‘The violence was latent in his relationship with his parents. He didn’t have a history of extreme displays of anger—no assault charges, no destruction of property. But he regularly threatened suicide, and well into his twenties he subjected his parents to screaming rages, typically over something he didn’t get, like a job, or a person he thought was a fool, who’d thwarted him somehow. This anger was part of his defence mechanism. Henry’s violent fantasies—which we can assume he nurtured, given the planning that went into the Third of April—made him feel less inadequate in the face of his disappointment. He had no friends, no partner. He frightened his parents. He probably had many rejection experiences because people could see there was something wrong with how he faced the world. When Lucky knocked him back for a job, the perceived slight amplified a defence mechanism that was already there.’

‘What was driving that entitlement?’

‘He believed he was better than other people,’ Popescu said. ‘It’s obvious.’

Popescu removed his fishing hat: his hair, parted over his right ear, and his grey goatee beard made Emily think of football coaches and boxing gyms and vasectomies. He grew the beard, she presumed, after leaving the job.

Emily said: ‘It was confronting for Henry whenever someone challenged his belief that he was better than other people. But why was his violence so extreme after the rejection at Lucky’s?’

‘Henry was a regular customer at the cafe before he asked for a job. It was a world he knew, a world he’d chosen—but it didn’t want him. It was a place he inhabited. Perhaps he thought of the cafe as a second home. And he responded to that rejection with incredible violence. He couldn’t get what they had, so he took their lives, staff and customers.’

‘What does Lucky think of this interpretation?’

‘Ask him. And ask Henry’s mother.’

‘I want to interview her,’ said Emily. ‘Do you have a number?’

‘I won’t share contact details with the media. That’s a rule of mine.’

He waved at a barefoot couple who passed by, each eating a packet of crisps, different flavours. Emily asked whether Popescu lived in Coogee and he said yes, until last year, he had a house back up the hill but he’d moved out of the family home and now lived a few suburbs away.

He said: ‘You’ve met Lucky I guess? He’s broke these days.’

‘How exactly did that come about?’

‘When he sold the franchise in the 1970s he was in debt. He must have run the business into the ground. Then he was left with one restaurant. After the shooting, he developed a gambling problem and lost everything.’

‘He didn’t mention gambling the other day.’

‘Here’s my tip: Lucky’s unreliable, he won’t tell you the whole story. I got to know him a little.’