Zeenan had been a seventeen-year-old A-level student from north London, and although he was of Pakistani origin and a Muslim, he had been born and bred in England. He was English. An Arsenal scarf hung over his bed and on the bedroom walls were posters torn from Loaded magazine.

His devastated family were said to be too distressed to speak to the press and had gone into hiding, but they were described by neighbours as being ‘not political’ and ‘proud to be British’.

There were photos of Zeenan in his school uniform. His headmaster was quoted as being ‘shocked and struggling to believe that the bomber could really have been the level-headed student who obtained eight excellent GCSEs and had been working hard for his A levels’.

Somehow all the newspapers had managed to find a family portrait: mum, dad, three kids – Zeenan the eldest – all smiling, happy, proud.

He was ‘just a normal boy’, said a neighbour who refused to be named. ‘A quiet lad,’ said another. ‘Kept himself to himself, but very polite and never in any trouble.’

Politicians, community and religious leaders were quoted. Everyone appealed for calm.

But for all the background information, comments and quotes, two vital questions remained unanswered: how had a seventeen-year-old schoolboy made, or obtained, an explosive device reckoned to be identical to those used by extremists in places like Jerusalem and Baghdad? And why had Zeenan Khan, a boy with everything to live for, chosen to step willingly into oblivion?

News of the bombing was dominating newspaper headlines and television news reports around the world. At a roadside between Badajoz and Huelva in southern Spain two builders, Londoners in their twenties, were drinking tea and reading a copy of the Sun printed in Madrid that morning.

‘It’s unbelievable,’ said Paul as he scanned the pages. ‘It says here he had at least seven kilos of explosives strapped to him. What’s the world coming to when kids no older than young Dean there are blowing themselves to pieces?’