Without saying another word, he scrunches up his face and pulls the trigger. The bullet goes nowhere near me, and wangs into the wall behind. A piece of gyprock breaks away, and slides down the wall. Shiflon says, ‘Sorry, man. I’ve decided I can’t trust you.’

I hit the floor, and he opens his eyes and looks around. He sees me, and repeats the exact process: scrunches his face, and fires. This one embeds itself in the lino, lifting one of the squares upwards as it does so. On hands and knees, I scramble across the floor to a couch that I try to use as a shield.

‘I’ve got to protect myself.’ He’s yelling it now.

He fires again, and this time knocks out the light. Glass and sparks shower the room. That’s enough for me. I am out the door, screaming ‘Help’ and diving through the thick foliage of the tree to the front seat of my car.

The car starts, and I back up the road at a crazy pace, which doesn’t put Shiflon off, and neither does the fact that we’re out in public. He is firing at me in that optimistic way, bullets spraying all around me, echoing off the buildings, but none of them doing any harm. I’m out on the main street, over-revving the motor and gone, and I can hear him still shooting. I turn onto the dirt, looking back to see if he’s following, or if he’s got an army of friends out to give chase. There is no sign of him or them. My heart is pumping so hard my hands are hot. The ute fishtails in the loose gravel, and I tell myself to steady up or I’ll die in a car crash like Tito did.

Did Shiflon just tell me the truth, or was it another game? He certainly isn’t a practised assassin. If he’s taking orders from the Vasiliev family, then I have just confirmed that I received the boxes. But more likely he’s just taking orders from a fried, paranoid brain. So I drive, nonstop, my pulse at its peak, for nearly three hours, barely blinking until I reach a good-sized town called Bogan, where I think shooting in public would be frowned upon. I stop at a clean, colourful service station, fuel up, use the toilet block, and then go to pay my bill. There is no one in the shop except the young guy behind the counter. He is in high spirits, but I can’t help thinking he knows what has just happened to me, and has probably had a call from the Vasiliev family telling him to keep an eye out for me.

‘How’s it going?’ he asks, almost humming his pleasure as he takes my card. He has ‘Kent’ written on his bright shirt.

‘Good, thanks.’ I don’t want to invite any attention.