The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin (7 page)

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.’

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.

‘Is that understood?’ he demanded.

There were nods and mutterings of agreement.

‘Even the New Territories, as well as Kowloon and Hong Kong,’ he emphasised.

‘We understand,’ said the man in the front.

‘Everyone must know,’ insisted the millionaire’s son. That was as important as the tradition of making the announcement.

‘They will,’ promised the man who had spoken earlier.

9

Charlie had expected his appointment to be cancelled after the court deaths of the two Chinese, but when he telephoned for confirmation Superintendent Johnson’s secretary assured him he was still expected.

Unable to lose the feeling that he was being watched, Charlie walked to police headquarters by a circuitous route, frequently leaving the wider highways to thread through the shop-cluttered alleyways, their incense sticks smouldering against the evil spirits, all the while checking behind and around him, irritated when he located nothing and growing convinced, yet again, that his instinct had become blunted.

There was another feeling, even stronger than annoyance. He’d always thought of his ability to survive as instinctive, too. It was an attribute he couldn’t afford to lose.

‘Perhaps I should bum incense,’ he muttered, recognising the indication of fear.

The police headquarters were as ordered and regimented as the man who commanded them, the regulation-spaced desks of the head-bent clerks tidy and unlittered, the offices padded with an almost church-like hush.

Johnson’s office was the model for those outside. Never, decided Charlie as he entered, would it achieve the effect of being occupied and worked in; it was more like an exhibition case.

Even seated behind the predictably imposing desk, Johnson had perfected the stretched-upright gaze of intimidation. The police chief indicated a chair to the left of the desk and Charlie sat, waiting in anticipation.

Almost immediately Johnson looked at his watch, for Charlie to know the pressure upon his time.

‘Appointment in thirty minutes,’ he warned.

‘It was good of you to see me so promptly,’ Charlie thanked him. ‘Especially after what happened in court.’

Such men always responded to deference, Charlie knew.

‘Murder,’ confirmed Johnson.

‘Murder?’

Johnson would need very little encouragement, guessed Charlie.

‘Post-mortem examinations proved they both died from a venom-based poison … created involuntary lung-muscle spasms. Cause of death was asphyxiation.’

Charlie said nothing, remembering the strangled breathing.

‘The Chinese farm snakes, you know. For food.’

‘I know,’ said Charlie.

‘So venom is freely available in the colony. Chinese doctors even use it in some cases as a health remedy. It’ll take more tests, but we think it was either from a Banded Krait or a Coral Snake.’

‘You said murder,’ Charlie reminded him.

Johnson leaned back in the chair, refusing to be hurried despite his own restriction upon time.

‘Know what solves crime?’ he demanded.

‘What?’ asked Charlie. Had Johnson always been as overbearing as this? Or had he developed the attitude since he arrived in the colony?

‘Routine. Just simple routine. Finding those responsible for the fire was merely a matter of gradually working through those Chinese employed on the refit, matching the fingerprints to those we found all over the sprinkler systems and the incendiary devices and then confronting them with the evidence. Simple, logical routine.’

‘And now you’ve made an arrest for their murder?’ said Charlie.

Johnson shifted, off-balanced by the question.

‘Employing the same principle, we’ve satisfied ourselves we know the man responsible. We’ve eliminated every person who had contact with the dead men except one.’

‘Who?’

‘A prison cook. Ideally placed to introduce the poison. His name is Fan Yung-ching.’

‘But you haven’t made an arrest?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Because he’s returned to mainland China?’ suggested Charlie.

Johnson frowned at the anticipation.

‘That’s what we strongly suspect,’ admitted the police chief. ‘We’ve established that he disappeared from his lodgings and that his family have always lived in Hunan, on the mainland. Apparently he crossed about six months ago.’

‘I’m surprised how easy it appears to be to go back and forth over the border,’ said Charlie.

The superintendent leaned forward on his desk, always alert for criticism.

Basically unsure of himself, judged Charlie.

‘It’s virtually impossible for us to control or even estimate the number that cross each year,’ conceded the police chief. ‘At least five thousand come in without Chinese permission, swimming across the bay. Double that number must enter with official approval.’

