They talked in low voices, so that no one could hear. ‘We were virtually present when this happened,’ whispered Michael, his green eyes huge in his white face. ‘This monster took his fifth victim while we were right outside the building!’ ‘I wonder whether we saw him,’ mused Bartholomew, trying to recall what he had seen as they had lingered with de Lisle and Ralph in the Dark Cloister. ‘I spotted Symon, then Julian, then Welles and finally Alan. What about you?’ Michael shook his head slowly. ‘No killer would have gone about his grisly business knowing we had actually watched him enter the hospital. He would have crept in through the back door, not through the Dark Cloister.’ ‘Do not be so sure,’ said Bartholomew. ‘He killed Robert and carried the body to the Monks’ Hythe in broad daylight. He is not a timid fellow, and he seems oblivious of the fact that he might be caught.’ ‘There is a difference this time, though,’ said Michael, staring down the hall to where Thomas’s mammoth form could just be seen, swathed in a white sheet, with Alan kneeling next to it.
