The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin Page 8

  ‘Dear God,’ said Willoughby softly.

  ‘There’s still no proof,’ warned Charlie, immediately detecting the feeling in the other man’s voice.

  ‘It would mean we wouldn’t have to pay a penny …’

  ‘I said there’s no proof.’

  ‘But you can get it, surely?’

  ‘I can get the police to investigate. To be produced in court, it will have to be something official.’

  ‘Do that then. And, Charlie …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  There was no way to prick the man’s optimism.

  ‘Something else,’ Charlie said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want you to write a letter to Nelson, assuring him that his job is safe.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s important.’

  The inner council were impressed, realised Chiu Ching-mao, looking around the faces before him.

  They had remained unspeaking during the playback of Charlie’s bedroom discussion with Jenny Lin Lee and for those who did not speak sufficient English, Chiu Ching-mao had provided Cantonese transcripts.

  ‘The encounter was excellently monitored,’ said the chairman, when the tape ended. ‘Congratulate your people upon installing the devices so well.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Chiu. ‘I will.’

  ‘So now the Englishman knows the truth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wonder what action he’ll persuade the police to take?’

  Chiu knew he wasn’t expected to give an opinion and said nothing.

  ‘Why did the girl try to seduce the Englishman?’ asked the chairman suddenly. ‘Why didn’t she just tell him about the fire?’

  ‘I assumed what she said on the recording was the truth … that she wanted to compromise him into protecting the employment of the man she’s living with,’ suggested Chiu.

  The chairman shook his head.

  ‘Stupid woman,’ he said. ‘Will Nelson cause any problems?’

  ‘I’ve tried to use it to our advantage,’ said Chiu.

  ‘How?’

  ‘John Lu hasn’t the cunning of his father,’ said Chiu. ‘I’ve calculated upon him panicking.’

  ‘By doing what?’

  ‘Letting Lu’s people know what Nelson is trying to do in the waterfront bars.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed the chairman. ‘It can’t do any harm.’

  11

  Charlie was still in his dressing-gown when Superintendent Johnson telephoned.

  ‘I was about to call you,’ he said, recognising the police chief’s voice.

  ‘I’d like to see you,’ said Johnson.

  ‘When?’

  ‘As soon as possible.’

  Charlie hesitated. ‘What for?’

  ‘It had better wait until you get here.’

  ‘It sounds formal.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Thirty minutes,’ promised Charlie.

  It took him twenty. The building was still wrapped in its ordered calm as Charlie followed the clerk through the hushed corridor to Johnson’s office. This time the man stood as Charlie entered, his manner different from their previous meetings. Johnson pointed to the same chair and Charlie sat down, curious at the changed attitude.

  ‘Unpleasant news,’ announced Johnson bluntly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Robert Nelson was found by a harbour patrol-boat just before dawn this morning. Drowned.’

  ‘What!’ repeated Charlie, incredulous.

  ‘He’s dead, I’m afraid.’

  ‘She told me to stop him …’

  ‘I didn’t hear what you said,’ complained Johnson.

  ‘He was murdered,’ said Charlie.

  Johnson spread his hands, shaking his head as he did so.

  ‘Of course it’s a shock,’ he said. ‘He drowned. An accident …’

  ‘I don’t believe it was an accident,’ insisted Charlie.

  Johnson sighed, annoyance overriding the artificial sympathy. The superciliousness was returning, Charlie realised.

  ‘Any more than you believe what happened to the ship?’ demanded the policeman, intending sarcasm.

  ‘I know what happened to the ship,’ said Charlie. ‘Lu planned its destruction.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake!’

  ‘Wait,’ pleaded Charlie. ‘Hear me out … and then see if you think Nelson still died accidentally.’

  Johnson settled behind his desk. Predictably he looked at his watch.

  Charlie watched the policeman’s face as he recounted the story that Jenny Lin Lee had told him, omitting only the circumstances in which Nelson had found them in the hotel suite, but when Johnson did react it was in a way quite unexpected by Charlie.

  The police chief laughed, head thrown back to emphasise his mockery.

  ‘Preposterous,’ said Johnson. ‘Utterly and completely preposterous.’

  ‘But the facts …’ started Charlie.

  ‘There are no facts,’ Johnson crushed him. ‘Just one small inconsistency, the apparent willingness to pay a premium higher than that agreed with the other insurers. But that doesn’t prove anything.’

  ‘It proves everything!’

  ‘Lu is unquestionably a multi-millionaire,’ said Johnson. ‘The insurance money will only just cover the purchase of the Pride of America. The money honouring the contracts with the professors and staff he engaged for his university he has had to pay himself, so he’s actually out of pocket. He’ll recover £10,000,000. But will have spent more. Insurance frauds are for profit, not exercise. The 12 per cent would be proof if it showed he had made a profit. And it doesn’t.’

  ‘But the point is loss of face.’

  ‘That’s Chinese business.’ Johnson was unimpressed. ‘You’ll get nowhere in this colony trying to prove a crime by invoking folklore and tradition.’

  ‘How the hell do you prove a crime in this colony?’ demanded Charlie.

  Johnson stiffened at the intended rudeness.

