The Danger

TEN

Miranda, twenty-six, had long blond hair falling from a centre parting and on other occasions might have been pretty. She still wore a bathing suit with a towelling robe over, and there was still sand on her legs from the beach. Her eyes were glazed behind the puffed eyelids as if too much devastated emotion had put a film over them to repel reality, and she made vague pointless movements with her hands as if total inactivity was impossible.

Out of habit I carried with me a flat container like a cigarette case, which contained among other things a small collection of pills. I took out the case, opened it, and sorted out a strip of white tablets in foil.

'Take one of these,' I said, fetching water in a toothmug and sliding a pill from its wrapper.

Miranda simply swallowed as instructed. It was Alessia who said, 'What are you giving her?'

'Tranquilliser.'

'Do you carry those round with you always?' she asked incredulously.

'Mostly,' I nodded. 'Tranquillisers, sleeping pills, aspirins, things for heart attacks. First aid, that's all.'

Miranda drank all the water.

'Do they have room service in this hotel?' I asked.

'What?' she said vaguely. 'Yes, I suppose so… They'll be bringing Dominic's supper soon…' The idea of it reduced her to fresh deep sobs, and Alessia put her arm round her and looked shattered.

I telephoned to room service for tea, strong, as soon as possible, for three. Biscuits? Certainly biscuits. Coming right away, they said: and with very little delay the tray arrived, with me meeting the maid at the door and thanking her for her trouble.

'Mrs Nerrity, drink this,' I said, putting down the tray and pouring tea for her. 'And eat the biscuits.' I poured another cup for Alessia. 'You too,' I said.

The girls each drank and ate like automatons, and slowly in Miranda the combined simple remedies of tranquilliser, caffeine and carbohydrate took the worst edge off the pain so that she could bear to describe what happened.

'We were on the sand… with his bucket and spade… making a sandcastle. He loves making sandcastles…' She stopped and swallowed, tears trickling down her cheeks. 'A lot of the sand was wet, and I'd left our things up on the shingle… towels, a beach chair, our lunch box, packed by the hotel, Dominic's toys… It was a lovely hot day, not windy like usual… I went up to sit on the chair… I was watching him all the time, he was only thirty yards away… less, less… squatting, playing with his bucket and spade, patting the sandcastle… I was watching him all the time, I really was.' Her voice tapered off into a wail, the dreadful searing guilt sounding jagged and raw.

'Were there a lot of people on the beach?' I asked.

'Yes, yes there were… it was so warm… But I was watching him, I could see him all the time…'

'And what happened?' I said.

'It was the boat…'

'What boat?'

'The boat on fire. I was watching it. Everyone was watching it. And then… when I looked back… he wasn't there. I wasn't scared. It was less than a minute… I thought he'd be going over to look at the boat… I was looking for him… and then the little girl gave me the note… and I read it…'

The awfulness of that moment swept over her again like a tidal wave. The cup and saucer rattled and Alessia took them from her.

'I shouted for him everywhere… I ran up and down… I couldn't believe it… I couldn't… I'd seen him such a short time ago, just a minute… and then I came up here… I don't know how I got up here… I telephoned John… and I've left all our things… on the beach.'

'When is high tide?' I said.

She looked at me vaguely. 'This morning… The tide had just gone out… the sand was all wet…'

'And the boat? Where was the boat?'

'On the sand.'

'What sort of boat?' I asked.

She looked bewildered. 'A sailing dinghy. What does it matter? There are millions of sailing dinghies round here.'

But millions of sailing dinghies didn't go on fire at the exact moment that a small child was kidnapped. A highly untrustworthy coincidence of timing.

'Both of you drink more tea,' I said. 'I'll go down and fetch the things from the beach. Then I'll ring Mr Nerrity…'

'No,' Miranda interrupted compulsively. 'Don't. Don't.'

'But we must.'

'He's so angry,' she said piteously. 'He's… livid. He says it's my fault… He's so angry… you don't know what he's like… I don't want to talk to him… I can't.'

'Well,' I said. 'I'll telephone from another place. Not this room. I'll be as quick as I can. Will you both be all right?'

