A boy, a Nazi and a dead body in the dining room.
This is what you need to know. His name is Luca. That’s Luca. Not Lucas or Louis or Luke. Luca. It’s Italian, means the bringer of light, or something like that. Luca lives with his mother and grandmother and seven-year-old sister in a matchbox semi on a newbuild housing estate miles from anywhere. His father is dead, his brother at uni, his grandfather lying lengthways on a table in the dining room, snug as a bug within the silken folds of his top-of-the-range coffin. Luca’s mother turned the radiator off in there so he should be all right for another day or so. The funeral’s on Monday. They say it’s going to rain.
There’s one last thing you need to know and it’s this: Luca was there when it happened. He saw what his grandfather did, saw it all. He did nothing to help, didn’t shout or scream or phone the police. He didn’t punch or kick or snag his grandfather’s hair. He just stood and watched, let his grandfather do those things to her, hurt her like that. And, after his grandfather was done, Luca simply took the money and walked away.