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of indeterminate age, perhaps late thirties but he looked younger. He was slim but strong and his head was bald on top, like a monk’s tonsure. He sniffed some more, around her mouth and nostrils, then stood back from his work and met the eye of John Shakespeare. There is the smell of fire on her, and also the lust of a man, he said. And not just that smell, Mr. Shakespeare-there is the three-day smell of death.
    Three days?
    Yes. Three days at this time of year, the same as a day and a half in summer. Where did you find her?
    In a house that had been burned out, toward Shoreditch.
    Well, that explains the smell of fire. From the smell of her skin and mouth, I can detect no poison. I take the cause of death to be the slash of a butcher’s blade or some such to the throat. Tell me, was there a great deal of blood around the body?
    Shakespeare thought back to the horror of the scene he had encountered, then shook his head, surprised. No. She was on a bed and there was some blood staining on the sheets, but very little.
    Then she was killed somewhere else, or in another part of the house, and taken there. She would have lost a lot of blood with these injuries. The Searcher held up two objects—a piece of bone and a silver crucifix. These were inside her, thrust in most unkindly. I think the bone is a relic, a monkey’s bone passed off as the finger of a saint, for all I know.
    What was it doing there?
    You will have to ask her killer that, Mr. Shakespeare. All I can tell you is that the girl was about eighteen, certainly no older, and in good health. As to the child, it was twelve weeks gone, a boy. From the spread of blood about her person, I feel certain that the wound which ripped it from her belly was inflicted after death, which may be some small comfort to her family.
    Peace pushed his arms underneath the body and lifted it so that the bare back was visible. Look at this, Mr. Shakespeare.
    Shakespeare moved closer. Her slender back, from nape to lower back, had two red raw lines, which made the shape of a cross. At the house in Shoreditch, where she lay with her front exposed to the sky, he had not seen this.
    What is it? What has caused this?
    Peace ran a finger down the bloody stripes. It seems to be a crucifix, crudely cut after death.
    Shakespeare stared at the wounds as if by staring he would go back in time to when they were inflicted. Is there some religious significance?
    That is for you to answer, Mr. Shakespeare. There is something else, too…
    As Peace spoke, carefully laying the body back on the slab so that her wounded back was no longer visible, the ancient door to the crypt was flung open. Two pikemen marched in, taking up positions either side of the doorway. They were followed by a man of later years, probably in his fifties. His hair and beard were as white as the snow outside, and his eyes were keen. He was tall and lean, with the languid air and fine clothes of the nobility. Shakespeare recognized him immediately as Charles Howard, second Baron of Effingham and Lord Admiral of England. Howard looked first at Shakespeare, then at Peace, without saying a word. He stalked forward to the body of his beloved adopted daughter, Blanche, lying on the Searcher’s stone slab, for all the world like a carving on a sarcophagus. For two minutes he stared at her face, then nodded slowly before turning on his heel. In a moment he was gone, closely attended by his pikemen.
    Shakespeare caught Peace’s eye. I suppose there really was nothing to say.
    No. Nothing. Now let me show you this one other thing. Peace lifted her hands and showed Shakespeare the wrists. They were marked with a raised weal. That is a rope mark, Mr. Shakespeare. Whichever brute did this to her tied her up most cruelly.
    Shakespeare looked closely at the marks, then winced with the thought of the suffering this poor girl had endured before death. He shook Joshua Peace by the hand. Thank you, my friend. Consign her body to the coroner. You