The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin cm-3

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You’ve been to Hong Kong before?’

  ‘No,’ said Charlie quickly, alert to questions about his past.

  ‘Incidentally,’ said Nelson, apparently unaware of Charlie’s apprehensive reaction, ‘Australia are 96 for 2.’

  The broker had turned back into the suite and Charlie stared at him in astonishment.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘The Test,’ said the broker, disconcerted by Charlie’s lack of response. ‘We get the reports on the B.B.C. World Service.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Charlie. And no doubt discussed the finer points in clubs and at cocktail parties and couldn’t have located Lord’s or the Oval without a street map.

  ‘You’re not interested in cricket?’

  ‘Not really,’ admitted Charlie. What was it that the man was finding so much difficulty in saying?

  Nelson looked at his glass, appearing surprised that it was empty.

  ‘Go ahead,’ gestured Charlie.

  Nelson remained at the portable bar, looking across the room.

  ‘I’m to be dismissed, aren’t I?’ he demanded suddenly.

  Charlie frowned at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s why you’ve come… someone who’s not a normal investigator

  … a director. You’ve come to fire me because there was no qualifying clause in the policy.’

  The fear tumbled from the man, the words blurred together in his anxiety.

  ‘Of course I haven’t,’ said Charlie.

  He reached down, easing off his shoes.

  ‘You must excuse me,’ he said. ‘They’re new. Pinch like hell.’

  Nelson gazed at the other man, controlling the look that had begun to settle on his face. Old Etonians didn’t take their shoes off in public, decided Charlie. Careful. That was an antagonism of an earlier time.

  ‘Yours was not the final decision on the policy,’ he reminded him, straightening. ‘You drew it up, certainly. And admittedly it’s an expensive oversight that there was no political sabotage clause. But London gave the final approval. You’re not being held responsible.’

  ‘I find that difficult to believe… I negotiated it, after all.’

  ‘Very successfully, according to Willoughby.’

  Nelson moved away from the bar, his suspicion of the remark obvious.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Wasn’t 12 per cent high?’

  ‘Comparatively so.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I want to do, compare. What were the other premiums?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Nelson uncomfortably. ‘It was sealed bids. Lu kept me waiting until the very last moment… wanted more time… all done in a terrible rush, really.’

  So convinced was he of dismissal that despite Charlie’s attempted reassurance, Nelson was still offering a defence.

  ‘And you haven’t enquired about the other premiums?’

  Nelson shook his head, embarrassed at the oversight.

  ‘Another cause for complaint,’ he said, resigned.

  ‘I’ve told you, no one’s blaming you,’ repeated Charlie. He would telephone Willoughby to get a confirmatory letter.

  ‘It’ll be a disaster for the firm, won’t it?’ demanded Nelson.

  More than you know, thought Charlie.

  ‘If they have to pay,’ he said.

  The qualification penetrated the other man’s nervousness and he came closer to where Charlie was sitting.

  ‘ If? ’

  ‘I’ve flown seven thousand miles to decide if we should,’ Charlie reminded him.

  ‘But we’ve no grounds for resisting settlement,’ said Nelson.

  ‘Not yet,’ agreed Charlie.

  ‘Do you think I haven’t examined every single thing that’s happened since the damned explosion?’ Nelson reacted as if his ability were being questioned afresh. ‘There’s nothing wrong with Lu’s claim… not a bloody thing.’

  ‘But you still don’t know what the other premiums were.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Nelson, exasperation breaking through.

  ‘Can you find out?’

  ‘The other companies might not want to disclose them.’

  ‘Isn’t there an old boy network?’ demanded Charlie. Surely there were more blue-patterned ties in Hong Kong?

  Nelson hesitated before replying.

  ‘I’ll try,’ he promised. ‘But I don’t see what it would prove.’

  ‘Might not prove anything,’ admitted Charlie. ‘Then again, it might be interesting. I think we should look a little deeper, that’s all. Get under the surface.’

  Nelson went back to the window, looking now not out over the harbour but down into the streets far below.

