Here Comes Charlie M

SEVENTEEN

Charlie arrived in Rupert Willoughby’s office an hour after making the telephone call for the confirmation he scarcely needed. The underwriter greeted him with an attitude that swung between nervousness and anger. At last, thought Charlie. He hoped the growing awareness wouldn’t affect the man’s memory of his father.

‘You knew we’d covered the exhibition?’ challenged Willoughby immediately. Anger first, Charlie accepted.

‘It was obvious,’ said Charlie. ‘Once I heard of the robbery. And more particularly, what was stolen and from whom.’

‘What, does it mean?’

‘That the department has known from the very beginning of our meeting. That they know I’ve put money into your firm. That they had you under permanent observation for as long as they’ve been watching me. And that in one operation they intend hitting back at everyone.’

Willoughby nodded, as if agreeing some private thought. His throat was moving, jerkily.

‘No wonder my father was so frightened in the last year,’ he said.

‘I warned you,’ Charlie reminded him.

Willoughby looked at him, but said nothing.

‘Tell me about the cover,’ said Charlie.

Willoughby pulled a file towards him, running his hand through the papers.

‘Completely ordinary,’ he said. ‘For an exhibition of this value, the government always goes on to the London market, through Lloyd’s. For us, it’s usually a copper-bottomed profit. Security is absolute but because of the value and alleged risk, we can impose a high premium.’

‘How much cover did you offer?’

‘Two and a half million,’ said Willoughby.

‘What happens now?’

‘Claim to be filed. And then the squabbling begins, to gain time.’

‘You expect a sell back?’

Willoughby looked surprised.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘That’s what always happens in a case like this.’

‘What percentage?’

‘Varies. Usually ten.’

Charlie laughed, appearing genuinely amused.

‘Two hundred and fifty thousand,’ he said. ‘Exactly what I put in. They don’t mean me to misunderstand for a moment, do they?’

‘Is it significant?’ asked Willoughby.

‘Very,’ said Charlie. To continue would mean admitting he was a thief. The man deserved the honesty, he decided.

‘They want to recover $500,000 from me. Plus interest,’ he said. ‘They got almost half from the Brighton robbery. This would be the remainder.’

Willoughby sat, waiting. It was impossible to judge from the expression on his face whether there was any criticism.

‘You told me once you hadn’t done anything criminal,’ he accused Charlie.

The anger was on the ascendancy, Charlie decided.

‘They set out, quite deliberately, to kill me,’ said Charlie. ‘That was the penalty I imposed upon them for being abandoned … abandoned like your father was. He tried to fight back against them as well, remember. We just chose different ways of doing it. Mine worked better than his. They lost more than money.’

‘What happens next?’ asked the underwriter.

‘I don’t know,’ confessed Charlie. ‘I’d guess they’re getting ready to kill me now.’

‘You’re not worried enough,’ said the younger man in sudden awareness. ‘Boxed in like this, you should be terrified. Like I am.’

‘I’m not,’ confirmed Charlie easily. ‘The Russian robbery was the error … the one I was waiting for them to make …’

Willoughby shook his head.

‘Your father was very good at this sort of thing,’ said Charlie. ‘He’d do it to get someone whom he suspected to disclose themselves completely.’

‘You’re not making yourself clear,’ complained the underwriter.

‘I know the pattern,’ said Charlie. ‘It must be either Wilberforce or Cuthbertson or both. And I learned from your father a bloody sight better than they did.’

Willoughby gazed back, unconvinced. It was the first time the confidence, almost bordering on conceit, had been obvious, he realised. Another thought came, with frightening clarity. He’d been a fool to become involved, no matter what his feelings for the men who had destroyed his father.

‘You’ve got to get out,’ he said.

‘Oh, no,’ answered Charlie. ‘You don’t survive looking constantly over your shoulder. I’ve tried for the past two years and it’s almost driven me mad.’

‘You don’t have an alternative.’

‘I have,’ said Charlie. He considered what he needed to say but still began badly, speaking as the thoughts came to him.

‘I told you at our first meeting there was a risk of your being compromised,’ he said. ‘And you have been …’

‘And I said then that I was prepared to accept that,’ interrupted the underwriter in a vain attempt at bravery.

‘Because you didn’t really know what it was going to be like,’ argued Charlie. ‘Now it’s different. The robbery was directed against you and your firm. And because of it, other underwriters could be out of pocket, coming to a buy-back settlement. From this firm all that is at risk at the moment is the money I’ve deposited. So this time you’ve been let off with a warning …’

‘What do you want?’ Willoughby interrupted.

‘The sort of help which, if it goes wrong, could mean that next time there won’t be any warning,’ said Charlie bluntly.

‘I’ll hear you out,’ said Willoughby guardedly.

Charlie stood and began pacing the office, talking as he moved.

‘The misjudgment they’ve made is one that your father never allowed,’ lectured Charlie. ‘They’ve given me the opportunity to react.’

‘I still don’t think you’ve got any choice,’ said Willoughby.

‘That’s it,’ agreed Charlie. ‘And that is what Wilberforce and whoever else is working with him will be thinking.’

Charlie stopped walking, thoughts moving sideways.

