It doesn’t take more than a second, and the atmosphere in this cramped reception area is so surreal, with the strip lights and dust clouds, that nobody can quite believe what’s happening. They keep right on laughing as I launch myself off the back of Zeb’s chair, snag Macey Barrett’s stiletto from the ceiling tile and land among them. Mike’s men are knocked aside like skittles. They tumble away from me as though I am at the centre of a blast zone. Cupboards collapse and Zeb’s fake marble worktop splinters and splits.

‘You move quick for a six-footer,’ says Mike as the steel tickles the underside of his chin. ‘I’m never going to learn. That’s twice.’

It’s a tense situation. I can smell gun oil and nerves. My perspective is skewed by the prolonged tension and I’m seeing everything through a fish eye. Wannabe gangsters bob in and out of my vision, huge pistols bearing down on me like train tunnels.

‘Stay calm, Dan. Focus.’

‘Ghost Zeb? Is that you?’

‘No. This would be real Zeb.’

Shite.

Mike is real angry now. ‘What next, McEvoy? My boys are jumpy enough as it is. You think this kind of stunt is calming them down any?’

Time to pull myself together.

‘I want to see the transplants, Mike. See how they’re healing up.’

Mike’s face collapses in on itself like his mouth is a black hole. ‘What the . . . Are you kidding me? See the transplants? My shrink tells me I’m not ready.’

‘Shrink? Do all you guys have shrinks now? Tony Soprano made it okay?’

‘Soprano never had a hair transplant, laddie.’

I push the blade a quarter of a centimetre into his neck. ‘One more laddie. One more . . .’

I hear a couple of schnicks, and wide-eyed hulks shift in my peripheral vision. Mike’s boys are considering independent action.

Mike raises a palm. ‘Hold it. Wait, you morons. You shoot him, that blade goes into my neck.’ Something occurs to him. ‘Is that Macey’s stiletto?’

There’s no point denying it, so I don’t. ‘He was doing that shuffle thing. I had no choice.’

‘So the whole Brass Ring thing was a set-up?’

‘Two birds, one stone. It seemed like a plan.’

Irish Mike actually sniffs. ‘I gave Macey that blade.’

‘Yeah? Well he should have kept it in his pants.’

‘He was my best and brightest.’

‘If that’s true, you really are screwed.’ I grab the peak of Irish Mike’s hat and twist it from his head.

‘Aaargh,’ he screams, as though I have inflicted actual pain, and I feel a moment’s regret. It’s hard taking off the hat out in the world.

There are hundreds of tiny scabs ranged across Mike’s freckled scalp like rows of troops.

‘Dense. A lot denser than mine.’

‘I had a whole team working on Mike,’ mutters Zeb. ‘You get what you pay for.’