The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin Read Free Page B

looking at her.
    ‘Why tell me that?’ he asked.
    ‘Because I wanted you to know.’
    The noise of the explosion woke Nelson and the girl four nights later, as it woke nearly everyone on the island and the Kowloon waterfront. By the time Nelson got to the balcony, the flames were already spurting from the stem and as he watched there was a noise like a belch and the blaze gushed through the main funnels of the Pride of America.
    A gradual glow in the stern was the first indication that there was fire there too, then one of the plates split and huge orange gouts burst out, like a giant exhaust.
    ‘Oh my God,’ said Nelson softly. He was very sober.
    Beside him, the girl remained silent.
    Because it was dark, neither could see that the water with which the fire boats were already attacking the blaze was still stained with the welcoming dye. It looked like blood.

3
    Lu had wanted to hold his press conference on the Pride of America. But the engine-room explosions had blown away plates below the waterline, settling the liner to top-deck level in the water, and the harbour surveyors forbade the meeting as too dangerous. Instead the ship-owner led a small flotilla of boats out to the still smoking, blackened hull, wheeling around and around in constant focus for the cameras, the customary silk suit concealed beneath protective oilskins and the hard-hat defiantly inscribed ‘The University of Freedom’. John Lu was by his side.
    The millionaire waited four days after the fire for the maximum number of journalists to gather and then took over the main conference room in the Mandarin Hotel to accommodate them. He entered still carrying the hat and put it down on the table so that the title would show in any photographs.
    He was more impatient than at previous conferences, striding up and down the specially installed platform, calling almost angrily into the microphone for the room to settle.
    Finally, disregarding the noise, he began to talk.
    ‘Not a fortnight ago,’ he said, ‘I welcomed many of you aboard that destroyed liner out there …’
    He swept his hand towards the windows, through which the outline of the ship was visible.
    ‘And I announced the purpose to which I was going to put it.’
    The room was quiet now, the only movement from radio reporters adjusting their sound levels properly to record what Lu was saying.
    ‘This morning,’ he started again, ‘you have accompanied me into the harbour to see what remains of a once beautiful and proud liner …’
    He turned to the table, taking a sheet of paper from a waiting aide.
    ‘This,’ he declared, ‘is the surveyor’s preliminary report. Copies will be made available to you individually as you leave this room. But I can sum it up for you in just two words – “totally destroyed”.’
    He turned again, throwing the paper on to the table and taking another held out in readiness for him, this time by John Lu.
    ‘This is another report, that of investigators who have for the past four days examined the ship to discover the cause of the fire,’ continued Lu. ‘This will also be made available. But again I will summarise it …’
    He indicated behind him, to where two men in uniform sat, files on their knees.
    ‘And I have asked the men who prepared the report to attend with me today, should there later at this conference be any questions you might like to put to them. Their findings are quite simple. The Pride of America has been totally destroyed as the result of carefully planned, carefully instigated acts of arson.’
    He raised his hand, ahead of the reaction to the announcement.
    ‘Arson,’ he went on, ‘devised so that it guaranteed the Pride of America would never be put to the use which I intended.’
    He referred to the report in his hand.
    ‘“… Large quantity of inflammable material spread throughout cabins in the forward section,”’ he quoted, ‘“… sprinkler system disconnected and inoperative and fire doors jammed to