An elderly man lying by his garden gate in a pool of blood. On the road an elderly woman, dead. Face down. I knew from news reports that this must be Ryan’s mother. She lay outside her burning house. Further on, a man on a path, dog lead in hand. The juxtaposition on that almost-dark August evening between the quotidian streets and the extraordinary random acts of killing that had taken place there was, frankly, surreal. Nothing at all like this had happened in the UK before.
