‘Sturmey,’ he said. ‘The name of Sturmey means something to me. Now why is that, eh? Why should a reputable locksmith, patronized by the great and the noble, strike a chord in my old memory?’

Athelstan grinned. Cranston’s memory was prodigious. He knew the names and most of the faces of London’s rogues and, even in a crowded Cheapside, could bellow out warnings to pickpockets and foists.

‘What does Sturmey’s name mean to you?’ Gaunt asked quickly.

The Coroner shook his head. ‘It will come.’ He bowed. ‘My Lord Regent, if you will excuse me and my clerk, it is imperative we call on this locksmith tonight. Where does he live?’

‘In Lawrence Lane, just off the Mercery,’ Clifford replied.

‘Then,’ Cranston grinned at Athelstan who just glared back in tired annoyance, ‘we’d best call upon master locksmith of Lawrence Lane near the Mercery and ask him a few questions, eh?’ He bowed to the Regent once more. Gaunt looked away. Cranston shrugged and walked down the church, a despondent Athelstan trailing behind.

‘Cranston!’

Sir John turned. Gaunt was now standing on the altar steps.

‘You know the Guildmasters will be back. Oh, they’ll be reasonable. They’ll demand their gold and their answers within a set time.’ He wagged a finger. ‘I need answers, too, my Lord Coroner, within ten days at the most.’ He left the unspoken threat hanging in the air as Cranston spun on his heel and walked out of the Guildhall chapel.

Once out in Cheapside Cranston stopped and stared up at the moon. ‘The devil’s piss on them!’ he cursed. ‘Cock’s blood! What a stinking pot of turds! What a mess! The whoreson, beetle-headed, fat-bellied, treacherous bastards!’

Athelstan smiled. ‘You are, My Lord Coroner, referring to our brothers in Christ, the Guildmasters?’

‘Yes, monk, I am.’ Cranston plucked his miraculous wineskin from beneath his cloak and gulped heartily. ‘Lord,’ he breathed, ‘what a mess! How was Fitzroy killed, Brother? He didn’t take the poison before the meal, his food and all the cutlery bore no sign of any potion.’

Athelstan shook his head. ‘You are ahead of me, Sir John. I am still wondering about Mountjoy’s death.’ The friar stared across the darkened Cheapside, his gaze attracted by the lantern horns fixed outside the great merchants’ houses. He recalled the words of his old lecturer, Father Paul: ‘The root of all sin,’ the old friar had boomed, ‘is pride. And the opposite of love is not hatred or indifference but power. Power corrupts; the pursuit of it is the road to Hell.’

We are on that road now, Athelstan thought, thronged by powerful men with a raging thirst for the best things in life. We are all killers, he concluded, and despite the warm evening air, shivered. He felt like a masked swordsman being thrust into a pitch-black tourney thronged by killers, I want to go home,’ he whispered before he could stop himself.

Cranston looked at him curiously. ‘This is your home, Brother.’

Athelstan smiled and shook himself free from his reverie. ‘Aye, Sir John, but we have a locksmith to question. Tell me, why are. you puzzled by Sturmey’s name?’

Cranston blessed himself, took three more swigs from the wineskin, popped back the stopper and, linking his arm through Athelstan’s, guided him up the Poultry.

‘I don’t know,’ he muttered. ‘But the name rings a bell. It will take time, Brother.’

Athelstan pinched his nostrils for this part of Cheapside still stank of dead birds. He tried not to look at the rats racing between the cesspits in the centre of the street to forage amongst the juicy morsels of giblets and decapitated heads of chickens, partridge, quail and plover. Two white feathers floated by and Athelstan thought of angels.

‘No angels here,’ he muttered.

‘You’re dead bloody right!’ Cranston retorted.

They jumped and stepped aside as two old ladies suddenly turned the corner, pushing a hand cart, the corpse of another old harridan sprawled over it. Athelstan sketched a blessing in the air. One of the old crones looked over her shoulder and cackled.

‘Gone she has,’ she screeched. ‘Died of the flux and it’s the lime pits for her.’

‘I wish I could stop that,’ Cranston observed. ‘They will dump the body on some church steps.’

The cart trailed away into the darkness and they continued into the Mercery. Two whores stood on the corner of an alleyway, their saffron dresses and red wigs shining like beacons in the gloom.

‘Hello, ladies!’ Cranston shouted. ‘You know the law?’

‘What law?’ the taller of the two replied. ‘We are a prayer group.’

‘It’s Cranston!’ the shorter one hissed, and the two ladies of the night fled like fire-flies up the darkened alley.

Athelstan and Cranston turned into Lawrence Lane, a dark tunnel because the houses on either side leaned over so close, a person in the highest story could actually tap on a window opposite.

‘Mind your step!’ Cranston warned.

Athelstan looked down and realized the sewer in the centre of the street had overflowed, drenching the cobbles with all kinds of putrid filth. The street reeked of sulphur which some good citizen must have poured in to kill the stench. Dark forms edged out of alleyways. Cranston tugged his cloak over his shoulders and pulled out his long Welsh stabbing dagger.

‘Good evening, my buckos! I’m Jack Cranston, Coroner.’

The sinister shadows disappeared.

They continued on, Cranston stopping to look at the shop signs which hung on poles just above their heads. At last, just before Lawrence Lane ran into Catte Street, he stopped and pointed to a sign creaking on rusting chains. It bore the legend ‘Peter Sturmey, Locksmith’. Cranston stepped back and looked up. He could see candlelight glowing in one of the upper stories so began to hammer on the door.

‘Piss off!’ someone shouted from across the street.

Athelstan and Cranston moved quickly as the foul contents of a night pot were hurled down.

‘Sod off!’ Cranston yelled back. ‘I am an officer of the law!’

‘I couldn’t care if you were the King himself!’ the voice shouted back, but they heard the casement window snap shut and Cranston went back to his hammering.

At last his perseverance was rewarded. They heard footsteps, the door was pulled back on its chains and the pallid face of a maid, ghostly in the candlelight, peered out at them.

‘Who is it?’ she murmured. ‘What is the matter? Do you have news of my master?’

‘Open the door!’ Cranston murmured. ‘That’s a good lass. I am the city Coroner and this is Brother Athelstan. We must have words with your master.’

The chains were loosened and the maid, swathed in a cloak, stepped back to allow them in. In the candlelight the passageway came alive with dancing, flickering shapes.

‘I want your master,’ Cranston repeated gently.

‘Sir, he is not here. He left this afternoon and has not returned.’

Athelstan closed his eyes. ‘Oh, God!’ he breathed.

‘What is it?’

A tousle-haired boy, heavy-eyed with sleep but with the face of an angel, suddenly darted from a room off the passageway, a lantern almost as big as his head held high in one hand.

‘And who are you, sir?’ Cranston asked.

‘Perrot,’ he replied. ‘Master Sturmey’s apprentice.’

The boy came closer. Athelstan judged him to be about thirteen or fourteen summers old and, once again, was reminded of an angel Huddle had painted on the walls of St Erconwald’s.

‘The master’s gone,’ the boy said flatly. ‘He went out just after noon and he hasn’t come back.’

‘And the lady of the house?’

‘She’s gone too and won’t be back.’

‘Why not?’

‘She died five years ago.’

Athelstan grinned and plucked a penny from his purse. He spun it and the boy nimbly caught it.

‘And Sturmey’s son?’

‘He’s gone too,’ the maid and apprentice chorused.