The Danger

FIFTEEN

Eagler opened his oysters, but they were barren of pearls. He concluded, as Pucinelli had done, that none of the arrested men had known Giuseppe-Peter before the day he recruited one of them in a pub.

'Does Giuseppe-Peter speak English?' I asked.

'Yes, apparently, enough to get by. Hewlitt understood him, right enough.

'Who's Hewlitt?'

'Kidnapper. The voice on the ransom tape. Voice prints made and matched. Hewlitt has a record as long as your arm, but for burglary, not anything like this. The other two are in the same trade; housebreaking, nicking silver and antiques. They finally gave their names, once they saw we'd got them to rights. Now they're busy shoving all the blame onto Peter, but they don't know much about him,'

'Were they paid at all? I asked.

'They say not, but they're lying. They got some on account, must have. Stands to reason.'

'I suppose Giuseppe-Peter didn't telephone the house in Itchenor, did he?'

There was dead silence from Eagler. Embarrassment, I diagnosed.

'He did,' I suggested, 'and got a policeman?'

'Well… there was one call from someone unknown.'

'But you got a recording?'

'All he said,' said Eagler resignedly, 'was "Hello". My young PC thought it was someone from the station and answered accordingly, and the caller rang off.'

'Can't be helped,' I said.

'No.'

'Did Hewlitt say how Giuseppe-Peter knew of him? I mean, you can't go up to a perfect stranger in a British pub and proposition them to kidnap.'

'On that subject Hewlitt is your proverbial silent stone. There's no way he's going to say who put him up. There's some things, laddie, one just can't find out. Let's just say that there are a lot of Italians in London, where Hewlitt lives, and there's no way he's going to point the finger at any of them.'

'Mm,' I said. 'I do see that.'

I telephoned Alessia to ask how she was feeling and found her full of two concerns: the first, her own plans for a come-back race, and second, the predicament of Miranda and Dominic.

'Miranda's so miserable and I don't know how to help her,' she said. 'John Nerrity's being thoroughly unreasonable in every way, and he and Miranda are now sleeping in different rooms, because he won't have Dominic sleeping in the room with them, and Dominic won't sleep by himself.'

'Quite a problem,' I agreed.

'Mind you, I suppose it's difficult for both of them. Dominic wakes up crying about five times every night, and won't go to sleep again unless Miranda strokes him and talks to him, and she says she's getting absolutely exhausted by it, and John is going on and on about sending Dominic to hospital.' She paused. 'I can't ask Popsy to have her here to stay. I simply don't know what to do.'

'Hm… How much do you like Miranda?'

'Quite a lot. More than I expected, to be honest.'

'And Dominic?'

'He's a sweetheart. Those terrific eyes. I love him.'

I paused, considering, and she said, 'What are you thinking? What should Miranda do?'

'Is her mother still with her?'

'No. She has a job and doesn't seem to be much help.'

'Does Miranda have any money except what John gives her?'

'I don't know. But she was his secretary.'

'Yeah. Well… Miranda should take Dominic to a doctor I know of, and she should go and stay for a week near someone supportive like you that she can be with for a good deal of every day. And I don't know how much of that is possible.'

'I'll make it possible,' Alessia said simply.

I smiled at the telephone. She sounded so whole, her own problems submerged under the tidal wave of Dominic's.

'Don't let Miranda mention my name to her husband in connection with any plan she makes,' I said. 'I'm not in favour with him, and if he knew I'd suggested anything he'd turn it down flat.'

'But you brought Dominic back!

'Much to his embarrassment. He'd sacked us two days earlier.'

She laughed. 'All right. What's the name of the doctor?'

I told her, and also told her I'd telephone the doctor myself, to explain the background and verify Dominic's need.

'You're a poppet,' Alessia said.

'Oh sure. What was it you said about going racing?'

'I rode out with the string today and yesterday, and I can't understand why I didn't do it sooner. I'm riding work for Mike Noland tomorrow, and he says if I'm fit and OK he'll give me a ride next week at Salisbury."

' Salisbury… races?' I said.

'Yes, of course.'

'And, um, do you want an audience?'

'Yes, I do.'

'You've got it.'

She said goodbye happily and in the evening rang me at home in my flat.

