Strike arranges to meet Phillip Ormond in The Flask in Highgate (The Ink Black Heart, Chapter 35).

(There is another pub called The Flask that is on the other side of Hampstead Heath — so if you are visiting be sure to check you’ve got the right one!)

Strike and Robin go inside and buy drinks at the bar and, after they’ve agreed to their plan, Strike waits for Phillip in the bar at a table for two, facing the main door.

Meanwhile, Robin takes her tomato juice and packet of crisps to the next room, described as a “small parlour” and sits at a small corner table next to a fireplace. She enters Drek’s Game to see if they can eliminate Ormond as a suspect for Anomie.

The Flask was established in 1663 — during the reign of the previous King Charles, King Charles II.  

It has a fascinating history. Dick Turpin, the infamous Highwayman, once hid from the law in the cellars. Artist William Hogarth used to frequent the pub, apparently once sketching a fight between two customers. Poets Byron, Shelley and Keats all used to drink in the pub when visiting Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who lodged in the house opposite.

The American tourists in The Ink Black Heart mention two other interesting things about the pub. Firstly, one of the first post-mortems in Britain did indeed take place in the pub’s Committee Room; it was performed on a body that was stolen from a grave in Highgate Cemetery. 

They also discuss the alleged presence of a ghost seen in the pub — that of a Spanish barmaid who hanged herself in the cellar over her unrequited love for the pub’s landlord. Another ghost reputedly seen in the Flask is that of a cavalier who crosses the main bar of the pub and vanishes into a pillar.

You can find out more about The Flask at their website www.theflaskhighgate.com, which includes a walk-through tour www.theflaskhighgate.com/360-tour.

You can find The Flask on the map below:

Address:  77 Highgate West Hill, Highgate, London N6 6BU