  ‘This might be an English colony,’ he reflected, ‘but it’s China down there, in almost everything but name…’

  He turned back to Charlie.

  ‘Westerners aren’t allowed beneath any surface here. We’re tolerated, that’s all.’

  ‘Nowhere can be as closed as that,’ protested Charlie.

  ‘Hong Kong is,’ insisted Nelson. ‘Believe me. If there were anything wrong with the fire, we wouldn’t learn about it from the Chinese community.’

  ‘But there isn’t anything wrong, as far as you’re concerned?’

  Nelson shook his head.

  ‘I wish there were,’ he said. ‘God knows I’ve tried hard enough to find something. But the evidence is overwhelming.’

  ‘The police are being co-operative?’

  ‘They’ve no reason not to be, with a case like they’ve got.’

  He indicated a briefcase.

  ‘I’ve brought the file for you.’

  Charlie smiled his thanks.

  ‘So you think we’ll have to pay out?’

  Nelson’s belief that the fire was uncontestable would have been another reason for imagining that a directorial visit was to announce his dismissal, realised Charlie.

  ‘I know we’ll have to pay,’ confirmed the broker. ‘Lucky Lu never suffers a misfortune that costs him money.’

  ‘Lucky?’

  ‘His wealth started with some deals that turned out spectacularly successful on the Hong Kong stock exchange. It’s been Lucky Lu for as long as I can remember.’

  ‘Sounds like a poof’s favourite lavatory,’ reflected Charlie, massaging his feet. It would take weeks to break in those damned shoes. It was fortunate he had postponed having the supports put in.

  ‘You’re very different from what I expected,’ said Nelson suddenly. ‘I think other people are going to be surprised, too.’

  ‘Other people?’

  ‘I assumed you’d want to see the police chief. Name’s Johnson. I mentioned your coming. And I told Lu’s people as well. Willoughby asked me to give you all the help I could.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Charlie. He’d have preferred announcing his own presence.

  ‘You’re annoyed,’ said Nelson, detecting the reservation in Charlie’s voice, and growing immediately apprehensive.

  ‘No,’ lied Charlie. Poor bugger seemed worried at his own shadow: but then, so were they all, for differing reasons.

  ‘Is there anything else I can do?’

  Charlie shook his head.

  ‘I suppose I’d better study the file. And get some sleep.’

  The broker stayed for another drink, then left, promising to collect Charlie the following morning so they could attend the remand hearing of the two Chinese accused of arson.

  Alone, Charlie closed all the curtains against the view and the sunlight, put a ‘Do Not Disturb’ notice outside the room and decided the file could wait.

  He slept for about five hours and then woke, knowing it was still not midnight Hong Kong time and that he had long hours of sleeplessness ahead of him.

  Edith would have enjoyed the luxury of the apartment, he thought, feeling his eyes cloud in the darkness. And tried so hard to conceal her concern at the cost. Poor Edith. Always so awa
re of the money. And of his resentment at her inheritance, sufficient to support them both.

  And it had been resentment, he recognised. The perpetual feeling. Idiotic, childlike resentment. He could even recall the words he’d shouted at her, careless of the hurt, when she had suggested he simply retire from the service that had decided he was expendable and live on her wealth.

  ‘ And don’t patronise me with your money… like you’ve always patronised me with your breeding… ’

  That was why he had inveigled America into the border deal and then disappeared with the $500,000 defection fund. To ensure there would never be any dependence upon her. Why in God’s name hadn’t he realised how truly dependent he had been, instead of turning them both into exiles, terrified of every footstep?

  ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he said. ‘So very sorry.’

  He didn’t want to spend more than a month in Hong Kong. The grave would become too overgrown if he stayed away any longer.

  Sighing, he snapped on the light and pulled the file towards him. He’d be bloody tired in the morning, he knew.

  There had been two supplementary reports to the original account from the C.I.A.’s Asian station in Hong Kong and then a separate analysis prepared by specialists at the Langley headquarters in Virginia.

  ‘Well?’ demanded the Director.

  ‘Certainly looks like Peking,’ judged the deputy.

  ‘Odd though.’

