The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin (19 page)

‘On the other side,’ said the inspector, ‘there’s the main junction box for this side of the house. Every alarm system has been circuited in the same way.’

‘An expert?’ said Johnson.

‘Professional,’ agreed the officer.

‘What about the clips?’

‘Haven’t let the forensic people get to them until your arrival,’ said the man. He hesitated.

‘But I think you’ll find they’re of American origin,’ he said, wanting to prove himself.

‘American?’ demanded Johnson sharply.

The inspector partially retreated at his superior’s reaction.

‘That’s my guess,’ he said.

‘What about the house?’

‘It happened in what appears to be the main lounge. I’ve men guarding it. And an ambulance on the way.’

‘Ambulance?’

‘One of them is still alive.’

Johnson waved the inspector towards his car, entering from the other side and telling the driver to go on. Normally, he realised, the grounds would have been floodlit, but the interference with the power supply had created an odd, patchwork effect.

The scientific experts were grouped just inside the main entrance to the house. When they saw Johnson’s car arrive, they straightened expectantly.

‘Give me a moment,’ he said, moving past them.

He stopped just inside the door of the room the inspector indicated, to get an overall impression.

‘Holy Jesus,’ he said softly.

It had been a protracted, desperate fight. A glass-topped table in the middle of the room was splintered and crushed, presumably by the weight of a stumbling body. There were bloodstains, too, which continued to an overturned couch and then led to a wall near the fireplace.

Here all the ornaments and decorations had been swept aside in the struggle and more blood smeared the walls. A delicate Chinese brushworked painting that had concealed the wall safe hung lopsided, the hook almost torn from the wall. The safe gaped open and inside Johnson had the briefest impression of bundles of money banded together in tight blocks.

But he wasn’t interested so much in the safe.

At its foot, his body wedged in a strange awkwardness against the skirting board, lay Harvey Jones. The man’s leg was twisted beneath him: he’d broken it when he fell, thought Johnson, his mind registering the details with a clinical, later-to-be-produced-in-court accuracy.

Near the man’s outstretched left hand was a tall pedestal ornament, its heavy base messily blood-stained. There was a matching ornament on the other side of the fireplace, Johnson saw, cracked where it had fallen to the ground.

He knelt, to get closer to the body. Jones’s eyes were still open, in a shocked expression of death, and the police chief could just see the bullet entries. One, high in the left shoulder, was little more than a flesh wound, but there was another, lower in the chest. And from the amount of blood it was clear there was a third that he couldn’t immediately see.

Johnson had begun to straighten before he noticed the document. He crouched again, trying to read it without displacing it before the photographs were taken. There was a slight splash of blood on one corner. And the man’s arm obscured the beginning. But it was quite easy for Johnson to read at least a third and identify the signature of Geoffrey Hodgson alongside the seal of the British embassy in Peking.

He stood, slowly. So he wouldn’t have to await the arrival of the diplomatic bag.

‘Here,’ called the inspector.

The Chinese millionaire lay so that his crumpled body was almost completely concealed by the desk. From it came the snorted breathing of someone deeply unconscious and by moving around behind him Johnson could see the deep triangular gash at the side of Lu’s head.

The police chief looked across at the ornament by Jones’s outstretched hand. The base could have created just such a wound.

Facts, he recognised contentedly. Presentable, unarguable facts. Soon it would be time to bring the photographers and scientists in, to commence the simple, logical routine.

‘Quite a fight,’ suggested the inspector.

Drawers had been jerked from their runners and in two places Johnson could see where the locks had been forced, crudely jemmied open by some strong leverage. The contents were strewn haphazardly over the desk, as if someone had been looking for something particular and discarded what he didn’t want without caring where it landed.

Again Johnson crouched, grunting with the difficulty of getting his large body beneath the narrow leg-space of the desk. About six inches from Lu’s right hand lay a pistol. Johnson lowered himself to it, sniffing, immediately twitching his nose at the smell of cordite.

‘Czech,’ commented the inspector. ‘M–27.’

‘Rough-looking weapon,’ said Johnson, rising.

‘But could be fitted with a silencer,’ said the inspector, indicating the attachment.

