LATER THAT DAY I called in at Treasurer Rowland’s office, only to be told he was in a meeting. On Monday I called again and this time the clerk said he was out, though passing his window on the way in I was sure I had caught sight of his long, black-robed figure leaning over his desk through the half-open shutters. When I went out again the shutters were closed. I wondered uneasily whether Rowland was avoiding me.

That day in the refectory I dined with another barrister I knew slightly; he planned to hire a wherry on the morrow and take his family on a trip down beyond Greenwich. As Rowland had told me last month, virtually all the King’s ships, fifty or so, were coming to the Thames to form a line from Gravesend to Deptford, past which the admiral’s ships would sail, and they were starting to arrive. ‘They say the Great Harry is already moored at Deptford,’ my colleague said. ‘All those ships that were at Portsmouth last year, and saw off the French.’

‘The Mary Rose will not be there.’

‘Casualty of war, Brother Shardlake,’ he said portentously. ‘Casualty of war.’

ON TUESDAY, the 10th, at the end of the working day, I invited Barak and Nicholas to take a mug of beer with me in the outer office. Skelly had gone home. Thoughts about the missing Lamentation still constantly buzzed in my head, and I thought a talk with them might give me some perspective. Barak asked if I had heard any more from the palace.

‘Not for over a week now.’

He shook his head. ‘Someone’s still holding on to that book. But who, and whyever not reveal it to the King, if they wish to harm the reformers?’

‘I wish I knew.’

‘And this Bertano,’ Nicholas added. ‘He must be here, if what Leeman said was true. We are well into August now.’ He sighed and his green eyes looked inward for a moment. Lord Parr had had Leeman’s body removed by the men he had sent to fetch me to the palace on the night of the shooting; fortunately, the students had not returned until the morning. I was sure that, like me, Nicholas would never forget Leeman’s face, suddenly destroyed in front of us.

I said, ‘We know now that the Anabaptists had the book. And Leeman was right, one of them was a spy; nobody else knew about the Lamentation. It must have been either Curdy, who is dead, or McKendrick who escaped. Or both. And whoever it was, they were working for someone at court, they must have been.’

‘One of the big men,’ Barak agreed. ‘But there’s still the question of who – and why have they not yet shown their hand?’ He looked at me quizzically. ‘Do you still rule out Rich?’