On Saturday evening, Lucia called her father.
He picked up on the sixth ring, as he always did, with the low rumble of a television in the background and the clink of a spoon against a cup.
"Hola, daughter."
"Papa. Have you eaten?"
"I am eating."
"What are you eating?"
A pause. "A biscuit."
She closed her eyes and counted to three. Manolo Herrero was seventy-two, a retired bus driver who had spent fifty years standing in the same spot in the same stand at the same stadium, and who had not set foot inside it since the winter his wife died.
He lived alone in a third-floor flat in Carabanchel, in the same apartment he had bought in 1983, with a season ticket in a kitchen drawer and an empty chair at the table.
"I have two tickets for tomorrow," she said.
"No."
"Papa."
"No, Lucaa." His voice was gentle but flat. "I am not going to the derby. Not after what they did to that boy in Manchester. I do not want you in a crowd like that."
"It is not going to be like that."