‘Ten thousand!’ said Charlie.

‘Would it frighten you to know that the majority of Chinese crews on British warships and naval support vessels come from communist China, with merely accommodation addresses here to satisfy the regulations about their being Hong Kong Chinese?’

‘Yes,’ admitted Charlie. ‘It probably would.’

‘It’s a fact,’ insisted Johnson. ‘And it frightens the Americans, too. Particularly during joint
NATO
exercises.’

‘So you’re convinced that the men who destroyed the
Pride of America
were infiltrated into the colony. Then killed by another Chinese agent?’

Johnson nodded, tapping another file neatly contained in red binding at the corner of his desk. The word ‘closed’ was stencilled on it, Charlie saw.

‘To save the embarrassment that might have been caused by the trial,’ the policeman confirmed.

Johnson had a pigeon-hole mind, decided Charlie.

‘Once we confronted the two with the evidence of the fingerprints and the incendiary devices, they made full statements,’ continued Johnson. ‘Admitted they were told to cross, then wait until they were contacted … what espionage people call being …’

He hesitated, losing the expression.

Sleepers, you bloody fool, thought Charlie. He said nothing. His feet were beginning to hurt and he wriggled his toes, trying to become more comfortable.

‘I forget the term,’ dismissed Johnson. ‘Anyway, they were eventually contacted, given the materials to cause the fire and did what they were told.’

‘Just as you think the prison cook did?’

Again Johnson looked curiously at the doubt in Charlie’s voice.

‘From other people at the man’s lodging house, we know that the night before the remand hearing another Chinese came to see him, that he handed the cook a package and that afterwards the man seemed agitated and frightened. We’ve got fingerprints from his room which match those on the rice bowls from which the men ate before they came to court …’

‘And that, together with his mainland background, fits neatly into the pattern?’

‘I’ve considered all the evidence,’ Johnson defended himself.

‘I’ve seen most of it,’ Charlie reminded him.

‘And mine is the proper conclusion on the facts available’

‘But doesn’t it seem just a little clumsy?’ asked Charlie.

‘Clumsy?’

‘The two who fired the liner were opium smokers, weren’t they?’ asked Charlie, recalling the indications at the court hearing.

‘There was medical evidence to that effect,’ admitted Johnson. ‘Many Chinese are.’

‘And almost illiterate?’ pressed Charlie.

‘There was no education, no,’ conceded Johnson.

‘What about the cook?’

‘Apparently he smoked, too. We haven’t been able to establish his literacy, obviously.’

‘Then to use your guidelines, it’s not logical, is it?’ said Charlie. ‘Or even sensible?’

‘What?’ demanded Johnson, resenting the argument.

‘In a fanfare of publicity,’ said Charlie, ‘one of the world’s most famous passenger liners is brought here and a man renowned for years of anti-communist preaching announces that it’s to become a prestige university at which he’s going permanently to lecture against the Peking regime …’

‘I’m aware of the facts,’ interrupted Johnson.

‘Then don’t you think it’s odd,’ broke in Charlie, ‘that a country which decides to stifle that criticism – a country which according to you can without the risk of interception move ten thousand people into this colony and therefore, presumably, include in that figure the most expert sabotage agents in any of its armed forces – should select for the task three near-illiterate, drug-taking Chinese whose capture or discovery was practically a foregone conclusion? And by so doing guarantee worse publicity than if they’d let the damned ship remain?’

Johnson laughed, a dismissive sound.

‘A logical argument … ‘he began.

‘Routine logic,’ interposed Charlie.

‘Which regrettably doesn’t fit the facts,’ concluded Johnson. ‘You must defer to my having a great deal more knowledge of these matters than you.’

‘But they just
wouldn’t
do it, would they?’ insisted Charlie, cautious of any mention of his earlier life.

‘Give me an alternative suggestion,’ said Johnson.

‘At the moment I don’t have one,’ said Charlie. ‘But I’m going to keep my mind a great deal more open than yours until I’ve better proof.’