Murder most holy

‘Guarding the relic, Father.’
    ‘And who told you to remove the coffin from the church?’
    ‘Watkin. It was his idea!’
    ‘Yes, Father,’ a voice called out from behind a beaten headstone. ‘It was Watkin!’
    Cecily the courtesan, her hair tousled and her face crumpled with sleep, a thick cloak wrapped round her stained, scarlet dress, stood up like an apparition.
    Athelstan looked at her, then at Pike, and tried to control the rage seething within him.
    ‘You have been here all night? Together? This is a graveyard! God’s acre!’ He got to his feet. ‘Haven’t you read the good book, Pike? This is the house of God, not some bloody knacker’s yard!’
    Athelstan went to the death house door.
    ‘I’ll open it, Father.’
    ‘Sod off!’ he shouted, and violently kicked it just under the latch.
    ‘Oh, Father, don’t!’ Cecily wailed.
    Athelstan kicked again and the door flew back even as Cranston , fleeing from an attentive Bonaventure, came hurrying through the cemetery asking what the matter was.
    Athelstan gazed round the death house. The coffin lay on a table surrounded by faded flowers. Someone had fashioned a crude cross to hang on the wall and his rage only deepened when he saw that the coffin had been desecrated.
    ‘They are beginning to sell bits of the wood!’ he hissed.
    He stormed out, almost knocking Cranston aside. Cecily was fleeing like some gaudy butterfly towards the lych-gate but Pike still stood his ground. Athelstan gripped the man by his jerkin and pulled him close.
    ‘Listen, Pike, I am angry at what you have done. Your father lies buried here, his father and his father before him, as do other ancestors of our parish. Good men, holy women, poor but hard-working.’ He nodded vigorously back at the death house. ‘They fashioned that coffin out of their own hands, bought the wood, hired a carpenter. And you, Watkin, and the rest, are turning it into some pathetic mummer’s show!’
    Pike, alarmed at the priest’s unaccustomed rage, just stared back open-mouthed. Athelstan let him go.
    ‘Now listen, Pike, in a few days I will return. I want the coffin removed back to the church, the death house door locked, and an end to this stupidity!’ He looked round the overgrown graveyard. ‘And you can tell Watkin from me that I want to see this place cleaned, the grass cut, the graves tended — or I will personally do something to him that he will remember all his Godgiven days! Do you understand?’
    Pike, nodding fearfully, stepped back and stumped out of the graveyard.
    Cranston slapped Athelstan on the shoulder. ‘Well done, Brother. You should have kicked the bugger’s backside for him!’
    Athelstan sat down wearily amongst the fallen headstones. ‘They mean well, Sir John. They are just poor, simple people who see the possibility of a quick profit. I shouldn’t have lost my temper.’
    Cranston just belched in reply.
    ‘Crim!’ Athelstan shouted. ‘I know you’re hiding there!’ The young urchin stood like a hunting dog, body quivering, eyes fixed on Athelstan.
    ‘Don’t worry.’ The friar smiled. ‘You are a good lad, Crim. Quickly, now, before the streets become too busy. Go tell the Lady Benedicta to meet Sir John and I at the Piebald tavern.’ The young boy ran off, loping like a greyhound through the long grass. Cranston grabbed Athelstan’s arm and raised him gently up, swinging one bear-like arm round the friar’s shoulders. Athelstan sniffed the wine-drenched breath and knew that Sir John, somewhere under that voluminous cloak, had been using his miraculous wineskin.
    ‘For a priest, you’re a good fellow, Athelstan. You have fire in your balls, steel in your heart and a tongue like a razor!’ He grinned wickedly, giving Athelstan a vice-like hug. ‘If you weren’t a monk, you’d be a very good coroner’s apprentice.’
    ‘You’re in good spirits, Sir John.’
    ‘I feel better already,’ the coroner declared. ‘A blackjack of ale and the presence of the fair Benedicta. Who could ask for more?’
    'The Lady Maude?’ Athelstan queried.
    Cranston ’s face dropped. ‘By Satan’s balls, friar! Don’t frighten me!’
    They reached the tavern and sat ensconced behind a table. Cranston was on his second blackjack of ale whilst his thick fingers tore at the white, succulent flesh of a small quail, when Benedicta joined them. The coroner roared for a cup of hippocrass, invited her to sit on his knee and bellowed with laughter at the