In an instant Lucky’s mind could open to the Third of April, and again, as he held the phone to his ear, he saw his friends’ and customers’ bodies on the floor. The police let him go as far as the entrance, the maw of the black hole, the suck of a great whirlpool distorting the past and the future. They’d already taken Sophia away. Now he sought to place Joanna in the scene. ‘I have wondered: where were you that day?’

‘I was at work when Adam called. He said I should come straightaway to the Lucky’s cafe. He said something happened to Henry. I didn’t ask questions. I left work and in the car I heard on the radio about a shooting incident in Stanmore, and I felt immediately that Henry was responsible.’

‘And when you got to the restaurant? I didn’t see you.’

‘But I saw you from a distance. The police kept us away from everyone. I asked the policewoman if my son was alive, and she said: “Yes.” Then Adam said to me: “It was Henry. He killed those people.” We expected him to turn up at the house that night. We were frightened.’

‘I thought he’d turn up at my place.’

‘I feel responsible for the person he turned out to be. When I think of Henry now, I don’t feel love towards him. I feel responsibility. Perhaps that is love. Perhaps we could have monitored him more closely after he moved out, convinced him to move back in with us. But the arguments were never-ending. He threatened to kill himself. He called us scum, nobodies. He said our lives were pathetic and we disgusted him. Whenever he felt bad, he started arguments. Underneath that was violence. We know that for sure now. But I suspected it then.’

‘I think about the Third of April practically every day. I go over and over what I should have done instead of what I did.’

‘I’ve come to believe there can be no full understanding of Henry. I’ve chosen to trust God. Maybe He understands why it happened. There’s nothing else I can do.’

‘He came to my house on the Third of April,’ Lucky said.

‘Why he visited you is unclear to me.’

‘I’m sure it would have been better if he’d shot me and left everyone else alone.’

‘Don’t say that. You’re needed here.’

‘Maybe I could have stopped him,’ said Lucky. He was shaking; he moved the phone from one hand to the other. No one, not Sophia, not the families, not the police, had ever laid blame at Lucky’s feet or expressed anger towards him. That didn’t change his own feelings. ‘Henry wanted to come in for a drink. He wanted a job at the restaurant. I could have given him those things and it might never have happened.’