The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin Read Online Free PDF

she said.
    Charlie lowered his foot but remained leaning on her desk.
    ‘Never make a Girl Guide,’ he said.
    ‘And you’ll never make a comedian.’
    It would have to stop. Now he was trying to score off secretaries, just because they had posh accents. And losing.
    At first Robert Nelson had tolerated Jenny’s insistence, regarding it more as something like a secret intimacy between them. But as the months had passed and she had maintained the demand, he had come to regard it as a humiliation to them both.
    She sat waiting on the opposite side of the table. Beside her lay the wallet, various pouches unzipped and ready.
    ‘Housekeeping,’ he said, counting out the money.
    He watched her put it carefully into the top section of her wallet, sipping from his drink. He’d managed at last to persuade her there was no need for written details of the household accounts, so perhaps the other thing wouldn’t be difficult.
    ‘Dress allowance,’ he said.
    She nodded, smiling.
    He took another drink, both hands clasped around his glass.
    She sat, waiting.
    ‘Please, Robert,’ she said, frowning.
    ‘Why, for God’s sake!’
    His annoyance broke through, so that he spoke louder than he had intended.
    ‘Please,’ she said again.
    He put the glass aside, determined against another outburst, spacing his words in an effort to convince her.
    ‘Apart from a stupid piece of paper, you are my wife,’ he said gently. ‘I love you and want you to stay with me. Always.’
    ‘I know,’ she said.
    ‘Then why ?’
    ‘Because it’s always been … since I was young …’
    ‘It’s … it’s obscene,’ he protested, realising he had failed again.
    ‘Please,’ she persisted.
    Angrily he pushed into his pocket, bringing out more notes and thrusting them on to the table.
    ‘“I love you” money.’
    ‘Thank you,’ she said, putting the money into a waiting pouch.
    How long would it take, wondered Nelson, for her to forget what she had once been?

5
    It was the tie that registered with Charlie, long before Robert Nelson got near enough for a formal greeting. So long ago, thought Charlie. Yet so easily recalled. Blue stripes upon blue, at an angle.
    The two men who had set him up to be killed on the East Berlin border had been to Eton. And like Robert Nelson had always worn their ties, no matter the colour of their suits. An identification symbol; like road signs, something to be recognised by everyone.
    They’d mocked his grammar school accent. And the way he’d dressed. So they’d underestimated him, dismissing him as an anachronism: a perfect sacrifice. And been so disastrously wrong. Only one of them had survived. And that one had been disgraced. Twice. But he would still be wearing the tie, wherever he was, Charlie knew.
    ‘I’ve kept you waiting,’ apologised Nelson, reaching him at last through the airport crowd.
    ‘I’ve only just cleared customs,’ Charlie assured him, immediately conscious of the swirl of harassed agitation in which the insurance broker moved.
    A strangely pale, almost flaky-skinned man, Robert Nelson was sweating, despite the thin suit and the partial airconditioning, so that the wisped, receding hair was smeared over his forehead, accentuating the pallor.
    Even before their handshake had ended, he was gesturing impatiently to porters whom Charlie had already engaged, sighing with frustration at people who had innocently intruded themselves between the luggage and twice muttering ‘Sorry, so very sorry,’ to Charlie, in regret for some imagined hindrance.
    The air-conditioning was better within the confined space of the waiting car and Nelson mopped his face and hands with an already damp handkerchief, smiling across the vehicle. It was an apprehensive expression, decided Charlie. Why? he wondered.
    ‘I knew there would be an investigation,’ announced Nelson, as if confirming an earlier discussion. ‘Just knew it.’
    ‘Routine, surely?’ said Charlie. He looked at his watch.