‘Personally I find straight razors a little awkward to handle,’ said Archie. ‘They work better as a psychological tool, in my opinion. Not that I don’t have one or two in my collection.’

By sheer force of will, Bailey steered her mind back to her current situation, attacking it from every possible angle, pushing her problem-solving skills into overdrive. There had to be a way out of this. There had to be.

‘Often, when I meet someone,’ Archie continued. ‘I’ll visualise the wounds on them before I’ve even started. It’s like when Michelangelo was talking about how he saw the statue of David contained inside that block of marble. Because I guess it’s a bit like sculpting in some ways.’

Bailey couldn’t help but roll her eyes at his conceit. ‘Give me a break. The next thing you’re going to tell me is you’re an “artist”, aren’t you?’

He looked a little bit hurt. ‘I think of myself more as a craftsman.’ He licked his lips, once again revealing his brown rotting teeth. ‘I’d like to say it doesn’t give me pleasure. But it does. They say if you love your job, you’ll never work another day in your life. And I love my job.’

‘Where do they find you fucking people?’ she said.

He frowned. ‘I possess a highly sought-after skillset.’

‘Yeah right,’ she muttered.

He nodded in the direction of the door. ‘That lot are all into household appliances and power tools,’ he said, referring to the rest of the gang. ‘Me, personally, I’m a purist. I think that there’s nothing better than doing a bit of carving with a nice sharp knife. I love cutting bits off. When it comes to human beings, there are so many nice sensitive bits that you can cut off.’ He nodded at her scars. ‘You think those look bad? After I’m done with you, you’ll be completely unrecognisable.’

She swallowed hard, her mouth dry, her heart thumping against the inside of her chest. She sensed the foreplay was coming to an end and very soon Archie would be getting down to business. Time was running out very rapidly and she still hadn’t thought of a way out of this quandary.

‘For the purposes of this evening’s torture,’ he said, ‘I’ll be using one of the latest additions to my collection. I’ve been absolutely dying to test it out. It’s from Japan. It’s known as a tanto.’

He selected one of the knives lying on the table and held it up for her to see. It was a short dagger with a slight curve to the blade and a very sharp angular point. The style was reminiscent of a samurai sword.

‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ he said. ‘Hand-forged in laminated carbon steel.’

Bailey looked at the knife and gulped nervously.

‘You can get an incredible edge on carbon steel,’ he explained, softly testing the blade with his thumb, ‘Although for what I have in mind tonight, she could probably do with even more of a sharpen.’ He addressed the knife as if it was a person. ‘Do you want me to sharpen you, baby?’