'It's all fixed,' she said. 'Miranda said your doctor sounded a darling, and she's taking Dominic there first thing tomorrow. Then she's coming straight down here to Lambourn. I've got her a room in a cottage owned by a retired nanny, who I went to see, and who's pleased with the whole idea, and John raised no objections, absolutely the contrary, he's paying for everything.'

Terrific,' I said, with admiration.

'And Popsy wants you down again. And so does Miranda. And so do I.'

'I give in, then. When?'

'Soon as you can.'

I went on the following day and also twice more during the following week. Dominic slept better because of a mild liquid sleeping draught in his nightly bottle of milk and progressed to eating chocolate drops and, later, mashed bananas. The ex-nanny patiently took away rejected scrambled eggs and fussed over Miranda in a way which would have worn my nerves thin but in that love-deprived girl produced a grateful dependency.

Alessia spent much of every day with them, going for walks, shopping in the village, all of them lunching most days with Popsy, sunbathing in the cottage garden.

'You're a clever clogs, aren't you?' Popsy said to me on my third visit.

'How do you mean?'

'Giving Alessia something so worthwhile to do.'

'It was accidental, really.'

'And encouraged.'

I grinned at her. 'She looks great, doesn't she?'

'Marvellous. I keep thinking about those first days when she was so deathly pale and shaky. She's just about back to her old self now.'

'Has she driven anywhere yet, on her own?'

Popsy glanced at me. 'No. Not yet.'

'One day she will.'

'And then?'

'Then she'll fly… away.'

I heard in my voice what I hadn't intended or expected to be there: a raw sense of loss. It was all very well mending birds' broken wings. They could take your heart off with them when you set them free.

She wouldn't need me, I'd always known it, once her own snowstorm had settled. I could have tried, I supposed, to turn her dependence on me into a love affair, but it would have been stupid: cruel to her, unsatisfactory to me. She needed to grow safely back to independence and I to find a strong and equal partner. The clinging with the clung-to wasn't a good proposition for long-term success.

We were all at that moment out in Popsy's yard, with Alessia taking Miranda slowly round and telling her about each horse as they came to it. Dominic by then had developed enough confidence to stand on the ground, though he hung onto Miranda's clothes permanently with one hand and needed lifting to her hip at the approach of any stranger. He had still not said anything else, but day by day, as the fright level slowly declined, it became more likely that he soon would.

Popsy and I strolled behind the two girls and on an impulse I squatted down to Dominic's height and said, 'Would you like a ride on my shoulders?'

Miranda encouragingly swept up Dominic and perched him on me with one leg past each ear.

'Hold on to Andrew's hair,' Alessia said, and I felt the little fingers gripping as I stood upright.

I couldn't see Dominic's face, but everyone else was smiling, so I simply set off very slowly past the boxes, so he could see the inmates over the half doors.

'Lovely horses,' Miranda said, half anxiously. 'Big horses, darling, look.'

We finished the tour of the yard in that fashion and when I lifted Dominic down he stretched up his arms to go up again. I hoisted him onto my left arm, my face level with his. 'You're a good little boy,' I said.

He tucked his head down to my neck as he'd done so often with Miranda, and into my receptive ear he breathed one very quiet word, 'Andrew.'

'That's right,' I said equally quietly, 'and who's that? I pointed at Miranda.

'Mummy.' The syllables weren't much more than a whisper, but quite clear.

'And that?' I said.

'Lessia.'

'And that?'

'Popsy.'

'Very good.' I walked a few steps with him away from the others. He seemed unalarmed. I said in a normal voice, 'What would you like for tea?'

There was a fairly long pause, then he said 'Chocolate,' still quietly.

'Good. You shall have some. You're a very good boy.'

I carried him further away. He looked back only once or twice to check that Miranda was still in sight, and I reckoned that the worst of his troubles were over. Nightmares he would have, and bouts of desperate insecurity, but the big first steps had been taken, and my job there too was almost done.

'How old are you, Dominic?' I asked.

He thought a bit. 'Three,' he said, more audibly.

'What do you like to play with?'

A pause. 'Car.'

'What sort of car?'

He sang, 'Dee-dah dee-dah dee-dah,' into my ear very clearly on two notes, in exact imitation of a police car's siren.

