He walks across to his machine, and begins the process of grinding a small amount of beans and then pouring them into the machine. For a moment I think he’s forgotten that he’s explaining something to me. But he returns to his stool with his cup, and continues. ‘And then the bad guys, who’d lent him money for his dice-rolling, offered him a line of credit or something, and he got back into it. Didn’t tell his wife. He lost all the money, of course, and so they had one over him. You don’t like coffee?’

‘I do. Just not at the moment.’ I’m thinking I should have said yes just to keep the peace.

‘So then he had to tell his wife, maybe thinking she would bail him out again. But they didn’t want his money, or his wife’s money. They wanted him to make some pieces for them. Seemed like a pretty good deal to me. I mean, they could have kneecapped him, or pulled out his toenails, or something.’

I make a noise of agreement.

‘Then, one night, he comes in here, desperate and all shaking kind of thing. He told me he’d got himself in a bad position. Bad dudes were forcing him to do shit stuff.’ He looks around, giving me the sense that someone else might be listening.

I am nodding, keeping myself in check, because Shiflon is giving me all the answers in one sitting. He’s taken a deep drink of his coffee, and smacks his lips. I’m pushing my mad thoughts about human ash in pottery to one side so I don’t miss anything Shiflon might share with me.

‘He never told me what was going on, but he asked me to mail the boxes to you. He dropped them off here, and then he drove in front of a truck.’ The whinny returns.

‘The bad guys didn’t kill him?’

‘Don’t think so. The road-train driver was in a bad way after it. He wasn’t a killer. Mind you, it’s very hard to tell these days.’ He gives me something like a knowing look.

‘And Tito asked you to send the boxes?’

‘I didn’t know what to do, so I didn’t do anything for a while. Just hid them in the back room, and tried to forget about them.’ He sniffs his coffee, and the pleasure he gets from this is clear on his face.

‘Is Elaine involved?’

‘Nah. He thought she was the greatest, and hated the fact he had put her in this position, you know, because of his gambling and everything. She came and saw me after the accident. Came and saw everyone round here.’

I nod supportively, unwilling to ask a question that might put him off-track.

‘I didn’t tell her I had the boxes in my own house,’ I say.