Achilles needed to be somewhere else, to get out of the room and leave the cafe, to follow the lines of this shattering. Valia would arrive soon, and she’d be in a position to provide whatever care was necessary.

‘Lucky!’ Achilles barked as he entered the kitchen, motioning with his head, removing his apron.

‘What the hell did you do?’ asked Lucky, watching warily.

‘Come with me. We are going to find this Nazi bastard. If you’re my family, you will come.’

‘I’m staying here, Achilles.’

It was so hot the day was over for the suburb. Walter would probably be at home. Achilles knew what to look for; a few times Walter had come in for beef sandwiches and baked beans. The German’s vehicle: a Ford Popular. Achilles, in no state to drive, climbed behind the wheel of his utility, which the family always referred to as the Cafe Truck.

Two customers, a married couple, took Penny to the hospital in their sedan, with Valia riding next to her in the back seat. Lucky stayed behind, suddenly not at home in the Achillion, the site itself depleted and felled, but he did his commercial duty: other customers were still in the cafe eating. They’d sat and whispered through the screams that came out from behind the kitchen. When he was alone, Lucky wiped down the stovetop with a wet cloth and the plate gave off cooking smells, the wet streaks crackling like spices over fire.

Achilles drove around looking for Walter and after a few hours he stopped his car to walk the streets, fist clenched, saturated with himself, and in his mind he set up a confrontation that was two blows long and conclusive, a full stop. There, the grammar of Achilles, shepherd of his people. Soon it was too dark for him to see, and he couldn’t read street signs, or the numbers on houses, or his own watch.

‘I don’t want to see police,’ Penny told the nurse at Canterbury Hospital. She had said the same thing to Valia, and to the doctor who applied a plaster cast to her arm. Then Penelope held her breath; this was what she did when she wanted to stop thinking about something.