He charged at them, the leather sap raised above his head, still shouting about cow sons. The armed officers all carried a Sig Sauer MCX, the Black Mamba, a short, superlight firearm perfect for use in confined spaces. It is a weapon favoured by American Special Forces, although the ones the Met use are configured not to fire on semi-automatic, meaning that the ones levelled at Paul Warboys fired just one round for every trigger pull because the Met makes its officers justify every use of deadly force. That’s why every AFO could be a highly trained armed officer at breakfast and the object of a murder investigation by lunch.

I braced for the explosion of gunfire, the sound that is always so much louder than you ever expect, steeling myself for all the noise and fear and mess of 5.56 rounds passing through fragile flesh and blood and bone.

But they did not fire.

Warboys threw himself into them, the sap rising and falling, but now striking the lightweight body armour that the AFOs wore under all that grey Kevlar.

One of them, a woman, stuck a reinforced elbow into Warboys’ throat. He reeled backwards and she bounced the butt of her assault rifle off his chin. He stared at her with his watery blue eyes wide with shock, the sap now held loosely at his side.

She did it again and he went down.

Then they were stepping over his prone body, someone kicking the leather sap down the hall, and they were pouring into the small flat, clearing each room one by one, but the only sound was the noise our people made.

I looked for the great sloping head of Bullseye, his beloved English Bull Terrier, but Paul Warboys was a responsible dog owner, and his pet was already gone, and no doubt missing his master in some new loving home.

I picked up the black leather sap. It was a good one – eight inches long, flat, beaver-tailed black leather, weighted with lead at either end, with what felt like a semi-flexible steel spring running down the weapon’s spine.

I walked into the living room, stunned again by that view of the Thames, a light flurry of rain coming down on the river as the sun glittered behind the glass towers of Docklands. The flat still didn’t feel like a real home, despite the evidence of Warboys that was all around – the Otis Redding and Tamla Motown vinyl, the World at War boxed set on top of the home cinema, the framed photographs of his late wife.

No photographs of Tommy.

No photographs of Madam Theresa.

But then I guess you can love someone without putting their picture on your wall.

Someone shouted with joy in the tiny kitchen.