith to Holland or the Baltic. Despite having never been outside Scotland in his life, he had a longing to see the wider world and hoped to sail to Amsterdam or Barbados or the Indies one day. First, however, he had to prove himself to Mrs Hair.

He was sure she was pleased with his work so far. His maxim was to check every document he wrote three times: check, check and check, he would say to himself after completing a task, whether letter or bond. She had hinted he might travel to oversee her business soon. MacKenzie’s note therefore came as an unwanted irritation. But he could not deny his old friend. They had been through too much together over the years. Reluctantly, he excused himself for half an hour.

On the way up the High Street he thought about Chrissie. She was no longer Chrissie Munro, but miraculously transmogrified into Chrissie Scougall. The thought of seeing her at the end of the day banished his feeling of annoyance. His married status still amazed him and brought a smile to a face which usually wore a worried expression.

Many times over the years he had thought marriage beyond his grasp. But the small ceremony in Musselburgh had taken place in April, two months before, the Reverend Andrew Leitch officiating. He still could not get used to the idea of returning to a cosy apartment rather than his lonely room in Mrs Baird’s lodgings. He would have the company of a pretty woman all evening and all night. He thanked God for his good fortune and MacKenzie’s words at the ceremony came back to him: ‘Davie and I have survived a few scrapes over the years. I’ve come to know him well. He’s a man of many qualities: brave, determined, indefatigable and he can drive a golf ball further than any lawyer in Edinburgh! He will make a loyal and loving husband.’

Scougall’s irritation subsided. He spotted MacKenzie in the distance, a tall figure in a blue velvet coat and short wig, and for some reason thought of MacKenzie’s daughter, Elizabeth. He chastised himself – thinking of another woman was a sin. He was pleased for MacKenzie that she had returned home and there was a bairn at the Hawthorns, although the child was, unfortunately, the son of a Papist. Elizabeth had left her young husband buried at Blair, and she, at the age of 22, was a very eligible widow.

MacKenzie waved in greeting from the opening of Cockburn’s Wynd. ‘Ah, Davie! Thank you for coming’, he said excitedly.

‘I’ve only a short while, sir. Mrs Hair does not like her writers disappearing on business unconcerned with her office’, Scougall stammered, unable to conceal his anxiety.

MacKenzie smiled, taking Scougall’s elbow and directing him into the vennel. ‘I quite understand, Davie. I’ll just take a little of your precious time. I know you’re busy and keen to make a favourable impression. I’ve something important to tell you.’ He waited for Scougall to give him his full attention before continuing. ‘I’ve had an offer from Dalrymple.’

‘An offer from Dalrymple?’ Scougall repeated looking confused.

‘He’s offered me a criminal case to investigate. He wants it sorted with little fuss. He’s too busy with parliamentary business.’

Scougall looked surprised. ‘What case, sir?’

‘A death in the house down there, Davie’, said MacKenzie, pointing down the vennel.

Scougall looked down the dark passageway at the black door.

‘Van Diemen’s Land’, added MacKenzie.

Scougall didn’t know what to say. He knew MacKenzie hated the new government, particularly Dalrymple. ‘What’s it to do with me? I don’t have time to assist you, sir. I’m too busy with work.’

MacKenzie rummaged in his pocket and took out his pipe. He knocked it against the wall, briskly, and began to stuff it with fresh tobacco. He was soon puffing away thoughtfully. ‘If you’ll allow me to explain, Davie. Jacob Kerr was found this morning in the kitchen. His body has been taken to the morgue. We should go there first.’ He took hold of Scougall’s sleeve and gently directed him back onto the High Street.

Scougall stopped in his tracks after a few steps, looking exasperated. ‘I’m too busy, sir. I don’t know if I can spare any time. I should let Mrs Hair know first. I can’t be long.’

MacKenzie took the cuff of Scougall’s jacket, encouraging him down the street. ‘We won’t be long, Davie. Tell Mrs Hair you were seeing me. You were maintaining good business relations. I require a bond to purchase land in Ross-shire. She’ll be understanding, if there’s money in it.’

Scougall looked perturbed but hated displeasing anyone. He had no appetite for any case of murder. He had other things to think about, in particular his work and Chrissie. But he always found it difficult to refuse MacKenzie. ‘Twenty minutes and I’ll have to be back in the office.’

