Barak and Nicholas did not reply, but at a nod from me they allowed Stice and Gower to lead them to the table. They all sat. ‘Watch Barak carefully,’ Rich said. ‘He’s as full of tricks as a monkey.’ He crossed to the staircase, crooking an imperious finger to indicate I should follow. ‘Come up, Master Shardlake.’

I had no alternative. Once upstairs, Rich led me to a room which was as sparsely furnished as the rest of the house, containing only a desk with a sconce of lit candles, and a couple of chairs. He motioned me to sit, then regarded me silently, his expression serious again. In the candlelight it seemed to me his thin face had more lines and hollows now. His grey eyes were little points of light. I said nothing, waiting. He had said we might be of use to each other; let him say how. I wondered, did he know of the missing Lamentation? At all costs I must not be the first to mention that.

He said, ‘You are working for the Queen again.’ It was a statement, not a question. But it had been clear from his note that he knew that.

I said, ‘Yes. And there will be more trouble for you if I disappear. Remember the things her majesty knows about you.’ The ‘more trouble’ had been a guess, but Rich’s eyes narrowed. ‘She will not be pleased, for example, to learn that your man Stice once tried to suborn one of her pages – as I know for a fact.’ Rich frowned at that. Then I asked, ‘Is it really true, as you said in your note, that you have a spy in her household?’

Rich shrugged. ‘No. But I spotted you at Whitehall a few days ago, in the Guard Chamber.’

‘I did not think you saw me,’ I replied, truly alarmed now.

He leaned forward. ‘There is very little that I miss.’ His tone was both threatening and vain. ‘You would hardly be coming to see the King. I thought then, so he is working for her once more, after all this time; I wonder why. And then right afterwards you began your enquiries into the murder of a certain Armistead Greening, printer.’

‘On behalf of his parents only.’