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.’