MacKenzie set off down the High Street at a quick pace. ‘Come on then, Davie. Get a move on. I’d forgotten you were working for Mrs Hair. It’s very inconvenient. Could you not take your own office again? Then you might be a more… flexible assistant.’ He smiled to indicate he was only half serious.

Scougall knew he was teasing him but couldn’t contain his displeasure. ‘I’ve my future to think of, sir. I’m a married man now, if you remember. I can’t make a living from criminal cases like this. I don’t make money like an advocate. Anyway, I enjoy my new work. It’s a breath of fresh air after years of writing instruments on my own.’

MacKenzie chuckled. ‘Of course, Davie, forgive me. You can help me as your time permits. I’m sorry for my presumption. I’ve grown too used to your help. A second opinion is important to me. The thought of a new case has sent the blood pumping through my old veins. It’s been a long time since I had something to get my teeth into. I was going to decline the case, of course, on a matter of principle. I despise Dalrymple’s clique of craven Calvinists. He’s no friend of Highlanders, especially MacKenzies. But I’ve decided to lay my prejudices aside, on this occasion. I have an aching desire in me to be involved. It’s no doubt a botched robbery which should be solved quickly.’

They had reached the Tolbooth, the sprawling lump of stone at the centre of the city beside St Giles Kirk used as a prison, morgue, council chamber and headquarters of the town guard. ‘A quick look at the body and I’ll leave you to get on with your work. I promise, Davie’, added MacKenzie as they entered the low door and headed down a staircase into the basement.

The morgue was the first room on the left, a long, low-ceilinged chamber containing a line of wooden tables. Inside, Dr Lawtie, a small flabby figure wearing spectacles, was explaining the best way to cut open a cadaver to an apprentice. Lawtie was also annoyed at being interrupted.

‘You again, MacKenzie. And Mr Scougall’, he said bluntly. Lawtie disliked lawyers and showed it.

‘I’m looking into the Kerr killing for Dalrymple. Is that him there?’ MacKenzie pointed at the only table with anything on it – a large mound under a white sheet.

‘You’ll work for anyone! I thought you were a Jacobite’, replied Lawtie, wiping his hands on his blood-stained apron.

‘Then you thought wrongly, Lawtie. I’m no Jacobite, nor am I a Williamite, as they call supporters of the new King. I’m a loyal Scotsman. May we take a look at him?’ MacKenzie pulled back the sheet before Lawtie gave his approval.

A grotesque mound of blue-white, blubbery flesh was revealed. Scougall recalled the whale he had seen as a boy washed up on the beach at Musselburgh. Kerr was a gross middle-aged man who was bald as a coot with a plethora of varicosities on his legs.

‘He was a big man’, said Lawtie. ‘He must weigh… 20 stones at least. It took four guards to carry him down here. We struggled to turn him to examine the wounds on his back.’

‘How was he killed?’ asked MacKenzie brusquely, observing the corpse carefully.

‘Let me show you, MacKenzie.’

Lawtie called his assistant, a young man of about 15 who looked terrified of his master. Together, they took hold of the body and with some effort tipped it onto its side and held it there, revealing a vast pimpled back punctured by a random array of small stab wounds.

‘I’ve counted 20 wounds in total. Both lungs are punctured, the heart is pierced thrice, the main vessels around the heart slashed. It was a frenzied attack. And look at the neck. It was cut as well.’

‘Did he die from the neck wound or the ones on the back?’ asked MacKenzie, moving closer to observe the lacerations.

‘The neck wound caused his death. But the others would have killed him in time.’

‘What kind of weapon was used?’

‘Anything with a blade. A dirk or kitchen knife. I would judge a relatively small one from the depth of the wounds. It was wielded ferociously. There’s one thing about the angle of incision. The stabs were made downwards.’

‘Was he lying on his back at the time?’ asked Scougall, standing as far away from the corpse as he could – he had an aversion to dead bodies but his interest in the details of the killing was suddenly pricked.

‘No, I would say not, Mr Scougall. Rather, the killer brought the weapon down like this.’ Lawtie suddenly pushed his surprised assistant to the floor and indicated with his fist a stabbing motion onto his back. ‘Now, get up off the floor, Munro!’ he barked.

‘Is there anything else of note?’ probed MacKenzie.

Lawtie took a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his bulbous nose. ‘There is one other thing. There are a number of lesions on his member. Old ones, I think. Probably caused by a venereal complaint in the past.’

Scougall looked baffled and repeated, ‘Lesions on his member?’