‘Buying back the proceeds of unusual or large robberies isn’t particularly uncommon, is it?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Not really,’ said Willoughby. ‘Although obviously we don’t make a point of announcing it. There’s usually some token police objection, as well. Although for political reasons, I don’t think that will be very strong in this case.’

‘So there are people in this office who wouldn’t regard it as odd if they were asked to behave in a somewhat bizarre way?’ Charlie hurried on. ‘They’d accept it could be part of some such arrangement?’

‘I don’t think we’ve the right to put other people to the sort of danger you seem to think exists.’

‘It’s not dangerous — not this part,’ Charlie assured him. ‘I just want them as decoys.’

‘I have your promise on that?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Charlie.

‘Then yes,’ agreed Willoughby. ‘There are people who wouldn’t think it at all strange. They might even enjoy it.’

‘And what about you?’

‘I’m not enjoying any of it any more,’ admitted Willoughby, with his customary honesty.

‘Well?’ asked Charlie nervously.

The underwriter considered the invitation to withdraw.

‘Are you going to ask me to do anything illegal? Or involve the firm in any illegality?’ he asked, repeating his paramount concern.

‘Definitely not.’

‘I must have your solemn undertaking.’

‘You have it.’

‘Then I’ll help,’ said Willoughby. Quickly, he added: ‘With a great deal of reluctance.’

With the number of friends he had, decided Charlie, he could hold a party in a telephone box. And still have room for the band.

‘Excellent,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Now I think we should celebrate.’

‘Celebrate?’ questioned Willoughby, bewildered.

‘As publicly as possible.’

‘I wish I knew what was going on,’ protested the underwriter.

‘It’s called survival,’ said Charlie, cheerfully.

It was a tense, hostile encounter, different — although for opposing reasons — from what either the Americans or Wilberforce had anticipated when Smith and Ruttgers had stormed from the office less than twenty-four hours before.

‘Well?’ insisted Smith.

‘It isn’t what I expected,’ conceded Wilberforce, reluctantly.

‘Isn’t what you expected!’ echoed Smith, etching the disgust into his voice. ‘At this moment, Charlie Muffin should be trying to disappear into the woodwork!’

He stood up, moving to a sidetable where copies of the photographs had been laid out. He picked them up, one by one, as he spoke.

‘Instead of which,’ he said, displaying them to everyone in the room, ‘he’s practically advertising his presence from the rooftops, drinking champagne at the Savoy until he can hardly stand and then occupying the centre table at the river-view restaurant for a lunch that took almost three hours!’

‘He’s very clever,’ said Cuthbertson, in his wet, sticky voice. ‘We shouldn’t forget he’s very clever.’

‘We shouldn’t forget anything,’ agreed Smith. ‘Any more than we should have forgotten the point of this operation.’

‘It’s not been forgotten,’ said Wilberforce stiffly.

‘Just endangered,’ hit back the American Director. ‘God knows how badly.’

The Russian robbery had been in England, he thought suddenly. At the moment there was nothing to prove any American involvement. That was how it was going to stay.

‘We can’t eliminate him, not now,’ said Cuthbertson. ‘Not until we discover the reason for his extraordinary behaviour.’

‘Of course we can’t kill him,’ accepted Smith, careless of his irritation.

‘What do you think it means?’ demanded Wilberforce, of Braley.

Braley considered the question with his customary discomfort.

‘That there’s something we don’t know about … despite all the checks and investigations, there’s obviously something we overlooked … something that makes Charlie confident enough to act as he’s doing.’

Braley blinked at his superiors, worried at the open criticism.

‘I’ve always warned of that possibility,’ Wilberforce tried to recover. ‘That was the point of the bank entry in the first place, don’t forget.’

Smith looked at the other Director in open contempt.

‘It could just be a bluff,’ said Snare.

‘It could be anything,’ said Smith. ‘That’s the whole damned trouble. We just don’t know.’

‘The Russians are upset,’ said Cuthbertson, mildly. The first time anything had gone wrong and Wilberforce was unsettled, he saw. Practically gouging the pipe in half. He smiled, uncaring that the other man detected the expression. Always had thought he could do the job better than anybody else.

‘What’s happened?’ asked Smith.

Wilberforce looked sourly at his one-time chief before replying.

‘Formal note of protest to our ambassador in Moscow,’ he reported. ‘The Russian ambassador here calling at his own request upon the Foreign Secretary and two questions tabled in the House of Commons by some publicity-conscious M.P.s.’

‘Hardly more than you expected,’ retorted Smith. No one seemed to realise how serious it was, he thought.

‘We decided upon a course of action,’ said Wilberforce, pushing the calmness into his voice. ‘So far every single thing has proceeded exactly as it was planned. Certainly what the man did today was surprising. But that’s all it is, a surprise. We mustn’t risk everything by attempting ill-considered improvisations.’

‘You know, of course,’ said Smith, ‘that after that lunch he booked into the Savoy?’

‘Yes,’ said Wilberforce, the irritation returning.

‘Another assumed name?’ asked Cuthbertson.

Damn the man, thought Wilberforce. The former Director knew the answer as well as any of them.

‘No,’ he admitted. ‘He seemed to take great care to register as Charles Muffin.’