The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin

17

The wind was stronger than the previous day, so the dust from the Gobi drifted in pockets through the capital, gritting the buildings and plants with a light, greyish-yellow dust. Charlie saw that a few people wore face masks or pulled scarves up around their mouths. He sat in the Hsin Chiao foyer, his briefcase and shoulder grip already packed beside him, knowing he was early but impatient for Chiu’s arrival. Because the hotel was organised on the Russian style, with each floor having its own reception staff, the main foyer was remarkably empty. The furniture was frayed and shabby and the walls were patched with quick repair work; it reminded Charlie of a retirement hotel way back from the sea front at Eastbourne.

The Chinese official stopped just inside the entrance when he saw Charlie already waiting.

‘I am not late,’ stated Chiu.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ said Charlie truthfully. ‘So I got up early.’

‘The car is waiting.’

As the vehicle nudged out into the shoals of bicycles, Chiu said, Tan Yung-ching is still available.’

‘I have what I came for,’ said Charlie. ‘It will be sufficient, believe me.’

‘It would be difficult to arrange another meeting, if anything had been overlooked,’ warned Chiu.

What were they going to do with the poor old bugger? wondered Charlie.

The car moved out of the Legation district, with its pink-bricked buildings and into the huge T’ien An Men Square.

‘There is much to see in Peking,’ offered Chiu, gesturing towards the red-walled Forbidden City.

‘I don’t think I’ve time,’ said Charlie.

‘There is the monument to the Heroes of the Revolution,’ said Chiu, pointing through the car window. ‘The cornerstone was laid by our beloved leader, Mao Tsetung.’

Charlie nodded politely. It reminded him of the Russian statue to their war dead in East Berlin. The department’s attempt to kill him, remembered Charlie. He’d actually stood by the Russian monument and watched the innocent East German he’d cultivated for just such a purpose drive the marked Volkswagen towards the checkpoint. Poor sod had believed he was driving towards an escape to the West.

‘ How can a man as sensitive as you sometimes be so cruel? ’

Several times Edith had asked him that, unable to understand his peculiar morality of survival. As Sir Archibald’s secretary in the early days, before their marriage, she’d heard it talked about in the department. Admired even, as essential for the job. But she hadn’t admired it. She’d been frightened of it. He didn’t think she had ever been completely sure that it hadn’t affected their marriage, suspecting Charlie of a calculated willingness to use her as he seemed willing to use everyone else.

Not even at the very end had she truly believed that it was inherent in him, something of which he was more ashamed than proud.

‘You would not care to stop to see the monument?’ said Chiu. ‘Or perhaps the Museum of the Revolution?’

‘No, thank you,’ said Charlie. ‘I’d rather get straight to the airport.’

Again the formalities were waived and they were the first on the Canton-bound aircraft. Neither spoke while the other passengers boarded, but as they trundled towards take-off, Chiu said, ‘You had a good meeting with your embassy?’

Charlie looked at the man beside him. That was the problem, he accepted. He’d never know. Not until it was perhaps too late.

‘Very,’ he said. ‘The ambassador is making a report to London about your helpfulness.’

‘It will probably mean a fresh application for the man to be returned to Hong Kong.’

‘Probably,’ agreed Charlie.

He closed his eyes, hoping the other man would stop forcing the conversation. He was very tired, realised Charlie. But not from the restless, almost unsleeping night. It was an aching mental and physical fatigue, his mind and body stretched against relaxation not just by the need to anticipate the obvious dangers, but to interpret the nuances and half-suspicions. He’d swung the pendulum too far, he thought. The rotting inactivity about which he had whined to Willoughby seemed so very attractive now. But wouldn’t, he supposed, if he were pushed back into it. Which didn’t, at the moment, seem very likely.

He managed to feign sleep until the arrival of the meal.

‘We will be in Canton soon,’ promised Chiu.

And after that, Hong Kong. To what? wondered Charlie.

‘I can’t thank you enough for the help you’ve given me,’ he said sincerely.