‘The clap, Mr Scougall. Kerr suffered from the clap. A case of gonorrhoea. They are long healed. He probably visited a whore or two in his youth.’

‘I thought Kerr was an elder in the Kirk?’ asked Scougall, disappointed by another example of the moral failings of those espousing the cause of rectitude.

MacKenzie nodded as he took a pair of tweezers from his pocket and lifted Kerr’s flaccid penis from its nest of grey hair to examine it. Scougall looked away in disgust. He also had an aversion to looking at another man’s penis, particularly a dead man’s.

‘He strayed a little in his youth! Who has not strayed a little in their youth, Mr Scougall? Who has not been tempted?’ Lawtie chuckled, sensing Scougall’s discomfiture.

The repulsive thought of Lawtie astride a poor woman flashed through Scougall’s mind. Was the good doctor married? He did not know. He had never thought of it before. That Lawtie should have a life, a sex life, outside the disgusting morgue where he spent his days had never entered Scougall’s mind. He had always wanted to escape his company as quickly as possible. He pitied any woman forced to share a bed with the disgusting little man. Then a thought of himself and Chrissie came from nowhere. It was not right to think of their love making in such a place, in a morgue, in a place of death. He forced himself to think of something else by following the blue varicosities on Kerr’s swollen legs which reminded him of the tributaries of a river on a Blaeu map.

‘What was he wearing when he was killed?’ asked MacKenzie.

‘Just his nightshirt and leather belt’, replied Lawtie. ‘A pouch attached to it contained a few coins. They are over there on the table. I had to cut the nightshirt off to look at the wounds. Nothing else on it but blood, lots of blood. The pouch is there.’

‘I must get back to the office, sir’, said Scougall, backing away from the corpse, beginning to feel queasy. He hated the putrid reek and closeness of death. He turned his eyes away from the long, curving yellow toenails of Kerr’s reptilian feet.

MacKenzie who was deep in thought nodded absently. ‘Thank you, Davie. A drink later in the Periwig? To keep you informed about the case.’

Scougall nodded, unenthusiastically. Chrissie would not mind him taking a glass or two. She thought well of MacKenzie. But he could not stop feeling dismayed by it all. He wanted to get on with his new life.

CHAPTER 3

Van Diemen’s Land

MACKENZIE RETURNED TO Dalrymple’s office immediately to pick up a letter drafted by one of the Advocate’s clerks which affirmed his appointment as a temporary deputy for the space of a week. The period of time might be extended if required.

Stuffing it in his pocket, he returned to the entrance of Cockburn’s Wynd on the High Street where he stood, once more deep in thought, staring down the narrow passageway at the door of Van Diemen’s Land, trying to remember everything he knew about Kerr. The details provided by Dalrymple were sparse. Kerr was born about 50 years ago, his father a merchant and his mother the daughter of a merchant. He had followed his father’s trade from a young age. He married Margaret Petrie, the daughter of Alexander Petrie, another merchant; they had one child, a daughter Mary, a quiet devout girl. Kerr, it seems, had bothered no one during his life until that morning when Van Diemen’s Land was visited by brutal violence. An aphorism in Gaelic, MacKenzie’s first language, came to him, about how death comes suddenly like an unexpected summer storm.

He recalled his wife’s smiling face in the gardens at the Hawthorns a few days before her death in childbirth and felt the usual anguish, the familiar feeling of despair he had fought against for 20 years. But the vision of his wife faded and was replaced by his grandson squealing in laughter. The boy was the apple of his eye. How his wife would have loved to see their grandchild. He suddenly reflected that Geordie was not being brought up speaking Gaelic. His daughter was talking to him entirely in English. He shook his head in disgust and resolved to rectify the matter as soon as he got back to the Hawthorns.

He walked down the vennel ponderously, listening to his own footsteps, observing the damp stone of the walls of the tenements on both sides, noticing how they leaned together as they rose storey after storey until, seven storeys above, they were little more than a couple of feet apart and only a thin rectangle of blue sky was visible. It was like walking through a long, peaked cave.

Another thing struck him as he proceeded. The vennel was relatively free of clart by Edinburgh standards. Most closes, vennels and wynds in the city hit the nose immediately on entry due to the mixture of ordure and shit dumped from the windows above. Cockburn’s Wynd was clear of the usual detritus and looked like it was regularly swept. It was a well-ordered corner in the chaos of the city.