He finishes his coffee, adds an ‘Aah’, and puts the cup down on the bench.

‘But then one day, out of the blue, they just started to freak me out. Like they had an energy of their own. You ever had that happen?’

I try to suggest I sort of have, but he’s not listening.

‘I have. Plenty of times. They were talking to me, warning me that bad shit would happen if I didn’t do something. I guessed sooner or later the gangster dudes would come looking for me. They haven’t yet.’ He trains those eyes on me for a moment, expecting something. Does he think I’m with the Vasilievs?

‘Then the wife rings me again, like a couple of weeks ago, and starts questioning me about boxes. I hadn’t told her anything about them. She just came up with it.’

‘What did you tell her?’

‘I said I thought I remembered Tito saying something to do with mailing the boxes to someone, but I didn’t know who.’ He suddenly shakes his head fiercely. ‘That’s not true. I told her Tito said he was going to mail the boxes to you.’

I feel my heart turn over. Elaine had been waiting for me to receive the boxes. She knew all along. Shiflon looks calm and unburdened. He’s told the story he’s been wanting to tell for months.

‘Actually, in the end, I didn’t mail the boxes. I drove them down to you. Took me three trips. Crazy shit. Didn’t want the bad guys tracking me down when they worked out where they were mailed from. But I did mail the letter.’

‘Letter?’

‘Yeah. To a…Costello family.’ He screws up his face like he doesn’t remember.

‘You told Frank Costello about his brother?’

‘I wouldn’t know. It was just a letter Tito gave me. I never looked inside. I swear.’ Shiflon suddenly looks panicked. ‘Was it important?’

‘No. Just like a get well card or something.’ Shiflon does not need to know any more than he already does.

‘Cool,’ he says.

I’m wondering if this can be real. Would Tito really have given someone like Shiflon all this responsibility? Maybe Shiflon has appropriated the things Tito told him about and now somehow thinks it happened to him. I change tack, figuring that if his knowledge is stolen, then a different angle might show him up.

‘Does a guy called Ben Ruder have anything to do with all this?’

At this, he gets up and walks over to a kitchen drawer, making strange growling noises. His back is to me, but I can see him pulling something out of the drawer, something that fits in his hand. He turns and faces me, pointing a small-calibre pistol.