By Murder's bright Light

with your presence!’
    ‘Bugger off!’ Cranston snapped. ‘You are wasting time!’
    ‘Would I waste the time of the mighty Cranston ? No, come with me, my lord coroner, I’ll show you a great mystery.’
    Cranston shrugged. He and Athelstan followed the sinister figure and his motley gang out into the alleyway and through a maze of urine-smelling runnels until they stopped before a large, shabby warehouse.
    ‘Oh Lord!’ Cranston breathed. ‘Mermaid’s paps! He is going to show us his wares!’
    The Fisher of Men produced a key, unlocked the door and led them into the darkness. Athelstan immediately gagged at the fishy, stale-water smell mingled with the sickly-sweet stench of corruption. The gargoyles thronged around him.
    ‘Lights!’ the Fisher of Men shouted. ‘Let there be light, for the darkness cannot comprehend the light.’ Athelstan put his hand out to steady himself and felt something cold, wet and spongy beneath him. He peered down and bit back his cry as he saw it was the grey, puffed face of a corpse. He rubbed his hand on his robe and waited as torches and candles were lit.
    ‘Oh, for the love of God!’ Cranston breathed. ‘Brother, look around you!’
    The warehouse was built like a great barn. Everywhere, in makeshift boxes which the Fisher of Men must have filched from different places, were the corpses of those hauled from the Thames — forty or fifty at least. Athelstan glimpsed a thin-faced young woman, an archer with a bloody wound in his chest, an old woman who lay on a sopping yellow rag, even a small lapdog that must have fallen from someone’s arms.
    ‘Come this way! Come this way!’
    The Fisher of Men led them to the far end of the bam, where an arrow box was propped against the wall. There was a man’s body in it. Athelstan, thinking he was going to be sick, looked away. Cranston , though, studied the corpse carefully. It was that of a tall, well-built man with black hair and thin features; the eyeless face bore the marks of fish bites and the flesh was puffy and white like old wool after it has been dipped in dirty water. The man’s boots were gone — they, along with other possessions, were the perquisites of the Fisher of Men. The thin linen shirt was open and Cranston saw a purple-red bruise on the chest and marks on the neck. The Fisher of Men fairly danced beside the body.
    ‘See, see, see who it is!’
    ‘I see a corpse,’ Cranston replied drily. ‘Probably a sailor’s.’
    ‘Correct! Correct! But which sailor?’
    Cranston glowered at the man. ‘One of those killed in the battle?’
    ‘Oh no! Oh no! This is Bracklebury!’
    Athelstan opened his eyes in amazement. Cranston peered closer.
    ‘It fits your description, my lord coroner, though there was nothing on him to identify him by.’
    Cranston swore under his breath. ‘By a fairy’s futtock, so it is! Black-haired, a scar under his left eye, past his thirtieth summer, but—’
    ‘He’s been in the water for at least, oh, five or six days,’ the Fisher of Men said.
    Athelstan shook his head. ‘But Bracklebury was alive two days ago! He murdered Bernicia !’
    The gargoyles standing behind them tittered with laughter.
    ‘Impossible!’ the Fisher of Men shouted, stretching out his hand towards Cranston . ‘How can a man be drowned and be walking about murdering people?’ Athelstan forgot his disdain and walked closer. ‘Is there any wound?’ he asked.
    ‘None,’ the Fisher of Men replied. ‘Not a scratch. Only these.’ He pointed to the purple bruise on the man’s chest and the slight lacerations on either side of the throat. ‘Something was tied around his neck.’ Cranston stepped back, shaking his head.
    ‘It can’t be,’ he muttered. ‘Bracklebury’s alive.’
    ‘I claim my reward,’ the Fisher of Men said.
    ‘Sir John, let’s get out of here,’ Athelstan murmured.
    They walked back to the alleyway, the Fisher of Men and the gargoyles clustered around them.
    ‘Look!’ Cranston bellowed, ‘I need proof.’ He stamped his feet and stared around. ‘I need proof! Proof that this is Bracklebury.’ He pointed a finger at the Fisher of Men. ‘You’ve got spies all over the city. Bring these people to meet me at the alehouse. He rapped out a list of people he wished to see — the ship’s officers as well as Emma Roffel. ‘I want them at the tavern within the hour. I don’t give a rat’s arse what they are doing!’
    The Fisher of Men seemed delighted by the prospect