Alessia nodded, although she was herself shaking, and I went downstairs and found a public telephone tucked into a private corner of the entrance hall.;

Tony Vine answered from John Nerrity's number.

'Are you alone?' I asked.

'No. Are you?'

'Yes. What's the score?'

'The pinchers have told him he'll get his boy safe… on conditions.'

'Such as?'

'Five million.'

'For God's sake,' I said, 'has he got five million?' The Breakwater Hotel, nice enough, wasn't a millionaire's playground.

'He's got a horse,' Tony said baldly.

A horse.

Ordinand, winner of the Derby.

'Ordinand?' I said.

'No slouch, are you? Yeah, Ordinand. The pinchers want him to sell it at once.'

'How did they tell him?' I asked.

'On the telephone. No tap, of course, at that point. He says it was a rough voice full of slang. Aggressive. A lot of threats.'

I told Tony about the block-lettered note. 'Same level of language?'

'Yeah.' Tony's occasional restraint in the matter of eff this and eff that was always a source of wonder, but la fact he m seldom let rip in front of clients. 'Mr Nerrity's chief, not to say sole, asset, as I understand it, is the horse. He is… er

'Spitting mad?'! suggested. 01 'Yeah.'

I half smiled. 'Mrs Nerrity is faintly scared of him.

'Not in the least surprising.'

I told Tony how the kidnap had been worked and said I thought the police ought to investigate the dinghy very fast. 'Have you told the local fuzz anything yet?8

'No. Miranda will take a bit of persuading. I'll do it next. What have you told them from your end?'

'Nothing so far. I tell Mr Nerrity we can't help him without the police, but you know what it's like. 'Mm. I'll call you again, shortly.'

'Yeah.' He put his receiver down and I strolled out of the hotel and rolled my trouser legs up to the knees on the edge of the shingle, sliding down the banks of pebbles in great strides towards the sand. Once there I took off shoes and socks and ambled along carrying them, enjoying the evening sun.

There were a few breakwaters at intervals along the beach, black fingers stretching stumpily seawards, rotten in places and overgrown with molluscs and seaweed. Miranda's chair, towels and paraphernalia were alone on the shingle, most other people having packed up for the day; and not far away there was still a red plastic bucket and a blue plastic spade on the ground beside a half-trampled sandcastle. The British seaside public, I reflected, were still remarkably honest.

The burnt remains of the dinghy were the focal point for the few people still on the sand, the returning tide already swirling an inch deep around the hull. I walked over there as if drawn like everyone else, and took the closest possible look, paddling, like others, to see inside the shell.

The boat had been fibreglass and had melted as it burned. There were no discernible registration numbers on what was left of the exterior, and although the mast, which was aluminium, had survived the blaze and still pointed heavenward like an exclamation mark, the sail, which would have born identification, lay in ashes round its foot. Something in the scorched mess might tell a tale - but the tide was inexorable.

'Shouldn't we try to haul it up to the shingle?' I suggested to a man paddling like myself.

He shrugged. 'Not our business.'

'Has anyone told the police?' I said.

He shrugged again. 'Search me.'

I paddled round to the other side of the remains and tried another more responsible-looking citizen but he too shook his head and muttered about being late already, and it was two fourteen-sized boys, overhearing, who said they would give me a hand, if I liked.

They were strong and cheerful. They lifted, strained, staggered willingly. The keel slid up the sand leaving a deep single track and between us we manhandled it up the shingle to where the boys said the tide wouldn't reach it to whisk it away.

'Thanks,' I said.

They beamed. We all stood hands on hips admiring the result of our labours and then they too said they had to be off home to supper. They loped away, vaulting a breakwater, and I collected the bucket and spade and all Miranda's belongings and carried them up to her room.

Neither she nor Alessia was in good shape, and Alessia, if anything, seemed the more relieved at my return. I gave her a reassuring hug, and to Miranda I said, 'We're going to have to get the police.'

'No.' She was terrified. 'No… no…'

'Mm.' I nodded. 'Believe me, it's best. The people who've taken Dominic don't want to kill him, they want to sell him back to you safe and sound. Hold on to that. The police will be very helpful and we can arrange things so that the kidnappers won't know we've told them. I'll do that. The police will want to know what Dominic was wearing on the beach, and if you have a photograph, that would be great.'

