‘Not me, I was never that good. But more than one of my mates had professional contracts when they were younger, that never worked out. And afterwards, they’re left with nothing. Clubs don’t care, the agents walk away with their cut and move onto the next one to bleed dry. In my eyes the clubs and the authorities need to do more to protect these kids and make sure they have something even if their premier league dreams don’t work out.’

She looked over at him and was pleasantly impressed with the determined look on his face. She’d assumed his spouting about football agents before was just the pipe dream of a football fanatic, but perhaps there was more to it than that.

‘And what’s Reeve been up to since?’ Dani asked.

‘Odds and sods. Worked in his dad’s business for a while. Some sort of building contractors, from what I can gather. More recently he’d been working as an apprentice plumber for one of his dad’s mates, and doing night classes.’

‘Though he had quite the side business going.’

‘Either that or he had a serious coke problem.’

‘We have to assume his death could be related to the drugs.’

‘Seems the obvious answer doesn’t it… but I sense you’re not convinced by that?’

‘No. I’m not. Though I don’t really know why.’

Dani took a left turn, leaving behind terraced rows of mainly Asian-inspired shops and eateries and onto a quieter and wider residential street.

‘Take this right,’ Easton said after a few hundred yards.

Dani did so, then stopped soon after at a red light at a busy crossroads flanked on one side by a petrol station and on the opposite by a grand old pub building that had been remodelled as a trendy bistro. Together with the leafy streets and the imposing period houses it was certainly a homely and relatively wealthy area. The lights turned green and Dani pulled away.

‘It should be just down here on the right,’ Easton said, craning his neck.

Dani turned, then after a hundred yards she pulled the car to the side of the road outside the unassuming detached house on a quiet suburban street. It seemed nice enough, not all that upmarket, but close enough to more affluent areas to make the residents feel like they’d made it in life. Plus the residents could still claim to come from the borough of Solihull, of course.