‘Screw you. I’ve been in this chair for ever.’

How can we be bantering like this in the face of oblivion? Is this the most important thing after all? Communication?

We lie in a tangle of limbs, like discarded mannequins ready for the bonfire, and I feel certain that this is what Mike has in mind. One little inferno and all the evidence goes away.

I crane my neck, relieving the pressure on Zeb’s testicles, and looking into my friend’s eyes. I have to know, before I die.

‘What the hell is Scheherazade, man?’

‘That just came out. It’s a safe word,’ says Zeb shamefacedly. ‘Sometimes the S and M hookers ask for a safe word in case things get a bit out of hand. I wouldn’t even be telling you this if we weren’t about to die and I wasn’t riding the painkiller wave.’

Christ. A safe word. They don’t work outside of cathouses or Dungeons and Dragons.

My breathing seems loud and there are screams bouncing off the walls. The butt-shot guy and the busted-knee guy are yelling up a storm. I can’t even hope for a quick death now.

Mike is shouting something, but it’s like he’s in a Perspex booth. His voice seems muffled and far away.

‘. . . let you live. Why would I do that?’

Okay. I’m tuning in now. Why would he let me live? There is a reason. I almost have it when Mike stamps on my knee. No break, but painful as hell.

‘You like that, McEvoy? Huh? Isn’t this what they call poetic justice? I do to you like you did to my man. I am going to kill you slow, laddie. Not your friend, though. He gets patched up to keep an eye on my new hair.’

Zeb finds himself a set of brass ones. ‘Screw you, Madden. You kill Dan, you better kill me too.’

‘Let’s see if the horrific torture you’re about to witness can change your mind.’

‘Yeah,’ mutters Zeb. ‘Torture might do it.’

Mike embraces the shooter. ‘Calvin. That was outstanding work. One shot on the move, takes out the doctor and creates a diversion. You pricks see that?’

The pricks in question are writhing on the floor, but still they make time for a yes, Mister Madden.

‘That was quite a punch you threw, Mister Madden,’ says Calvin, who is no idiot.

‘Yes, laddie. We make a good team. You are my new number two. Barrett is dead, long live Calvin.’

All this lovey-dovey gangster talk is giving my brain time to stop vibrating. I had a Plan B, in case everything turned to crap. Plan B.

And then I remember. Tommy Fletcher, my ace in the green hole.

‘Ballyvaloo,’ I blurt before my mind loses it.

‘Not much of a safe word,’ notes Zeb.