The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin (9 page)

‘String vest. Supposed to keep you cool in hot weather.’

‘Good God!’

She began to laugh, genuinely now, and he smiled with her.

‘Doesn’t seem to work, either.’

‘Let me see,’ she insisted.

Feeling foolish, he took off his shirt and she began to laugh even more, pointing at him with an outstretched finger and rocking backwards and forwards on her heels.

‘You look ridiculous,’ she protested. ‘Like a fish, a fish wrapped up inside a net …’

He did, thought Charlie. A flat fish. Very apt.

He reached for her outstretched hand, intending to repeat the question about Lu, then realised that the amusement had changed, becoming more strident, edging towards hysteria.

‘What …?’ he began and then saw she was crying, her eyes flooded with emotion.

‘Oh fuck,’ she said desperately. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’

She pumped her hand in his, in her frustration, and then came forward, pressing her face into his shoulder. Charlie put his arms around her, holding her against him. Her skin was very smooth and he could feel her tipped, soft breasts against him. There was still no reaction within him.

‘It was a good try,’ he said quietly. Normally there was anger at realising he had been wrong. This time it was relief.

She sobbed on.

‘Why?’ he said.

‘Robert’s so worried,’ she said, her voice uneven and muffled against his shoulder. ‘He’s convinced he’ll be dismissed, because of the premium.’

‘But why this?’

She pulled away from him.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘It wouldn’t have worked.’

‘I could have pretended … whores do all the time.’

‘I couldn’t.’

It was a sad smile, but controlled now.

‘No,’ she said. ‘You couldn’t, could you?’

‘I still want to know why.’

‘Wanted to compromise you … then plead for Robert. Ask you not to recommend that he be fired. Blackmail you even. Another whore’s trick.’

‘He’s not going to be sacked,’ insisted Charlie. ‘I’ve told him that, more times than I can count. In a few days, I’ll get Willoughby to reassure him by letter.’

She was back on her heels now, gazing at him. Crying had puffed her eyes, he saw.

‘It’s my fault, you know,’ she blurted suddenly.

‘What is?’

‘The fire … everything, all because of me.’

Charlie leaned forward, taking her hand again.

‘Jenny,’ he said urgently, ‘what are you saying?’

‘Lu’s people are talking openly to the Chinese about it. They have to, you see. For Lu’s family to recover face, it’s important that everyone knows …’

‘Jenny,’ he stopped her. ‘Tell me from the beginning. Tell me so that I can understand …’

She sniffed and he groped into his pocket for a handkerchief. She kept it in her hand, tracing her fingers over his wrist, a little-girl gesture.

‘Lu doesn’t just get his money from shipbuilding and property development and oil,’ she began slowly. ‘That’s crap, part of the great benefactor publicity machine …’

‘What else?’

‘He owns a good third of the bars and brothels in Wan Chai,’ announced the girl. ‘Maybe more. They’re quieter, now that the war in Vietnam is over and the Americans aren’t coming here … and the Sixth Fleet has gone. But there’s still enough business. Not that they matter, by themselves. He’s got at least two factories here in Hong Kong manufacturing heroin from the poppy resin that comes in from Thailand and Burma … it’s called Brown Sugar. Or Number Three …’

She paused, then went on, ‘He’s the biggest supplier in the colony and ships to America and Europe as well …’

Another pause.

‘You know what a Triad is?’

‘Something like a Chinese Mafia?’

She nodded.

‘Lu’s a paymaster for at least three Triads, with branches not just here but in Europe as well.’

‘How do you know all this?’

She ignored the question.

‘And then there’s the name. Lucky Lu. It doesn’t come from the luck he had on the Hong Kong stock market, like all the publicity says. He runs the casinos and mah-jong games throughout Hong Kong and Kowloon …’

The sad smile again.

‘The Chinese are the biggest gamblers in the world,’ she said. ‘Only Lucky Lu is always the winner.’

‘How do you know all this?’ repeated Charlie. Almost enough to return to Johnson, he decided, though he still wanted a link with the 12 per cent premium.

Her head was pressed forward now, so that she didn’t have to look at him, and when she spoke her voice was muffled once more.

‘Before meeting Robert,’ she said, ‘I was with Johnny Lu … the son that controls Lucky’s vice businesses. I was his number one woman …’

‘I’ve seen his pictures,’ said Charlie. ‘He seems to be almost his father’s shadow.’

