The park seemed an apt location in which to update Nancy on the progress of his investigation. It had been almost a week since their last meeting, and knowing her as he did, he imagined the waiting must have driven her to distraction. He’d worked as fastidiously as possible and he was looking forward to sharing his efforts with Nancy.

‘I take it that self-satisfied smile on your face means the last few days haven’t been a total waste of time,’ she said.

‘I did a bit of bribing here and there,’ he replied. ‘Complemented by a bit of breaking and entering. And I took Archie with me for good measure. And I’ve come up with a few results.’

‘I knew you were the man for the job,’ she said.

On conducting the work, he had found himself once again admiring her prescient insight. ‘You were right,’ he said, puffing up a little. ‘There aren’t many vets who specialise in cobras. And there definitely aren’t many people who own them. In fact I could only find five people in the London area who are licensed to own cobras. I checked each of them out, did a bit of initial recon, managed to get basic personal details on all of them, and I think you’ll be interested to hear what I found out.’

‘Go on…’ said Nancy, barely able to conceal the excitement in her voice.

‘The first one is a twenty-five-year-old man living in Neasden with his parents,’ said Stephen. ‘Likes to enter his snakes into competitions. Crufts for snakes, that kind of thing.’

Nancy shook her head. ‘Unlikely. Sounds too young to be Mister Snigiss.’

‘Next we’ve got a thirty-two-year-old woman living in West Kensington. Got the impression she’s some kind of spoilt fashionista into Louis Vuitton bags and Gucci sunglasses who also dabbles in dangerous snakes.’

Nancy wrinkled her nose. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Then we’ve got a forty-five-year-old man living in Hackney. He’s married with kids. Also owns a number of other poisonous snakes. Works for the council in waste disposal.’

‘Hmm. Waste disposal? Doesn’t sound like Mister Snigiss to me. I don’t think he’d have kids either.’

‘Next up is a seventy-four-year-old woman living in Bermondsey. She’s currently confined to a wheelchair.’

Nancy snorted a laugh. ‘Nope.’

He could tell she was starting to wonder if he actually had come up with anything useful after all.

He raised one eyebrow with an impish smile. ‘And finally we have a fifty-five year-old man living alone in a large apartment on Edgware Road in an exclusive block populated mostly by rich Lebanese. Seems to be fairly wealthy but not ostentatiously so. Doesn’t appear to go to work, as far as I could gather. From what I observed, he’s a bit of a recluse. Goes by the name of James Grecken.’

Nancy smiled. ‘You were keeping the best till last, weren’t you? He sounds like he could be our man. I think we should check out this James Grecken in a bit more detail.’