There was movement at the door and Johnson turned.

‘The ambulance is here,’ reported the guarding policeman.

‘Let them come in,’ said Johnson. ‘And forensic and photographic, too.’

The experts entered in a bunch.

‘Photographs first,’ stipulated Johnson, sure of his case and therefore sure of himself.

The white-coated ambulance men entered with their stretcher.

‘The man’s here,’ said Johnson. ‘But before he’s moved I want a paraffin test on his hands, to establish that he’s recently fired a gun.’

Immediately one of the plain-clothes men opened a bag and began walking towards the desk.

‘Superintendent Johnson.’

The police chief turned at the inspector’s summons.

‘This would seem to be the point of entry,’ said the officer.

A neat semi-circle had been cut from the glass near the interior catch of the ceiling-to-floor window.

‘That’s it,’ agreed Johnson.

‘Not difficult to see what happened.’

‘Quite obvious,’ agreed Johnson. ‘Intruder surprised by the householder in the middle of a robbery, is shot but manages to bludgeon the man to the ground, then dies of his injuries as he tries to retrieve from the safe what he’s looking for.’

‘Looking for?’

‘Something I thought was going to create the most difficult case I’d ever been called upon to handle,’ admitted the police chief. ‘But now it looks like one of the easiest.’

The inspector pointed towards the dead man at the far side of the room.

‘Quite an expert, wasn’t he?’

‘Oh, he was an expert right enough,’ said Johnson.

The inspector turned at the confidence in his superior’s voice.

‘Did you know him?’

Johnson smiled.

‘He worked for the American government,’ he disclosed. ‘The Central Intelligence Agency.’

‘Oh,’ said the inspector doubtfully. ‘That could cause some problems, couldn’t it?’

‘I don’t see why,’ said Johnson.

The facts were there after all. No one could argue with them. Plain as the fingers on his hand.

Charlie Muffin was finally sick. He stood sweating over the lavatory bowl, agonised by the head pain that came with each stomach-stretching retch. When he could finally leave the bathroom it was difficult to see and for a moment he thought he was suffering from the double vision with which he’d awakened in hospital.

He sat quietly on the edge of the bed, blinking the wetness from his eyes. He was limp with perspiration. And smelt. Like the confused old man in the Peking interview room.

Charlie reached out for the pills the doctor had given him, concerned at how few remained in the bottle. It would be sensible to go back to hospital. Sensible. But impossible.

He undressed carelessly, leaving his clothes puddled on the floor. He didn’t bother to get beneath the bed covering, because he knew he wouldn’t sleep.

It was going to be a long time until the morning, he thought.

20

Johnson took the document from Charlie, nodding with satisfaction at another established fact.

‘No doubt at all?’

‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘That’s definitely the statement I took from the cook in Peking.’

‘And the one that was stolen from you at the border?’

‘Yes.’

‘And this is the photograph, identifying John Lu?’

‘Yes.’

The police chief sat back expansively. ‘That’s it then. Everything explained.’

‘It would seem so,’ agreed Charlie. There was no pain now, but if he moved his head quickly he still felt a slight dizziness. It had all been brilliantly conceived, he thought. Which meant he was still in great danger.

‘
You’ll always have to run, Charlie, always …
’

‘Be a defence to the killing, of course,’ said Johnson. ‘Reduced to manslaughter or even, with a good counsel, justifiable homicide in the protection of his property.’

‘Yes.’

‘In fact Jones’s killing is unimportant compared to the door it opened.’

The fitting epitaph, thought Charlie sadly. ‘Here lies Harvey Jones, whose death served a purpose.’

‘It would seem I owe you an apology,’ conceded Johnson unexpectedly. ‘You were right.’

‘It would have been difficult to prove,’ he admitted, indicating the statement. ‘Even with that.’

‘But not now,’ said the police chief.

‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘Not now. What about John Lu?’

‘The widest open door of them all.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He was among those detained at the house last night. So he couldn’t run. And so he panicked. Started making admissions before we even asked the questions.’

‘You were lucky.’

‘Luckier than we thought. His lawyers are trying to do a deal now, to salvage something from the mess into which he talked himself.’

