Hitchens began folding up his maps.

‘There’s a very nice pub opposite the Old Bailey – the Viaduct Tavern – with what’s left of Newgate’s cells down in the beer cellar,’ he said. ‘Debtors’ cells that held up to twenty people. They say the smell was so bad that it could have choked a horse. But I’ve seen them and they don’t match Detective Wolfe’s description. In fact, they’re nothing like them. Your colleague at New Scotland Yard is quite correct, Max – your description perfectly matches the corridor in Newgate Gaol called Dead Man’s Walk. It progressively narrowed so that the condemned man – or woman – could not turn around to fight or flee. But it hasn’t existed for over one hundred years.’

They were all looking at me with something approaching pity.

‘But it was real,’ I said. ‘I saw it. I walked down it.’

‘The internal architecture of Newgate is well documented,’ Hitchens said. ‘The prison appears on the very first map of London drawn in 1575 by Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg. More than anywhere that ever existed, Newgate represented traditional British justice, red in tooth and claw. So whoever abducted you knew exactly what they were doing. They knew exactly what that corridor resembles.’ He slipped his maps into his man bag and wiped his hand across his sweating forehead. ‘But trust me – it couldn’t have been Newgate.’

‘I want to check out the pub,’ Whitestone said. ‘The Viaduct Tavern.’

‘There’s not much there,’ Hitchens said. ‘Certainly nothing that—’

Whitestone raised one hand, silencing him, and I saw the thread of steel inside this unassuming woman. Her world had been torn apart this summer but she was still running this murder investigation and she wanted to see the cellars of the Viaduct Tavern.

It wasn’t a suggestion.

Thirty minutes later we were all down in the beer cellar of the Viaduct Tavern on Newgate Street. Hacked into the walls were cells that could have been built to contain large animals. They were cold, dark and reeked of ancient terrors. The pub above was a place of warmth and cheer and it was light years away from this ancient place of horrors. The cells seemed designed to muffle human screams. I felt my skin crawl.

Whitestone and Edie were looking at me.

‘Anything look familiar?’ Whitestone said.

‘This is not where they took me,’ I said. ‘Nothing like it.’ My spirits sank. ‘Chump bait, as you say.’

‘Fair enough,’ Whitestone said, patting me lightly on the back. ‘Every investigation has its share of false leads, Max, and this was one of them.’

We went up to the pub. The Viaduct Tavern is a beautiful Victorian pub with a wrought-copper ceiling that gives the place a warm and rosy glow. After the fetid air of the cells, being up here felt like breathing out. I sank into the nearest chair. Suddenly I was very tired.