She wavered helplessly. 'John said… keep quiet, I'd done enough damage…'

I picked up the telephone casually and got through again to her husband's number. Tony again answered.

'Andrew,' I said.

'Oh.' His voice lost its tension; he'd been expecting the kidnappers.

'Mrs Nerrity will agree to informing the police on her husband's say-so.'

'Go ahead then. He understands we can't act for him without. He… er… doesn't want us to leave him. He's just this minute decided, when he heard the 'phone ring.'

'Good. Hang on…' I turned to Miranda. 'Your husband says we can tell the police. Do you want to talk to him?'

She shook her head violently. 'OK.' I said to Tony. 'Let's get started and I'll call you later.'

'What was the kid wearing?' he asked.

I repeated the question to Miranda and between new sobs she said red bathing trunks. Tiny towelling trunks. No shoes, no shirt… it had been hot.

Tony grunted and rang off, and as unhurriedly as I could I asked Miranda to put some clothes on and come out driving with me in my car. Questioning, hesitant and fearful she nevertheless did what was needed, and presently, having walked out of the hotel in scarf and sunglasses between Alessia and myself, sat with Alessia in the rear seats as I drove all three of us in the direction of Chichester.

Checks on our tail and an unnecessary detour showed no one following, and with one pause to ask directions I stopped the car near the main police station but out of sight of it, round a corner. Inside the station I asked for the senior officers on duty, and presently explained to a chief inspector and a CID man how things stood.

I showed them my own identification and credentials, and one of them, fortunately, knew something of Liberty Market's work. They looked at the kidnappers' threatening note with the blankness of shock, and rapidly paid attention to the account of the death of the dinghy.

'We'll be on to that straight away,' said the Chief Inspector, stretching a hand to the telephone. 'No one's reported it yet, as far as I know.'

'Er,…' I said. 'Send someone dressed as a seaman. Gumboots. Seaman's sweater. Don't let them behave like policemen, it would be very dangerous for the child.'

The Chief Inspector drew back from the telephone, frowning. Kidnapping in England was so comparatively rare that very few local forces had any experience of it. I repeated that the death threat to Dominic was real and should be a prime consideration in all procedure.

'Kidnappers are full of adrenalin and easily frightened,' I said. 'It's when they think they're in danger of being caught that they kill… and bury… the victim. Dominic really is in deadly danger, but we'll get him back safe if we're careful.'

After a silence the CID officer, who was roughly my own age, said they would have to call in his super.

'How long will that take?' I asked. 'Mrs Nerrity is outside in my car with a woman friend, and I don't think she can stand very much waiting. She's highly distressed.'

They nodded. Telephoned. Guardedly explained. The super, it transpired to their relief, would speed back to his office within ten minutes.

Detective Superintendent Eagler could have been born to be a plain-clothes cop. Even though I was expecting him I gave the thin, harmless-looking creature who came into the room no more than a first cursory glance. He had wispy balding hair and a scrawny neck rising from an ill-fitting shirt. His suit looked old and saggy and his manner seemed faintly apologetic. It was only when the other two men straightened at his arrival that with surprise I realised who he was.

He shook my hand, not very firmly, perched a thin rump on one corner of the large official desk, and asked me to identify myself. I gave him one of the firm's business cards with my name on. With neither haste nor comment he dialled the office number and spoke, I supposed, to Gerry Clayton. He made no remark about whatever answers Gerry gave him, but merely said 'Thanks' and put down the receiver.

'I've studied other cases,' he said directly to me and without more preamble. 'Lesley Whittle… and others that went wrong. I want no such disasters on my patch. I'll listen to your advice, and if it seems good to me, I'll act on it. Can't say more than that.'

I nodded and again suggested seamen-lookalikes to collect the dinghy, to which he instantly agreed, telling his junior to doll himself up and take a partner, without delay.

'Next?' he asked.

I said, 'Would you talk to Mrs Nerrity in my car, not in here? I don't think she should be seen in a police station. I don't think even that I should walk with you directly to her. I could meet you somewhere. One may be taking precautions quite unnecessarily, but some kidnappers are very thorough and suspicious, and one's never quite sure.'

