Brian Freemantle: The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin

‘I’ve kept you waiting,’ apologised Nelson, reaching him at last through the airport crowd.

‘I’ve only just cleared customs,’ Charlie assured him, immediately conscious of the swirl of harassed agitation in which the insurance broker moved.

A strangely pale, almost flaky-skinned man, Robert Nelson was sweating, despite the thin suit and the partial airconditioning, so that the wisped, receding hair was smeared over his forehead, accentuating the pallor.

Even before their handshake had ended, he was gesturing impatiently to porters whom Charlie had already engaged, sighing with frustration at people who had innocently intruded themselves between the luggage and twice muttering ‘Sorry, so very sorry,’ to Charlie, in regret for some imagined hindrance.

The air-conditioning was better within the confined space of the waiting car and Nelson mopped his face and hands with an already damp handkerchief, smiling across the vehicle. It was an apprehensive expression, decided Charlie. Why? he wondered.

‘I knew there would be an investigation,’ announced Nelson, as if confirming an earlier discussion. ‘Just knew it.’

‘Routine, surely?’ said Charlie. He looked at his watch. Whisky-breathed at ten in the morning?

‘But you’re not one of the normal investigators. Director level, Willoughby said.’

‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘Not a normal investigator.’

Despite his assurances to Willoughby, there was still a risk that someone would discover just how different, he knew. His hand still had the slight shake that had started when he had approached the passport and immigration desks at the airport.

Nelson appeared to be expecting more but when Charlie didn’t continue, he pointed through the window.

‘You can just see the Pride of America,’ he said.

Charlie gazed out into the bay, getting a brief view of the hull before the car dipped into the tunnel that would take them beneath the harbour to Hong Kong island.

‘Looks a very dead ship,’ said Charlie.

‘It is.’

‘Any scrap value?’

‘Less than a million, I would estimate. I believe the Japanese are already interested.’

‘Quite a difference from $20,000,000.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Nelson, as if appreciating some hidden point. ‘Quite a difference.’

The vehicle emerged from the tunnel and turned along the Connaught Road towards the Mandarin Hotel. To the right, towards Kowloon, the seemingly disordered slick of sampans and junks locked one to another and stretched far out into the bay from the harbour edge. So tight was the jam that it was impossible to identify occupant with craft and the impression was of constant, heaving movement, like a water-borne anthill.

‘They’re called the floating people,’ said Nelson. ‘It’s said that some are born, live and die without ever coming ashore.’

Charlie turned to his left, looking inland. A mile away, first the Middle Level, then the Heights jutted upwards to the Peak, the apartment blocks and villas glued against the rock edges.

‘Easy to judge the wealth here,’ said Nelson, nodding in the direction in which Charlie was looking. ‘The higher you live, the richer you are.’

‘What about Lu?’

‘One of the richest taipans in the entire colony,’ said Nelson. ‘He’s got a villa on the other side of the Peak, at Shousan Hill. Like a fortress.’

‘Why a fortress?’

‘Ensure his privacy.’

‘I thought Lu enjoyed exposure and publicity.’

‘Exactly,’ said Nelson. ‘It makes him an obvious target for every crank and crook in Asia.’

Nelson flustered around the arrival at the hotel, urging bellboys over the bags and actually cupping Charlie’s elbow to guide him into the hotel.

The broker hovered beside him while he registered, instantly chiding the porters when they turned from the reception desk. Charlie sighed. Nelson’s attitude could very easily become a pain in the ass, he thought.

It was the briefest of impressions as they waited for the elevator, but Charlie had been trained to react to such feelings and he twisted abruptly, examining the foyer.

‘What is it?’ demanded Nelson, conscious of the sudden movement.

‘Nothing,’ said Charlie.

He’d always had an instinct about surveillance. But this time he had to be wrong. How could he be so quickly under observation? And from whom? There was no reason. He was jet-lagged and irritated by Nelson’s constant attention, that was it.

The lift arrived and Charlie started to enter, then hesitated. He’d survived by responding to impressions as fleeting as this. And while he’d changed vocations, the need for survival remained. More so. Now that he’d come out of hiding.

‘Sure there’s nothing wrong?’ said Nelson.

Charlie stared back into the bustling foyer.

‘Quite sure,’ he said, still uncertain.

Nelson had reserved him a suite and Charlie examined it appreciatively.

‘Never got this on Civil Service Grade IV allowance,’ he muttered. Self-conversation was a habit he never bothered to curb. It usually became more pronounced when he was worried.

‘What?’ asked Nelson.

‘Thinking aloud,’ said Charlie. Obviously Robert Nelson had no idea of his company’s financial difficulties.

‘I had a bar installed,’ pointed out Nelson hopefully.

‘Help yourself,’ Charlie invited him.

‘You?’

‘Too tired after the flight,’ said Charlie, watching the other man reach for the whisky.

Islay malt, he saw. Sir Archibald had been drinking that, when he’d gone to his retirement home in Sussex the day before setting off to entrap the bastards who had taken over the department and reduced it to an apology of what it had once been.

There’d been bottles of it, in a sitting-room cupboard. The poor old sod had fallen into a drunken sleep and not been aware when he had left. According to the inquest report, Sir Archibald had even swilled the barbiturates down with it.

‘I specified a room with a view of the harbour. And Kowloon,’ said Nelson, by the window.

‘Thank you,’ said Charlie. ‘The ship, too.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Nelson. ‘Everywhere I look I’m reminded of that damned ship.’

Charlie turned, curious at the bitterness.

‘And beyond the New Territories is China,’ continued Nelson, with his back to the room.

‘I know.’

‘You’ve been to Hong Kong before?’

‘No,’ said Charlie quickly, alert to questions about his past.

‘Incidentally,’ said Nelson, apparently unaware of Charlie’s apprehensive reaction, ‘Australia are 96 for 2.’

The broker had turned back into the suite and Charlie stared at him in astonishment.

‘What?’ he said.

‘The Test,’ said the broker, disconcerted by Charlie’s lack of response. ‘We get the reports on the B.B.C. World Service.’

‘Oh,’ said Charlie. And no doubt discussed the finer points in clubs and at cocktail parties and couldn’t have located Lord’s or the Oval without a street map.

‘You’re not interested in cricket?’

‘Not really,’ admitted Charlie. What was it that the man was finding so much difficulty in saying?

Nelson looked at his glass, appearing surprised that it was empty.

‘Go ahead,’ gestured Charlie.

Nelson remained at the portable bar, looking across the room.

‘I’m to be dismissed, aren’t I?’ he demanded suddenly.

Charlie frowned at him.

‘What?’

‘That’s why you’ve come… someone who’s not a normal investigator

… a director. You’ve come to fire me because there was no qualifying clause in the policy.’

The fear tumbled from the man, the words blurred together in his anxiety.

‘Of course I haven’t,’ said Charlie.