  ‘Facts are there.’

  ‘We’ve got to be sure.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why don’t we send in someone with no preconceptions, to work independent of the station?’

  ‘They won’t like it.’

  ‘I’m more interested in being able to advise the President and the Secretary of State that China is growing careless of detente than I am in the feelings of some station personnel,’ said the Director sharply.

  ‘Who?’ asked the deputy.

  ‘Someone who’s keen, anxious to prove himself…’

  Harvey Jones heard the telephone ringing as he pedalled up Q-Street at the end of his daily five-mile ride. He sprinted the last few yards, ran up the steps and fumbled the key into the lock to snatch the phone off the rest as the ringing was about to stop.

  ‘There you are,’ said the deputy director, annoyed at being kept waiting. ‘Thought for a moment that you were going to miss the chance of a lifetime.’

  6

  The authorities had not anticipated the interest in the remand hearing and had only assigned one of the smaller courts, with limited seating, so that entry had to be controlled by permit.

  ‘I managed to get two,’ reported Nelson, in the car taking them to the administrative building. ‘It wasn’t easy, though. The press are screaming for all the seats.’

  ‘We were lucky then,’ said Charlie. Like the tie, the broker retained the harassed anxiety of the previous day. And a dampness was already softening his shirt and suit into creases. The man was still unconvinced his job was safe.

  It was the discovery of the other premiums, Charlie knew.

  ‘You’re quite sure that the rest were only 10 per cent?’

  Nelson saw the reiteration as criticism. He was annoyed, too, that such an obvious enquiry hadn’t occurred to him in advance of the man’s arrival from London.

  ‘Yes,’ he said tightly. ‘Those I could find out about anyway.’

  ‘Still convinced that there’s nothing strange about the fire?’ said Charlie.

  ‘It’s odd,’ conceded Nelson.

  ‘Odd enough to look further?’

  ‘I’ve told you how difficult that will be.’

  ‘There’s the police,’ said Charlie. And the personal danger in approaching them. Over-cautious, he told himself. How could there be any danger, here in Hong Kong? It was, he recognised, an apprehension of authority. Any authority. It would always be with him. Like so many other fears.

  The car began to slow at the approach to the administrative buildings.

  ‘It shouldn’t last long,’ said Nelson.

  ‘Remand hearings usually don’t.’

  ‘You’ve been to a lot?’

  Charlie tensed, then relaxed. There was no danger in the admission.

  ‘Quite a few,’ he said.

  But not the sort Nelson imagined. In the past it had always involved sneaking through side doors and adjoining buildings, to avoid the surveillance and cameras of those uncaptured at the Official Secrets trials of those who had been caught and who nearly always reminded Charlie of the grey, anonymous people at rush-hour bus queues. Which was why, he supposed, they had made such good spies. Until he had exposed them.

  ‘Have you anything planned for tonight?’ asked Nelson abruptly.

  Charlie turned to him in the car.

  ‘There’s a very good Peking-style restaurant in the Gloucester Road and Jenny and I wondered if you’d like to be our guest.’

  Chinatown with English country street names, reflected Charlie. Why, he wondered, had Nelson blurted the invitation with even more urgency than was customary?

  ‘Jenny?’ he queried.

  ‘My… she’s… someone I live with,’ said Nelson awkwardly. As if the qualification were necessary, he added, ‘Jenny Lin Lee.’

  ‘I’d like very much to eat with you,’ said Charlie. Again the need for hurried words. There was embarrassment mixed with Nelson’s permanent agitation.

  Because of the crush around the building, they left the car some distance away and as soon as they began walking Charlie felt the prickle of unseen attention. He stared around quickly, as he had in the hotel foyer, but again could detect nothing.

  Apprehension of the cameras, he decided, as they got to the steps. Expertly Charlie manoeuvred himself behind Nelson, watching for a casually pointed lens which might record him in the background of a picture and lead to an accidental identification from someone with a long memory.

  It was cooler inside the building, although Nelson did not appear to benefit.

  ‘There’s the police chief,’ he said, pointing across the entrance hall to a tall, heavily built man.

