‘After James. There’s just so much of him in this place. Not just the grave.’ He’s embarrassed. It has come out wrongly. ‘Everywhere. I mean, in this house, the farm, and everything around it. I feel like he’s on his way in from the paddock or somewhere, and we’ll see him in a minute.’

‘Yep, I know. I feel it all the time. I thought about moving. But when you let go of that, it feels like you’re letting go of him. So I can’t leave, and not just because of the grave.’ I go back to the ice cream.

‘Is Mrs Martin okay?’

‘I think so. She’s happy in the city. Some of that’s because of exactly what you say — away from the memories and the reminders of the way life could have been. Maybe being away from me helps, too.’

Then we are quiet. We eat, and examine our bowls. The conversation has been too much. I get up and turn the TV on, and Tom takes our bowls to the sink. As I flick through the channels, he says, ‘How are they cremating the bodies? Is there a crooked crematorium somewhere?’

‘I guess so.’

‘That would be pretty hard to do, wouldn’t it? Get a body in, and remains out, of a public business like that?’

‘How else could they do it? Maybe one of their crooked mates owns a crematorium. But you’d think the police would work that out pretty quickly. I mean, if Tony Soprano owns a crematorium, you’re going to be keeping a close eye on it, aren’t you?’

Tom goes back to the tablet, and taps it several times. ‘To do a proper job, bodies have to be cooked at 870 to 980 degrees Celsius. You can’t reach that heat in a normal bonfire or barbecue. You need a furnace or …’

‘A kiln.’ The light-bulb moment is mine.

‘You know people with a kiln? Oh, the Slades. Right.’

Once again, I go over my deductions out loud, because otherwise they’ll become another theory piled on top of another theory. ‘That means Tito, and possibly Elaine, are behind this. The Vasilievs or whoever they represent were forcing them to cremate the bodies and then put the ashes into his artworks.’

Tom nods thoughtfully. ‘It’s kind of circumstantial. I mean, we don’t know if there are other kilns about, or if they used a kiln a hundred kilometres from here.’

‘No. But I’m thinking, if you’re dealing with dead bodies, and you’ve got enough power over one guy to make him put human ash into pottery, and he has kilns, then it would be really convenient to force him to do the cremation.’

‘Yeah. No one else needs to be involved.’