He agreed and left before me, warning his two colleagues to say nothing whatever yet to anyone else.

'Especially not before the press blackout has been arranged,' I added. 'You could kill the child. Seriously; I mean it.'

They gave earnest assurances, and I walked back to the car to find both girls near to collapse. 'We're going to pick someone up,' I said. 'He's a policeman, but he doesn't look like it, He'll help to get Dominic back safely and to arrest the kidnappers.' I sighed inwardly at my positive voice, but if I couldn't give Miranda even a shred of confidence, I could give her nothing. We stopped for Eagler at a crossroads near the cathedral, and he slid without comment into the front passenger seat.

Again I drove a while on the look-out for company, but as far as I could see no kidnappers had risked it. After a few miles I stopped in a parking place on the side of a rural road, and Eagler got Miranda again to describe her dreadful day.

'What time was it?' he said.

'I'm not sure… After lunch. We'd eaten out lunch.'

'Where was your husband, when you telephoned him?'

'In his office. He's always there by two.

Miranda was exhausted as well as tearful. Eagler, who was having to ask his questions over the clumsy barrier of the front seats, made a sketchy stab at patting her hand in a fatherly way. She interpreted the intention behind the gesture and wept the harder, choking over the details of red swimming trunks, no shoes, brown eyes, fair hair, no scars, suntanned skin… they'd been at the seaside for nearly two weeks… they were going home on Saturday.

'She ought to go home to her husband tonight,' I said to Eagler, and although he nodded, Miranda vehemently protested.

'He's so angry with me…' she wailed.

'You couldn't help it,' I said. 'The kidnappers have probably been waiting their chance for a week or more. Once your husband realises…"

But Miranda shook her head and said I didn't understand.

'That dinghy,' Eagler said thoughtfully, 'the one which burnt… had you seen it on the beach on any other day?'

Miranda glanced at him vaguely as if the question were unimportant. 'The last few days have been so windy… we haven't sat on the beach much. Not since the weekend, until today. We've mostly been by the pools but Dominic doesn't like that so much because there's no sand '

'The hotel has a pool?' Eagler asked.

'Yes, but last week we were always on the beach… Everything was so simple, just Dominic and me.' She spoke between sobs, her whole body shaking.

Eagler glanced at me briefly, 'Mr Douglas, here,' he said to Miranda, 'he says you'll get him back safe. We all have to act calmly, Mrs Nerrity. Calm and patience, that's the thing. You've had a terrible shock, I'm not trying to minimise it, but what we have to think of now is the boy. To think calmly for the boy's sake.'

Alessia looked from Eagler to me and back again. 'You're both the same,' she said blankly. 'You've both seen so much suffering… so much distress. You both know how to make it so that people can hold on… It makes the unbearable… possible.'

Eagler gave her a look of mild surprise; and in a totally unconnected thought I concluded that his clothes hung loosely about him because he'd recently lost weight.

'Alessia herself was kidnapped,' I explained to him. 'She knows too much about it,' I outlined briefly what had happened in Italy, and mentioned the coincidence of the horses.

His attention focused in a thoroughly Sherlockian manner.

'Are you saying there's a positive significance?'

I said, 'Before Alessia I worked on another case in Italy in which the family sold their shares in a racecourse to raise the ransom.'

He stared. 'You do, then, see a… a thread?'

'I fear there's one, yes.'

'Why fear?' Alessia asked.

'He means,' Eagler said, 'that the three kidnaps have been organised by the same perpetrator. Someone normally operating within the racing world and consequently knowing which targets to hit. Am I right?'

'On the button,' I agreed, talking chiefly to Alessia. 'The choice of target is often a prime clue to the identity of the kidnappers. I mean… to make the risks worthwhile, most kidnappers make sure in advance that the family or business actually can pay a hefty ransom. Of course every family will pay what they can, but the risks are just as high for a small ransom as a large, so it makes more sense to aim for the large. To know, for instance, that your father is much richer than the father of most other jockeys, girls or not.'

Alessia's gaze seemed glued to my face. 'To know… that the man who owns Ordinand has a son…?' She stopped, the sentence unfinished, the thought trotting on.

