Brian Freemantle - The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin

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.’

‘And you think you’re going to get that in Hong Kong?’ sneered Johnson, carelessly patronising.

‘I’m going to try.’

The large man rose from his desk, staring towards the window.

‘You’re a Westerner,’ he said, turning back into the room after a few moments. ‘A round-eye… even if there were anything more to discover, which I don’t believe there is, you wouldn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance of penetrating this society.’

The second time he’d had that warning in forty-eight hours, thought Charlie. It was becoming boring.

‘And if I can?’

Johnson shook his head at the strange conceit in the unkempt man sitting before him.

‘Come back to me with just one piece of producible evidence that would give me legal cause to reopen the case and I’ll do it,’ he promised. ‘Just one piece.’

He hesitated.

‘But I tell you again,’ he added, ‘you’re wasting your time.’

The 12 per cent premium on its own wasn’t evidence. Not without the reason to support it. It could wait until another meeting. And Charlie was sure that there would be one.

‘Have you asked the Chinese authorities for any assistance in locating the cook?’ asked Charlie.

‘There’s been a formal application,’ said Johnson. ‘But we don’t expect any assistance. There never is.’

‘So what will happen?’

‘We’ll issue an arrest warrant. And perhaps a statement.’

‘And there the matter will lie… still a communist-inspired fire?’

Johnson smiled, condescending again.

‘Until we receive your surprise revelation, there the matter will lie,’ he agreed. ‘Irrefutably supported by the facts. There’s no way you can avoid a settlement with Mr Lu.’

On the evidence available, decided Charlie, the policeman was right. Poor Willoughby.

He saw Johnson look again at his watch and anticipated the dismissal, rising from his chair.

‘Thank you again,’ he said.

‘Any further help,’ said Johnson, over-generous in his confidence. ‘Don’t hesitate to call.’

‘I won’t,’ promised Charlie.

Superintendent Johnson’s next appointment was approaching along the corridor as Charlie left. Politely, Charlie nodded.

Harvey Jones returned the greeting.

Neither man spoke.

The telex message awaiting Charlie at the hotel said contact was urgent, so although he knew it would be five o’clock in the morning he booked the telephone call to Rupert Willoughby’s home. The underwriter answered immediately, with no sleep in his voice.

‘Well?’ he said. The anxiety was very obvious.

‘It doesn’t feel right,’ said Charlie.

‘So we can fight?’

The hope flared in the man’s voice.

‘Impressions,’ qualified Charlie. ‘Not facts.’

‘I can’t contest a court hearing on impressions,’ said Willoughby, immediately deflated. ‘And according to our lawyers that’s what we could be facing if we prolong settlement.’

‘I know that,’ said Charlie. ‘There is one thing.’

‘What?’

‘Lu agreed to pay you a 12 per cent premium…’

‘I told you that.’

‘I know. What’s your feeling at learning everyone else only got 10 per cent?’

There was no immediate response from the underwriter.

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ he said at last. ‘We were the biggest insurers, after all.’

‘Exactly.’

‘So there is something more than impressions?’ said Willoughby eagerly. Again the hope was evident.

‘It’s not grounds for refusing to pay,’ insisted Charlie.

‘But what about the court deaths?’

‘The police chief is convinced he’s solved that… and that it doesn’t alter anything.’

‘What about the 12 per cent, linked with the deaths?’

‘I didn’t tell him about the premiums,’ admitted Charlie.