She hesitated.

‘Johnny told me not to go,’ she remembered distantly. ‘Told me I wouldn’t be accepted. He was right …’

‘Why was the ship fire your fault?’ demanded Charlie.

‘Robert didn’t get the major share of the insurance because he was better than anybody else,’ said Jenny. ‘He got it because Lu planned it that way … planned it so that the man who took his son’s woman and caused the family loss of face would be the greatest sufferer when the ship burned … that’s why the premium was higher.’

At last, thought Charlie. It was all so remarkably simple.

‘Lu did it himself?’

She shook her head at the naivety of the question.

‘Of course,’ she said, ‘if you knew more about the Asian mind you’d know that loss of face is the worst insult a Chinese can suffer. Something that’s got to be avenged …’

‘And having ensured that it wouldn’t cost him a penny, he even managed to stage it so that his famous anti-communist campaign would benefit?’ he said, in growing awareness.

‘Because he is
such
an avowed anti-communist, it made the story even more believable, didn’t it?’ she said.

‘What about the shipyard workers, and the prison cook?’

‘Chosen because they were mainland refugees,’ she said. ‘Frightened people who’d got deeply into debt at Lu’s gambling places and were given the way to settle …’

‘And as a safeguard against the shipyard men recanting on the rehearsed story, which they would almost certainly have done in court, he had them killed?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why didn’t you tell Robert all this?’ asked Charlie suddenly. ‘Why wait so long?’

‘And let him know that the Chinese as well as the European community in Hong Kong were laughing at him for falling in love with a whore? He’s suffering enough as it is.’

‘But it means we can contest the claim. Robert would have realised that.’

‘Oh, you poor man,’ she said. ‘This is street gossip, bar talk. The only proof is the cook, who’s probably in Hunan by now. Or dead, like the other two. This isn’t anything you can fight Lu with … he’s won. Like he always wins.’

She was right, realised Charlie. About the proof anyway. He still had nothing.

‘I’m buggered if he’ll win,’ said Charlie.

‘I told you to show how Robert had been tricked,’ said the girl. ‘To show why he shouldn’t be fired. Not to fight any court hearing.’

‘There’ll be a way,’ promised Charlie.

‘I’d like to believe that. God, how I’d like to believe that.’

Charlie heard the noise first. He spun off the bed, crouched towards the linking door and then remained there, staring up foolishly at the figure of Robert Nelson framed in the doorway.

‘Oh no,’ said the girl quietly. ‘Dear God, no.’

‘If you set out to do this sort of thing, you should ensure your corridor doors are secured,’ said Nelson.

He was striving for enormous dignity, realised Charlie. A nerve twitching high on his left cheek was the only hint of the difficulty he was having in controlling himself.

Charlie motioned towards the now cowering girl. At last she’d tried to protect herself with the bed cover. She was crying again, he saw, softly this time.

‘We didn’t … there was nothing …’ he started, but the broker talked over him.

‘That’s not really important, is it?’

‘Of course it’s important,’ shouted Charlie. ‘She came here because she loves you.’

‘It looks like it.’

‘Don’t be a bloody fool.’

‘Like the Chinese think I am, as well as everybody else?’

‘You heard …’ started Charlie but again Nelson refused him.

‘Enough. And I’m as determined as you are that Lu won’t succeed in his claim.’

He looked to the girl.

‘I don’t want you back at the apartment,’ he said evenly.

‘Please …’

‘Just pack your stuff and get out. Tonight.’

‘For Christ’s sake,’ protested Charlie. ‘This is ridiculous. What’s wrong with you?’

‘Nothing,’ said Nelson. ‘Not any more. And when I establish that Lu’s claim is false, there won’t be any more laughter either.’

So Nelson didn’t understand. Any more than he’d been able to, all those years ago.

The broker turned away from the bedroom, but Charlie called out, halting him.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To find one of the Chinese spreading the story she recounted and get him to swear an affidavit incriminating Lu,’ said Nelson, starting towards the outer door again.

‘Stop him!’ begged Jenny.

‘Robert,’ yelled Charlie, hurrying into the adjoining room. ‘That won’t work. Wait. We’ll go to the police first. They’re the people …’

Nelson slammed the door, without looking round, leaving Charlie standing near the tiny bar.

