It was 16 October 2018, when Aidan Tickett had got on the coach from Winchester to London dressed in Valdovas’s clothes, using his reservation and taking with him the phone on which it was made. Aidan Tickett had plenty of questions to answer, but Gillard first wanted to arm himself with more detail about the Lithuanian’s movements in the days running up to his death. Hampshire Constabulary had taken witness statements at the time, but Gillard wanted to check these against what the witnesses to Valdovas’s working life said now.

Vicky Willow used childcare issues as an excuse to decline a formal interview at Winchester Police Station, but instead agreed to be questioned in the rear bar at the Anvil on Friday morning. Gillard didn’t need to press the matter, and provided a duty solicitor and a portable recorder to give the session its proper gravitas.

Vicky seemed to take everything in her stride, as usual. She was clearing the dishwasher when Gillard arrived, and wearily showed them through to a large musty-smelling back bar in which furniture was stacked at one end. She was wearing a stained T-shirt with the single word BOSS on the front, and evidence of fresh baby dribble on the shoulder. She actually locked the glass door with a key that she then pocketed.

‘It’s the only way I can be sure we won’t be disturbed,’ she said.

Gillard set up the tape, intoned the formalities of who he was interviewing and where, then asked her to detail everything she could remember about Tomas Valdovas.

‘Who?’ was her first question.

‘A twenty-two-year-old Lithuanian barman with frizzy blond hair from 2018. You knew him as Tom.’

Vicky squinted into the distance, as if trying to recall the man. Gillard assisted by passing back to her copies of the photographs that had originally been on the wall of this very same bar.

‘Oh, Tom. The police asked about him a couple of years ago. He worked here a few weeks at the beginning of the summer, and alternated between farm work and bar work depending on what crop was in season. This wasn’t the only pub he worked at. I think he did a few shifts at the Sun in Upper Rissington.’

Gillard wrote down the details. ‘What kind of a man was he?’

‘He was friendly, funny, and good with the locals generally.’

‘Generally?’

‘Well, there was always someone taking the piss out of his accent.’

‘And when did he leave?’

She licked her lips. ‘I think the last time we saw him was in the October. You should look at the statement I gave at the time.’

‘I’ve got it right here, but you tell me what you remember.’

‘I do recall it was really sad that he went missing in London. I don’t think we ever heard whether he turned up again, but since it all went quiet, I assumed he did.’