Brian Freemantle - The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin

That was another thing he’d found difficult to accept about the man. For someone important enough to be investigating a?6,000,000 insurance claim, he was a scruffy son of a bitch.

Meant one thing, though. With a description like that, it wouldn’t take the computer long to come up with the man’s proper name. So they could even approach London with an identity, in case the bastards tried to deny their interest.

The reception area was enormous and everywhere there were pictures of L. W. Lu.

Charlie examined them with the professionalism of his teenage training, appreciating the care that had gone into their taking and selection. The biggest, a gigantic enlargement occupying nearly the whole wall behind the desk of identically uniformed girls, showed the millionaire with two American Presidents and another, only slightly smaller, with Henry Kissinger. Along another wall were a series showing Lu individually and then in groups with all the British Commonwealth leaders during the Singapore conference. And the area to the left was given over to a pictorial history of Lu’s charity work, showing him at the two orphanages he had established for Vietnamese refugees after the fall of Saigon and touring wards of the hospitals which were maintained entirely by the charitable trust he had created.

‘Christ,’ said Charlie mockingly, moving forward and looking for the lift he had been told would bypass the other eighteen floors of the skyscraper block from which Lu Industries were controlled and take him direct to the penthouse office.

He located it by the guards. Both were armed, he saw. A separate receptionist, male this time, sat behind them at a small desk.

‘You have an appointment for eleven o’clock with Mr Lu?’ he said, before Charlie could speak.

‘Yes.’

‘We were told to expect you.’

The lift door opened by some control which the man obviously operated but which Charlie could not see. As he entered, he saw the man reach for a telephone to announce his arrival above. Predictably, there were more photographs lining the lift panels, this time showing Lu at the launchings of his various tankers and passenger ships. The facing wall had pictures of the Pride of America leaving New York, another of its Hong Kong arrival and a third showing Lu in a small boat alongside the destroyed hull. John Lu really did resemble his father, thought Charlie, studying the photographs. Except for the smile. The younger man was a miserable-looking sod. Charlie paused, considering the judgment. Not really miserable, more apprehensive.

Despite the obvious entry he could have expected from the Willoughby company name and the warning from the increasingly distracted underwriter in a hurried telephone call earlier that morning that Lu’s London office had made contact to establish he had directorial authority, Charlie had still been intrigued at the speed with which the millionaire had agreed to see him. He’d anticipated a delay of several days instead of the instantaneous agreement.

Another man, uniformed like his colleague on the ground floor, awaited Charlie when the lift doors opened.

‘Please,’ he said, inviting Charlie to follow.

This time the photographs around the walls were of world leaders. Charlie identified the nearest as President Giscard d’Estaing and Pierre Trudeau. And on easels this time because the wall area was entirely glass, giving a 180 degree view of Hong Kong, Kowloon and the mainland beyond.

There were uniformed and armed guards in the corridor and even in three outer offices through which they had to pass to reach the door to Lu’s personal suite. It would be virtually impossible to make an unauthorised entry, Charlie realised.

Lu’s office was very large, created from the corner of the building with the views of Kowloon and the New Territories. Rotating smoked-glass slats running from floor to ceiling gave the room an unexpectedly subdued lighting compared to the brightness of the other rooms through which he had passed. And there was a further surprise. Here there were no photographs. A bookcase occupied one of the two unglassed walls, broken only by a doorway, and along the other were showcases containing models of boats.

Lu rose as Charlie entered, hurrying around his desk, hand outstretched, teeth glinting.

‘Welcome,’ he said, the hiss in his voice only just evident. ‘Welcome indeed.’

For how long? wondered Charlie.

The millionaire personally led him to a couch away from the desk, then sat down in a matching easy chair. He was a puppy-dog fat, polished sort of person, thought Charlie. But it was only surface plumpness. Beneath it he recognised a very hard man.

‘Some refreshment?’

‘No thank you,’ said Charlie.

‘Nothing at all?’

‘Nothing.’

Charlie looked around the office again.

‘What is it?’ asked Lu.

‘I was expecting your son to be present.’

‘John?’

‘You appear to spend a lot of time together.’

‘No father could ask for a more dutiful son,’ he said.

‘Isn’t son-to-father loyalty a Chinese tradition?’

Lu paused.

‘Filial attachments are important in Asia,’ he agreed. ‘But unfortunately the ties appear to be becoming less important to the young of today.’

‘I’ve learned quite a lot of Chinese tradition since I’ve been here,’ said Charlie.

‘You’ve been here some days?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I’m surprised.’

‘Surprised?’

‘That you haven’t called upon me sooner.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Charlie.

Lu made an expansive gesture.

‘Surely this meeting means that there is to be no unpleasantness between your company and myself.’

‘Unpleasantness?’

‘Over this business of the writs.’

‘I don’t think I can promise that,’ said Charlie, guardedly. The mechanical efficiency to which he’d so far been exposed probably meant that somewhere a tape recording was being made of the encounter. It was the sort of precaution he would have taken.

Momentarily Lu’s smile dimmed.

‘That’s disappointing,’ he said.

‘But inevitable, I’m afraid.’

‘You haven’t come to agree settlement?’

‘No.’

Lu was forcing the discussion, realised Charlie. To get the response he wanted from the man, he needed time to seed some uncertainty.

‘What then?’ demanded the millionaire.

Shock him, decided Charlie.

‘To warn you that under no circumstances will my company consider paying out one cent of the claims you have filed against us,’ he declared.

Lu settled back in the chair, shaking his head in apparent sadness. Not the reaction he had tried for, thought Charlie.

‘Do you know,’ said Lu, reflectively, ‘I really can’t remember when anyone had the temerity to warn me about anything.’

‘I gather you lead a fairly protected life,’ said Charlie, gesturing to the outer doors.

Lu sighed, too obviously, at the intended sarcasm.

‘So very unfortunate,’ he said, still maintaining the smile.

The sibilance was more noticeable, realised Charlie. So there was at least some slight annoyance. It wouldn’t be enough.

‘As unfortunate as the death of Robert Nelson?’

Lu nodded.

‘I heard of the death of your man here,’ he said. ‘Such an able person… obtained more of my business than anyone else.’

‘Why, Mr Lu?’ said Charlie.

The smile was finally extinguished.

‘Because I respected him and chose to give him the business.’

‘At 12 per cent, when the rest of the sealed bids quoted 10?’

For a moment the millionaire faltered.

‘I can afford to give my business to whom I choose,’ he said.

‘That’s not business, Mr Lu. That’s charity. Or stupidity. Or an indication that you didn’t expect the money to be out of your hands for very long. Just long enough for it to be the bait for which it was intended?’