I told him about my reflections in the garden. ‘Greening, Elias and the other three all had reason to fear danger. But I do not know whether any of them, other than Greening, had any connection with the Lamentation. I wonder, my Lord, whether Mistress Askew might have had any contact with the Queen, could have had knowledge of her book; whether she might not in fact have been tortured to try and find those things out.’

He shook his head. ‘The Queen and Anne Askew never met. Mistress Askew had contacts on the fringes of the court, yes, and would have loved to preach at the Queen, but my niece and I were too careful to permit that. I made sure Anne Askew never came near her household.’

‘Yet she must have been tortured for some reason. By the way, the news of that must have been leaked by someone inside the Tower. Is there any chance of finding out who that could have been?’

Lord Parr considered. ‘When it became obvious at the burning that the street gossip about Askew’s torture was true, I thought there would be a hue and cry in the Tower to find who set those rumours. Someone there, as you say, must have talked. But I have heard nothing.’ He furrowed his brow. ‘The Constable of the Tower, Sir Edmund Walsingham, was my predecessor as Queen’s Chancellor and is a friend. I shall make enquiries. In the meantime I want you to come to the palace tomorrow to question the guard who was on duty the night the manuscript was stolen and who Mary Odell said behaved oddly. He comes back on duty in the morning.’

‘Thank you, my Lord. And those three runaways: Curdy, McKendrick and the Dutchman. It is essential to interview them. I wonder whether they may even have taken the Queen’s book in connection with some hare-brained scheme of their own. Perhaps even fallen out over it, so that one killed Greening and made off with the book.’

Lord Parr’s face set hard. ‘Then we are dealing with wild fools rather than an enemy at court.’ He shook his head. ‘But how could such people get hold of the book in the first place?’

‘I do not know.’

‘But nevertheless they should be found.’

‘Yes.’ I added, ‘I was thinking about Okedene the printer, whether they might come after him now.’

‘He has already told us what he knows.’

‘Even so, his safety – ’