Athelstan followed him around but, after a while, gave up in disgust at the different grisly objects discovered and went to join Benedicta in the street outside.

‘Hell’s teeth!’ he whispered, quoting Cranston. ‘The place should be burnt from top to bottom.’

Cranston, however, came out full of himself. He pulled the house door close then locked it.

‘Benedicta,’ he grinned, ‘you are an angel. Where else would a relic-seller get a head to sell as that of a saint except from the execution yard?’ The Coroner rubbed his hands together. ‘One more small victory for old Jack, eh?’

They walked back into Cheapside and waited whilst Cranston summoned officials and sent them to the house. One of the beadles was eating a meat pie, munching insolently as Cranston talked to him. The Coroner grinned as he watched the men stride away.

‘I haven’t told them what they’ll find,’ he joked. ‘But the insolent one with the meat pie will soon receive a short, sharp lesson on eating when the King’s Coroner is giving him instructions!’

He led them back to The Holy Lamb of God, loudly guffawing at Benedicta’s wondering how anyone could be so stupid as to trust such rogues.

‘Stupid!’ Cranston laughed. ‘If you go to any city in England, France or beyond the Rhine, you’ll find men, Princes of the Church, the most intelligent and educated of priests, spending fortunes on pieces of dirty bone and rag. Do you know, here in London, I heard of a merchant who paid a hundred pounds sterling for a napkin on which the Blessed St Cuthbert wiped his mouth. Devil’s balls!’ He mumbled an apology to Benedicta. ‘But hell’s teeth! I wish everything was as easy. Brother, did our journey to the Guildhall clarify anything?’

Cranston eased his great backside down on to the stool and stared pitifully at his clerk. ‘Athelstan,’ he pleaded. ‘Sooner rather than later, the Regent is going to ask me to account.’

The friar stared at the table top. ‘Let us see,’ he began slowly. ‘We know why Mountjoy and the other two were murdered. Not because of any secret sin or personal rivalry but to upset the Regent, to block his ambitions, to build up support amongst the powerful merchant class of London. Well, that has been achieved so there will be no more murders. At least, not for the time being.’ Athelstan paused, I am sure the murders can be laid at the door of the Ira Dei, but suspect he is only the architect. There’s a traitor and a killer in Gaunt’s party — Goodman or one of those powerful Guiidmasters.’

‘Why, Sir John?’ Benedicta interrupted. ‘Why hasn’t the assassin struck at Gaunt himself?’

‘Because the devil you know, My Lady, is better than the devil you don’t. Someone has to be Regent or, to put it more bluntly, someone has to be there to take the blame. If Gaunt were removed, his chair would merely be filled by one of his younger brothers. No, these murders are to clip Gaunt’s wings.’

‘Has there been any reaction to our meeting with the Guiidmasters about Sturmey’s private life?’ Athelstan asked.

Cranston shook his head. ‘Not as yet.’

‘Sir Nicholas Hussey was a boy when the scandal occurred?’

‘Only very young,’ Cranston replied. ‘God knows, he may remember whispers, but according to the records there is no indication that he was involved, even as a victim. Ah, well.’ He put his tankard down on the table.

‘What are we going to do now?’

‘Wait, Sir John, think, reflect. As I have said, the murders at the Guildhall are not crimes of passion but cold and calculating. I doubt if we will discover any further clue or sign. We must gather all we know, apply logic, and so squeeze out the one and only solution.’

‘If there s one,’ Cranston added wearily.

The conversation became desultory. Cranston’s elation at the arrest of the relic-sellers dissipated under a cloud of gloom as the fat Coroner began to sink into a sulk. Benedicta took her leave, saying she had no wish to stay, she’d had her fill of cadavers and mystery. Sir John took Athelstan back to his house but Lady Maude was busy and the poppets out with the nurse in the fields north of St Giles. Cranston became impossible so Athelstan left him for a while, deciding to visit his brethren at Blackfriars.

The friar returned just as the market in Cheapside drew to an early end and people hurried home to prepare for Sunday. Cranston, more refreshed, clapped him on the shoulder and they went back to The Holy Lamb of God to meet Cranston’s friend and physician, Theobald de Troyes, whom the Coroner had visited earlier in the afternoon.

‘Are you sure you wish to come?’ Cranston asked.

‘Sir John, I am always at your disposal,’ the physician replied. ‘Does the priest at St James know?’

‘I have already sent a constable down there. There will be labourers to dig out the grave and lift Sarah Hobden’s coffin.’ Sir John licked his lips. ‘Perhaps a drink first?

Both Athelstan and the physician flatly refused and, one on either side of him, escorted the reluctant Coroner out of West Cheap across Watling Street into Cordwainer and then along Upper Thames Street to the rather sombre church of St James Garlickhythe. The priest, Father Odo, cheery, red-nosed, and much the worse after a generous lunch, came out of the priest’s house and took them into a rather overgrown graveyard where three labourers were resting under the cool shade of a yew tree. At first there was absolute confusion as Father Odo tried to read the burial book and discover where Sarah Hobden had been buried.

‘I can’t find it,’ he mumbled, swaying dangerously on his feet.

Athelstan peered over his shoulder, realized the inebriated priest was reading it upside down, and took it out of his hand.

‘Let me help, Father,’ he offered gently.

Glaring defiantly at Cranston and daring him not to laugh, the friar sat on a tombstone and leafed through the pages until he found the entry: ‘Sarah Hobden, obiit 1376, North West’.

‘Where’s that, Father?’

Odo pointed to the far corner of the graveyard. Athelstan smiled and returned the burial book.

‘Father, you sit down and take your rest.’ He patted the old priest gently on the shoulder.

‘Don’t you dare!’ he hissed at Cranston as the Coroner’s hand went to where his miraculous wineskin was hanging beneath his cloak. ‘The poor man has had enough and, to be quite frank, Sir John, so have I!’

They called the labourers and crossed to that part of the cemetery Father Odo had pointed out. After some searching, they found Sarah Hobden’s grave, derelict, overgrown and neglected; the wooden cross, battered and lopsided, still bore her faded name. Cranston snapped his fingers and the grumbling labourers began to hack at the hard-packed earth.

‘What will this prove?’ Athelstan asked.

‘Ah.’ Cranston leaned on the grave stone, cradling his wineskin as if it was one of the poppets. He tapped his nose and pointed at the physician. ‘Master Theobald, instruct our ignorant priest!’

The physician winked at Athelstan. ‘When I received Sir John’s invitation, I made careful study of the cause of death.’

‘And?’

‘Well, if it’s arsenic, particularly red arsenic, we might well see what the populous would call a miracle. Let me surprise you, Father.’

The physician went and watched the labourers as their spades and picks began to ring hollow as they reached the coffin lid. More earth was dug out. Athelstan peered round the graveyard and shivered. The shadows were growing longer. The birdsong had stilled. Nothing except the grunting of the labourers and the shifting of earth broke the eerie silence.

‘Why are these places so quiet?’ Athelstan murmured. He strained his ears: he could just hear the sound of chatter and laughter as the traders and tinkers on the other side of the church cleared away their stalls.

‘We are ready. Sir John!’ the physician called.

‘Then pull it out, lads!’