  ‘When I took over the running of the police force,’ he said, speaking slowly, ‘it was riven by corruption and scandal. I cleaned it up into one of the most honest in the world … by strict observance of Home Office regulations. And common sense.’

  ‘And common sense dictates that you don’t probe too deeply into the affairs of one of the richest and most influential men in Asia?’

  ‘Not when there isn’t a good enough reason for so doing,’ said Johnson. ‘To operate here, there has to be a balance. Knowing when to act and when to hold back. Since I became chief of police, the crime rate has never been so low. I respect the Chinese. And they respect me. It’s a working relationship.’

  ‘And you’ll not instruct your vice squad to probe Lu?’

  Johnson shook his head.

  ‘I had a crime of arson,’ he said. ‘I arrested the culprits, who admitted it in legally recorded statements. The escape of their murderer is an embarrassment, but understandable in the circumstances of Hong Kong. I see no need to launch a meaningless, wasteful investigation.’

  ‘What about Robert Nelson’s death?’

  ‘There has already been a post-mortem examination,’ said Johnson. ‘There was nothing besides the water in his lungs that could have caused his death.’

  ‘He was murdered,’ insisted Charlie.

  ‘Your company’s representative in this colony was a dissolute …’ said Johnson.

  He hesitated, uncertain whether to continue. Then he said, ‘There are certain rules by which colonials are expected to live. Unfortunately Mr Nelson chose to ignore those rules. By openly cohabiting with a Chinese girl – and not just an ordinary Chinese girl at that – he cut himself off from both societies.’

  ‘I’ve already had the rules explained to me,’ broke in Charlie. ‘You can screw them as long as no one knows and you keep your eyes closed.’

  ‘Don’t mock or misquote a system about which you know nothing,’ said the policeman. ‘It maintains
the status quo of this colony.’

  ‘So Nelson was an embarrassment whom no one will really miss?’

  ‘It’s no secret that he drank heavily. The medical examination showed an appreciable level of alcohol in his body.’

  ‘Oh come on!’ jeered Charlie. ‘Blind drunk, he stumbled into the harbour.’

  Johnson was making a visible effort to control his annoyance.

  ‘I’ve no doubt whatsoever that the inquest verdict will be accidental death.’

  ‘I’ll prove you wrong,’ Charlie promised.

  ‘By Chinese folklore and the comic-book ramblings of a Chinese prostitute?’ said Johnson. ‘Isn’t it time you simply accepted your liability, settled whatever claim is being made for the loss of the ship and stopped running around making a fool of yourself?’

  Johnson’s refusal meant there was no chance of obtaining any official rebuttal of Lu’s claim, realised Charlie. And seven thousand miles away a poor bastard was having the first easy day since the fire and imagining he was safe.

  ‘Please,’ he tried again, accepting the error of antagonising the other man. ‘Surely there’s sufficient doubt for some sort of investigation?’

  ‘Not in my opinion.’ Johnson was adamant.

  ‘Let’s not risk the status quo,’ challenged Charlie, facing the hopelessness of persuading the man.

  ‘No,’ agreed Johnson, still holding his temper. ‘Let’s not.’

  ‘Aren’t you frightened of pressure from London?’ demanded Charlie.

  Johnson’s face tightened at the threat.

  ‘This colony is self-governing.’

  ‘It’s a Crown colony, still answerable to Whitehall,’ said Charlie.

  It was a stupid attempt, he recognised. How could he risk going to the London authorities? Even if Willoughby tried, there would be a demand for the underwriter’s source. He might be safe in Hong Kong, but he could never sustain a London enquiry.

  ‘If there is any interest from London, I’m sure I can satisfy it,’ said Johnson.

  He’d destroyed any hope of getting assistance from the policeman, Charlie knew. And he could think of no one else.

  ‘Is there anything you want officially done about Nelson?’ he asked, anxious now to end the meeting.

  ‘Formal identification.’

  Unspeaking, Charlie followed the police chief through the cathedral-quiet corridors and into the basement. He’d been too often in mortuaries but was never able to inure himself to the surroundings. The habitual casualness of the attendants offended him, as did the identification tags, always tied like price tickets to the toes.

  The drawer was withdrawn and the sheet pulled aside. At last Robert Nelson had lost the expression of permanent anxiety, thought Charlie.

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlie.

  ‘What about his clothes?’ asked an attendant, as Charlie turned to leave.

  Charlie looked back. The man was indicating a jumble of sodden clothing visible inside a transparent plastic bag.

  ‘I’ll send for it,’ said Charlie. The bundle had been tied together with the Eton tie.

  Jenny opened the door of Nelson’s apartment hurriedly, the hope discernible in her face.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. There was disappointment in her voice, too.

  ‘I’m glad you stayed,’ said Charlie.

  ‘I promised,’ she said. ‘But he isn’t here.’

  ‘I knew he wouldn’t be.’

  She stood aside, for him to enter.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she anticipated him, remaining by the door.

  ‘He’s dead, Jenny.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  She shrugged. ‘I tried so hard to protect him. That’s all I wanted to do, to stop him getting hurt.’

