chains. It bore the legend ‘Peter Sturmey, Locksmith’. Cranston stepped back and looked up. He could see candlelight glowing in one of the upper stories so began to hammer on the door.
‘Piss off!’ someone shouted from across the street.
Athelstan and Cranston moved quickly as the foul contents of a night pot were hurled down.
‘Sod off!’ Cranston yelled back. ‘I am an officer of the law!’
‘I couldn’t care if you were the King himself!’ the voice shouted back, but they heard the casement window snap shut and Cranston went back to his hammering.
At last his perseverance was rewarded. They heard footsteps, the door was pulled back on its chains and the pallid face of a maid, ghostly in the candlelight, peered out at them.
‘Who is it?’ she murmured. ‘What is the matter? Do you have news of my master?’
‘Open the door!’ Cranston murmured. ‘That’s a good lass. I am the city Coroner and this is Brother Athelstan. We must have words with your master.’
The chains were loosened and the maid, swathed in a cloak, stepped back to allow them in. In the candlelight the passageway came alive with dancing, flickering shapes.
‘I want your master,’ Cranston repeated gently.
‘Sir, he is not here. He left this afternoon and has not returned.’
Athelstan closed his eyes. ‘Oh, God!’ he breathed.
‘What is it?’
A tousle-haired boy, heavy-eyed with sleep but with the face of an angel, suddenly darted from a room off the passageway, a lantern almost as big as his head held high in one hand.
‘And who are you, sir?’ Cranston asked.
‘Perrot,’ he replied. ‘Master Sturmey’s apprentice.’
The boy came closer. Athelstan judged him to be about thirteen or fourteen summers old and, once again, was reminded of an angel Huddle had painted on the walls of St Erconwald’s.
‘The master’s gone,’ the boy said flatly. ‘He went out just after noon and he hasn’t come back.’
‘And the lady of the house?’
‘She’s gone too and won’t be back.’
‘Why not?’
‘She died five years ago.’
Athelstan grinned and plucked a penny from his purse. He spun it and the boy nimbly caught it.
‘And Sturmey’s son?’
‘He’s gone too,’ the maid and apprentice chorused.
‘He’s in York. Some important business of the King.’
Cranston nodded as he looked at the two solemn faces.
‘Look,’ he said reassuringly, ‘we can’t discuss things here. You, boy, you sleep in the shop?’
‘Aye, I do.’
‘Then let’s go there.’
The boy blinked and looked at the maid, who nodded.
‘Come on then,’ Perrot instructed. ‘But you mustn’t touch anything, otherwise the master will beat me.’
He led them into a room off the passageway, lit candles and pulled out two stools for his unexpected visitors. Athelstan sat down and stared around. He’d never seen so many keys. They hung in bunches on the wall or lay on benches around the whitewashed room, together with pieces of metal, casting irons, pincers. He glimpsed the small forge on the outside wall. The place smelt of burnt wood and charcoal and everything was covered in a fine grey dust. He looked under one table and saw the apprentice’s bed: a straw mattress, a bolster, a woollen blanket and a rather battered wooden horseman. Perhaps the boy’s favourite toy.
‘Would you like some wine?’ the maid invited, trying to act older than she was.
‘No, no.’ Atheistan smiled. ‘Sir John never touches wine, do you. My Lord Coroner?’
No, no,’ Cranston gruffly replied, narrowing his eyes at Atheistan. He drew himself up. ‘It sets a fine example.’
The boy peered at the large Coroner under lowered eye-lashes, as if only half-convinced.
‘Where did your master go?’ Cranston asked.
‘I don’t know, he just left the shop.’
‘And how was he?’
‘Very excited,’ the apprentice replied.
‘About what?’
‘Oh, making the chest for the great lords, and the keys.’
‘Tell me.’ Cranston leaned forward, trying to keep the wineskin concealed under his cloak. ‘Did you help your master make the chest, its locks and keys?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘And how many keys did he make?’
‘Six.’
‘Didn’t he make any more just in case one was lost?’
‘Oh, no, my master said that was forbidden.’
‘And,’ Atheistan intervened, ‘did he have any visitors to the shop? Someone mysterious, cloaked and hooded?’
‘No.’ The boy laughed. ‘Why should he?’
His eyes flickered and he looked away. You are hiding something, Athelstan thought, but nothing to do with this.
‘And which of the great ones came here?’
‘Well, they all came here yesterday,’ Perrot replied.
‘In their cloaks, boots and beaver hats, they nigh filled the house. They had to take the chest and keys to the Guildhall. There were soldiers outside with a cart.’
‘Yes,’ Athelstan continued. ‘But before your master finished the keys and the locks, did any of the great ones come to see him privately?’
‘I don’t think so,’ the boy replied. ‘I live here, and sleep here. Master always brings his visitors here except when he is working in his garden. He likes to go there by himself. Says he likes the change.’
‘But the visitors?’ Athelstan persisted.
‘Two large fat ones,’ the boy replied, ‘the Lord Mayor and the Sheriff. They always came together over the last two weeks to make sure my master was doing his work.’
‘And no one else?’
‘No, Father.’
Athelstan’s eyes turned to the young maid standing next to the boy. ‘And you saw nothing mysterious or untoward?’
They both shook their heads.
‘What happened to the moulds?’ Cranston moved his feet. ‘The ones in which the keys were cast?’
‘They were destroyed,’ the boy replied proudly. ‘When the great ones came for the chest and keys, they stood around and watched me smash them with a hammer.’
Cranston gazed at Athelstan who shook his head.
The Coroner lumbered to his feet, stretched and yawned; fishing in his pocket, he took out two pennies which he handed to the boy and girl.
‘Very good!’ he murmured. ‘But when your master returns, tell him to find Sir John Cranston’s house in Cheapside. I have to speak to him.’
The maid and apprentice nodded. Cranston and Athelstan walked back into Lawrence Lane and down to the corner of the Mercery.
‘You know he’ll never come back, Sir John?’
Cranston blew out his cheeks. ‘Aye, tomorrow I’ll issue an instruction to the officials to search amongst the corpses found throughout the city.’ He stifled a yawn. ‘Brother, you are welcome to share my house tonight.’
Athelstan looked up at the starlit sky. ‘Thank you, Sir John, but I must return.’
He stood and watched as Cranston, shouting farewells, shuffled like some great bear up Cheapside. Suddenly
