Fletcher produced a small key from his desk. ‘I put a new padlock on. You may as well keep this for now. The shop is at the sign of the White Lion. I wish you well.’ He waved his hands at the papers littered around. ‘As you see, I am burdened with duties. This year I have had to hunt for heretics as well as criminals, though the hunt for the former seems to have died down now.’ He looked me in the eye. ‘I saw you at the burning yesterday, on your horse; your friend looked set to faint.’

‘I saw you, too.’

‘I have to carry out the duties the mayor gives me,’ he said defensively, though for a moment his eyes looked haunted.

‘I understand.’

He gave me a hard look. ‘You will report anything you find in this case back to me, remember. I have jurisdiction under the coroner.’

‘All and anything I discover,’ I lied. ‘By the way, what happened to the body?’

‘It couldn’t be kept lying around till his parents were able to get here from the Chilterns; not in summer. He was buried in the common pit.’

WE WALKED UP Ave Maria Lane into Paternoster Row; a longer, wider street, which was the centre of England’s small but growing printing trade. There were several more booksellers, some with printer’s shops above, and a few smaller print-shops; as Fletcher had said, some were mere sheds fixed to the side of buildings, or erected on small plots of land leased from the owner. I thought of Greening’s possible involvement with the printing of forbidden books by John Bale. Once a favourite of Lord Cromwell’s, but now the most detested of radicals, Bale was hidden in exile somewhere in Flanders.

‘What did you think of Fletcher?’ I asked Nicholas.

‘He was at the burning?’

‘Yes. Doing his duty,’ I added heavily.

‘I would rather die than carry out such a duty.’

It was an easy thing for a young man of means to say. ‘I do not think he liked it,’ I observed.

‘Perhaps. I noticed his fingernails were bitten to the quick.’

‘Well spotted. I did not see that. Noticing things, that is the key in this business. We will make a lawyer of you yet. And what did you make of the murder?’

Nicholas shook his head. ‘Two attacks, as Fletcher said; that sounds like Greening had enemies. Or perhaps he had something precious in his shop – something more than paper and ink.’ I looked at the boy sharply; he had come a little too close to the mark for my comfort with that observation. ‘Gold, perhaps,’ Nicholas went on, ‘that the thieves managed to take before they were interrupted.’

‘If people have gold they spend it, or deposit it somewhere safe; only misers hoard it at home.’

‘Like your friend Bealknap? I have heard he is such a one.’