Ali lathered his legs with shaving cream from a can on the basin, took a fresh disposable razor from a bulk-buy packet beside it, and got to work. As he shaved, he used a mirror and torch to check every inch of skin, make sure he got every hair. He went over some sections of his skin four times just to be sure.

In an almost meditative state, he continued the laborious process over the rest of his body: genitals, stomach, chest, arms, using a fresh razor taken for each area.

He cursed when it came time to shave his back. ‘Fucking dog,’ he grunted as he turned to face the man bound to the toilet. ‘You were supposed to do this.’

He didn’t get a response, the gagged man having lost consciousness.

Ali did his best to shave his back, first reaching upwards. But he could only push the razor as high as the bottom of his shoulder blade. So he then reached back over his shoulder, using his opposite arm to push his elbow back and down. Stretching his triceps to their limit, he reached down almost to the bottom of his shoulder blade. Soon he reckoned he’d got it all.

He threw the razor into a plastic bag with the others, then grabbed a pair of scissors from the shelf and hacked away, first, at the hair on his head, then at the hair on his face. His beard wasn’t as long as he’d have liked it to be. He’d always wanted to have a Sunnah beard, but he’d been told it would draw too much attention and that he should trim his beard at least once a month.

He cropped both his hair and beard as short as he could with the scissors before taking a fresh razor from the packet to finish the job. Soon his scalp was bald, shiny and white, his face clean and stubble free. Ali then shaved off his eyebrows.

Almost done. He’d left the most tedious part of the process till last. Grabbing a pair of tweezers, he shuffled towards the mirror and pushed his face so close that his breath left a small circle of fog on the glass.

One by one, he plucked out his eyelashes. Some came out easy, others stretched his eyelid like a rubber band and left a drop of blood when they finally popped out.

Ali was now completely bald, virtually every hair gone. Even if there were a couple left on his back, it wouldn’t matter. He would be fully clothed and even if one fell out, it would be caught in the back of his shirt and incinerated with the rest of him.