The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘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 …’

  He stopped, handing the sheet to the Chinese interpreter.

  The man began the accusation, but was almost immediately stopped by a noise which Charlie later realised must have been the sound of the first man falling. He turned at the scuffling movement, in time to see the warders move forward to try to prevent the second Chinese, in the crumpled jacket, from collapsing beneath the dock rail.

  There was a moment of complete, shocked silence broken only by the unseen sound from the dock of strained, almost screaming attempts to breathe, and then it was overwhelmed by the babble that erupted as reporters tried to get nearer the dock, to look in.

  Then there was another commotion, as Superintendent Johnson began bellowing at his policemen to restore order.

  A warder emerged from below the rail, and there was a second momentary lull in the noise.

  ‘Dead,’ he announced. ‘They’re both dead.’

  He spoke apologetically, as if he might in some way be blamed for it.

  Superintendent Johnson succeeded in interposing constables between the dock and people trying to stare in, then more officers arrived to clear the court.

  It was not until they were back in the vestibule that Nelson and Charlie were able to extract themselves from the hurrying funnel of people.

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’ demanded Nelson.

  Charlie considered the question.

  ‘It means,’ he said, ‘that there won’t be a trial.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ protested the broker.

  ‘No,’ admitted Charlie. ‘Neither do I. Not yet.’

  Suddenly it seemed that there was going to be very little difference between what he was attempting to do now and what he had done in the past. Would he still be as good? he wondered.

  The photograph of Charlie Muffin was passed slowly around the inner council, then finally returned to the chairman.

  ‘Such a nondescript man,’ said the chairman.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Chiu.

  ‘Incredible.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Chiu again.

  ‘So the insurers aren’t as satisfied as the police.’

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘Such a nondescript man,’ repeated the chairman, going back to the photograph.

  7

  Their Formica-topped table had been separated from others in the restaurant by wheel-mounted plastic screens trundled squeakily across the bare-boarded floors and they had sat upon canvas-backed chairs. But the food had been magnificent. It was, decided Charlie, a Chinese restaurant for discerning Chinese.

  ‘It was good?’ enquired Jenny Lin Lee anxiously.

  ‘Superb,’ said Charlie honestly, smiling at her.

  She hesitated, then smiled back. A man trained to see through the veil that people erect at first encounters, he was intrigued by the girl. Her frailty was practically waif-like, yet he felt none of the protectiveness that would have been a natural response. Instead, he was suspicious of it, imagining a barrier created with more guile than most people were capable of. A professionalism, in fact. But at what could she be professional? Her hair, obviously very long, was coiled thickly but demurely in a bun at the back of her head. She wore hardly any make-up, just a touch of colour to her lips, and looked more like Nelson’s daughter than his mistress. Certainly the broker behaved protectively towards her. But there was another attitude, too. A discomfort, decided Charlie. Definitely a discomfort.

  Charlie was aware that he had held back because of his uncertainty, contributing to the awkwardness of the meal.

  ‘Would have tasted better with this,’ insisted Nelson thickly, raising his minute drinking thimble. Charlie had refused the Mao Tai, preferring beer. Jenny had chosen tea, so the insurance broker had consumed nearly all the bottle.

  ‘Nothing like whisky, though,’ said Nelson, as if the qualification were necessary. ‘That’s what they call it, you know. Chinese whisky.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlie.

  ‘There’s no better restaurant in the colony for Peking Duck,’ said Jenny quickly.

  She’d realised Nelson’s increasing drunkenness and moved hurriedly to take attention from the man. They seemed equally protective towards one another, thought Charlie. It appeared an odd relationship. But then, who was he to judge? He’d never managed a proper relationship in his life. And now he would never have the chance.

  ‘It really was very good,’ he said.

  ‘It’s cooked over charcoal … and basted in honey,’ she said.

  ‘Australia are 160 for 5, by the way,’ said Nelson, adding to his thimble. He looked over the table, grinning apologetically.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Forgot you’re not a cricket fan.’

  ‘What are you interested in?’ asked Jenny.

  Another rescue attempt, thought Charlie.

  ‘Hardly anything,’ he shrugged.

  ‘There must be something,’ persisted the girl.

  Should have been, thought Charlie. Edith’s complaint too. The one he thought he could solve with the appropriated money.

  ‘Enjoy ourselves now, Edith … my money, not yours … nothing we can’t do.’

  Except stay alive. And he’d killed her. By being bloody stupid. He’d killed her as surely as if he’d pressed the trigger. And he wouldn’t forget it, he knew. Not for a single minute of a single day.

  ‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘Nothing.’

  New discomfort grew up between them at the collapse of the conversation, covered within minutes by the arrival of a waiter, clearing dishes and the rotating table centre upon which they had been arranged.

  Jenny waited until fresh tea and more cups had been set out and then excused herself, pushing through the screen.

