A cool pale light threads its fingers between the metal slats of the white venetian blinds, feeling its way over the painted window sill.
The sunbeam stops when it reaches the bed, becoming shackled by an expensive wristwatch of diamonds and gold that glistens as its owner folds his arms under his head and lets out an anguished groan.
‘Relax, Charlie. If you fight me, you know you’re only going to make it hurt all the more.’
I flex my fingers and rest my thumbs either side of Charlie Petersen’s spine and press gently at the base of his thick neck, just under the grey curling hair that he tends to wear on the long side, even in his advancing years.
‘Here?’
‘Yes, oh yes.’
A smile twitches at the corner of my mouth.
Charlie Petersen is a sixteen stone giant of a man but when pain seizes his back with the wrath of a demon, he’s like putty.
My thumbs sink into the pasty soft skin of his shoulders and he lets out an agonised cry that drowns out the panpipes and rainfall emanating from the speakers on top of a beech-coloured cabinet behind the door to the treatment room.
I chuckle, slide my hands across his skin, and repeat the motion, sweeping my fingers between his shoulder blades and squeezing each of his vertebrae in turn.
Charlie turns his head, burying his face into the paper towel lining the hole at the top of the bed, and chokes back a scream.
I hum under my breath as I work my way down until I reach the dip of his pelvic bone, and then start work on his right hip.
His body writhes as he tries to shuffle away from the pain, but I don’t stop. Instead, I grit my teeth and point my elbow deeper into the dense muscles, pushing my heels into the carpet to lend more weight to the manoeuvre.
Charlie lets out a whimper before I switch to the other hip, brushing my fingertips over the tattoo that runs from his rib cage to his thigh, and then he groans through gritted teeth as my thumbs find the nerves under the skin.
I let him rest, stepping back from the table and cracking my knuckles before wiping some of the oil from my hands with a soft clean white towel while I assess the prone figure.
Eventually, Charlie raises his head from the table and twists his neck until he faces me, cheeks burning beneath pale blue eyes, a red indent circling his face from where he’s been lying against the padded headrest.
At five foot nine inches tall and after years of cheap alcohol and junk food, he’s all fat and atrophied muscle.
I can count at least three chins folding down to his stump of a neck, and resist the urge to curl my lip in disgust at the thin line of drool that hangs from his mouth.
He blinks, then wipes it away with the back of his hand. ‘That hurt.’
‘I’m not surprised. When was the last time you came to see me? Six months ago?’
‘You know how busy Trevor keeps me.’ He tries to look contrite, and fails. ‘Very busy.’
‘You need to come and see me at least every six weeks to keep on top of this.’
‘I can’t, Vanessa. You don’t understand.’
I drop the towel on the chair beside the square table that serves as my desk and scan the coloured squares across the screen of my tablet computer. ‘April. April the fifteenth. That’s when you were last here. That’s why it hurts.’
‘I’m too busy.’
His voice adopts a familiar whining tone, the one he uses when I tell him my prices have gone up or, like now, that he needs to take better care of his ageing body.
‘Nobody is too busy, Charlie.’
He attempts to sit up, thinks better of it and slumps back to the headrest, his arms dangling either side of the bed. ‘Try telling that to Trevor.’
Not likely.
The panpipes and rainfall ends, and now we’re in a meadow with a bee buzzing around and cows lowing in the background.
It’s a strange choice for a relaxation playlist but I refuse to pay for the premium version of the app, so I put up with the advertisements as well.
‘Look, maybe you should try Pilates. It’s good for strengthening your core muscles. It’ll help support your back. What do you think?’
‘I don’t know if I should. That’s for girls, isn’t it?’
‘No, it’s for everyone. Have a think about it, at least. I can recommend someone who teaches classes locally. She’s discreet.’
‘Okay, maybe.’
‘Have you been remembering to lift properly, like I showed you last time? Bending your knees, not using your back?’
‘The problem is, they struggle. You only need one of them to shift their weight when you’re trying to carry them or hold their head underwater and that’s it – my back goes into spasms.’
I advance towards the bed and his eyebrows shoot upwards.
‘I haven’t finished yet, Charlie.’
‘But—'
Whatever he was going to say is cut off by the yelp that escapes his lips as I dig my thumbs into his right hip again.
I can feel the knot in the muscle taunting me, trying to move under the skin, away from my touch.
‘You’re too tense. Try to relax.’
A muffled response reaches my ears and I glance up.
He’s got his face buried in the paper towel again. As if realising I couldn’t understand, he turns his head to one side and tries again.
‘I can’t relax. It went wrong last time.’
My fingers hover above the tattoo. ‘What?’
‘I told you. My back gave out. The bastard managed to get away.’
‘What did Trevor say?’
‘I don’t think he knows. I haven’t told him yet.’
‘Oh, Charlie.’
I go to work on his shoulders, pummelling the folds of skin to warm the muscles before I start work on his neck, easing my thumbs up and down his spine.
He’s unaware that I’m moving towards the head of the bed, changing my position so that my hands are now caressing his skull.
I encircle his head with my arm, my elbow under his chin.
He stiffens.
‘Trust me, Charlie.’
I brace my wrists, and twist.
There is a satisfying crunch as muscles loosen, and he sags within my grasp.
‘You’re right, I should come here more often.’
‘We’ll make an appointment for you as soon as I’m finished.’
I can feel his body starting to relax now, and his breathing slows as I work away from the pain points of his hips and spine and concentrate on massaging out the last of the kinks from his ageing frame before I return to his neck.
By the time he realises something is wrong, I’ve already got him in a vice-like grip.
He gurgles once and then I twist once, hard.
I hear it, the snap of muscle and bone as his neck breaks instantly.
I’m wiping my hands on the soft white towel when the door opens and Trevor Benedict peers in, eyebrow cocked.
‘Did he struggle?’
‘No.’ I smile.
‘Good. That’s one less pain in the neck I have to worry about.’
THE END