As the BBC preps for airing its third adaptation of JK Rowling’s Cormoran Strike novels, Career Of Evil, Strike’s star Tom Burke has said it could be a while before he puts on that old woollen coat again.

It has been well reported that Strike doesn’t intend to breakout from Rowling’s series into original drama territory. Unfortunately, that means – like everyone else – its makers will have to wait for the author’s fourth instalment, Lethal White, like everyone else. Probably until well into 2019.

“I don’t think it would be until the year after this year,” Burke told a press event for Career of Evil. He did, however, hint that the next story Rowling intends to tell will probably equate to a longer run of shows than any of her previous instalments. Specifically, he went on to say: “I don’t know anything about the next book, but some people do and they feel like it could be a four-part one.”

Burke, and co-star Holliday Grainger, have both revealed are on long-running contracts to play the investigators in further adaptations. For her part, Rowling – who writes the novels under the alias Robert Galbraith – has been rumoured to be planning anywhere between 7 and ten Strike novels.

Burke also told the assembled press that his contract “reads like an RPG novel, with different pages with different outcomes”.