Strike pulled up a bar stool, and Wardle said, without preamble:

‘What’ve you got for me, then?’

‘There was a fatal stabbing just off Ealing Broadway last month. Guy called Liam Yates? Police informant, wasn’t he?’

‘Yeah, he got a knife in the neck. But we know who did it,’ said Wardle, with a patronising laugh. ‘Half the crooks in London know. If that’s your information—’

‘Don’t know where he is, though, do you?’

With a quick glance at the determinedly unconscious girls, Wardle slid a notebook out of his pocket.

‘Go on.’

‘There’s a girl who works in Betbusters on the Hackney Road called Shona Holland. She lives in a rented flat two streets away from the bookie’s. She’s got an unwelcome house guest at the moment called Brett Fearney, who used to beat up her sister. Apparently he’s not the sort of bloke you refuse a favour.’

‘Got the full address?’ asked Wardle, who was scribbling hard.

‘I’ve just given you the name of the tenant and half the postcode. How about trying a bit of detective work?’

‘And where did you say you got this?’ asked Wardle, still jotting rapidly with the notebook balanced under the table on his knee.

‘I didn’t,’ replied Strike equably, sipping his beer.

‘Got some interesting friends, haven’t you?’

‘Very. Now, in a spirit of fair exchange…’

Wardle, replacing his notebook in his pocket, laughed.

‘What you’ve just given me might be a crock of shit.’

‘It isn’t. Play fair, Wardle.’

The policeman eyed Strike for a moment, apparently torn between amusement and suspicion.

‘What are you after, then?’

‘I told you on the phone: bit of inside information on Lula Landry.’

‘Don’t you read the papers?’

‘Inside information, I said. My client thinks there was foul play.’

Wardle’s expression hardened.

‘Hooked up with a tabloid, have we?’

‘No,’ said Strike. ‘Her brother.’

‘John Bristow?’

Wardle took a long pull on his pint, his eyes on the upper thighs of the nearest girl, his wedding ring reflecting red lights from the pinball machine.

‘Is he still fixated on the CCTV footage?’

‘He mentioned it,’ admitted Strike.

‘We tried to trace them,’ said Wardle, ‘those two black guys. We put out an appeal. Neither of them turned up. No big surprise – a car alarm went off just about the time they would have been passing it – or trying to get into it. Maserati. Very tasty.’

‘Reckon they were nicking cars, do you?’