The coroner looked puzzled but quietly agreed. They walked back through the kitchen and down the hallway to the front entrance of the house. They were about to leave when Sir Richard called out: ‘Brother Athelstan! Sir John!’

They both spun round.

‘You keep coming back here, yet you have not found any evidence linking the deaths, or the reasons for them. Is that not so?’

The merchant had regained some of his arrogance and Cranston could not stop himself.

‘Yes, that’s so, Sir Richard. So far we have found nothing conclusive. But, I can tell you something fresh and you may tell the others.’

‘Yes, Sir John?’

‘Whatever the evidence, whatever you may think, Stephen Allingham was murdered. You should all take care!’

Before the startled merchant could think of a reply, Cranston had taken Athelstan by the elbow and steered him out into the sun-baked street.

‘Last time we were here,’ Athelstan quipped, ‘you warned me, Sir John, not to open my mouth and say things I was not bidden to. Yet you have done so today. There is no evidence that Allingham was murdered.’

‘Oh, I know that,’ Sir John grunted. ‘And so do you.’ He stopped and tapped the friar gently on the temple. ‘But up there, Athelstan, and here in your heart, what do you really think?’

Athelstan stared at the hubbub around them, the people oblivious to his dark thoughts of murder, fighting their way through the stalls, gossiping, talking, buying and selling, engaged in everyday matters.

‘I think you are right, Sir John. Allingham’s murder was well planned, and the murderer is in that house.’ He pulled his cowl up against the hot midday sun. ‘Shall we collect our horses?’

Sir John looked away sheepishly. ‘Sir John,’ Athelstan repeated, ‘the horses, shall we collect them?’

Cranston let out a sigh, shook his head and gazed appealingly at Athelstan.

‘I have bad news, Brother. We are summoned to Westminster. Chief Justice Fortescue believes that we have spent enough public money and time in the pursuit of what he calls will-o’-the-wisps. He wants us to account for our stewardship. But before I clap eyes on his miserable face, I intend to down as many cups of sack as I can! You are with me?’