Elaine kneels down next to me. ‘Please. I’m sure it was made by Tito. It’s from a bowl or something, but it’s not a broken piece — it’s been cut. I’m sure it means something. See?’

I look at the thing in her hand. It is a pottery shard, bright-white and shiny. Elaine rolls it over in her hands. The flat part has colour on it, and I remember the ‘magic’ piece that Shiflon gave me when he was here. It is the same.

I put my hand out, and she looks encouraged, wrapping my fingers around the shard. It is smooth and weighty in my hand. The colour is on the flat part of the piece. It looks like a section of a photo somehow incorporated in the glaze. God, no. It must be another photo of James. Why would she bring me this?

And then, of course, a car pulls up outside. Mick comes through the front door, carrying something in one hand, and saying, ‘Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you. Had to drive all the fucking way up here.’

He sees the room, and Elaine, and stops, checks her out, sticks out a hand, and says, ‘Mick. Brother-in-law. Ex.’

They shake hands, and he walks over to me, puts a palm on my shoulder, and asks, ‘Are you all right? You look like shit.’ And then, as if to deflect attention from his comment, he says, ‘Redecorated, I see.’

‘I’m okay.’

‘I got this in the mail. The note said it must get to you. I figured it was from one of your gangster mates. I thought it might blow up. I went into the scrub with a bike helmet and leathers on, and opened it. Nothing happened. It’s just a piece of pottery. You people and pottery. Fuck.’

He extracts a piece just like the others, and I take it and put it alongside Elaine’s, and hold them up. He seems impressed. They click neatly together: pieces of a pie. They have been cut like timber lap joints, one overlapping the other. It has been done so precisely that when I join them and hold them out, you can’t tell there was ever a join. Elaine and Mick watch, entranced. I put the pieces down, and stand up, thinking I need to get my piece when another vehicle stops outside my house. I brace myself. When does this end? Does it only stop if I do?

Marko and Ralph blunder through the door. ‘Hey, what’s going on? Bloody hell, this room.’ Marko says, standing just past the doorway, with Ralph at his shoulder. ‘Are you sick?’

‘No, I’m fine.’

‘You don’t look it,’ Ralph says.

‘We’ve got stuff we’re supposed to give to you,’ Marko says.