Brian Freemantle: The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin

Willoughby made a movement of uncertainty.

‘Lu’s lawyers have already filed an intention to claim. We could probably delay until the two men who have been arrested are found guilty, but even to attempt that might create a dispute. I gather they’ve made a full admission.’

‘So you haven’t much time.’

‘I haven’t much of anything,’ said Willoughby. ‘Time least of all.’

‘The last resort,’ repeated Charlie. There was no point in buggering about. And Willoughby appeared to appreciate honesty anyway.

‘Yes,’ agreed the underwriter.

‘Would you have avoided contacting me, if you could?’

Willoughby paused. Then he admitted, ‘Yes. If I had had a choice, I wouldn’t have made the call.’

Most people would have lied, recognised Charlie, unoffended. The man was trying to retain his integrity, anxious though he was.

‘Well?’ said Willoughby. He couldn’t keep the plea out of his voice.

So much of his life had been spent getting hold of the shitty end of the stick that nobody else wanted to touch, reflected Charlie. How he wished the approach had come through friendship, reminiscent of the man’s father, rather than desperation.

‘Why should I?’ he said.

‘ Why make people crawl, Charlie… why bully? ’

The part of him that had always embarrassed Edith most, he remembered. The part his wife didn’t like and was always trying to correct.

Willoughby winced, imagining a refusal.

‘No reason,’ he accepted. ‘The sort of things you once did…’

He paused, recalling what Charlie had done.

‘It was silly of me,’ he said. ‘I should have realised you couldn’t do it, that it would be too dangerous for you because of what happened.’

‘You expect me to… because of my relationship with your father?’

‘I hoped you’d try to help.’

‘As the last resort.’

‘Please,’ said Willoughby.

Charlie stopped, suddenly angry with himself. He shouldn’t do it, certainly not to a man whose father had befriended him to the degree that Sir Archibald had.

‘ Inverted snobbery…’

Another of Edith’s accusations. Almost correct, too. Sir Archibald had recognised it properly. Warned him about it, even.

‘ Inferiority complex, Charlie… not the confidence everyone imagines. Why, Charlie? ’

And Charlie couldn’t answer because he hadn’t known himself. Not then. Not until it was too late.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘You’ve a right to be offended,’ Willoughby accepted. ‘It was madness of me to think of you, after all you’ve been through.’

‘Not really,’ said Charlie. ‘You didn’t put up barriers when I asked you for help once.’

That had been after Charlie was stupid enough to make a pilgrimage to Sir Archibald’s grave. British Intelligence had picked him up there and started the pursuit. What logic said it had been all right for them to set him up to be killed in East Berlin, then label him a renegade, to be hunted and assassinated because he had fought back and exposed them for their stupidity? Only Willoughby had understood, because the same men had caused his father’s suicide. So only Willoughby had helped. Not true, he corrected himself. Edith had helped, as she had always done. And now Edith was dead.

Believing he had been rejected, Willoughby said, ‘I’d appreciate your not mentioning this to anyone.’

‘I haven’t said I won’t help,’ said Charlie.

Willoughby blinked, his eagerness almost childishly obvious in his face.

‘You could get to Hong Kong?’ he asked hurriedly. ‘I mean, there wouldn’t be any difficulty with… about your identity?’

Charlie smiled at the other man’s renewed embarrassment.

‘The passport is genuine enough,’ he said. ‘It was the documents that obtained it that were phoney.’

Work again, thought Charlie. Different from what he’d been used to, but still work. It would be good to get back. And to end those aimless Sunday drives.

‘I’d need the full authority of your company,’ said Charlie. ‘I’d never get official help without it.’

‘Of course,’ Willoughby assured him. ‘And I’ll let Nelson know you’re coming… ask him to give you every assistance.’

Charlie stood.

‘And thank you,’ said Willoughby.

‘There’s no guarantee that I’ll find anything to help you,’ warned Charlie. ‘It seems as straightforward as Nelson has said.’

‘But you might,’ said the underwriter.

The man was more desperate than he had imagined, thought Charlie, as he emerged into the secretary’s office. The summer rain suddenly burst against the window and he remembered the split sole.

‘Where’s the nearest shoe shop?’ he said.

The girl looked up at Charlie in hostile bewilderment.

‘A what?’

‘Shoe shop,’ repeated Charlie. Supporting himself against her desk, he raised his feet, so she could see the gap.

‘Need a new pair,’ he said unnecessarily.

The girl pressed back against her chair, face frozen in contempt.

‘I’m sure I really have no idea,’ she said.

Charlie lowered his foot but remained leaning on her desk.

‘Never make a Girl Guide,’ he said.

‘And you’ll never make a comedian.’

It would have to stop. Now he was trying to score off secretaries, just because they had posh accents. And losing.

At first Robert Nelson had tolerated Jenny’s insistence, regarding it more as something like a secret intimacy between them. But as the months had passed and she had maintained the demand, he had come to regard it as a humiliation to them both.

She sat waiting on the opposite side of the table. Beside her lay the wallet, various pouches unzipped and ready.

‘Housekeeping,’ he said, counting out the money.

He watched her put it carefully into the top section of her wallet, sipping from his drink. He’d managed at last to persuade her there was no need for written details of the household accounts, so perhaps the other thing wouldn’t be difficult.

‘Dress allowance,’ he said.

She nodded, smiling.

He took another drink, both hands clasped around his glass.

She sat, waiting.

‘Please, Robert,’ she said, frowning.

‘Why, for God’s sake!’

His annoyance broke through, so that he spoke louder than he had intended.

‘Please,’ she said again.

He put the glass aside, determined against another outburst, spacing his words in an effort to convince her.

‘Apart from a stupid piece of paper, you are my wife,’ he said gently. ‘I love you and want you to stay with me. Always.’

‘I know,’ she said.

‘Then why?’

‘Because it’s always been… since I was young…’

‘It’s… it’s obscene,’ he protested, realising he had failed again.

‘Please,’ she persisted.

Angrily he pushed into his pocket, bringing out more notes and thrusting them on to the table.

‘“I love you” money.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, putting the money into a waiting pouch.

How long would it take, wondered Nelson, for her to forget what she had once been?

It was the tie that registered with Charlie, long before Robert Nelson got near enough for a formal greeting. So long ago, thought Charlie. Yet so easily recalled. Blue stripes upon blue, at an angle.

The two men who had set him up to be killed on the East Berlin border had been to Eton. And like Robert Nelson had always worn their ties, no matter the colour of their suits. An identification symbol; like road signs, something to be recognised by everyone.

They’d mocked his grammar school accent. And the way he’d dressed. So they’d underestimated him, dismissing him as an anachronism: a perfect sacrifice. And been so disastrously wrong. Only one of them had survived. And that one had been disgraced. Twice. But he would still be wearing the tie, wherever he was, Charlie knew.