'Yes,' I said.

She swallowed. 'It costs just as much to keep a bad horse in training as a good one. I mean, I do clearly understand what you're saying.'

Miranda seemed not to have been listening but the tears had begun to dry up, like a storm passing.

'I don't want to go home tonight,' she said in a small voice. But if I go… Alessia, will you come with me?'

Alessia looked as if it were the last thing she could face and I answered on her behalf, 'No, Mrs Nerrity, it wouldn't be a good idea. Have you a mother, or a sister… someone you like? Someone your husband likes?'

Her mordant look said as much as words about the current state of her marriage, but after a moment or two she said faintly, 'I suppose… my mother.'

That's right,' Eagler said paternally. 'Now would you two ladies just wait a few minutes while I walk a little way with Mr Douglas?'

'We won't be out of sight, I said.

All the same they both looked as insecure as ever as we opened the front doors and climbed out. I looked back as we walked away and waggled a reassuring hand at their two anxious heads showing together from the rear seat.

'Very upsetting,' Eagler observed as we strolled away. 'But she'll get her kid back, with a bit of luck, not like some I've dealt with. Little kids snatched at random by psychos and murdered… sexual, often. Those mothers… Heartbreaking. Rotten. And quite often we know the psychos. Know they'll probably do something violent one day. Kill someone. We can often arrest them within a day of the body being found. But we can't prevent them. We can't keep them locked up for ever, just in case. Nightmare, those people. We've got one round here now. Time bomb waiting to go off. And some poor kid, somewhere, will be cycling along, or walking, at just the wrong time, just the wrong place. Some woman's kid. Something triggers the psycho. You never know what it is. Something small. Tips them over. After, they don't know why they've done it, like as not.'

'Mm,' I said. 'Worse than kidnappers. With them there's always hope.'

During his dissertation he'd given me several sideways glances: reinforcing his impressions, I thought. And I too had been doing the same, getting to know what to expect of him, good or bad. Occasionally someone from Liberty Market came s across a policeman who thought of us as an unnecessary nuisance encroaching on their jealously-guarded preserves, but on the whole they accepted us along the lines of if you want to understand a wreck, consult a diver.

'What can you tell me that you wouldn't want those two girls to hear?' he asked.

I gave him a small smile; got reserved judgement back.

'The man who kidnapped Alessia,' I said, 'recruited local talent. He recruited one, who roped in another five. The carabinieri have arrested those six, but the leader vanished. He called himself Giuseppe, which will do for now. We produced a drawing of him and flooded the province with it, with no results. I'll let you have a copy of it, if you like,' I paused. 'I know it's a long shot. This horse thing may be truly and simply a coincidence.'

Eagler put his head on one side. 'File it under fifty-fifty, then.'

'Right. And there's today's note…'

'Nothing Italian about that, eh?' Eagler looked genial. 'But local talent? Just the right style for local talent, wouldn't you say?'

'Yes, I would.'

'Just right for an Italian leaning over the local talent's shoulder saying in broken English "tell her to telephone her husband, tell her not to inform the police".' He smiled fleetingly. 'But that's all conjecture, as they say.'

We turned as of one accord and began to stroll back to the car.

'The girl jockey's a bit jumpy still,' he said. 'It does that to them. Some are jumpy with strangers for ever.'

'Poor girl,' he said, as if he hadn't thought of freedom having problems; victims naturally being vastly less interesting than villains to the strong arm of the law.

I explained about Tony Vine being at that moment with John Nerrity, and said that Nerrity's local force would also by now know about Dominic. Eagler noted the address and said he would 'liaise'.

'I expect Tony Vine will be in charge from our point of view,' I said. 'He's very bright, if you have any dealings with him."

'All right.'

We arranged that I would send the photostats of Giuseppe and a report on Alessia's kidnapping down to him on the first morning train; and at that point we were back at the car,

'Right then, Mr Douglas.' He shook my hand limply as if sealing a bargain, as different from Pucinelli as a tortoise from a hare; one wily, one sharp, one wrinkled in his carapace, one leanly taut in his uniform, one always on the edge of his nerves, one avuncularly relaxed.

I thought that I would rather be hunted by Pucinelli, any day.