Brian Freemantle: The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin

‘Lu’s men?’ demanded Jones finally.

‘He’d be the only man to gain by stealing it.’

‘That’s what Superintendent Johnson thinks.’

‘You must have had quite a discussion with Johnson?’

If Jones had known about the statement and its theft, why had he wanted him to repeat it? Some sort of test, supposed Charlie.

‘Johnson’s being very helpful,’ admitted the American.

‘Why?’

‘I think he believes it’s going to be tough to prove anything against Lu, even now… and that he’s going to need all the assistance he can get.’

‘And you can provide that assistance?’

Admit it, you bastard, thought Charlie, seizing the opening. You’ve hinted the Agency might help, in return for favours.

‘It’s possible,’ said Jones.

Charlie sat back, letting the discussion go. His headache was worsening. Even though it was difficult without water, he gulped down two of the tablets he had been given at the hospital, coughing when they stuck drily in his throat.

‘Anything wrong?’ asked Jones anxiously.

‘No,’ lied Charlie.

They gained the tunnel running beneath the harbour and the car increased its speed. How much had happened in the two weeks since he’d made the same journey with Robert Nelson, reflected Charlie. So many tunnels. So much misunderstanding.

As they emerged, Charlie looked across to the Lu office block.

Guessing where Charlie’s attention lay, Jones said, ‘He’ll be worried sick.’

‘Will he?’ said Charlie.

The American laughed at the caution.

‘The whole damned thing is about to come down around his ears,’ he insisted.

‘I wish I were as sure,’ admitted Charlie. ‘A signed statement was tenuous enough. Now even that’s gone.’

You’re a shit, Charlie, he thought. But he’d never made the pretence of being anything else. Except a survivor. And that’s what he was doing now. Surviving. He hoped. Please God that he’d got it right.

Jones eased the car into the edge of Connaught Road and Charlie got out unsteadily in front of the Mandarin Hotel.

‘We’ll keep in touch,’ said Jones, leaning across the passenger seat.

‘Yes.’

‘And take care.’

‘I shall,’ Charlie assured him.

Because of the time difference between Hong Kong and London, Superintendent Johnson had left his office late. He had been held up awaiting confirmation that a copy of the Peking statement would be despatched to him as soon as it arrived from China in the diplomatic bag. Just as he reached his apartment on the Middle Level, the first contact came from the station inspector.

When he learned it had been an anonymous telephone call to police headquarters, Johnson refused to over-respond. But he listed his instructions carefully, ordering that the forensic and photographic sections should be alerted, in case it were genuine. And that his official car should be sent back.

Then he sat, still in uniform. Waiting.

The second call came within thirty minutes. There was positive confirmation, the duty officer reported. Nothing was being done until his arrival, as he had insisted.

Johnson had been trained at Hendon. And sometimes even here he referred to the long-ago lectures and notes. Remembering them now, he sat in the back of the car as it made its way towards Stubbs Road and the Peak, eyes closed, consciously trying to clear his mind of any preconception and suspicion about the fire and the courtroom murders and the claims of a down-at-heel insurance investigator.

He’d need an open mind, he knew. It was going to be a difficult one; the most difficult ever. Particularly now the Foreign Office in London was involved. The sort of thing he tried so hard to avoid. He gripped and ungripped his hands, a frustrated gesture. It was all so damned vague, like imagined shapes in the fog. And the lectures had told him to ignore things that weren’t clear. He needed facts. Just plain, straightforward facts.

He stirred, moved by another thought: whatever he was driving towards, it certainly seemed that he had been wrong about the fire and the men who had admitted responsibility. Which was going to be bloody embarrassing. Yet the facts had been there, as obvious as the fingers on his hand. Too obvious. And he’d made a mistake. Superintendent Johnson, who was well aware that had he remained in England he would never have risen above the rank of ordinary inspector, didn’t like making mistakes. He worried that other people would realise his limitations and laugh at him.

He nodded with satisfaction at the road block established half a mile from Lu’s mansion on Shousan Hill, acknowledging the wave as his recognised car swept through. But it would be the only one allowed past, he was confident. He’d repeated the instruction during the second call. It was the sort of routine at which he was very good.

An inspector was waiting at the already opened gate to Lu’s home.

‘Well?’ demanded Johnson, getting from his car.

‘Everything as you asked, sir,’ said the man. ‘Nothing’s been touched. Servants and guards assembled in one spot, so they couldn’t interfere with anything.’

‘How many?’

‘Fifteen. John Lu is one of them.’

‘Yet they heard nothing.’

‘Lu apparently relied upon an extensive electrical system.’

‘So what happened to it?’

‘Here,’ the inspector invited him.

Johnson followed the man to a corner of the surrounding wall. It was topped all the way by thick wire mesh.

‘Normally enough electricity going through that to kill an elephant,’ said the inspector.

‘What stopped it working?’

With a nightstick, the inspector indicated an obscured corner, near brickwork which swept out to begin the imposing entrance through which one had to drive to reach the house.

‘There’s a conduit box there,’ he said. He waved an impatient hand and an officer in one of the waiting cars gave him a light operated from the vehicle’s battery. ‘It’s been bypassed, so that there was no current passing through this section here…’

In the light of the torch, Johnson could see avoidance leads clamped by their bulldog clips to the live wires, and beyond them the hole that had been carefully cut through the mesh.

‘On the other side,’ said the inspector, ‘there’s the main junction box for this side of the house. Every alarm system has been circuited in the same way.’

‘An expert?’ said Johnson.

‘Professional,’ agreed the officer.

‘What about the clips?’

‘Haven’t let the forensic people get to them until your arrival,’ said the man. He hesitated.

‘But I think you’ll find they’re of American origin,’ he said, wanting to prove himself.

‘American?’ demanded Johnson sharply.

The inspector partially retreated at his superior’s reaction.

‘That’s my guess,’ he said.

‘What about the house?’

‘It happened in what appears to be the main lounge. I’ve men guarding it. And an ambulance on the way.’

‘Ambulance?’

‘One of them is still alive.’

Johnson waved the inspector towards his car, entering from the other side and telling the driver to go on. Normally, he realised, the grounds would have been floodlit, but the interference with the power supply had created an odd, patchwork effect.

The scientific experts were grouped just inside the main entrance to the house. When they saw Johnson’s car arrive, they straightened expectantly.

‘Give me a moment,’ he said, moving past them.

He stopped just inside the door of the room the inspector indicated, to get an overall impression.

‘Holy Jesus,’ he said softly.

It had been a protracted, desperate fight. A glass-topped table in the middle of the room was splintered and crushed, presumably by the weight of a stumbling body. There were bloodstains, too, which continued to an overturned couch and then led to a wall near the fireplace.