‘Let us hope it has not been wasted,’ said Chiu, the criticism obvious.

‘Yes,’ agreed Charlie, unannoyed. ‘Let’s hope.’

Because there was special clearance in Canton, they were aboard the express within an hour of touchdown. The same peasants seemed bent beneath the same hats in the same fields, thought Charlie.

‘I will keep Mr Kuo and your Hong Kong legation informed of what happens,’ promised Charlie.

‘What do you intend doing?’

‘I’ll lay the information before the Hong Kong police, obviously,’ said Charlie. ‘It will be more than sufficient for them to begin enquiries. Then tell our lawyers in London that we have proof upon which they can immediately enter a defence to Lu’s claim.’

And then flee, he thought.

Chiu nodded. ‘With no guarantee that there will be either a criminal or a civil hearing at which Lu can be denounced.’

‘It’s almost a certainty, in one court or another,’ said Charlie carelessly.

‘ Almost a certainty,’ echoed Chiu, throwing the qualification back.

At the border, Chiu escorted him to the bridge.

‘Again, my thanks,’ said Charlie, facing the man near the jostling booth. There seemed to be more people than when he had entered China.

‘It was in both our interests,’ said Chiu.

Charlie turned, offering his passport, but was again waved through without inspection. He walked across the bridge, glad of the distant sight of a train already in Sheung Shui station. He felt a flush of relief. Then, immediately, annoyance because of it. He had become so nervous that he saw omens of good fortune in something as ridiculous as a waiting train, like a housewife planning her day around a newspaper horoscope. He hadn’t realised the strain had become that bad.

He was about a hundred yards into the New Territories when instinct made him react, seconds before the attack became obvious. He swivelled, automatically pulling the overnight bag and briefcase in front of his body as some sort of protection. There were three of them, he saw, marked out against the rest of the Chinese by their Westernised silk suits. The sort that Lucky Lu favoured, thought Charlie fleetingly.

They were spaced expertly, so that it would be impossible to confront one without exposing himself to the other two. And approaching unhurriedly, very sure of themselves. The man to the right was even smirking.

Charlie turned to run, but collided at once with an apparently surprised man carrying a jumble of possessions in a knotted rug. It burst open as it hit the ground, cascading pots and pans and clothing and the man started screeching in bewildered outrage. Charlie tried to dodge around him, brushing off the man’s grasping protests, but hit another group who drew together, blocking his escape and gesturing towards the shouting peasant.

He’d never get through, he realised, turning back. The three were still walking calmly and unhurriedly towards him, blocking any dash back to the border. The smiling man had pulled a knife. Narrow-bladed, so there would hardly be any puncture wound. Little risk of identifying blood splashes, after the attack. Very professional, judged Charlie.

The peasant was babbling to his left and Charlie swept out, thrusting him aside. The advancing men stopped, warily.

They believed he was seeking space in which to fight, Charlie knew. It wouldn’t be a mistake they’d make for longer than a few seconds.

All his life Charlie had existed in an ambience of violence. But always avoided actual involvement, relying upon mental agility rather than physical ability. A survivor unable to fight his own battles. It was not cowardice, although he was as apprehensive as anyone of physical pain. It was an acceptance of reality. He just wasn’t any good at it. Not close up, hand-to-hand brutality. Never had been. No matter how persuasive the lecture or good the instruction, he had never been able to bring himself to complete the motion in training that would, in a proper fight, have maimed or killed. The practice, grown men grunting around a padded floor in canvas suits, had even seemed silly. He’d actually annoyed the instructors by giggling openly.

‘One day,’ Sir Archibald had warned in rare criticism, ‘there might be the need.’

But he’d still been careless, because the department had had a special section for such activity, men who regarded death or the infliction of pain as a soldier does, uninvolved and detached, a function of their job. He’d only achieved the attitude rarely. To survive, in East Berlin. And to avenge Edith’s murder. And even then it had been remote. He had wanted Edith’s killer to die. But not to see the fear of realisation upon his face… the sort of fear that the three men could see in him now.