‘What sort of deal?’

‘His evidence against his father, together with all the details of the crime empire, in exchange for a guarantee against prosecution.’

‘Not very Chinese, son turning against father, is it?’

Johnson laughed. The policeman was very happy with himself, thought Charlie.

‘I told you not to take any notice of that folklore rubbish,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Charlie. ‘You told me. Will you accept his offer?’

‘Make an unbreakable case.’

The policeman sat forward as the thought came to him:

‘And it would be the end of any claim against you, if he’d agree to be a witness.’

‘Yes,’ said Charlie. ‘It would.’

‘He hated his father apparently,’ said Johnson.

‘Hated him?’

‘Always. Have you told your people in London?’

Charlie nodded.

‘I telephoned before coming here,’ he said. Willoughby had almost sobbed with relief.

‘It’ll be a hell of a case when it finally comes to court.’

‘Yes,’ said Charlie. Johnson saw a lot of personal credit coming from it.

‘And not just because of Lu and who he is,’ continued Johnson. ‘You didn’t have any idea that Jones was an American Intelligence agent, did you?’

‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘No idea at all.’

‘He was,’ confided Johnson. ‘There’s an enormous diplomatic flap.’

‘I suppose there would be,’ said Charlie. He looked at his watch.

‘Coming to the remand hearing?’ Johnson invited him.

‘Yes,’ said Charlie, rising.

It was difficult to keep in step with the large man and Charlie’s head began to hurt again.

‘I wondered if you would do me a favour,’ he said.

Johnson slowed, looking sideways. ‘Of course.’

Now the man was almost over-compensating in his friendliness, thought Charlie.

‘I want to find the woman,’ said Charlie.

‘Woman?’

‘Jenny Lin Lee, the woman who was with Nelson.’

Johnson stopped completely, turning across the corridor towards Charlie.

‘She’s not at Nelson’s flat any longer,’ explained Charlie.

‘You think she’s gone back whoring?’

Charlie knew he would never be able to think of that word as anything but offensive and ugly.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Shouldn’t be too difficult,’ promised Johnson, setting off towards the court again. ‘Call me tomorrow.’

‘I will,’ said Charlie. ‘Early.’

He’d already booked his return flight to London. He was taking a risk even now. But there were other things to do.

It was the same court as that in which the two Chinese shipyard workers had appeared and again there was a crush for admission. Because he was with Johnson, Charlie entered ahead of everyone else, with a choice of seats.

‘I gather Lu is flying lawyers in from London when the case opens,’ said Johnson.

‘When will that be?’

‘I shall apply for remands until we reach a decision with the son. But it shouldn’t take too long. I’ve got an unarguable case.’

Just as he’d had with the fire and the poor sods who’d got killed, thought Charlie. How was it that people like Johnson got into positions of power? There was a great similarity between the police chief and the people who’d taken over the department after Sir Archibald’s death.

‘Unarguable,’ agreed Charlie.

Johnson identified the sarcasm.

‘Surely you don’t think this is wrong?’ he demanded.

Charlie hesitated, avoiding an immediate reply.

‘You’ve got a good case,’ he said finally.

The ushers began to admit the public and Charlie moved away, towards the seat he had occupied when he and Nelson had been in court.

He turned as Lu was brought in. The millionaire’s head was turbaned with bandages and a medical attendant was in the back of the dock, as well as the warders. Lu stared defiantly towards the magistrates’ bench, hands gripping the top of the dock.

The court rose for the magistrates’ entry and immediately the clerk read out the charge of murder against Lu.

Johnson rose as the man finished.

‘I would make a formal application for a week’s remand,’ he said officiously. ‘At which time I anticipate the police being in a position to indicate when they could proceed.’

The local solicitor representing Lu until the arrival of the London counsel hurried to his feet. He was wearing an Eton tie, Charlie saw.

‘I would like it entered into the court records at this first hearing that my client utterly denies the preposterous charge against him,’ said the man. ‘Were it based on fact, there would be a producible defence against it. But it is not. I would therefore make application for bail, asking the court to consider my client’s position in this community. He would, of course, be prepared to surrender his passport.’