On his way back south from Crieff, where he has interviewed Jade Semple, Strike stops to eat in Moffat, a small town just off the motorway in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. 

He is still hungover and his knee is sore, so he is not in the mood to find the town picturesque.

He eats in a cafe on the market square.  Visible through the window is ‘the statue of a ram standing atop a pile of rocks’. The statue makes him even more miserable because ‘Sheep, even when cast in bronze, had a tendency to remind him of Robin’s father, the professor of sheep medicine, and of the evening he and Robin had spent at the Ritz together, when she’d first given Strike this information’ (Chapter 61).

The cafe Strike visits isn’t named in the book, but it is most likely to be the Rumblin’ Tum.

Strike orders a coffee and a burger, and gets to work analysing the note that Niall Semple left behind when he disappeared.

Wardle calls to discuss the agency’s progress in the silver vault case.  He also tells Strike he’s signed off from work, and Strike goes on to offer him a job.  After they hang up, Strike orders another coffee.

After leaving Moffat, Strike continues south, and stays overnight in Penrith before meeting up with Robin in Ironbridge the following day.

Find Moffat on the map below.