Charlie looked down at his shoes. They were scuffed with curves of light-brown roughened leather where the door panel he kicked in earlier that morning scraped across the shiny toecap. He tutted and reached into the glove compartment for his shoe-shine kit. He always kept one in there, along with a tub of hair gel and a clothes brush.

Charlie liked to look smart. He thought it gave him an air of authority, a kind of lawyerly feel, judicial even. He chuckled at that: Charlie was no judge. In fact, he never made judgements. Things were simple in Charlie-World, there were just three states of being: a problem, not a problem, and no longer a problem. Simplicity was his byword, which was just as well because having too many thoughts about his line of work could lead to problems.