I laughed and hugged him. 'You'll do,' I said.

Alessia's return to race-riding was in some respects unpromising, as she came back white-faced after finishing last.

The race itself, a five furlong sprint for two-year-olds, had seemed to me to be over in a flash. Hardly had she cantered down to the start, a bent figure in shining red silks, than the field of eighteen were loaded into the stalls and set running. The red silks had shown briefly and been swamped, smothered by a rainbow wave which left them slowing in the wake. The jockey sat back onto her saddle the moment she passed the winning post, stopping her mount to a walk in a few strides.

I went to where all except the first four finishers were being dismounted, where glum-faced little groups of owners and trainers listened to tale after tale of woe and disaster from impersonal jockeys whose minds were already on the future. I heard snatches of what they were saying while I waited unobtrusively for Alessia.

'Wouldn't quicken when I asked him…'

'Couldn't act on the going…'

'Got bumped… shut in… squeezed out.'

'Still a baby…'

'Hanging to the left…'

Mike Noland, without accompanying owners, non-committally watched Alessia approaching, then patted his horse's neck and critically inspected its legs. Alessia struggled to undo the buckles on the girths, a service Noland finally performed for her, and all I heard her say to him was 'Thanks…Sorry,' which he received with a nod and a pat on the shoulder: and that seemed to be that.

Alessia didn't spot me standing there and hurried away towards the weighing-room; and it was a good twenty minutes before she emerged.

She still looked pale. Also strained, thin, shaky and miserable.

'Hi,' I said.

She turned her head and stopped walking. Managed a smile. 'Hello.'

'What's the matter?' I said.

'You saw.'

'I saw that the horse wasn't fast enough.'

'You saw that every talent I used to have isn't there any more.' '

I shook my head. 'You wouldn't expect a prima ballerina to give the performance of a lifetime if she'd been away from dancing for three months.'

'This is different.'

'No. You expected too much. Don't be so… so cruel to yourself.'

She gazed at me for a while and then looked away, searching for another face. 'Have you seen Mike Noland anywhere?' she said.

'Not since just after the race.'

'He'll be furious.' She sounded desolate. 'He'll never give me another chance.'

'Did he expect his horse to win?' I asked. 'It started at about twelve to one. Nowhere near favourite.'

Her attention came back to my face with another nickering smile. 'I didn't know you betted.'

'I didn't. I don't. I just looked at the bookies' boards, out of interest.'

She had come from Lambourn with Mike Noland, and I had driven from London. When I'd talked to her before she went to change for the race she'd been nervously expectant: eyes wide, cheeks pink, full of small movements and half smiles, wanting a miracle.

'I felt sick in the parade ring,' she said. 'I've never been like that before.'

'But you didn't actually vomit… '

'Well, no.'

'How about a drink?' I suggested. 'Or a huge sandwich?'

'Fattening,' she said automatically, and I nodded and took her arm.

'Jockeys whose talents have vanished into thin air can eat all the sandwiches they want,' I said.

She pulled her arm away and said in exasperation, 'You… you always make people see things straight. All right. I'll admit it. Not every vestige of talent is missing, but I made a rotten showing. And we'll go and have a… a small sandwich, if you like.'

Some of the blues were dispersed over the food, but not all, and I knew too little about racing to judge whether her opinion of herself was fair. She'd looked fine to me, but then so would almost anyone have done who could stand in the stirrups while half a ton of thoroughbred thundered forward at over thirty miles an hour.

'Mike did say something on the way here about giving me a ride at Sandown next week if everything was OK today, and I don't suppose he will, now.'

'Would you mind very much?'

'Yes, of course,' she said passionately. 'Of course I'd mind.'

She heard both the conviction and the commitment in her voice, and so did I. Her head grew still, her eyes became more peaceful, and her voice, when she spoke again, was lower in pitch. 'Yes, I'd mind. And that means I still want to be a jockey more than anything on earth. It means that I've got to work harder to get back. It means that I must put these last three months behind me, and get on with living.' She finished the remains of a not very good chicken sandwich and sat back in her chair and smiled at me. "If you come to Sandown, I'll do better.'

