The Transit left the village and headed onto the motorway. Keeping it in his sights, Evan followed at a distance all the way to Manchester. At the exit, he usually took a right, but the van turned left, so he did, too. It drove through the city centre and on into the backstreets of Moss Side, before eventually coming to a stop on the driveway of a shabby, three-storey Victorian house in Whalley Range.

Evan pulled in behind an old camper van that was parked some way back and on the opposite side of the road from the house, and watched as the gobby Mancunian got out of the driver’s side and walked round to the back of the Transit. A taller man with dark hair emerged from the passenger side, and Evan murmured, ‘What the hell . . .?’ when they opened the rear doors and not one, but three young women climbed out. In the few seconds they were standing there before the men hustled them up the path, the girls’ faces were illuminated by the sickly yellow glow of a streetlamp, and Evan thought they looked confused – as if they had no idea where they were, or what they were doing there.

A couple of minutes passed before the van’s reversing lights came on, and Evan slid down in his seat when it backed off the drive and drove past him. Eyeing its tail-lights in the rear-view mirror, he almost jumped out of his skin when someone tapped on the passenger-side window, and he looked round to see a hooded man with sunken eyes and gaunt cheeks gesturing for him to lower the window. Wary, because he knew this area was a hotspot for muggings and car-jackings, Evan rolled it down an inch and jerked his chin up.

‘S’up?’

‘Five-O?’ the man asked, his shifty eyes darting every-which-way.

‘Eh?’ Confused, Evan pulled a face. ‘What you on about?’

‘You ain’t a fed, then, no?’

Understanding now, Evan shook his head.

‘So what you lookin’ for?’ the man asked. ‘Green, brown, or white? I ain’t got nothin’ on me, but I can go and get it if you give us the dough upfront.’

It was on the tip of Evan’s tongue to tell him to fuck off, but, instead, he dipped his head to get better eye contact, and nodded toward the house where he’d seen the men take the girls.

‘I don’t suppose you know what goes on in there, do you?’

The man gave a sly grin, displaying heavily stained teeth.

‘What’s it worth?’

Evan slid his wallet out of his pocket and took out a fiver. He lowered the window another notch, and the man snaked his arm through the gap and made a grab for the note. Sensing that he’d take it and run without giving the info he was being paid for, Evan held on to it.