Inside the dawn Mass was just ending, the priest offering Christ to God in the presence of three old women, a beggar and a blind man with his dog. They all squatted on the paving-stone before the rood screen. Athelstan waited near the baptismal font. When the Mass was finished he followed the priest into the vestry. Father Matthew was a genial fellow and cheerfully granted Athelstan’s request, giving him vestments and vessels so he could celebrate his own Mass in one of the small chantry chapels built off the main aisle.

After Mass and the chanting of the Divine Office, Athelstan thanked the priest but refused his kind offer of a meal and wandered back into Cheapside. The broad thoroughfare was now coming to life. The cookshops were open, the awnings of the stalls pulled down, and already the apprentices were darting in and out, seeking custom for their masters. The friar walked back up to the Poultry and knocked on the coroner’s door. Cranston greeted him, standing like vice reformed, sober, dour, full of his own authority as if he wished to erase the memory of the night before.

‘Come in, Brother!’ He looked out of the corner of his eye as he beckoned Athelstan into the parlour. ‘I am grateful for what you did last night when I was inconvenienced.’

Athelstan hid his smile as Cranston waved him to a stool, sitting opposite in a great high-backed chair. In the kitchen Maude was singing softly as she baked bread, its sweet, fresh scent filling the house.

Strange, Athelstan thought, that a man like Sir John, steeped in violent bloody death, should live in such homely surroundings.

Cranston stretched and crossed his legs.

‘Well, Brother, shall we record a clear case of suicide?’

‘I would like to agree with your verdict,’ Athelstan replied, ‘but something eludes me. Something I cannot place, something small, like looking at a tapestry with a loose thread.’

‘God’s teeth!’ Cranston roared as he rose and went to fetch the boots standing in the corner. He pulled them on and looked sourly across at the friar.

‘I know you, Brother, and your nose for mischief. If you feel there is something wrong, there is. Let’s be careful, however. Springall belonged to the court faction in the city, and if we put a foot wrong, well . . .’ His voice trailed off.

‘What do you mean?’ Athelstan asked sharply.