Rain fell in a soft, stubborn curtain over North London.
Not the kind that frightened a stadium away or the kind that chased people indoors.
It was the kind that was just enough to bead along the steel edges of the Emirates and darken the grass until it looked almost painted.
But the floodlights burned through it all like white spears in the evening air.
And somewhere above it all, on the broadcast, the kind commentary voice stepped carefully into it.
"Three nights ago," Peter Drury began, his words drifting through the broadcast like the opening note of a slow symphony, "a young man in this city turned eighteen."
In the commentary gantry, the rain thickened against the microphones, tapping softly against plastic and glass, but it did nothing to quiet him.
