I feel the sadness of what I am saying. Elaine is mixed up in this, and she has deliberately played me along. Tom must see my distress, because he says, ‘You can’t blame them, can you? They were being forced. And it’s not like they did the killing or anything.’

‘And it seems like Tito did his best to get out of it.’ Once again, I am prepared to grasp at any straw when it comes to Elaine. ‘So how does Ben Ruder fit into this?’

‘Why would he fit?’

‘I saw him fighting with Elaine, and the crazy guy told me … the crazy guy went crazy when I mentioned Ben’s name.’

‘He lives near you, doesn’t he?’

‘Further up my road. He was an uncle and a friend of Tito’s. I can’t help thinking he was the link to the Vasilievs.’

We go round and round various theories, but without anything solid we don’t make any progress. It is enough to send us to bed. It is good to have him in the house, and I go to sleep looking forward to seeing him at breakfast.

He sleeps late — something I’d forgotten young men like to do. By the time he appears, slow and sleepy-eyed, I have been pacing the floor for a while. The breakfast things have been in and out of the fridge several times.

I offer him eggs, but he declines, and pours himself a bowl of cereal.

Then he says, ‘It’s possible Elaine knows about the boxes, knows you are supposed to have them, but doesn’t know how sinister the contents are. The same might be true for Ben. Maybe only the Vasilievs and Tito knew what was supposed to go into the pottery pieces.’

‘Yes.’

‘So don’t feel so bad.’

‘I’ll try not to. But I don’t see how Tito could do all that on his own: receive the bodies, somehow get them in the kiln, and cook them without Elaine or anyone else knowing.’

‘True.’

‘It’s really hard to see how any of them get in the clear.’

‘I guess so.’

He leaves after he has eaten, thanking me and saying how much he enjoyed it. I say, ‘Come again,’ and hope that he means what he’s said.

15

15

And it is time to go to the police. I should have done this when I first got the money and the cremains. I’m not a detective or a vigilante. I’m not even a properly functioning human being. I ring the police station beforehand as a kind of self-defence, after my last experience with them. My idea is to let them know I’m about to give them something important that I need help with, so they don’t make me feel like a goose when I walk in there.