I smiled wryly. ‘Jack, I have never had the remotest hopes for myself, if that’s what is in your mind. Catherine Parr was far above me in status even before she married the King. I have always known that.’

‘Then let this be the last time,’ Barak said, with sudden fierceness.

AT NINE THE CHURCH BELL sounding through the deepening dusk signalled curfew, and the tavern emptied. We went outside. I saw the constable on the corner, his lamp lit. A large, younger man stood beside him. ‘Just about to start my patrol, sir,’ he said meaningfully to Barak, who nodded. We left them and walked down Needlepin Lane as far as the Sign of the Flag, where again patrons were dispersing for the night. They were a younger, rougher crowd, several apprentices among them. Barak nodded at a doorway just beyond. ‘I’ll wait there,’ he said. ‘Just out of sight.’

I took a deep breath. ‘Twenty minutes.’

‘I’ll count them off. Good luck.’

‘Thank you.’ I walked on, my legs trembling slightly. I passed a house where a ragged family could be seen through open shutters, eating a late supper by the light of a cheap candle; the next house was the one with the green shutters. Like Barak, I could see a light through the closed slats. Looking up at the upper storey, I glimpsed a faint light there too; someone was watching the street. But they could not have seen Barak from that angle.

I knocked at the wooden door. Immediately I heard heavy footsteps within. The door opened and a short, heavyset man in a stained shirt stared at me. He had a candle in one hand, the other held over the dagger at his waist. Elias’s descriptions of the men who had made the first attempt to break into Greening’s shop had been vague, but this could have been one of them. He was in his late twenties and under bushy black hair his face was square, craggy, with an angry expression that spoke of temper.

‘I am Master Shardlake,’ I said. ‘I received the note.’