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never woke up to find that one of your colleagues in the Northumberland Fusiliers was a Nazi. Peace is more complicated. It’s easier to disguise your behaviour and pretend to be what you’re not.’
    The two men walked back across Old Court and crossed King’s Parade. Sidney regarded the fan vaulting of King’s as the greatest architectural achievement in Cambridge; it was far better than the cloister walk in Gloucester Cathedral or Henry VII’s Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey. It was like the inside of a beautiful boat or a perfect violin.
    Soon the two men were standing at the west end looking up at the interior roof of Weldon stone, eighty feet above them.
    ‘People assume,’ Sidney began, ‘that Bartlett must have crawled into the hollows and supports of the vault and waited in the timbers until the coast was clear. But I believe there are other exits.’
    ‘Apart from the internal staircase used by Montague?’
    ‘There may be more than one. My friend Robin will no doubt alert us to the possibilities.’
    A fresh-faced man in a red cassock approached and handed Sidney the key. ‘Of course we are going to have to change the lock,’ he explained. ‘I think one of our visitors must have made an impression into some soap or wax and then had a copy made. It means that now any subsequent tours of the roof will have to be accompanied.’
    The precentor was in a hurry; one explained by the arrival of choirboys for a rehearsal before evensong. ‘If you can be down before we start that would be helpful. And please lock the door behind you. We don’t want anyone following you up there.’
    ‘Indeed,’ Keating replied.
    ‘I don’t think we’ll be long,’ Sidney smiled. ‘I am not sure about the inspector’s head for heights.’
    ‘I think I’ll be all right,’ his companion assured them. ‘It’ll be the closest I’ll ever get to Heaven. I hope there’s a ruddy light.’
    Sidney turned the key in the rusted lock. ‘Try not to swear, inspector. The switch is here. Would you like me to go first?’
    ‘If you wouldn’t mind. Have you ever climbed this building yourself?’
    ‘I am afraid not,’ Sidney replied. ‘I gave up on the nursery slopes: the south face of Caius and the Senate House leap. That was excitement enough. And I have only been to the top of the chapel twice before, and both times by this route. The view is spectacular.’
    ‘Which makes one wonder why anyone would have wanted to go up at night?’
    The two men climbed the spiral staircase, pausing for a rest halfway. ‘I always like the mason’s marks,’ said Sidney. ‘They are the one element of pride in an otherwise anonymous building.’
    ‘They remind me of prisoners trying to escape,’ said Keating. ‘I can’t imagine Bartlett wanting to stay too long up here. What on earth do you think he was doing? He must have known they’d discover him in the end.’
    ‘Unless he waited for a few hours or knew of a different exit? Despite what the porters say, I don’t think anyone is going to keep watch on the staircase for that long. I imagine he let himself out at around three or four in the morning and caught the first train to London.’
    ‘The 4.24? Then he could get down to Dover and be on one of the first ferries. If he did that we’ve little chance of finding him.’
    The two men emerged on to the roof. New snowfall had erased all the footprints from the night climb and the frosted stone appeared far less solid when seen at close quarters. Sidney wondered what it must have been like for the first masons, how much they would have had to work in similar conditions and in the limited light of winter. He walked across to the north-east pinnacle. ‘I imagine Rory Montague began his descent with the rope from the first parapet; although it’s hardly straightforward.’
    Keating glanced down. ‘It’s madness. To think supposedly intelligent people could do this.’
    Sidney did not like to look for long. ‘I would