The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin

by Brian Freemantle

  Charlie turned to run, but collided at once with an apparently surprised man carrying a jumble of possessions in a knotted rug. It burst open as it hit the ground, cascading pots and pans and clothing and the man started screeching in bewildered outrage. Charlie tried to dodge around him, brushing off the man’s grasping protests, but hit another group who drew together, blocking his escape and gesturing towards the shouting peasant.

  He’d never get through, he realised, turning back. The three were still walking calmly and unhurriedly towards him, blocking any dash back to the border. The smiling man had pulled a knife. Narrow-bladed, so there would hardly be any puncture wound. Little risk of identifying blood splashes, after the attack. Very professional, judged Charlie.

  The peasant was babbling to his left and Charlie swept out, thrusting him aside. The advancing men stopped, warily.

  They believed he was seeking space in which to fight, Charlie knew. It wouldn’t be a mistake they’d make for longer than a few seconds.

  All his life Charlie had existed in an ambience of violence. But always avoided actual involvement, relying upon mental agility rather than physical ability. A survivor unable to fight his own battles. It was not cowardice, although he was as apprehensive as anyone of physical pain. It was an acceptance of reality. He just wasn’t any good at it. Not close up, hand-to-hand brutality. Never had been. No matter how persuasive the lecture or good the instruction, he had never been able to bring himself to complete the motion in training that would, in a proper fight, have maimed or killed. The practice, grown men grunting around a padded floor in canvas suits, had even seemed silly. He’d actually annoyed the instructors by giggling openly.

  ‘One day,’ Sir Archibald had warned in rare criticism, ‘there might be the need.’

  But he’d still been careless, because the department had had a special section for such activity, men who regarded death or the infliction of pain as a soldier does, uninvolved and detached, a function of their job. He’d only achieved the attitude rarely. To survive, in East Berlin. And to avenge Edith’s murder. And even then it had been remote. He had wanted Edith’s killer to die. But not to see the fear of realisation upon his face … the sort of fear that the three men could see in him now.

  Now there was the need.

  They’d started forward again. More confidently. The one with the knife said something and the other two began to grin as well.

  They definitely knew, realised Charlie.

  ‘Help!’

  He screamed the plea, desperately, instantly aware that other people around had joined in the shouts of the man with whom he had collided, smothering the sound of his voice.

  ‘Help! For God’s sake, help!’

  The crowd pulled away from him and for the briefest moment Charlie thought it was because of his yell. Then he saw it was an almost rehearsed enclave, with the three men facing him just six feet away. And that there were more assailants than he had at first identified.

  The handle of his overnight bag was looped with a strap, so that it could be supported on his shoulders. He gripped the top of the strap, whirling the bag around his head in clumsy arcs, forcing people away from him.

  They drew back, easily, isolating him in a circle. Twenty at least, decided Charlie. Probably more. No way of knowing.

  ‘The briefcase,’ demanded the Chinese with the knife. He reached out, beckoning.

  Charlie stared back, panting. His eyes locked on the knife in the man’s hand. He thought of the pain it would cause, thrusting into his body, and his stomach loosened.

  ‘Give me the briefcase,’ insisted the man. Again he motioned impatiently.

  The other two had spaced further out, so that he was faced with a wider attack.

  The knife-man moved to come forward and again Charlie swept the bag around in a wild, warding-off sweep. Aware that the artificial protests from the peasants had stopped, he screamed again, ‘Help. Please help me!’

  He could even see the border, in the direction in which he was facing. Less than a hundred yards. The police and officials appeared unaware of what was happening.

  It was a cry of shock, not pain, and as he fell Charlie saw that it was one of the long poles from which he’d seen many of the peasants supporting belongings and goods that had been swept across the back of his knees, crumpling his legs beneath him.

  The overnight bag hampered him now, the strap becoming entangled with his wrist, and before he could free himself one of the three men he had first seen had got to him, clamping his arm to his side.