Now there was the need.

They’d started forward again. More confidently. The one with the knife said something and the other two began to grin as well.

They definitely knew, realised Charlie.

‘Help!’

He screamed the plea, desperately, instantly aware that other people around had joined in the shouts of the man with whom he had collided, smothering the sound of his voice.

‘Help! For God’s sake, help!’

The crowd pulled away from him and for the briefest moment Charlie thought it was because of his yell. Then he saw it was an almost rehearsed enclave, with the three men facing him just six feet away. And that there were more assailants than he had at first identified.

The handle of his overnight bag was looped with a strap, so that it could be supported on his shoulders. He gripped the top of the strap, whirling the bag around his head in clumsy arcs, forcing people away from him.

They drew back, easily, isolating him in a circle. Twenty at least, decided Charlie. Probably more. No way of knowing.

‘The briefcase,’ demanded the Chinese with the knife. He reached out, beckoning.

Charlie stared back, panting. His eyes locked on the knife in the man’s hand. He thought of the pain it would cause, thrusting into his body, and his stomach loosened.

‘Give me the briefcase,’ insisted the man. Again he motioned impatiently.

The other two had spaced further out, so that he was faced with a wider attack.

The knife-man moved to come forward and again Charlie swept the bag around in a wild, warding-off sweep. Aware that the artificial protests from the peasants had stopped, he screamed again, ‘Help. Please help me!’

He could even see the border, in the direction in which he was facing. Less than a hundred yards. The police and officials appeared unaware of what was happening.

It was a cry of shock, not pain, and as he fell Charlie saw that it was one of the long poles from which he’d seen many of the peasants supporting belongings and goods that had been swept across the back of his knees, crumpling his legs beneath him.

The overnight bag hampered him now, the strap becoming entangled with his wrist, and before he could free himself one of the three men he had first seen had got to him, clamping his arm to his side.

Charlie butted him in the face with his forehead, hearing the grunt of pain. He’d hurt himself, too, he realised, blinking. He tried to scramble up, but felt himself being grabbed behind by unseen hands. Because his eyes were watering, he could only half-focus on the man with the knife. Bending over him. Only feet away.

‘I said I wanted the briefcase.’

It was a scream of fear this time, with no articulate words.

Charlie thrust back into the people holding him from behind, trying to escape the knife, stomach knotted for the moment of pain. He kicked out, but half bent as he was he missed the man’s groin, hitting him harmlessly on the thigh. And then the attacker he’d butted grabbed his leg, twisting him completely over.

Charlie lay face down, sobbing his helplessness. He was almost unaware of the briefcase being snatched from him because of the pain that exploded in his head as something began smashing into his skull, urgent, hammering blows.

But not the pain that he had imagined from the knife, he thought, as he drifted into unconsciousness. Hardly any hurt at all, now that they’d stopped hitting his head.

So death wasn’t as painful as he’d always thought it would be.

‘Got it!’

Hodgson, who had brought their copy of the Chinese statement into the ambassador’s study so that the man could refer to it when preparing his report to London, stared down at Collins.

‘I’m sorry, sir?’

‘That man. I knew I’d met him before.’

‘Oh.’

‘Prague,’ declared the ambassador. ‘Four years ago in Prague.’

Hodgson waited, not knowing what was expected of him.

Collins had his eyes closed with the effort of recollection.

‘Attached to our Intelligence service,’ he added. ‘Actually had some sort of altercation with him.’

The ambassador opened his eyes, frowning at the memory.

‘What’s he doing as a director of a Lloyd’s underwriting firm?’ he demanded, as if the young lawyer would have the answer instantly available.

‘I don’t know,’ said Hodgson. He hesitated, then risked the impertinence.

‘Surely it can’t be the same man?’ he said.

Collins maintained his distant look.

‘Certainly looked like him,’ he said, his conviction wavering.

‘It would take years to attain the seniority that he appeared to have,’ pointed out Hodgson.

‘Quite,’ conceded Collins, turning back to his desk. ‘Quite.’