Brian Freemantle - The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin

‘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 Gloucester 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.

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.