  Charlie butted him in the face with his forehead, hearing the grunt of pain. He’d hurt himself, too, he realised, blinking. He tried to scramble up, but felt himself being grabbed behind by unseen hands. Because his eyes were watering, he could only half-focus on the man with the knife. Bending over him. Only feet away.

  ‘I said I wanted the briefcase.’

  It was a scream of fear this time, with no articulate words.

  Charlie thrust back into the people holding him from behind, trying to escape the knife, stomach knotted for the moment of pain. He kicked out, but half bent as he was he missed the man’s groin, hitting him harmlessly on the thigh. And then the attacker he’d butted grabbed his leg, twisting him completely over.

  Charlie lay face down, sobbing his helplessness. He was almost unaware of the briefcase being snatched from him because of the pain that exploded in his head as something began smashing into his skull, urgent, hammering blows.

  But not the pain that he had imagined from the knife, he thought, as he drifted into unconsciousness. Hardly any hurt at all, now that they’d stopped hitting his head.

  So death wasn’t as painful as he’d always thought it would be.

  ‘Got it!’

  Hodgson, who had brought their copy of the Chinese statement into the ambassador’s study so that the man could refer to it when preparing his report to London, stared down at Collins.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir?’

  ‘That man. I knew I’d met him before.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Prague,’ declared the ambassador. ‘Four years ago in Prague.’

  Hodgson waited, not knowing what was expected of him.

  Collins had his eyes closed with the effort of recollection.

  ‘Attached to our Intelligence service,’ he added. ‘Actually had some sort of altercation with him.’

  The ambassador opened his eyes, frowning at the memory.

  ‘What’s he doing as a director of a Lloyd’s underwriting firm?’ he demanded, as if the young lawyer would have the answer instantly available.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Hodgson. He hesitated, then risked the impertinence.

  ‘Surely it can’t be the same man?’ he said.

  Collins maintained his distant look.

  ‘Certainly looked like him,’ he said, his conviction wavering.

  ‘It would take years to attain the seniority that he appeared to have,’ pointed out Hodgson.

  ‘Quite,’ conceded Collins, turning back to his desk. ‘Quite.’

  18

  He hadn’t died.

  The awareness came to him with the first burst of searing pain, as if his head were being crushed between two great weights. He tried to twist, to get the pressure to stop, but that only made it worse and then he heard a sound and realised he was whimpering.

  ‘It’ll ache,’ said a voice. Muzzy. As if the words were coming through cotton-wool.

  Charlie could feel the strong light against his face and squinted his eyes open carefully, frightened it would cause fresh pain. It did.

  There appeared to be a lot of people standing over him, but his vision was blurred, so he could not distinguish who they were.

  ‘How do you feel?’ asked the voice.

  ‘Hurts,’ managed Charlie. ‘Hurts like buggery.’

  His voice echoed inside his own head, making him wince.

  ‘We’ve given him an injection, now we know there’s no fracture.
It’ll get better soon.’

  Charlie tried focusing again, feeling out with his hands as he did so. A bed. Hospital, then.

  ‘Do you feel well enough to talk?’

  Another voice: Superintendent Johnson.

  Cautiously this time, Charlie turned in the direction of the sound. Still difficult to distinguish the man, but the height was obvious.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s a shorthand writer present. He’ll record what you say.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Who did it?’

  ‘Chinese.’

  ‘Could you recognise them again?’

  Charlie considered the question. In his fear, all he’d looked at was the knife. And their clothes. There was the one with the smile; he’d seen his face closely enough.

  ‘Probably,’ he said.

  ‘Mainland Chinese?’

  ‘They wore Westernised clothing,’ said Charlie. ‘Silk suits.’

  ‘Did they speak?’

  ‘One did. English.’

  Whatever drug they’d given him was taking effect. The pain was lessening. And Johnson was becoming easier to see.

  ‘Hong Kong then?’

  ‘It would seem so.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’d got the proof.’