  ‘In the harbour,’ said Charlie inadequately. ‘Drowned.’

  She was standing very still, refusing any emotion.

  ‘It’ll be thought an accident,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s how they’re treating it.’

  ‘But he was murdered, of course.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I wonder which of them did it?’ she said. She spoke quietly, to herself.

  ‘Which of them?’ demanded Charlie.

  She looked directly at him, as if considering her words.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said finally,

  ‘What is it, Jenny?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said again.

  ‘Help me,’ pleaded Charlie.

  ‘I tried,’ she said sadly. ‘For nothing. So no more mistakes.’

  She paused.

  ‘Poor Robert,’ she said. ‘Poor darling.’

  ‘I’ll make the arrangements,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jenny. Really sorry.’

  She made a listless movement. The resignation was almost visible.

  ‘Did you tell the police about the fire?’ she asked.

  ‘They didn’t believe me,’ said Charlie.

  ‘So nothing is going to be done about that, either.’

  ‘Not by the police, no.’

  ‘I told you,’ she reminded him. ‘I told you Lu would win. He always does.’

  ‘I’ll upset it,’ said Charlie. ‘Some way I’ll upset it.’

  ‘No you won’t,’ she said. ‘You’ll just get hurt. Like Robert. And like me.’

  ‘Do you want me to stay?’

  She looked at him curiously.

  ‘Stay?’

  ‘Here, for a while.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I told you before,’ she said. ‘Whores don’t cry for long.’

  ‘Why keep calling yourself that?’ said Charlie angrily.

  ‘Because that’s how I’ve always been treated,’ she said. ‘And how I always will.’

  When Charlie got back to the hotel, he found there had been three attempts to contact him from London by telephone.

  ‘And there’s been a telex message,’ added the receptionist.

  Remaining at the desk, Charlie tore open the envelope.

  ‘Lu today issued High Court writs,’ it said. It was signed by Willoughby.

  Charlie had started towards the lift, head still bent over the message, when he felt the hand upon his arm.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ said the man. ‘Gather you’re as interested in the ship fire as I am.’

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Charlie, recognising the accent and feeling the immediate stir of anxiety deep in his stomach.

  ‘Harvey Jones,’ said the man, offering his hand. ‘United States Maritime Authority.’

  My ass, thought Charlie, instinctively. And this time, he knew, there was nothing wrong with his instinct.

  ‘It was never part of the original proposal,’ protested Lu. As always, he spoke quietly, despite his anger.

  ‘It was an over-reaction,’ admitted his son. His habitual nervousness was even more pronounced.

  ‘Which you could have prevented.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re stupid,’ said Lu. ‘Is there a risk of the police treating it as murder?’

  ‘There’s been no announcement. It was done carefully.’

  ‘The absence of an announcement doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So you’ve permitted an uncertainty.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know what would have happened to anyone who wasn’t my son?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And even that wouldn’t be an obstacle if it became a choice between us.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘There mustn’t be any more mistakes.’

  ‘There won’t be.’

  ‘I’m determined there won’t be,’ said Lu. ‘Quite determined.’

  12

  Charlie was forcing the calmness, sitting deep into the chair with his hands outstretched along the armrests, watching Harvey Jones pace the room.

  Trapped, Charli
e decided. Not quite as positively as he had been beside Sir Archibald’s grave. Or during the chase that had followed. But it was close. Too close. And all his own fault. He hadn’t considered it properly, realising the obvious American reaction to the possibility of communist China deliberately destroying something so recently U.S. property.

  He’d managed to conceal the nervousness churning through him, Charlie knew. But only just. The American was already worryingly curious. Otherwise he wouldn’t have stage-managed the lobby meeting. So it would only take one mistake. And Jones would isolate it. Charlie was sure of that, because he recognised the American was good. Bloody good. Which meant he had to be better. A damned sight better.

  So far, he had been. With the caution of a poacher tickling a trout into the net, Charlie had put out the lures. And Jones had taken them. But even then it had needed all Charlie’s experience to spot the tradecraft in the other man. For him Charlie felt the respect of one professional for another. He hesitated at the thought: a professional wouldn’t have allowed the miscalculation which had brought about this meeting.

  ‘I’d have expected someone with Johnson’s experience to see the bit that doesn’t fit,’ suggested Jones.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Charlie. He would have to be cautious of apparently innocent questions. Cautious of everything.

  ‘That Peking would hardly have used ignorant hop-heads for a job like this.’

  ‘Johnson told you?’

  Jones completed a half-circuit of the room. The movement was as much of a test as the questions, Charlie recognised; an attempt to irritate him by its very theatricality.

  ‘Made a joke of it,’ said the American, inviting some annoyed response.

  ‘Johnson seems to think almost everything I say is amusing,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Oh?’

  Shit, thought Charlie. He had to continue.

  ‘I asked him today to investigate what I really think happened to the Pride of America,’ he said, covering the awkwardness. Perhaps volunteering Jenny’s story wouldn’t be so much of a mistake. Jones would become suspicious of obvious evasion.

  ‘And what do you think really happened?’

  ‘That Lu planned the fire. And the destruction of the ship.’

  ‘What!’