“You’re joking. I wouldn’t let him in. He walked up and down in the area, swinging his arms and haranguing me in a language I didn’t recognise.”

“His bark’s worse than his bite,” Kearney said.

“After the second time, I changed the door code.”

“So I noticed.”

“It was just in case,” said Tate defensively.

Kearney had met Sprake perhaps five years after he stole the dice. The meeting occurred on a crowded commuter train passing through Kilburn on its way to Euston. The walls of the Kilburn cutting were covered with graffiti, explosions of red and purple and green done with deliberation and exuberance, shapes like fireworks going off, shapes bulging like damp tropical fruit, effects of glistening surfaces. Eddie, Daggo, Mince—less names than pictures of names. After you had seen them everything else became oppressive and dull.

The platform at Kilburn was empty but the train stopped there for a long time, as if it was waiting for someone, and eventually a man pushed his way on. He had red hair, pale hard eyes, and an old yellow bruise across the whole of his left cheek. He wore a belted military surplus coat with no jacket or shirt underneath it. Though the doors closed, the train remained still. As soon as he got in, he rolled a cigarette and began smoking it with relish, smiling and nodding around at the other passengers. The men stared at their polished shoes. The women studied the mass of sandy hairs between his pectoral muscles; they exchanged angry glances. Though the doors had closed, the train remained where it was. After a minute or two, he pulled back his cuff to consult his watch, a gesture which revealed the word FUGA tattooed inside his grimy wrist. He grinned, and indicated the graffiti outside.

“They call it ‘ bombing,’ ” he said to one of the women. “We ought to live our lives like that.” Instantly she became involved with her Daily Telegraph.

Sprake nodded, as if she had said something. He took his cigarette out of his mouth and examined the flattened, porous, spittle-stained end of it. “You lot, now,” he said. “Well, you look like a lot of self-satisfied bullies.” They were corporate IT workers and estate agents in their mid twenties, passing themselves off with a designer tie or a padded shoulder as dangerous accountants from the City. “Is that what you want?” He laughed. “We should bomb our names onto the prison walls,” he shouted. They edged away from him, until only Kearney was left.

“As for you,” he said, staring interestedly up at Kearney with his head at an odd, bird-like angle on his neck, and dropping his voice to a barely audible murmur:

“You just have to keep killing, don’t you? Because that’s the way to keep it at arm’s length. Am I right?”