  Charlie blinked at the announcement, wanting very much to see the policeman’s face. Johnson was gazing down at him, keeping his face clear.

  ‘Proof?’

  ‘The cook was made available to me in Peking. It was just as the woman said. Everything.’

  ‘You brought the statement back?’

  ‘In the briefcase. That was what the man kept saying. He wanted the briefcase.’

  ‘When the border guards got to you, you only had a shoulder grip.’

  ‘So they got it.’

  ‘And the proof.’

  Was there almost a sound of relief in Johnson’s voice? No, decided Charlie. That was unfair.

  ‘I won’t admit I was wrong. Not yet,’ said Johnson, identifying his attitude.

  ‘I didn’t ask you to,’ said Charlie.

  ‘I’ll need more than a statement made by a man to whom I’m refused access. I need facts. So far we haven’t even the affidavit you claim was sworn.’

  Charlie almost shook his head in denial, stopping at the first twinge of warning.

  ‘It was notarised to make it legally admissible by a lawyer from the British embassy,’ he said. ‘They have a copy. You could get it from the Foreign Office, in London.’

  ‘What did the cook say?’

  ‘That the poison was given to him by John Lu … that he’d been told it would only make them ill. And that it would cancel his gambling debt.’

  ‘Just as the woman said,’ repeated Johnson reflectively.

  ‘It will be sufficient to make the enquiries,’ insisted Charlie.

  He could see everything clearly now. Apart from Johnson and the shorthand writer, there was another policeman by the door. Standing near the third officer were a nurse and a white-coated man whom Charlie assumed to be a doctor. They were both Chinese.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Johnson. ‘It will be sufficient to start enquiries. Do you think the Chinese will send the cook back?’

  ‘Definitely not,’ said Charlie.

  ‘It’ll be difficult, trying to proceed on a case like this, with the legal muscle that Lu can employ, with only a sworn statement.’

  ‘Can you guarantee a court hearing?’

  The constant demand, from every Chinese official he’d met. Johnson was right, accepted Charlie. And the Foreign Office statement would only be a copy. Would the company lawyers be prepared to go into court on anything less than the original?

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlie. ‘It’ll be difficult.’

  ‘I’d like a fuller statement, later on,’ said the police chief.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Maybe tomorrow?’

  Johnson put the question more to the doctor than to Charlie.

  ‘Certainly the X-rays show there’s no fracture,’ said the white-coated man cautiously. ‘But there’s undoubtedly concussion. I’d like to keep him under observation for a few days.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ insisted Charlie. There was an uncertainty in his mind, a doubt he could not even formulate. Little more than instinctive caution. But it was there, nagging more intrusively than the pain. And there was something else. The danger of the ambassador’s memory. And Jones’s curiosity.

  ‘That might not be wise,’ protested the doctor. ‘You’re lucky not to be more seriously hurt.’

  ‘How lucky?’

  Charlie put the question to Johnson. The policeman stared back at him curiously.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

  ‘How long was it before the border guards got to me?’

  Johnson made an uncertain movement.

  ‘We don’t know. They didn’t see the beginning of the attack, obviously. By the time they got there, you were unconscious and there wasn’t a sign of anyone who’d attacked you.’

  ‘Or the briefcase?’

  ‘Or the briefcase,’ confirmed Johnson.

  ‘One of the men had a knife,’ said Charlie. ‘The one who did the talking.’

  Johnson looked at the doctor.

  ‘Nothing but head injuries,’ insisted the man. ‘And minor grazing consistent with being knocked to the ground.’

  ‘There was a knife,’ insisted Charlie. ‘I saw it.’

  They didn’t understand, he thought.

  ‘So they obviously got the briefcase without having to use it,’ said Johnson easily. ‘We can get it all down in the statement.’

  ‘I wish you’d give yourself more time,’ said the doctor.

  They thought the knife was a hallucination, decided Charlie.

  ‘I can sign myself out, as I could in England?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said the doctor.

