‘I was the first to learn of his death. And the room was sealed within minutes after that. As for my being the likely computer thief, Vassilis used a PC. I’m a Mac man.’ The abbot smiled.

Andreas nodded with a grin. ‘Fair enough. That leaves us with whoever killed him doing this either before the murder or in the thirty to sixty minutes between the time of death and when you sealed the room.’

‘What sort of person would murder and rob a man of God, then come into his room and steal yet more from him? Heaven help us.’

Andreas didn’t give the answer he was thinking: someone willing to take one hell of a risk – like a professional killer not finding what was wanted on the victim, or making damn sure no one else found anything. ‘Any chance of computer backup for what was taken?’

‘We have a very elaborate backup system here, what with all the information we must protect in our library, but the work Vassilis did on his laptop he considered personal and much of it never made it onto our system.’

‘What do you mean by “personal?”’

The abbot smiled, as if reminiscing. ‘Vassilis didn’t like the idea of his every thought becoming part of what he called the “information universe” before giving serious reflection to whether what he offered would help or hurt the purpose for which he lived. He worked offline from our network on those sorts of things until he had something he thought worthy to share.’

Nothing’s easy, thought Andreas. ‘Can you get me what you have of his on your backup?’