We went eventually in search, Alessia said, of an honest opinion from Mike Noland; and with the forthrightness I was coming to see as normal among the racing professionals he said, 'No, you were no good. Bloody bad. Sagging all over the place like a sponge. But what did you expect, first time back, after what you've been through? I knew you wouldn't win. I doubt if that horse could have won today anyway, with Fred Archer incarnate in the saddle. He might have been third… fourth.' He shrugged. 'On the form book he couldn't have touched the winner. You'll do better next time. Sure to. Sandown, right?'

'Right,' Alessia said faintly.

The big man smiled kindly from the height of his fifty years and patted her again on the shoulder. 'Best girl jockey in Europe,' he said to me. 'Give or take a dozen or two.'

Thanks so much,' Alessia said.

I went to Sandown the following week and to two more race meetings the week after, and on the third of those days Alessia won two races.

I watched the applause and the acclaim and saw her quick bright smiles as she unsaddled her winners, saw the light in her eyes and the certainty and speed of her movements, saw the rebirth of the skills and the quality of spirit which had taken her before to the heights. The golden girl filled to new stature visibly day by day and on the morning after her winners the newspapers printed her picture with rapturous captions.

She still seemed to want me to be there; to see me, specifically, waiting. She would search the surrounding crowds with her eyes and stop and smile when she saw me. She came and went from Lambourn every time with Mike Noland and spent her free minutes on the racecourse with me, but she no longer grasped me physically to save herself from drowning. She was afloat and skimming the waves, her mind on far horizons. She had begun to be, in the way she most needed to be, happy.

'I'm going home,' she said one day.

'Home?'

'To Italy. To see Papa. I've been away so long.'

I looked at the fine-boned face, so healthy now, so brown, so full of poise, so intimately known.

'I'll miss you,' I said.

'Will you?' She smiled into my eyes. 'I owe you a debt I can't pay.'

'No debt,' I said.

'Oh yes.' Her voice took it for granted. 'Anyway, it's not goodbye for ever, or anything dramatic like that. I'll be back. The Flat season will be finished here in a few weeks, but I'll definitely be riding here some of the time next summer.'

Next summer seemed a long way away.

'Alessia,' I said.

'No.' She shook her head. 'Don't say whatever's in your mind. You carry on giving a brilliant imitation of a rock, because my foundations are still shaky. I'm going home to Papa… but I want to know you're only a telephone call away… some days I wake up sweating…' She broke off. 'I'm not making sense.'

'You are indeed,' I assured her.

She gave me a brief but searching inspection. 'You never need telling twice, do you? Sometimes you don't need telling once. Don't forget me, will you?'

'No,' I said.

She went to Italy and my days seemed remarkably empty even though my time was busily filled.

Nerrity's near-loss of Ordinand had caused a huge flutter in the dovecotes of owners of good-as-gold horses and I, in conjunction with our chummy insurance syndicate at Lloyds, was busy raising defences against copy-cat kidnaps.

Some owners preferred to insure the animals themselves against abduction, but many saw the point of insuring their wives and children. I found myself invited to ring the front door bell of many an imposing pile and to pass on the Chairman's considered judgements, the Chairman in some erroneous way having come to consider me an expert on racing matters.

The Lloyds syndicate did huge new business, and into every contract they wrote as usual a stipulation that in the case of 'an event,' the advice of Liberty Market should be instantly sought. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours: both the syndicate and Liberty Market were purring.

The Jockey Club showed some interest. I was despatched to their offices in Portman Square in London to discuss the problems of extortion with the Senior Steward, who shook my hand firmly and asked whether Liberty Market considered the danger a real one.

'Yes,' I said moderately. 'There have been three kidnaps in the racing world recently: a man in Italy who owned a racecourse, Alessia Cenci, the girl jockey, whom you must know about, and John Nerrity's son.'

He frowned. 'You think they're connected?'

I told him how positively the latter two were connected and his frown deepened.

'No one can tell whether this particular man will try again now that the Nerrity venture has ended in failure,' I said, 'but the idea of forcing someone to sell a valuable horse may be seductive enough to attract imitators. So yes, we do think owners would be prudent to insure against any sort of extortion involving their horses.'

