He writes Katherine’s name too, and she smiles and tries to remember the letter K so that she will know it when she sees it again. Red John settles himself next to her and they watch while Thomas finishes the window’s design. When it is done he nods with real pleasure.

‘Very fair, Thomas,’ Red John says. ‘Very fair. But I still don’t know why you’ve all them names writ in a book?’

Thomas shrugs.

‘I don’t know either. They were there when I got it. The book is supposed to be very valuable, though I cannot say why.’

Red John squints at him as if he is daft.

‘And it isn’t because – what? – it’s made of gold or something?’

Thomas holds up the plain old binding, the rough-edged paper.

‘No,’ he says. ‘It’s not that.’

‘So it must be what is written in it that makes it worth something?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘And it’s just a list of who was where when? Nothing more?’

‘No.’

Red John thinks for a while.

‘Then it means someone whose name is writ in there as being in one place should have been somewhere else. Or he shouldn’t have been where he was, when it says he was. D’you see? It’s got to be one or the other.’

Thomas laughs.

‘But there are thousands of names.’

‘True. True,’ Red John admits. ‘So what you have to do is find out who it’s valuable to. Who wants it, I mean. Sell it to them, then you’ll not have to follow the Earl of Warwick about the place for the rest of your life.’

With that he gets up and leaves them and they watch him walk away with something like awe.

‘Wrap it up well, Thomas,’ she tells him, and watches while he does so.

Later that day a long line of carts comes out from London loaded with beans and peas and dried fish. There is ale, wine, bread and even bacon. There are pimps and faggots and great logs of ash. They eat well that night, gathered together around their fire, drinking ale, singing songs and watching the sparks fly up into the dark. They drink so much that most are unsteady on their feet, Thomas among them. Katherine has enjoyed the beer and drunk more than usual and now she feels warm and full and generous.

Thomas sits beside her and is silent for a moment as they watch Dafydd and one of the Johns enact a strange dance with one another while the tabor man taps the skin of his instrument at the speed of heavy rain. When it is over, everybody cheers and then there is a moment when people are smiling and laughing, and the evening could go in one of many ways.