Ali wished he could get drunk for next part. Glenn Taylor would have. The street kid from Campbelltown would have put away half a case of beer and a six-pack of Jim Beam and Cola before a job like this. But Glenn Taylor was long gone. Dead. Before that the hooligan they’d once called ‘T’ had been saved by Islam and reborn as Ali Muhammad. T knew it was not the most original name but he didn’t care. He’d been a promising amateur boxer before his first hit of heroin, and Muhammad Ali, well, he was the greatest.

Yeah, no doubt about it, T would have got blind drunk before inflicting this type of pain on himself. But Ali was devout and did not drink. He hadn’t so much as touched a drop since his conversion.

‘Bismillah,’ Ali said as he took in the strange hairless man in the mirror.

He then grabbed the pair of pliers he had left on the basin. Using his left hand to hold up his lip, he peered into the mirror, into his mouth, and identified the incisor with the cap. He briefly thought of his mum as he sighted the tooth: she’d been the one who had rushed him to the dentist after the tooth had broken in two during a sparring session at the Minto Police Boys’ Club. Ali pushed away the image of her as he brought the pliers up to his face and thrust them into his mouth. He didn’t want to think about his mum.

‘Fuck,’ he said, as he lowered the pliers and shut his mouth. He’d just realised he should have bought needle-nose pliers for this job, not the standard pliers he held in his hand. The jaws were too wide to grab an individual tooth. He considered going back to the poorly equipped hardware store in St Petersburg – but then he saw his reflection. He would stand out like a set of dog’s balls now. And besides, he was on a schedule. The clock had started when he’d received the four deposits. He had to be in position in exactly twelve hours, phone in hand, ready to take the final call.

Fuck it. Two teeth instead of one. He figured the pain would be the same. So, he reopened the pliers, stuck them back in his mouth and closed them around the capped incisor and the canine next door. He pulled his right hand around the plastic handle and squeezed. He grunted as the pliers began crushing his teeth. But then he had to release them.

‘Ahhh,’ he exhaled as he pulled the pliers out of his mouth before turning to face the man taped to the toilet. He was conscious now.

‘You were supposed to do this,’ Ali screamed at him. ‘That was the plan. But you’re a pussy.’ Ali punched him in the face.