‘What?’ demanded Johnson, resenting the argument.
‘In a fanfare of publicity,’ said Charlie, ‘one of the world’s most famous passenger liners is brought here and a man renowned for years of anti-communist preaching announces that it’s to become a prestige university at which he’s going permanently to lecture against the Peking regime…’
‘I’m aware of the facts,’ interrupted Johnson.
‘Then don’t you think it’s odd,’ broke in Charlie, ‘that a country which decides to stifle that criticism – a country which according to you can without the risk of interception move ten thousand people into this colony and therefore, presumably, include in that figure the most expert sabotage agents in any of its armed forces – should select for the task three near-illiterate, drug-taking Chinese whose capture or discovery was practically a foregone conclusion? And by so doing guarantee worse publicity than if they’d let the damned ship remain?’
Johnson laughed, a dismissive sound.
‘A logical argument… ‘he began.
‘Routine logic,’ interposed Charlie.
‘Which regrettably doesn’t fit the facts,’ concluded Johnson. ‘You must defer to my having a great deal more knowledge of these matters than you.’
‘But they just wouldn’t do it, would they?’ insisted Charlie, cautious of any mention of his earlier life.
‘Give me an alternative suggestion,’ said Johnson.
‘At the moment I don’t have one,’ said Charlie. ‘But I’m going to keep my mind a great deal more open than yours until I’ve better proof.’
‘And you think you’re going to get that in Hong Kong?’ sneered Johnson, carelessly patronising.
‘I’m going to try.’
The large man rose from his desk, staring towards the window.
‘You’re a Westerner,’ he said, turning back into the room after a few moments. ‘A round-eye… even if there were anything more to discover, which I don’t believe there is, you wouldn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance of penetrating this society.’
The second time he’d had that warning in forty-eight hours, thought Charlie. It was becoming boring.
‘And if I can?’
Johnson shook his head at the strange conceit in the unkempt man sitting before him.
‘Come back to me with just one piece of producible evidence that would give me legal cause to reopen the case and I’ll do it,’ he promised. ‘Just one piece.’
He hesitated.
‘But I tell you again,’ he added, ‘you’re wasting your time.’
The 12 per cent premium on its own wasn’t evidence. Not without the reason to support it. It could wait until another meeting. And Charlie was sure that there would be one.
‘Have you asked the Chinese authorities for any assistance in locating the cook?’ asked Charlie.
‘There’s been a formal application,’ said Johnson. ‘But we don’t expect any assistance. There never is.’
‘So what will happen?’
‘We’ll issue an arrest warrant. And perhaps a statement.’
‘And there the matter will lie… still a communist-inspired fire?’
Johnson smiled, condescending again.
‘Until we receive your surprise revelation, there the matter will lie,’ he agreed. ‘Irrefutably supported by the facts. There’s no way you can avoid a settlement with Mr Lu.’
On the evidence available, decided Charlie, the policeman was right. Poor Willoughby.
He saw Johnson look again at his watch and anticipated the dismissal, rising from his chair.
‘Thank you again,’ he said.
‘Any further help,’ said Johnson, over-generous in his confidence. ‘Don’t hesitate to call.’
‘I won’t,’ promised Charlie.
Superintendent Johnson’s next appointment was approaching along the corridor as Charlie left. Politely, Charlie nodded.
Harvey Jones returned the greeting.
Neither man spoke.
The telex message awaiting Charlie at the hotel said contact was urgent, so although he knew it would be five o’clock in the morning he booked the telephone call to Rupert Willoughby’s home. The underwriter answered immediately, with no sleep in his voice.
‘Well?’ he said. The anxiety was very obvious.
‘It doesn’t feel right,’ said Charlie.
‘So we can fight?’
The hope flared in the man’s voice.
‘Impressions,’ qualified Charlie. ‘Not facts.’
‘I can’t contest a court hearing on impressions,’ said Willoughby, immediately deflated. ‘And according to our lawyers that’s what we could be facing if we prolong settlement.’
‘I know that,’ said Charlie. ‘There is one thing.’
‘What?’
‘Lu agreed to pay you a 12 per cent premium…’
‘I told you that.’
‘I know. What’s your feeling at learning everyone else only got 10 per cent?’
There was no immediate response from the underwriter.
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ he said at last. ‘We were the biggest insurers, after all.’
‘Exactly.’
‘So there is something more than impressions?’ said Willoughby eagerly. Again the hope was evident.
‘It’s not grounds for refusing to pay,’ insisted Charlie.
‘But what about the court deaths?’
‘The police chief is convinced he’s solved that… and that it doesn’t alter anything.’
‘What about the 12 per cent, linked with the deaths?’
‘I didn’t tell him about the premiums,’ admitted Charlie.
‘Why the hell not?’
‘Because there is no link. So I want to understand it, first.’
‘We haven’t the time,’ protested Willoughby.
‘How long?’
‘A week at the very outside,’ said the underwriter.
‘That’s not enough.’
‘It’ll have to be.’
‘Yes,’ accepted Charlie. ‘It’ll have to be.’
‘Have you seen Lu?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Surely he’s the one to challenge about the 12 per cent?’
‘Of course he is.’
‘Well?’
‘By itself, it’s not enough,’ Charlie insisted.
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Charlie.
‘That’s not very reassuring.’
‘I’m not trying to be reassuring. I’m being honest.’
‘I’d appreciate forty-eight-hour contact,’ said Willoughby.
And spend the intervening time working out figures on the backs of envelopes and praying, guessed Charlie.
‘I’ll keep in touch,’ he promised.
‘I’m relying on you,’ said Willoughby.
Charlie replaced the receiver, turning back upon it almost immediately.
‘Damn,’ he said. He’d forgotten to ask Willoughby to send a letter to Robert Nelson, assuring him of his job. Not that the promise would matter if he didn’t make better progress than he had so far. He’d still do it, though. The next call would be soon enough.
He was at the mobile bar, using it for the first time, when the bell sounded. Carrying his drink, he went to the door, concealing his reaction when he opened it.
‘I thought you’d be surprised,’ said Jenny Lin Lee, pouting feigned disappointment. Then she smiled, openly provocative, the hair which the previous night she had worn so discreetly at the nape of her neck loose now. She shook her head, a practised movement, so that it swirled about her like a curtain.
‘I am,’ said Charlie.
‘Then you’re good at hiding things,’ she said, moving past him into the suite without invitation.
‘Perhaps we both are,’ said Charlie.
Clarissa stood looking down at her husband expectantly when Willoughby put the phone down.
‘Nothing,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Some inconsistencies, but nothing that positively helps.’
‘But the court murders?’
‘It doesn’t change anything, apparently.’
‘How good is this man you’ve got there, for Christ’s sake?’
The underwriter paused at the question. He knew little more than what he had heard from his father, he realised. Certainly the escape in which Charlie had involved him had been brilliantly organised. But then Charlie had been fighting for his own existence, not somebody else’s.
‘Very good, I understand,’ he said.