‘And if not him, then who? Who knows Broderick is here?’

Maleverer shook his head angrily. ‘Quite a few, by now. Word has got around.’

‘Sergeant Leacon said Radwinter left right after feeding the prisoner,’ I said. ‘He went for some exercise. Could someone have got to him then?’

‘Past the soldiers? And forced him to take poison?’ he snapped. ‘Where else could the poison have been but in his food?’

‘Perhaps he was not forced to take it,’ I said. ‘Perhaps he wanted to.’

Maleverer turned at a commotion in the doorway. The soldiers were dragging Broderick outside now, the heavy chains securing his ankles clanking. They brought Radwinter’s chair and sat him on it. Dr Jibson followed. The physician was in his shirtsleeves, his cuffs stained and his plump face red. ‘I can’t see properly in there,’ he explained.

I looked at Broderick. His face was ghastly and he breathed in ragged gasps. His eyes flashed at me angrily for a moment. Radwinter stepped out, and Maleverer called him over.

‘I have been telling Master Shardlake,’ he snapped. ‘I can see no answer to this but that you poisoned this man.’

Radwinter gave me a look of sheer evil. ‘He will say nothing to disabuse you of that.’

‘Master Shardlake does not agree with me.’

Radwinter looked taken aback. He eyed me. ‘I swear I did not poison him,’ he said. ‘God’s death, why would I place myself in such a position of suspicion?’

‘Don’t chop word for word with me, you bag of shit!’ Maleverer stepped forward, looming over the gaoler. Radwinter stepped back and for the first time I saw him look afraid.

‘I know nothing, Sir William, I swear.’

I looked over his shoulder. The physician had forced yet more beer down Broderick’s throat and he retched again, a thin trail of yellow liquid spilling from his mouth.

‘Is it all out?’ Maleverer asked the physician.

‘I think so. It was good that soldier thought of making him sick at once.’

‘May I look in the cell?’ I asked Maleverer.

‘What for?’

‘I do not know. Only – if Master Radwinter had left the cell ten minutes before Broderick fell on the floor, what if Broderick took something himself?’

‘There is nothing in that cell!’ Radwinter snapped. ‘It is searched daily. Where would he get poison?’

‘Oh, look if you must,’ Maleverer said wearily.

I went into the empty cell. I stared at the stoneflagged floor, stained with patches of vomit. I wrinkled my nose against the smell as I paced to and fro, looking for something, anything unusual, Maleverer and Radwinter watching me from the door like two black crows.

There was nothing on the floor apart from Broderick’s wooden bowl, spoon and cup, all empty. Dr Jibson could take those away and examine them anew, for all the good that might do. The only furniture was a stool, the bed and an empty chamberpot. I pulled the stained blankets from the bed and felt the straw mattress.

Then I saw something white, wedged between the bed and the wall. I reached and pulled it out.

‘What’s that?’ Maleverer asked sharply.

‘A handkerchief,’ I said. To my astonishment it was a lady’s handkerchief, light and lacy and folded into a square.

‘Is that all?’

It felt unpleasant, stiff, had dark stains on it. I took out my own handkerchief, laid it on the bed, then put the folded handkerchief on top. ‘Let me take a closer look outside,’ I said quietly. I carried it carefully to the door, picking up the stool on my way. Broderick was sprawled in the chair now, apparently insensible, Dr Jibson standing over him. I walked a little way down the corridor, placed my handkerchief on the stool and unfolded it. The three of us bent to look at the smaller one within.

‘So,’ Maleverer growled impatiently. ‘He got a kerchief as a keepsake from some lady-’

‘He had no handkerchief,’ Radwinter said, his brow creased in puzzlement. ‘He was searched when he was taken to the castle, and again when he was brought here. He has never had a handkerchief. And no visitors who could have brought it to him, and certainly no lady.’

I bent closer and looked at the stains. ‘You say he was searched when he was brought here from the castle?’ I asked Radwinter.

‘Yes. Stripped naked and his clothes searched.’

‘That left one place where he could conceal this.’ I pointed to the dark stains. There was a moment’s silence, then Maleverer laughed incredulously.

‘Are you telling me this man has been walking around with a lady’s kerchief stuffed up his arse?’

I looked at him. ‘Yes, he used a lady’s because it is smaller, lighter. So a woman need not have been involved at all.’

‘But why would he do that?’

‘To carry something.’ I was reluctant to touch the thing again, but I took a corner and unfolded it carefully. To my disappointment there was nothing within. I bent again. There was a faint smell, not faeces but something else, nasty and rotten. I frowned. It was familiar – I had encountered it before, recently. I jerked upright as I remembered. It was the smell I had caught, briefly, from the King’s bloated leg as I stood with head bent before him at Fulford Cross.

‘What is it?’ Maleverer asked sharply. ‘What have you got hold of, lawyer?’

‘I am not sure, Sir William. May we have Dr Jibson here?’

Maleverer called to the physician and he came over. I told him where I suspected the handkerchief had been hidden and that something had been inside it. Reluctantly, Jibson bent and placed his nose close.

‘What is that smell, sir?’ I asked. ‘Some poison?’

He laughed bitterly. ‘God knows, it is a familiar smell for me. Rot and decay. Something nasty.’

‘The poison,’ Maleverer said.

‘If it is, ’tis none I recognize.’

Maleverer’s eyes glinted. ‘He kept it in that safest of places until he had leisure to use it. Poisoned himself to escape what lies before him in London.’ I looked over to where Broderick still slouched half conscious on the chair. ‘God’s wounds,’ he continued, ‘he must have been desperate.’

‘But he had no visitors,’ Radwinter said. ‘None were allowed, in all the time he was at the castle.’

‘Did he have a priest to confess him?’

‘No, it was ordered from London he was to be kept away from everyone. That has been the rule since he was first put in the castle last month. And he was taken from his house at night, bundled to the castle in a nightshirt. Clothes and other things were brought from his house later. A kerchief full of poison would have been noticed.’

I shook my head. ‘Then it must have reached him in the castle. He tried to poison himself there once and failed. Then he brought what was left of the poison here in that extraordinary way, and tried again. I guess he was taken ill so quickly this time, he had no time to hide the kerchief in its usual place, he just shoved it between the bed and the wall.’

‘And failed a second time,’ Dr Jibson said. ‘When the sergeant made him vomit.’

Maleverer looked over to where Broderick sprawled gasping between the soldiers. ‘So there was no poisoner here after all.’

‘No,’ I said quietly. ‘I don’t think there was.’

‘Only the person who brought the poison.’ Maleverer looked at Radwinter. ‘And got it past you, or maybe even gave it to you.’

Radwinter quailed. ‘I swear not.’

‘I am relieving you of your duties till this is resolved.’ Maleverer said. ‘Sergeant Leacon!’ he shouted, and the young Kentishman stepped round the partition. ‘I am placing you in charge of the prisoner. You will stay here and watch him, all the time. Gaoler, give him the keys.’

Radwinter hesitated, then unhooked the keys from his doublet and handed them to Leacon. Broderick was coming to himself a little, he groaned and sat up. Leacon looked doubtfully at Maleverer. ‘Sir, I have no experience -’

‘Master Shardlake here can instruct you in your duties. Dr Jibson, take that handkerchief and examine it. I want to know what that stuff is.’ He turned to Radwinter. ‘You, gaoler, come with me. Two of you soldiers come too. You will stay under guard, Master Radwinter, until further notice.’