As the strong fingers worked on the muscles around her neck and shoulders, Annie finally gave herself up to Daniel Craig’s magic touch. Her breath came sharply, and her whole body tingled with warmth and pleasure. His hands slid down the small of her back towards the base of her spine. She waited for the touch of his lips and that slight scrape of five o’clock shadow in the sweet spot between her neck and shoulder, then he would turn her over, his lips would continue slowly down her body, and his hands would—
‘That’s it for today, love.’
The gravelly voice shattered Annie’s erotic reverie. Of course it wasn’t Daniel Craig; it was just Old Nobby, the St Peter’s masseur. Old Nobby was ex-navy and a bit long in the tooth, with anchor tattoos on both forearms and enough of the sea-dog about him that his other nickname around the place was Popeye. But he had magic fingers, was a damn fine masseur, and Annie found that if she closed her eyes and let herself drift, he could be anyone she wanted him to be for half an hour.
‘Thanks, Nobby,’ Annie said, pulling the bathrobe around her and securing the belt as she sat up. She might not mind letting Daniel Craig see her charms, but not Old Nobby. Not that he seemed interested. He had his back turned to her, and he was bent over the desk filling out forms. She liked Nobby. He was a bit of an amateur philosopher. He had an open and inquiring mind and often seemed happy to chat for ages about practically nothing at all after sessions. The conversations were almost as relaxing as the massages, though not quite as sexually stimulating. Her skin still tingled pleasantly. Whether he knew of the effect he had on her, she had no idea, and she was certainly not going to ask him.
Now that Annie was back in the real world, she could hear sounds from outside. Though St Peter’s was trying to drag itself back to normal — the regular massage routine, for example — the place was still crawling with police and CSIs. It shouldn’t take much longer now, though, she thought. All the guests and most of the part-time staff had been questioned, according to Winsome, some more than once, their backgrounds and alibis no doubt thoroughly checked, and it didn’t seem as if anyone from the centre either knew anything or had anything to do with what had happened to Bill Quinn. There might still be some connection they hadn’t unearthed yet, but Annie doubted it. Whatever fate had befallen Bill Quinn, she believed, had happened because of outside, and had come from outside. It had followed him here, or found him here, without any help from St Peter’s itself. His presence here had been no secret; no tip-off from the inside would have been needed for anyone who wanted to locate him.
‘You’re doing a grand job, Nobby,’ she said.
Nobby turned from his paperwork and sat on the only office chair. Annie remained perched on the edge of the massage table.
‘Thanks, lass,’ he said. ‘Bad business, all this, eh?’ He gestured towards the activity outside.
‘It certainly is.’
‘You knew him?’
‘No. You?’
‘Just professionally, like.’
‘Did he talk much?’
‘Sometimes. You know, I’ve always thought a good massage can work a bit like hypnosis. Take a person deep down to those long forgotten places, events and feelings. Sometimes that’s where the answer lies.’
Sexual fantasies, too, Annie thought. She wondered if Bill Quinn had dreamed of the girl in the photo as Nobby’s fingers worked their magic on him. Or was it different for a man, especially when it was another man touching him? ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
Nobby shifted to make himself more comfortable. His chair creaked. ‘Must get this bloody thing oiled. I suppose what I mean is that often the root of the problem isn’t obviously physical. Even something as simple as neck pain or back pain.’
‘You mean like when something’s psychosomatic?’ she said.
‘A massage can work both ways, you know.’ Nobby held his hands up. ‘Lethal weapons,’ he said, and laughed.
Annie laughed with him, but she guessed there was more than a grain of truth in what he said. After all, rumour had it that he had been seconded to the SAS at one time.
‘You have to be careful not to exacerbate the problem,’ he went on. ‘As you can attest better than most, nerves are sensitive things.’
‘I certainly can. What about Bill Quinn?’
‘His neck? There wasn’t a lot wrong with it, as far as I could tell. Certainly not the kind of physical problems you had when we first started our sessions.’
‘Swinging the lead?’
Nobby paused before answering. ‘No. I don’t think so. We can resist getting better for any number of reasons we’re not aware of.’
‘Like what?’ she asked.
‘The usual. Fear. Despair. Indifference. Indecision. Lack of confidence. Guilt, even.’
‘And in Bill’s case?’
‘He was troubled.’
‘By what? Did he talk to you, Nobby? Did he tell you something?’
‘No, not in the way you mean. Not anything you could put your finger on.’ Nobby flashed her a crooked grin. ‘Always the copper first, I suppose, eh?’
‘Well, I am due to start working on the case officially on Monday. Thought I might get a head start.’
‘Aye, well. To answer your question, yes, we talked sometimes.’
‘And you didn’t tell the police officer who questioned you?’
‘You make it sound like there was something to tell. It was nothing but blethering, smoke in the wind. We had some conversations, as you do. As we’re doing now. Our conversations were rambling, vague and philosophical.’ He snorted. ‘All the police officer asked me was where I was after dark on Thursday evening, if I knew how to use a crossbow, did I belong to any archery clubs? Had I known Bill Quinn on the force? I was never even on the force, for crying out loud. I was a navy medic, and now I’m a qualified masseur. They asked about practical things. Our conversations weren’t practical.’
Banks would get along with Nobby very well, Annie thought. He placed as much value in the vague and philosophical as Nobby did. That was why he often went against the rules and spoke to witnesses, even suspects, by himself. He said most detectives didn’t know the right questions to ask. ‘Go on,’ Annie said. ‘What were they about, then?’
‘Mostly my own thoughts and imaginings, I suppose,’ said Nobby.
‘Will you tell me?’
‘No reason not to, I suppose. It’s not as if it’s under the seal of the confessional, or the Official Secrets Act, or anything. And I’m not his shrink. But only because I like you. There’s nothing to tell, really, so don’t get your hopes up. Like I said, I got the impression that Mr Quinn was a troubled man. He said he’d been having these neck pains for about five or six years, and he’d never had any problems before then. It didn’t sound as if the cause was ergonomic. You know, too long at the computer keyboard — he hated computers — or even bad posture at the desk. Apparently he was like you, the kind of copper who liked to get out on the streets, and in his spare time he worked on his allotment, went fishing, spent time with his family. Even so, necks are funny things. The vertebrae deteriorate with age, but the X-rays didn’t show any serious deterioration in his case. Only moderate. What you’d expect.’
‘So you’re saying the causes were psychological?’
‘I’m not a psychiatrist or a physiotherapist, so don’t quote me on that. Can you see why it’s not something you’d find easy to put into words? I don’t even know why I’m telling you. I suppose it’s because he’s dead, and I’ve been thinking about him. Just days ago, he was alive as you or I.’ He held up his hands. ‘I could touch his skin, the muscle underneath, feel the give and the push, the knots. You know his wife died recently?’
‘Yes.’
‘Of course you do. He was devastated, grief-stricken, poor bloke. I think that was something that brought us together. I knew what he felt like. I lost my Denise five years ago, so I suppose you could say we had something in common. I’m not a grief counsellor, so I couldn’t help him with it in any way, but it was something we could talk about.’