of his nose. '1623, the family tree said.' He cleared space on the table, and, carefully, opened the heavy book near the beginning, standing over it to read more easily. The pages were stiff and yellow with age, and their thick paper creaked as they were turned. 'What have we here?' Wills muttered. 'March 22, 1621. A marriage record, signed by William Friel, the Minister and by the witnesses, between one Robert Glen, labourer, son of Mathew Glen, labourer, and Mary Glen, and Susan Watt, chambermaid, daughter of Hugh Watt, carpenter, and Susan Watt the elder. How interesting; the witnesses are both named Glen, and they both signed with a mark. No Watts there at all. I wonder if this alliance caused a family rift. The daughter of a skilled man marrying a labourer might have been considered in those days to have chosen beneath her.'
Maggie Rose snorted. 'You could say the same about me, marrying a Sergeant!'
Ah, yes, Inspector, but your chosen one has the prospect of advancement. In those days, your birth dictated what you would become. Self-made men usually ended up on the gibbet.'
He delved once again into the book, peering sometimes to decipher the crude script. The records are simply in order. Marriages, births and burials are listed in the order they occurred.' He turned the pages. Suddenly, he stopped. Ahh, how sad,' he sighed. 'This is a burial record. November 6, 1621, Susan, wife of Robert Glen, died November 3, and her son, Mathew, born November 3, baptised November 4, died November 4.' Maggie looked down at the yellow page with its black writing. In the awkward silence, she felt a catch at her throat.
'Sometimes it's best not to look too closely,' said Wills. `These people must have had a great stoicism, to live in times when such tragedies were commonplace.
He continued to turn the pages, tracing down their columns as he went. At last he straightened up. 'Yes! July 2, 1622. A marriage record between Archibald Tullis, estate clerk, son of William Tullis, estate clerk, and Rosina Tullis, deceased, and Elizabeth Carr…' His voice tailed off and he looked, bright-eyed at Rose. 'How very strange! There is nothing about Elizabeth Carr. No occupation, no parentage: nothing at all to give a clue to her background or her birth.'
He looked down at the page again. The witnesses: ah yes, here they are, two and both literate.
William Tullis, and…' he gasped: `…Matilda Tod! The witch's sister. We meet her again twenty-four years on. A witness twice: first to a pagan burning, and now to a Christian marriage. Astounding.'
He closed the book. Rose looked at him. 'Don't we want to go on, to trace the birth of Elizabeth's daughter?'
Wills shook his head, impatiently. 'No, no. We know about her already, from the family tree.
That, and the existence of Matilda Tod are authenticated by what we have found here today. We must go back in time, not forward, to find the origins of Elizabeth Carr. Back beyond her too, if need be.'
`But if there's no record of Elizabeth's parentage at the time of her marriage, will there be a record of her birth?'
Unless she came from furth of Longniddry — and, Inspector, in those days Scots people were not mobile — my guess is that there will.
`This woman was married in the kirk. That means she was baptised, and if that is the case, somewhere there will be a record.' He stepped round the table to the volume containing the oldest registers, and opened it at its first page.
He scanned the pages swiftly but carefully, tracing a finger down each page, pausing occasionally to peer through his spectacles at a piece of difficult script. On and on he went, starting occasionally, only to shake his head in frustration a few seconds later.
Eventually, he closed the book. 'I've gone all the way through to the year 1611. There are several Carberrys, and a few Glares, but not a single Carr. That is worrying, but I'm not giving up yet. If she's there, Elizabeth must have been born before 1601.'
I suppose that means we'll have to wait until Monday.'
Oh no, Margaret, my blood is up. There are few things less stoppable than a historian on the trail of a scent. Only one thing for it. I must bribe Jim Glossop with sufficient Guinness to persuade him to let me in here tomorrow morning!'
Forty-eight
Andy Martin was waiting as Darren Atkinson's bedraggled quartet made their way off the eighteenth green. He wandered across as Skinner paused, with Susan Kinture, beside the grandstand, totalling up his card.
The rain had eased from torrential to merely heavy. 'How's Bravo?' Skinner asked at once.
`He'll be OK. Doctor Collins, the chap who treated him on the course, phoned from Roodlands Hospital. They've got him stabilised, and they've ruled out any cerebral problems.
They've pumped his stomach, and the contents are on the way to our lab at Howdenhall for analysis, along with that bottle.
`Doctor Collins wouldn't commit himself, but he said that he once treated someone for atropine poisoning. He reckoned that the caddy's symptoms were very similar.'
Atropine?'
`Yes, our old friend. Deadly nightshade extract.'
`Shit!' said Skinner. 'That figures. I spoke to the wee boy who handed out the drinks back on the twelfth tee. He said that a 'great, big, tall man' gave them to him, one by one, and said that he could hand them over. Thinking it over, it occurred to me that they don't have people doling out the drinks. There are containers on the fifth, twelfth and fifteenth tees and that's it.
You want a drink, you help yourself.'
`The kid couldn't have been fantasising?'
`No. His dad was right there. He confirmed it. He said that the bloke handed over three bottles one after the other. The first one, he said to give to Norton Wales, but the wee chap made a mistake and gave it to me. The second he said to give to Bravo, and the third he said to give to Darren.'
Martin looked at him, concerned. 'So the thought is that this man was trying to fix Darren but that the bottles got mixed up.'
`That's right. In Darren's golfbag.'
`Could he describe the man?'
Skinner shook his head. 'Not beyond saying that he was at least six feet tall, broad-shouldered and wore glasses. The guy was completely encased in waterproofs. All that the father remembered was that he was standing beside the drinks cooler, and that he was a smoker. He stubbed out a cigarette on the ground before he gave the wee chap the first drink.'
`What about his accent?'
`He couldn't pin it. Nondescript, he said.'
`Sod it,' said Martin, exasperated. 'Not much to go on.'
`No, but let's keep flying kites. I know it's the longest of long shots, but get some people across to the tenth tee, once the crowds have gone, to pick up every fag-end they can find close to that drinks cooler. You never know your luck.'
OK.'
`Who's handling the press on Bravo's condition?' Skinner asked.
`We haven't had any enquiries yet. If we do, they'll go to Royston in the usual way.'
`No. Let's not do that. Have Alan refer everything to the hospital, and tell him to make sure that its press officer says that he was treated for a gastric complaint and that he's progressing.
I don't want to stir up any more media excitement.'
He put a hand on Martin's shoulder. Do one other thing for me, Andy. Have Brian Mackie contact Joe Doherty. Ask him if he can come up with a physical description of Richard Andrews.'
The Superintendent smiled. 'Yes. We know already that he's a smoker. It'd be nice if it turns out that he's six feet tall, broad-shouldered and wears glasses.'
`Wouldn't it just. And you know me, Andy son. If there's one thing I hate in a criminal investigation it's 'nice' solutions.'
