Jonathan Wild went to the tree in the spring of 1725. I wondered whether this was where he’d left his final ledger. And if he had, was it a coincidence that Christina Chorley and Reynard Fossman happened to meet up here?

Coincidence, I thought. Like fuck.

So I asked about Reynard.

‘Oh yeah, Reynard,’ said Wanda. ‘We know all about the Reynards.’

‘We?’ I asked.

‘My family,’ said Wanda. ‘We know all about him.’

‘Reynards you said,’ said Guleed. ‘Reynards plural.’

‘And his family,’ said Wanda. ‘From France. They’re a long line of total Reynards.’

And because in my line of business it pays to be sure, I asked – ‘Just so we’re clear, when we’re talking about a line of Reynards, are we talking multiple members of one family with the same name, or the same guy changing his identity with each generation.’

‘Oh he’s a nasty piece of work, but he isn’t that nasty,’ said Wanda. ‘Different guys with different names – Reynard’s more of a title, an appellation, a nom de bastard total.’

‘And he’s a regular here?’ I asked

‘Well, we can’t bar people just for being unsavoury, can we?’ said Wanda. ‘We’d be out of business.’

I asked who, exactly, would be out of business. Wanda gave me a card with her area manager’s contact details and the name of the company who owned the business: CHIPMUNK CATERING.

‘Not that we see that much of them,’ she said.

I handed the card to Guleed, and while I asked about Reynard’s comings and goings Guleed texted the Inside Inquiry Office. I’d love to claim that I’d had a gut feeling about the owners, but really it was following routine. In policing, your gut might point the way – but it’s the shoe leather that catches criminals.

I showed Wanda Christina Chorley’s picture again and asked if she had ever seen her with Reynard. I used a different picture and made sure that I didn’t cue Wanda that this was a repeat viewing – if you can shift the context, people often remember new facts.

This time Wanda thought it was possible that she might have seen them together, but she was hazy on the details. In just about any other pub in London I’d have asked about CCTV footage, but me and Guleed had noted the lack of cameras on the way in.

I was going to roll the conversation back round to Olivia when Guleed showed me her phone and the answering text from the Inside Inquiry Office – CHIPMUNK CATERING DIRECTLY LINKED TO COUNTY GARD.

And County Gard belonged to the Faceless Man – shit.

‘How often do you see your area manager?’ I asked.