“Come off it.”

“OK… what if he is there?”

“I’ll cross that bridge—I’m not going to hit him,” said Strike, correctly reading her thoughts.

“OK,” said Robin, but then, “you hit Whittaker, though.”

“That was different,” said Strike, and when she did not respond, “Whittaker’s special. He’s family.”

She laughed, but reluctantly.

When Strike withdrew fifty pounds from a cashpoint prior to entering the Saracen off Commercial Road, the machine churlishly showed him a negative balance in his current account. His expression grim, Strike handed over a tenner to the short-necked bouncer on the door and pushed his way through the strips of black plastic masking the interior, which was dimly lit, but insufficiently to mask the overall impression of shabbiness.

The interior of the old pub had been ripped out in its entirety. The refashioned decor gave the impression of a community center gone bad, dimly lit and soulless. The floor was of polished pine, which reflected the wide neon strip running the length of the bar that took up one side of the room.

It was shortly after midday, but there was already a girl gyrating on a small stage at the far end of the pub. Bathed in red light and standing in front of angled mirrors so that every inch of dimpled flesh could be appreciated, she was removing her bra to the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up.” A grand total of four men were sitting on high stools, one to each elevated table, dividing their attention between the girl now swinging clumsily around a pole and a big-screen TV showing Sky Sports.

Strike headed straight for the bar, where he found himself facing a sign that read “Any customer caught masturbating will be ejected.”

“What can I get you, love?” asked a girl with long hair, purple eye-shadow and a nose ring.

Strike ordered a pint of John Smith’s and took a seat at the bar. Other than the bouncer, the only other male employee on view was the man sitting behind a turntable beside the stripper. He was stocky, blond, middle-aged and did not remotely resemble Brockbank.

“I was hoping to meet a friend here,” Strike told the barmaid, who, having no further customers, was leaning on the bar, staring dreamily at the television and picking her long nails.

“Yeah?” she said, sounding bored.

“Yeah,” said Strike. “He said he was working here.”

A man in a fluorescent jacket approached the bar and she moved away to serve him without another word.

“Start Me Up” ended and so did the stripper’s act. Naked, she hopped off the stage, grabbed a wrap and disappeared through a curtain at the back of the pub. Nobody clapped.

A woman in a very short nylon kimono and stockings slid out from behind the curtain and began walking around the pub, holding out an empty beer glass to punters, who one by one put their hands in their pockets and gave her some change. She reached Strike last. He dropped in a couple of quid. She headed straight for the stage, where she put her pint glass of coins carefully beside the DJ’s turntable, wriggled out of her kimono and stepped on to the stage in bra, pants, stockings and heels.