  ‘I’ll agree to stay overnight,’ promised Charlie. ‘But tomorrow I’ll leave.’

  It would be ridiculous even to try tonight, he knew. He’d collapse and lengthen the period in hospital.

  ‘You’ve had at least four severe blows to the head,’ said the doctor.

  ‘But there’s no fracture.’

  ‘Concussion can be as bad.’

  ‘A night’s rest will be sufficient.’

  ‘Why don’t I call tomorrow?’ suggested Johnson, moving to intercede. ‘To see how you are.’

  ‘At the hotel,’ said Charlie finally.

  The doctor’s hostility spread to the nurse who remained after everyone else had left. She moved jerkily around the room, showing her irritation in the briskness with which she moved, tidying up after the policemen.

  ‘Would you like a sleeping draught?’ she asked.

  ‘Please,’ said Charlie. Without help, he knew, he’d never rest.

  She returned within minutes with some brown liquid in a tiny medicine glass, waiting by the bedside until he swigged it down.

  He relaxed back upon the pillow she plumped for him.

  ‘Good night,’ she said.

  ‘Good night.’

  ‘Something is not right, Charlie,’ he said to himself, after she had gone. But what the hell was it?

  He began to feel the approach of drowsiness. He turned on the pillow, looking towards the door through which the girl had just left.

  Jesus, he thought, as sleep overtook him, I hope that girl is not a gambler.

  The ache was still there, but far less than the previous night. Little more than a hangover discomfort. And he’d endured enough of those. The growing belief that he knew what was happening helped. Always the same excitement, the awareness that he had realised something that no one else had. He needed more, though. A damned sight more. But at least he had found the direction in which to look for it. At last. And Charlie’s Rules, too. Not Judge’s.

  ‘I wish you’d stay,’ said the doctor.

  ‘There are things I must do.’

  �
�What?’

  ‘Reports to be made to London, apart from the statement to the police,’ he said glibly.

  ‘Nothing that couldn’t wait.’

  ‘I’ll be careful,’ said Charlie. And would have to continue to be, no matter what happened.

  The doctor moved his shoulders, abandoning the attempt.

  ‘These might help,’ he said, handing Charlie a phial of pills. ‘And if you start vomiting, get back here immediately.’

  ‘I will,’ promised Charlie.

  The nurse of the previous day entered, frowning when she saw that Charlie was already dressed.

  ‘Damned glad you don’t play mah-jong or follow the horses,’ Charlie greeted her.

  The girl stared at him.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘Forget it,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Sure you’re all right?’ demanded the doctor.

  ‘Positive,’ insisted Charlie. It had been a bloody silly thing to say. Irrationally, it had been his first thought upon awakening and from it had come the conclusion that was exciting him.

  ‘You won’t change your mind?’

  ‘No.’

  Charlie walked slowly to the hospital elevator, conscious of the movement against the corridor floor jarring up into his head. There was a slight nausea deep in his stomach, but he knew it was not from the head wounds. He was actually aware of the customary discomfort from his feet; that had to indicate some improvement.

  He reached the hospital reception area and had just realised the need for a car when he heard the shout and turned expectantly.

  ‘Hi there,’ called Harvey Jones.

  ‘Hello,’ said Charlie. He’d anticipated the approach, but thought it would be back at the hotel. He’d underestimated the man’s keenness.

  ‘Heard you got mugged,’ said the American. ‘How is it?’

  ‘Still painful,’ admitted Charlie. ‘Who told you about the attack?’

  ‘Superintendent Johnson. I’ve been keeping in touch with him.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Thought you might get into contact when you returned from Peking.’

  ‘You knew I was there, then?’

  ‘Sure,’ admitted Jones easily. He motioned towards the forecourt. ‘I’ve got a car. Can I give you a lift?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Charlie.

  He relaxed gratefully into the passenger seat, feeling the ache in his body now, as well as his head, and aware how much it had taken from him to travel even this short distance. The doctor had been right. He should have stayed.