After meeting with Sir Colin Edensor and his sons at the Reform Club, Strike and Robin go to the Golden Lion, a pub on King Street in St James’s. It is directly across the street from Christie’s.

The pub is described as ‘small, Victorian and ornately decorated’ (chapter 5).  

Strike and Robin sit on high leather barstools at a round table. Strike has a beer and Robin an orange juice, as she will shortly be leaving for surveillance on the Franks.

They discuss their new case and which member of the agency should go undercover at Chapman Farm. Robin wants the job herself, and Strike agrees she would be the best person to do it.

After Robin leaves for the Tube station, Strike decides that as ‘the Golden Lion was so pleasant’ he will stay in the pub and read the documents Colin Edensor has given him there, rather than return to the office (chapter 7).

‘He therefore bought himself a second pint and took the first opportunity to leave his barstool for a vacated leather bench at a lower table, where he flipped open the folder’ (chapter 7).

The Golden Lion is located here: