Nothing then until the trial, and most of that detailed the prose-cution's evidence against Tom Mweshtu, that he'd been trained by the Soviets and had spent time in Kiev. James Carew was described as a white South African taxi driver, aged 63. Two paragraphs on the sentencing, what they were accused of, what their names were, that they showed no emotion when they were told they would hang. Months of a hole in the story and then the dismissal of the appeal, four paragraphs. Jack learned that the five had been in the maximum security compound of Pretoria Central gaol for thirteen months, that the Pope had urged the State President to exercise clemency, that three EEC Foreign Ministers had sent telegrams urging reprieves. Everything that he read had been in the paper pushed through the letter box every day at home – and he hadn't bothered, just as he hadn't stirred himself to take an interest in the shootings in the townships or in the detentions or the bombings.

And then, there it was, the photograph.

In last Tuesday's paper. It was probably still in the cupboard under the stairs. Might be lining a dustbin, or it might have been crumpled up by his mother for cleaning the front room windows. His mother always read the paper, front to back. Jack didn't know how she could not have recognised the photograph of her first husband. He had never before seen a photograph of his father.

It was a mug shot, might have been a police picture, might have been for a passport. He peered down at the column-wide photograph, at the man who only managed two paragraphs with four others, who didn't rate as a hero, who was a white South African taxi driver, 53. He saw a gaunt face, staring, ungiving eyes, shadowed hollow cheeks, sparse short hair. The photograph was misting, blurring.

Jack's fists were white knuckled, tight. He felt the choking in his chest. He saw the tears fall on the newsprint and be absorbed.

When the woman came back from her desk to look into the corner where the young man had been sitting she found the file neatly piled, but open.