Danny E: Appreciated. I owe you a beer for this.

Tiny Tim: A beer, is that it! You mow down some little old lady and I get a beer out of it!

Danny E: Not on here. You gotta delete that. This aint a laughing matter.

Tiny Tim: Shit man, I’m only playing!

Danny E: I know that. Like I say, this aint funny. The dog’s face was tho! Them nine lives didn’t last long did they!

Tiny Tim: That’s cats you prick! LMAO

The text messages ran out. A sentence in bold type was at the bottom of the page: Inadmissible due to method to obtain.

Richard turned the page and let out his breath as he did. The next page was a photocopied newspaper article from the local paper. It was dated around two years earlier. The headline was bold, looking like it would have been the lead for the back page: Club Captain Danny ‘The Beast’ Evans in drink drive rap.

There was a picture. A tall man, broad shoulders, neat brown hair pushed over to one side. He looked like he had been captured walking down a set of steps, doing up the buttons on his blazer. The photographer was side-on. The caption read: Danny Evans leaving court after pleading guilty to drink drive charge.

The story underneath gave much more detail but Richard skimmed it to pick out a summary: A Mercedes car had been stopped for driving erratically – swerving from side to side. Danny Evans was the only occupant. He was captain of the town’s football team and had played at a higher level earlier in his career. He failed a breath test and was found to be twice the legal limit. The court banned him from driving for a year. His sentence could have been two years but was more lenient after he pleaded guilty and the use of his vehicle for his employment and charity work was also taken into account. The article ended with Danny Evans wishing to thank his wife for standing by him while he sought the help he needed.

Standard. The sort of report Richard had seen a thousand times about people in the public eye when they were caught out. ‘The help I need.’ Divert it away. Make it sound like an addiction, like something you couldn’t help. Richard had scoffed at his television a thousand times at excuses like that but he wouldn’t scoff now. This was different. This was the man who had killed his wife.