Yet, every word I hear, every sentence I write, every time I visit the scene of the murder, I go back to that bloody field fighting for Edward the Black Prince. I, a novice monk, who broke his vows to God and took his younger brother off to war. Every night I dream of that battle, the press of steel-clad men, the lowered pikes, the screams and shouts. Each time the nightmare goes like a mist clearing above the river, leaving only me kneeling beside the corpse of my dead brother, screaming into the darkness for his soul to return. I know, Reverend Father, it never will. Athelstan scrutinised the words he had written, replaced the quill beside his letter and walked back to the chancel screen. He looked across as Bonaventure rose and stretched elegantly.

'I intend no offence, Bonaventure,' he said. 'I mean, Sir John, despite his portly frame, that plum-red face, balding pate and watery eye, is, you will agree, at heart a good man. An honest official, a rare fellow indeed who does not take bribes but searches for the truth, ever patient in declaring the real cause of death. But why must I always be with him?'

Athelstan went back to sit before the rood screen. What use was it to list the terrible murders and scenes of violence he had witnessed? What would Father Prior know of them? Souls sent out into the dark before their time, unprepared and unshriven. Men with their eyes gouged out, their throats cut, their genitals ripped off. Women crushed beneath scaffolding or horribly murdered in some stinking alleyway. If Christ came to London, Athelstan thought, he would surely cross to Southwark, where poverty and crime sat like two ugly brothers or wandered the streets hand-in- hand spreading their stench. Bonaventure rose and padded gently over to him. Athelstan stared down at the cat.

'Perhaps I should tell Father Prior about you, Bonaventure,' he said, admiring the sleek black body of the alley cat which he had adopted, noting the white mask and paws, the tattered ear, the half-closed eye.