  Very little to stay for, thought Charlie.

  ‘Jenny’s a very lovely girl,’ he said dutifully.

  ‘Of course she is,’ said Nelson.

  Charlie frowned, both at the choice of words and the truculence. Nelson was quite drunk.

  ‘Now we’ve learned about the 12 per cent I know I’ll be dismissed for this damned policy,’ declared the broker obstinately. He was gazing down into his cup, talking more to himself than to Charlie.

  ‘I’ve told you …’ Charlie started, but Nelson talked on, unheeding.

  ‘And then they’ll laugh. My God, how they’ll laugh.’

  ‘Who?’ demanded Charlie.

  ‘People,’ said Nelson, looking at him for the first time. ‘All the people. That’s who’ll laugh.’

  ‘At what, for Christ’s sake!’

  ‘Jenny and me … but to my face, then. Not like now … behind my back.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because they consider Robert has strayed outside a well-ordered system.’

  Charlie turned at the girl’s voice. She was standing just inside the screen. She must have realised they had been discussing her, yet she was quite composed.

  ‘Sorry,’ mumbled Nelson. ‘Very sorry. Just talking …’

  ‘I think it’s time we left,’ she said, to Nelson. The tenderness in her expression was the first unguarded feeling she had permitted herself all evening.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Nelson, realising he had created an embarrassment. ‘Time to go home.’

  He tried to get his wallet from his pocket, but Jenny took it easily from him, settling the bill. She seemed practised in looking after him.

  Nelson walked unsteadily between them out into Gl
oucester Road. There was a taxi at the kerbside and the broker slumped into it, sitting with his head thrown back, eyes closed.

  ‘He doesn’t usually drink this much,’ apologised the girl.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Oh, it does,’ she said urgently. ‘You mustn’t think he’s like this all the time. He’s not, normally. It’s because he’s worried about dismissal.’

  ‘I know. I’ve tried to make him understand, but he won’t listen.’

  ‘It would mean the end of everything for him, to be fired.’

  She didn’t appear to believe him either, thought Charlie. What the hell did he have to do to convince them?

  ‘He tried to explain to me, back in the restaurant. But it was difficult for him.’

  She seemed to consider the remark. Then she said, speaking more to herself than to Charlie, ‘Yes, sometimes it’s difficult for him.’

  ‘Thank you for the meal,’ said Charlie, as she started to enter the car. ‘It was a splendid evening.’

  She turned at the door, frowning.

  ‘No it wasn’t,’ she said. ‘It was awful.’

  On the Kowloon side of the harbour Harvey Jones stared around his room at the Peninsula Hotel, his body tight with excitement. Specially chosen, the deputy director had said. To prove himself. And by Christ, he was going to do just that.

  Sure of the security of his locked room, the American took from his briefcase the documents identifying him as an official of the United States Maritime Authority, transferring them to his wallet. A perfect cover for the circumstances, he decided.

  It was going to be difficult to sleep, despite the jet-lag. But he had to rest, if he were to perform properly. Carefully he tapped out a Seconal capsule, swilling it down with water from the bedside jug.

  He hoped the fire wasn’t as straightforward as it appeared. He wanted there to be a startling explanation. Something that would surprise everyone. Impress them, too, when he revealed it.

  8

  Clarissa Willoughby stared over the dinner table at her husband, throat working with the approach of the predictable anger.

  ‘What do you mean, broke?’

  ‘Just that.’

  The woman laughed, a disbelieving sound.

  ‘But we can’t be.’

  For the last two years we’ve been continuously unlucky,’ said the underwriter. ‘It’s been nobody’s fault.’

  ‘It must be somebody’s fault,’ she insisted.

  He shook his head, not wanting to argue with her but knowing it was practically unavoidable. It had been ridiculous to expect her understanding, because Clarissa had never understood anything, except perhaps the importance of the Dublin Horse Show compared to Cowes Week or what dress was right for the Royal Enclosure at Ascot but unsuitable for Henley.

  ‘It’s a combination of circumstances,’ he said inadequately. ‘Unless we can find something wrong with this ship fire, I can’t avoid going down.’

  ‘Going down?’

  ‘Bankrupt. And struck off the Exchange …’

  ‘Oh Christ!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry!’ she mocked.

  ‘What else do you expect me to say?’

  ‘There must be something …?’

  ‘I’ve used all my own money.’

  ‘The banks, then …’

  ‘… won’t advance another penny.’

  She thrust up from the table and began to move jerkily about the room. She was very beautiful, he thought. Spoiled and selfish and arrogant, but still very beautiful. And she wasn’t a hypocrite, either. She’d never once told him she loved him.

  ‘My friends will laugh at me,’ she protested.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Your friends probably will.’

  He hadn’t meant to emphasise the word. She swung back to him.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ he said wearily.