  ‘Superintendent Johnson,’ called the broker.

  The man turned, a very mannered, slow movement. Like Willoughby, the policeman had an affectation involving his height. But unlike the underwriter, Johnson accentuated his size, leaning slightly back and gazing down with his chin against his chest, calculated always to make the person he was addressing feel inferior.

  ‘The senior colleague from London about whom I told you,’ announced Nelson.

  Johnson examined Charlie.

  ‘ Senior colleague?’ he queried pointedly. He was immaculate, uniform uncreased, buttons gleaming and the collar so heavily starched it was already scoring a red line around his neck.

  ‘Yes,’ confirmed Nelson, appearing unaware of the condescension.

  Hesitantly, Johnson offered his hand.

  Charlie smiled, remembering Nelson’s remark of the previous evening about the surprise of people he would encounter. Underestimated again, he thought contentedly.

  ‘Investigating the fire,’ added Nelson without thinking.

  Johnson’s reaction was immediate.

  ‘It has already been investigated,’ he said stiffly. ‘And satisfactorily concluded.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Charlie smoothly. ‘These things are routine.’

  Johnson continued staring at him. Unconsciously the man was wiping his hand against the side of his trousers.

  ‘Ever been in the Force?’ invited Johnson.

  Another recognition symbol, decided Charlie. Like a tie.

  ‘No,’ he admitted. It meant a closed door, he knew.

  ‘Scotland Yard,’ announced Johnson, as if producing a reference. ‘Fifteen years. Never an unsolved case.’

  ‘Just like this one?’

  Johnson put his head to one side, trying to detect the sarcasm.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Just like this one.’

  ‘I rath
er wondered if it might be possible for you and me to meet

  … at your convenience, obviously,’ said Charlie.

  ‘I’ve already made all the relevant material available to Mr Nelson,’ said the superintendent.

  ‘I know,’ said Charlie. ‘I’ve read your reports. You’ve really been most helpful. There are just one or two things that seem unusual

  …’

  ‘I’ve a busy diary…’

  ‘Of course,’ flattered Charlie. Pompous prick.

  ‘Lot of commitments…’

  ‘It wouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes,’ persisted Charlie. ‘There’s a huge sum of money involved, after all.’

  ‘Talk to my secretary,’ Johnson capitulated. ‘We will see what we can do tomorrow.’

  ‘You’re very kind,’ said Charlie. Between what would he be fitted? he wondered. Golf and the yacht club lunch?

  An usher announced that the court was about to convene, interrupting them. There was a slow shuffle through the entrance, bottlenecked by two of Johnson’s officers scrutinising the entry tickets. Nelson and Charlie were allocated to the well of the tiny court, just to the left and below the dock. Charlie twisted as the men were arraigned, looking up at them. Why was it that criminals never had the stature expected of their crimes? The two accused Chinese entered the dock cowed and frightened, heads twitching like animals suspecting a trap about to close behind them. One wore just trousers and vest and the second had a jacket, grimed and shapeless from constant use, over a collarless shirt. The man’s trousers were supported by cord. Charlie recognised the opium habit from the yellowed, jaundiced look of their eyes. Their bodies vibrated with the denial imposed since their arrest.

  Charlie turned away, stopping at the sight of Johnson rigidly upright and towering above the other policemen at the far side of the dock. The sort of man, judged Charlie, who would stand up before he farted in the bath. Probably at attention. Johnson looked directly at him, his face blank.

  At the demand from the usher, the court stood for the entry of the magistrate. Immediately he was seated, the clerk announced that the accusation would be read first in English, then translated into Cantonese for the benefit of the accused.

  ‘The charge against you,’ began the official, looking first to the dock and then back to the charge sheet, ‘… is that on June 10 you did jointly commit an offence of arson, namely that you did secrete aboard a liner known as the Pride of America incendiary devices and that further you did, separately and together, ignite at various situations aboard the said liner quantities of inflammable material. Further, it is alleged that you interfered with the fire precaution systems upon the said liner in such a way that additional quantities of inflammable material were introduced into the flames…’