‘Assholes,’ he said.

She was at the bedroom door when he turned. Because she had only worn the cheongsam it had taken her seconds to dress. She had stopped crying, but her eyes were still swollen.

‘Your handkerchief,’ she said, holding it out.

‘You can keep it if you want.’

She shook her head.

‘Whores don’t cry for long.’

She shrugged, a gesture of defeat.

‘He expected to catch us,’ she announced.

‘What?’

‘Robert. He expected to find us. He never really trusted me … He thought I couldn’t forget the old ways. That’s why he came in without knocking. Always unsure …’

Just as Edith had always been unsure, thought Charlie, never quite able to believe their marriage was for him anything different from everything else he did, another way of proving himself equal.

‘But why me?’

‘You’d have been the obvious choice.’

‘He’ll have recovered in the morning,’ said Charlie hopefully.

Jenny shook her head.

‘No.’

‘Where will you go?’

‘I’m known in all the bars,’ she said bitterly.

‘Wait. Until tomorrow at least.’

‘Maybe.’

‘I’ll contact you tomorrow,’ he said. ‘After I’ve seen the police.’

She gave him a pitying look.

‘You don’t stand a chance,’ she insisted.

‘People have been telling me that for as long as I can remember,’ he said. It was good to feel confident again. It had been a long time. More than two years, in fact. Not since he’d started to run.

Charlie’s second telephone call stopped Willoughby as he was leaving his Knightsbridge flat for the City. The underwriter listened without interruption as Charlie repeated what the girl had told him, without naming her as the immediate source.

‘Dear God,’ said Willoughby softly.

‘There’s still no proof,’ warned Charlie, immediately detecting the feeling in the other man’s voice.

‘It would mean we wouldn’t have to pay a penny …’

‘I said there’s no proof.’

‘But you can get it, surely?’

‘I can get the police to investigate. To be produced in court, it will have to be something official.’

‘Do that then. And, Charlie …’

‘What?’

‘Thank you.’

There was no way to prick the man’s optimism.

‘Something else,’ Charlie said.

‘What?’

‘I want you to write a letter to Nelson, assuring him that his job is safe.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s important.’

The inner council were impressed, realised Chiu Ching-mao, looking around the faces before him.

They had remained unspeaking during the playback of Charlie’s bedroom discussion with Jenny Lin Lee and for those who did not speak sufficient English, Chiu Ching-mao had provided Cantonese transcripts.

‘The encounter was excellently monitored,’ said the chairman, when the tape ended. ‘Congratulate your people upon installing the devices so well.’

‘Thank you,’ said Chiu. ‘I will.’

‘So now the Englishman knows the truth?’

‘Yes.’

‘I wonder what action he’ll persuade the police to take?’

Chiu knew he wasn’t expected to give an opinion and said nothing.

‘Why did the girl try to seduce the Englishman?’ asked the chairman suddenly. ‘Why didn’t she just tell him about the fire?’

‘I assumed what she said on the recording was the truth … that she wanted to compromise him into protecting the employment of the man she’s living with,’ suggested Chiu.

The chairman shook his head.

‘Stupid woman,’ he said. ‘Will Nelson cause any problems?’

‘I’ve tried to use it to our advantage,’ said Chiu.

‘How?’

‘John Lu hasn’t the cunning of his father,’ said Chiu. ‘I’ve calculated upon him panicking.’

‘By doing what?’

‘Letting Lu’s people know what Nelson is trying to do in the waterfront bars.’

‘Yes,’ agreed the chairman. ‘It can’t do any harm.’

11

Charlie was still in his dressing-gown when Superintendent Johnson telephoned.

‘I was about to call you,’ he said, recognising the police chief’s voice.

‘I’d like to see you,’ said Johnson.

‘When?’

‘As soon as possible.’

Charlie hesitated. ‘What for?’

‘It had better wait until you get here.’

‘It sounds formal.’

‘It is.’

‘Thirty minutes,’ promised Charlie.

It took him twenty. The building was still wrapped in its ordered calm as Charlie followed the clerk through the hushed corridor to Johnson’s office. This time the man stood as Charlie entered, his manner different from their previous meetings. Johnson pointed to the same chair and Charlie sat down, curious at the changed attitude.