‘I drink too much,’ he continues, filling the silence. ‘Can’t resist a pint in a nice country pub. Never been into drugs, though. I mean, we used to have the odd spliff on the boat, in the early days, but it always gave me such a headache. Food’s my drug. Love to cook. When I can find the right ingredients. I like to forage. You can get some great chanterelles up here. Wild garlic too.’

Maybe he’s got this wrong. The man remains taciturn, not rising to Jake’s elaborately laid bait.

‘You into drugs?’ He glances at the man’s sallow skin, his sunken eyes. The village has its alcoholics, a few people who sit outside the pub each day, waiting for it to open, but nobody who looks like this. Hollowed out, as if rotting from the inside.

The man leans forward, head lowered, hands clasped so tightly together that Jake can see the white of his knuckles. He senses he’s getting warmer, but there’s still no response. So he decides to come straight out with it, ask him if he’s got caught up in a county lines operation. It might explain his sudden presence in the village.

‘Gone cunch?’ Jake says quietly.

The man looks up at him, surprised by the question, maybe the language too, and lowers his head again. Jake remains silent, watching him, willing on the faintest of responses. You can tell me, pal. I’ve just saved your bloody life. After what seems an age, the man nods.

Jake takes a sharp in-breath. Already he can feel his sympathy for this man melting away like deer in the forest, but he needs to sideline his own feelings. Stay focused. He might prove useful, know something about the man who spiked Kate’s drink in the pub. Drug networks operate in a small world – at least they did when he used to report on them.

‘No choice,’ the man eventually says, staring at the ground.

Bollocks. In Jake’s experience, there’s always a choice. The man’s too old to be a mule, but Jake knows the way county lines operate, how they use people of his age – early twenties, at a guess – to recruit teenage dealers.

‘Swindon?’ he asks.

The man nods, staring at his feet.

‘Ever worked out the Bluebell?’

He looks up at Jake, sadness replaced by a hardening of his features. The name of the pub seems to have changed the mood. ‘Wouldn’t know, mate,’ he says, standing up.

‘Rockbourne, outside Swindon,’ Jake says, watching as the man starts to walk away. Their conversation is clearly at an end. He knows something about the pub, Jake is sure of it. And maybe about the barman who served Kate that night.

‘Couldn’t you go to the police?’ he calls after him.