In his late fifties, with a full head of hair, a firm jaw and pronounced cheekbones, he looked like an almost-famous actor hired to play a rich businessman in a miniseries. Strike, whose visual memory was highly trained, recognised him immediately from the photographs that Robin had found online as the tall man who had looked as though he deplored his surroundings at Lula Landry’s funeral.

‘Tony Landry. John and Lula’s uncle. May I sit down?’

His smile was perhaps the most perfect example of an insincere social grimace that Strike had ever witnessed; a mere baring of even white teeth. Landry eased himself out of his overcoat, draped it over the back of the seat opposite Strike and sat.

‘John’s delayed at the office,’ he said. The breeze ruffled his hair, showing how it had receded at the temples. ‘He asked Alison to call you and let you know. I happened to be passing her desk at the time, so I thought I’d come and deliver the message in person. It gives me an opportunity to have a private word with you. I’ve been expecting you to contact me; I know you’re working your way slowly through all my niece’s contacts.’

He slid a pair of steel-rimmed glasses out of his top pocket, put them on and took a moment to consult the menu. Strike drank some beer and waited.

‘I hear you’ve been speaking to Mrs Bestigui?’ said Landry, setting down the menu, taking off his glasses again and reinserting them into his suit pocket.

‘That’s right,’ said Strike.

‘Yes. Well, Tansy is undoubtedly well intentioned, but she is doing herself no favours at all by repeating a story the police have proven, conclusively, could not have been true. No favours at all,’ repeated Landry portentously. ‘And so I have told John. His first duty ought to be to the firm’s client, and what is in her best interests.

‘I will have the ham hock terrine,’ he added to a passing waitress, ‘and a still water. Bottled. Well,’ he continued, ‘it’s probably best to be direct, Mr Strike.

‘For many reasons, all of them good ones, I am not in favour of raking over the circumstances of Lula’s death. I don’t expect you to agree with me. You make money by digging through the seamy circumstances of family tragedies.’

He flashed his aggressive, humourless smile again.

‘I’m not entirely unsympathetic. We all have our livings to make, and no doubt there are plenty of people who would say my profession is just as parasitic as yours. It might be helpful to both of us, though, if I lay certain facts in front of you, facts I doubt John has chosen to disclose.’