Here Comes Charlie M

term advantages as he had.

‘Initially,’ he said, ‘the problem is risking an assassination in a country other than our own, where we could not ensure complete co-operation of the civil authorities.’

‘We’ve done it dozens of times before,’ disputed Ruttgers.

‘Maybe so,’ agreed Wilberforce. ‘But not so soon after your President and my Prime Minister have pledged, publicly, that theirs are going to be open governments, free from unnecessary criticism.’

He paused. They still weren’t accepting the reasoning, he knew.

‘But more importantly,’ he started again, ‘we can’t kill Charlie Muffin without knowing whether he has established any automatic release of information from, say, a bank vault that would compound the difficulties he has already caused. Don’t forget how devious the damned man is.’

‘There’s no way we could do that, for Christ’s sake,’ objected Ruttgers.

‘Oh, yes there is,’ said Wilberforce, smiling. ‘And it’s the way to ensure that Charlie Muffin comes back to England like an obedient dog answering a whistle.’

He was going to enjoy himself, decided Wilberforce. Enjoy himself very much indeed.

Johnny Packer, who was never to learn the real reason for his good fortune or how closely his life was so very briefly to become linked with a man called Charlie Muffin, decided that the party to celebrate his release from Parkhurst was exactly right. Far better than he could have expected, in fact. He’d ruled there wouldn’t be any rubbish, no amateur tearaways in their flash suits and cannonballs of money where the other sort should have been, to impress whatever slag they were trying to pull that night. But he hadn’t been able to guarantee who would come. And that was the value of the party, showing how well he was regarded. Everyone was there, he saw. Everyone who mattered, anyway. Harry Rich, the soft-voiced Irishman, who’d personally put two people into the supports of the M-4 flyover while the concrete was still wet and was now the undisputed controller of the East End as far west as Farringdon Street; Herbie Pie, who had wept – though from pleasure, not remorse – carving the faces and the Achilles tendons during the last confrontation in Soho and now giggled at the rehearsed joke and said he had the whole place stitched up; even Andie Smythe, who rarely came this far east, silk-suited, smooth-haired and shiny-faced, looking always as if he’d been polished all over with a soft cloth before setting out for the nightly tours of the Mayfair casinos to receive what was rightfully his for ensuring that the unloading of the innocent was never violently interrupted.

Like an actor in a long-running play aware of his spot on stage at any one moment, Johnny stood stiffly in his two-day-old suit, away from the bar that had been erected in the upstairs room of The Thistle, nodding and smiling to everyone but getting involved in no prolonged conversation.

The positioning was decreed by the rules of such gatherings, as formalised as the steps of a medieval dance or the mating rituals of some species of African birds.

It was Herbie who broke away from the group, the appointed spokesman.

‘Good to see you out, Johnny.’

‘Thank you, Mr. Pie. Nice of everyone to come.’

‘Always happy to come to such functions. Specially when it’s kept to the right people.’

Johnny sighed at the reminder of why he had served five years in Parkhurst.

‘No more amateurs who can’t stop boasting about what they’ve done,’ he promised.

‘Hope not, Johnny,’ said Pie. ‘Craftsmen like you shouldn’t take risks.’

And he wouldn’t, any more, thought Johnny. If he were caught again through not taking sufficient care about the people he was working with, he’d go down for ten. Maybe longer.

‘Any plans, Johnny?’ enquired the other man.

‘I’m in no hurry, Mr Pie. Got to get myself together first.’

The man nodded.

‘Still got the little house in Wimbledon?’

‘Yes,’ said Johnny. ‘Neighbours think I’ve been working on a five-year contract in Saudi Arabia.’

Pie nodded again, the encounter concluded. Everything was to a formula, even the apparent small talk.

‘So should anyone want you, they could contact you there?’

‘Any time,’ Johnny assured him, keeping the hope from his voice. ‘Any time.’

‘And no amateurs this time?’

‘No amateurs,’ promised Johnny.

A clear enough warning, Johnny decided. The repeated criticism meant they still doubted him. So no one would be visiting Wimbledon until he’d proved himself again, no matter if he were one of the three top safecrackers in London. He’d have to do something pretty remarkable to recover, he decided.

‘I think you’ll like it,’ said Onslow Smith.

Wilberforce sipped the wine, nodding appreciatively. The other man was unquestionably accepting his leadership, he decided, gratified.

‘Not French,’ he judged.

‘Californian,’ agreed the American Director.

‘Excellent,’ said Wilberforce. Surrounding himself with sports mementoes was all part of a carefully maintained affectation on Smith’s part, decided the other Director generously, an invitation for people to imagine his thinking and intelligence as muscled as his body. Which would have been a mistake. Smith’s decision to involve Ruttgers in the meeting that morning, just as he had included Cuthbertson, showed they were both aware of the dangers of the operation upon which they were embarking. And were taking out insurance. Both he and Smith could afford to be magnanimous in the vengeance hunt; if it were successful, then both would gain sufficient credit because of their association, while the two men worst affected would salvage something of their reputations. But if anything went wrong, then the fault could be hopefully offloaded on to those already disgraced. Perhaps that was why Smith was letting him take the lead, he thought fleetingly.

‘It is a bank, isn’t it?’ guessed the American, suddenly.

Wilberforce smiled. Definitely very intelligent.

‘What made you realise that?’

‘When Charlie Muffin walked out of the house in Vienna, leaving Ruttgers and Cuthbertson to be grabbed, he took with him $500,000 we’d provided in the belief it was what Kalenin wanted to cross over. But you didn’t mention the money this morning. So you must know where he’s hiding it … along with anything else that might embarrass us.’

‘Yes,’ admitted Wilberforce. ‘It’s a bank. And I know which one.’

‘How?’

‘We picked him up in a cemetery. Eventually he went to a house in Brighton, where he collected a woman we’ve since identified as his wife. It was obviously a house they’d had for some time. From the voters’ register we got the name they had assumed. From then on, it was merely a routine job of having a team of men posing as credit inspectors calling up all the banks in the area until we found an account. We didn’t expect a safe deposit, though … that’s what has made me worry he might have tried to protect himself with some documents.’

Wilberforce paused. Just like the drunken sot of a previous Director, Sir Archibald Willoughby, had tried to do. He hadn’t succeeded, though: they’d sealed up that difficulty just as they’d erase this if it existed.

The American added more wine to both their glasses.

‘You know something that surprises me?’

‘What?’ asked Wilberforce.

‘That Charlie Muffin didn’t go to Russia. He’d have been welcome enough there, for God’s sake.’

Wilberforce sighed. It was increasingly obvious, he thought, why it would have to be he who initiated everything in this operation.

‘But Russia is the last place he would have gone,’ he tried to explain. ‘Charlie Muffin wouldn’t have regarded what he did as helping Russia. Any more than he would think of it, initially anyway, of being traitorous to Britain or America.’

Onslow Smith frowned curiously at the other man.

‘What the hell was it then?’

‘Charlie Muffin fighting back,’ said Wilberforce. ‘When he realised we were prepared to let him die.’

‘This isn’t going to be easy, is it?’ said Smith thoughtfully.

‘No,’ said Wilberforce. ‘But it’s the only way we can guarantee there won’t be problems.’