  ‘Will your friends behave any better?’ she demanded. ‘Do you know anyone you can rely upon?’

  Not a friend, accepted Willoughby. Just one man whom the underwriter felt he would never completely understand. He looked up at his wife. How would she react to Charlie Muffin? It would be a cruel experiment; for Clarissa, not Charlie.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Delay settlement as long as possible.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘In the hope of there being some reason why we don’t have to pay out.’

  ‘Is that a possibility?’

  He examined the question, slowly shaking his head.

  ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘It doesn’t seem that it is, from what we know so far.’

  ‘So you’re just trying to put off the inevitable?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose I am.’

  ‘Christ,’ she said again. ‘I can hardly believe it.’

  She lit a cigarette, puffed nervously at it and then stabbed it out into an ashtray.

  ‘I’m still finding it difficult,’ he conceded.

  ‘I want to know, at least a week before,’ she declared.

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘When the announcement is going to be made about your bankruptcy … before all the fuss begins.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked sadly.

  ‘I would have thought that was obvious.’

  ‘Why, Clarissa?’ he insisted.

  ‘You surely don’t expect me to stay here, in London, among all the elbow-nudging and sniggering …?’

  ‘I’d hoped you might.’

  ‘You should know better than that.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Of course I should.’

  ‘What a mess,’ she said. ‘What a rotten, shitty mess.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is.’

  She stopped at the table, staring down at him.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘All?’ he asked.

  ‘All you’re going to do? Sit around like a dog that’s been beaten once too often and just wait for the final kick?’

  ‘There’s nothing more I can do.’

  ‘What a man!’ she sneered.

  ‘I’ve said I’m sorry.’

  ‘How soon will you hear about the fire?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘I won’t forgive you for this,’ she said.

  The remark reached through his depression and he laughed at her.

  ‘I don’t see anything funny,’ she said.

  ‘No, darling,’ said Willoughby. ‘You wouldn’t.’

  Robert Nelson had become an unconscious weight by the time Jenny manoeuvred him into their apartment. She stumbled with him into the bedroom and heaved him on to the bed. He lay there, mouth open, snoring up at her.

  She smiled down.

  ‘Poor darling,’ she said.

  With the expertise of a woman used to handling drunks, she undressed him, rocking him back and forth to free trapped clothing and finally rolling him beneath the covers.

  She undressed, hesitated by the bedside and instead put on a kimono, returning to the lounge. The curtains were drawn away from the windows. She slid aside the glass door and went out to the verandah edge, standing with her hands against the rail. Below her the lights of Hong Kong glittered and sparked, like fireflies. She looked beyond to where a blackened strip marked the harbour. It was impossible to see the partially submerged liner, but she knew exactly where it would be. She stared towards its unseen shape for a long time, her body still and unmoving.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ she said at last. It was a sad, despairing sound.

  She turned back into the room, her head sunk against her chest, so she was actually inside before she realised it wasn’t empty any more. Fright whimpered from her and she snatched her hand up to her mouth. Jenny stood with her back against the cold window, eyes darting to the faces of the three men, seeking identification.

  ‘No,’ said the eldest of the three. ‘We’re not people you’re likely to know.’<
br />
  He spoke Cantonese.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, in understanding.

  ‘Surprised we are here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Frightened?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s right you should be.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘For this stupidity to stop.’

  ‘Stupidity?’

  ‘The ship. Don’t pretend ignorance.’

  ‘What can I do?’

  The man smiled.

  ‘That’s a naive question.’

  ‘There’s nothing I can do,’ she said desperately.

  ‘What about the man who’s come from London?’

  ‘He’s supposed to be investigating,’ she conceded, doubt in her voice.

  ‘And what is he likely to discover?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she admitted.

  ‘Precisely,’ said the man. ‘So he must be shown.’

  ‘By me?’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You’re a whore. Used to men. You shouldn’t have to ask that question.’

  There was distaste in the man’s voice.

  Momentarily she squeezed her eyes closed, to control the emotion.

  ‘You can’t make me,’ she said. It was a pitiful defiance, made more child-like because her voice jumped unevenly.

  ‘Oh don’t be ridiculous,’ said the man, irritated. He gestured towards the bedroom door beyond which Robert Nelson slept.

  ‘Do you feel for him?’

  ‘I love him,’ said Jenny. This time she didn’t have to force the defiance.

  ‘If you don’t do as you are told,’ said the man quietly, ‘we will kill him.’

  Jenny stared across at the leader of the group.

  ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I believe you.’

  ‘So you’ll do it?’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  Cantonese was the language of another meeting that night, because most of the people assembled in one of the three houses that John Lu owned in Kowloon were street Chinese and uncomfortable with English. It had been right that he should make the announcement, according to tradition, so his father had remained on Hong Kong island. Freed of the old man’s intimidating presence, the boy had adopted the same cold authority, enjoying its effect upon the people with him.