I followed him to the floor above, passing what I guessed was a bathroom on the landing, and turned up a few more steps into his living room. It was crammed with dark furniture, the floor a patchwork of faded, patterned rugs. A pretty Victorian fireplace with green tiles and a brass fender surrounded a more modern gas fire, the mantelshelf cluttered with ornaments and what looked like a month’s unopened post. Chessmen were set out ready on a small table between two armchairs. The oldest television set I have ever seen stood in one corner, its twelve-inch screen heavily encased in wood.

Mr Nickolai followed the direction of my gaze. ‘Not work,’ he confirmed, dismissing it with a wave of his hand. ‘I don’t care. Crap on TV. I listen to radio.’

Sitting on a desk in the opposite corner was a laptop, looking as if it had landed from another planet and passed through several time zones along the way.

‘Internet I like,’ he told me. ‘Online auction I watch, keep up with prices.’

‘But you don’t open your shop?’

‘Shop?’ He shrugged. ‘Shop full of junk.’

He gestured at a table, which took up the centre of the room, its brown chenille cloth thickly spread with newspapers. Some kind of restoration work was going on.

A well-worn pair of rubber gloves, yellow fingers blackened like ripe bananas, lay amongst a collection of bottles and old jam jars. Scraps of leather, lumps of wire wool, and half a dozen old toothbrushes with frazzled bristles surrounded a gleaming wooden box with a beautiful inlaid lid.

‘Boulle,’ he said.

‘Beg pardon?’

‘Boulle,’ he repeated, touching the lid of the box lovingly, ‘is brass, ebony, tortoiseshell.’ He pointed with his thick forefinger to the intricate parts of the design. ‘Boulle work.’ He gave me a searching, sideways glance. ‘You are interested in such things?’

‘Yes, I love old things. You’re restoring it?’

‘For special customer,’ he answered, nodding mysteriously, and I remembered what Ricky had said, about his real customers coming to the back door. Then he added, ‘You not touch. Things on this table, not touch.’

‘Of course not,’ I responded, with a slight bristle of indignation.

‘You not understand.’ He pointed to the bottles and jars. ‘These things − poisons, acids, corrosives − I need for my work. Same under sink, chemicals, you not touch. You get hurt.’

‘Oh, I see! Look, perhaps we should discuss exactly what you want me to—’

‘Tea.’ He silenced me with a wave of his hand. ‘I make tea. Come.’

I followed him into the kitchen where an ancient, chipped enamel gas stove squatted on sturdy legs. There was an original Belfast sink, wooden draining board, and a Formica-topped table so outdated it could almost be considered retro.