Murder most holy

studied at Blackfriars, Athelstan?’
    Athelstan smiled as he replaced the torch in its iron bracket and re-opened the door. ‘A very good point, Sir John: the crypt was often used for secret meetings. You know, the petty squabbles and factions in any community, not to mention the illicit relationships which can grow up between men committed to celibacy.’
    ‘That went on here?’ Cranston muttered, closing the crypt door behind him.
    Athelstan took him gently by the elbow, guiding him back into the fading sunlight of the cloister garden.
    ‘Stranger things than that, Sir John, but now we are looking for a murderer.’
    ‘It could still have been an accident,’ Cranston observed.
    ‘That would depend on two things. First, can we find any connection between Alcuin and the crypt? Whom was he going to meet there? Second, when Bruno’s body was found, was that sconce torch lit? If it wasn’t, that means he was pushed just as he struck the tinder; the murderer had to act quickly or he would have been discovered. All he would see was one shadowy figure. How easy to give one violent push and then disappear.’
    Cranston eased the cramp from his neck and shivered. So quiet, so peaceful, he thought; Blackfriars was so different from the city with its whitewashed walls, clean passageways, flower-filled gardens, tinkling fountains, and the sound of melodious voices chanting God’s praises. Yet the same emotions ran as strong here as in the alleyways off Cheapside . Lust, envy, jealousy, greed, and even murder. They both stood aside as the door of the church opened and the monks, hands concealed in the voluminous sleeves of their gowns, cowls pulled well over their heads, filed out in anonymous silence back to the refectory. Cranston raised his head like a hunting dog and sniffed the breeze. He patted his stomach and licked his lips.
    ‘Food!’ he murmured. ‘Venison, Brother. Fresh, tender, and spiced with rosemary.’
    ‘In a while, Sir John.’
    Athelstan clutched him by the wrist and waited until the monks filed by before leading Cranston into the incense-filled church. Sunlight still played on the coloured glass windows, filling the darkness with faint streaks of light. The incense clouds from the sanctuary seeped down the nave like fragrant perfume. Athelstan felt the holy stillness as if the very air had been consecrated by the brothers’ singing.
    They went up the nave and under the elaborately carved rood screen into the sanctuary. Athelstan stared round, marvelling at the sheer beauty of the multi-coloured marble floor, alabaster steps and the huge, high altar hewn out of the costliest marble supported by pillars whose cornices were covered in thick gold leaf. Candlesticks of massed silver stood on the white silk altar cloth. High in the wall an exquisite rose window sill shone in the dying sun’s light. Athelstan looked at the heavily carved stalls on either side of the sanctuary where the brothers assembled to sing Divine Office. He remembered his own days there, standing half-asleep, chanting the psalms at Matins. Above the altar hung a heavy black cross suspended from the beams by chains of pure gold. In the apse to the back of the altar, beneath the rose window, were carved niches, some of them filled by life-sized statues of the apostles.
    ‘This is not St Erconwald’s,’ Cranston murmured, staring in amazement at the silent beauty of the sanctuary. ‘Poetry in stone and marble,’ he added. ‘But did Alcuin die here?’ Athelstan blinked as if he had allowed the serenity of the church to obliterate his reason for coming here.
    ‘How many entrances are there?' Cranston asked harshly. ‘Only two,’ Athelstan replied. ‘The one we came through,’ he pointed to the main door, ‘and one from the sanctuary.’
    ‘No trap doors or secret passageways?’
    ‘None whatsoever, and Father Prior said that both doors were locked. Alcuin apparently wished to be alone.’
    ‘And where would he go?’
    Athelstan beckoned and led him round the high altar. A scarlet carpet lay spread behind, on each corner of it a stout wooden pillar.
    ‘What are those for?’ Cranston asked.
    ‘When a brother dies, the coffin is placed on those pillars above the red carpet,’ Athelstan replied. ‘The corpse has to rest before the altar for one entire day and night. The Requiem mass is sung.’ Athelstan tapped the sanctuary floor with his foot. ‘After that the coffin is lowered into the huge vault