They are father and son but could be brothers - albeit 26 years apart.
They have matching shaven heads, goatee beards and a sharp dress sense, including a mutual fondness for Peaky Blinders-style caps.
They also share a penchant for good cigars. The warmth that radiates between them is palpable.
But when Alex Hanscombe smiles, he’s his mother’s son.
Wide and expressive, it’s the same smile that everyone remembers from those haunting pictures of Rachel Nickell — the beautiful 23-year-old who was killed by a monster in front of her little boy on Wimbledon Common 29 years ago — that dominated newspaper and TV news coverage in the 1990s.
She’s there, too, in the shape of his wide-set eyes. It’s hard to equate this mature, articulate and forthright young man with the pitiful little tot who was found by a passer-by clinging to his mother’s body, begging his mummy to wake up.
Or, indeed, with the cheeky 11-year-old whom I met with his father, amid great secrecy, several years later.
Back in 2001, I had been invited to meet the pair in South-West France after Andre fled the UK to try to give Alex the happiest, and most normal, childhood possible.
The outpouring of love from around the world — he had received several hundred cards, letters, presents and goodwill messages — spoke of just how much everyone hoped Andre had been successful in his mission.
Wide and expressive, it’s the same smile that everyone remembers from those haunting pictures of Rachel Nickell (right) - the beautiful 23-year-old who was killed by a monster in front of her son, Alex Hanscombe, on Wimbledon Common 29 years ago
Meeting Alex, now 32, and Andre Hanscombe, 58, again in London recently, I can reassure them he was.
Bachelors both, they share an apartment in Barcelona and are as close as they have ever been, united by their continuing love for a much missed mother and partner.
Although both have had girlfriends, none have developed into long-term relationships.
They are a close unit. Sadly, as they reveal here for the first time, they were never able to heal the rift with Rachel’s parents that came after Andre left the UK.
And despite repeated attempts, today there is no relationship between the Nickells and their only grandchild.
Nor have they ever received any compensation, or even a public apology, for the bungled Scotland Yard investigation into finding Rachel’s killer.
Andre and Alex recently watched the four-part Channel 4 drama series Deceit about a controversial honeytrap operation against an innocent man, and have taken part in a forthcoming C4 documentary, Death On The Common: My Mother’s Murder, which will be screened next week.
Alex, quite simply, wanted to know more about the case that shaped his life.
Andre (right) fled the UK to try to give Alex the happiest, and most normal, childhood possible after his mother's brutal murder
Although he was just a month short of his third birthday, the terrible events of that day in July 1992 mercifully are not his only memory of his mother.
Speaking in a unique, mid-European accent — he’s fluent in four languages — Alex, who has worked as a yoga teacher in recent years, smiles Rachel’s smile as he recalls: ‘My earliest memories are from a trip to Greece, which my parents and I made a few months before everything happened.
‘I remember laying in my bed, waking up and seeing this bright light bulb. I was fascinated by it.
'I wanted to reach out and touch it. Eventually, I did that, burning my finger. I remember my parents running into the room.
'It’s an unpleasant memory — but it’s also a very good memory in terms of the love that came pouring out.’
He has keepsakes, too: there are Rachel and Andre’s love letters to each other, a bottle of his mother’s favourite Chanel Coco perfume, her vintage butterfly bookmarks and some of her personal jewellery.
Then there are the events of that fateful day. He closes ‘those’ eyes and concentrates as he recalls what happened.
‘My strongest memory is of waving goodbye to my father at home,’ he says.
‘Then it moves on to walking hand-in-hand with my mother on the common. I remember making our way into the trees, walking with our dog, Molly.
‘I remember a stranger walking up towards us. I remember being grabbed and thrown around roughly.
'And I remember my mother being grabbed and thrown around, collapsing on the floor beside me. And I remember the realisation of what happened.
‘I said: “Wake up, Mummy.’ And she didn’t respond. So I said again: “Wake up, Mummy,” and she didn’t respond. Even as a three-year-old child, I knew my mother was gone. She wasn’t coming back.’
Despite repeated attempts, today there is no relationship between the Nickells and their only grandchild. Above: Andrew and Monica Nickell outside the Old Bailey in 2008
Former part-time fashion model Rachel had no chance in a frenzied attack lasting several minutes: she was stabbed 49 times.
It was a crime of unprecedented barbarity that appalled the nation and put enormous pressure on the police to bring the killer to justice quickly.
But the Scotland Yard inquiry was mishandled virtually from the start — and with fatal consequences.
Police quizzed 32 men before attention focused on jobless local loner Colin Stagg, who often walked his dog on the common.
Although there was no forensic evidence linking him to the scene, in August 1993 the police charged him with Rachel’s murder — only for him to be acquitted the following year after it was found he was the victim of police entrapment.
By then, Rachel’s real killer — a psychopathic schizophrenic and serial rapist called Robert Napper — had struck again.
In November 1993, he slaughtered another blonde, young mother Samantha Bisset, at her flat in South-East London. On this occasion, however, he didn’t spare her child. Four-year-old Jazmine was slaughtered alongside her mother.
While Alex may have survived, he had seen what no human being, particularly a toddler, should have to see.
Over time, more and more demands were placed on the little boy, to provide the golden nugget of information that might result in a police breakthrough.
It’s hard to equate this mature, articulate and forthright young man with the pitiful little tot who was found by a passer-by clinging to his mother’s body, begging his mummy to wake up
Several months later, Alex’s father Andre had seen enough.
Concerned about the potential long-term mental impact on his son, he suddenly upped sticks and took him to the South of France and then later to Barcelona, where for years he worked as a tennis coach.
It was not an easy decision and it helped sow the seeds of a family rift with Rachel’s parents that remains to this day.
When Robert Napper eventually admitted Rachel’s manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at the Old Bailey in December 2008, a victim impact statement provided by her parents, Andrew and Monica Nickell, referred to the pain of being ‘stopped from seeing your only grandson’ after Alex and his father moved abroad.
The roots of the disagreement stemmed from the tension in the immediate aftermath of Rachel’s death, which prompted a heated confrontation and Andre going to the High Court for a parental responsibility order giving him custody of his son until he was 18.
Relations deteriorated still further when Andre announced his decision to take Alex to France.
He says Rachel’s father simply stopped talking to him, while her mother accused him of causing her another bereavement.
Things came to a head in the summer of 1997, while Alex — aged around seven — was staying with his grandparents at their holiday home in the South of France.
There are clearly two sides to this story.
And, although I have no reason to doubt Andre’s version of events — he insists he never banned Alex from seeing his grandparents — it must be made clear that Rachel’s parents have never given their own version of events publicly.
Alex explains it thus: ‘There was always a lot of tension between