The Senior Steward watched my face unsmilingly. He was a thick-set man, maybe sixty, with the same natural assumption of authority as our Chairman, though not with the same overpowering good looks. Morgan Freemantle, Senior Steward, top authority of the huge racing industry, came across as a force of more power than charm, more intelligence than kindness, more resolution than patience. I guessed that in general people respected him rather than liked him, and also that he was probably good news for the health of the racing world.

He had said he had heard of our existence from a friend of his who was an underwriter at Lloyds, and that he had since made several enquiries.

'It seems your firm is well-regarded,' he told me austerely. 'I must say I would have seen no need for such an organisation, but I now learn there are approximately two hundred kidnaps for ransom in the world each year, not counting tribal disturbances in Africa, or political upheavals in Central and South America.'

'Er…' I said.

He swept on. 'I am told there may be many more occurrences than those actually reported. Cases where families or firms settle in private and don't inform the police.'

'Probably,' I agreed.

'Foolish,' he said shortly.

'Most often, yes.'

'I understand from the Police Commissioners that they are willing to work with your firm whenever appropriate.' He paused, and added almost grudgingly, 'They have no adverse criticisms.'

Bully for them, I thought.

'I think we can say, therefore,' Morgan Freemantle went on judiciously, 'that if anything further should happen to anyone connected with racing, you may call upon the Jockey Club for any help it is within our power to give.'

'Thank you very much,' I said, surprised.

He nodded. 'We have an excellent security service. They'll be happy to work with you also. We in the Jockey Club,' he informed me regretfully, 'spend a great deal of time confounding dishonesty, because unfortunately racing breeds fraud.'

There didn't seem to be an answer to that, so I gave none.

'Let me know, then, Mr… er… Douglas,' he said, rising, 'if your firm should be engaged by anyone in racing to deal with a future circumstance which might come within our province. Anything, that is to say, which might affect the stability of racing as a whole. As extortion by means of horses most certainly does.'

I stood also. 'My firm could only advise a client that the Jockey Club should be informed,' I said neutrally. 'We couldn't insist.'

He gave me a straight considering stare. 'We like to know what's going on in our own backyard,' he said. 'We like to know what to defend ourselves against.'

'Liberty Market will always cooperate as fully as possible,' I assured him.

He smiled briefly, almost sardonically. 'But you, like us, don't know where an enemy may strike, or in what way, and we find ourselves wishing for defences we never envisaged.'

'Mm,' I said. 'Life's like that.'

He shook my hand again firmly and came with me from his desk to the door of his office.

'Let's hope we've seen an end to the whole thing. But if not, come to see me.'

'Yes,' I said.

I telephoned to the Villa Francese one evening and my call was answered by Ilaria.

'Hello, Mr Fixit,' she said with amusement. 'How's it going?'

'Every whichway,' I said. 'And how are you?'

'Bored, wouldn't you know?'

Is Alessia there?' I asked.

'The precious girl is out visiting with Papa.'

'Oh…'

'However,' Ilaria said carefully, 'she should be back by ten. Try again later.'

'Yes. Thank you.'

'Don't thank me. She is out visiting Lorenzo Traventi, who has made a great recovery from his bullets and is now looking particularly ravishing and romantic and is kissing her hand at every opportunity.'

'Dear Ilaria,' I said. 'Always so kind.'

'Shit,' she said cheerfully, 'I might tell her you called.'

She did tell her. When I rang again, Alessia answered almost immediately.

'Sorry I was out,' she said. 'How's things?'

'How are they with you?' I asked.

'Oh… fine. Really fine. I mean it. I've ridden in several races since I've been back. Two winners. Not bad. Do you remember Brunelleschi?'

I thought back. 'The horse you didn't ride in the Derby?'

'That's right. Spot on. Well, he was one of my winners last week, and they're sending him to Washington to run in the International, and believe it or not but they've asked me to go too, to ride him.' Her voice held both triumph and apprehension in roughly equal amounts.

'Are you going?' I said.

'I… don't know.'

' Washington DC?' I asked. ' America?'

'Yes. They have an international race every year there at Laurel racecourse. They invite some really super horses from Europe to go there - pay all their expenses, and those of the trainers and jockeys. I've never been, but I've heard it's great. So what do you think?'

'Go, if you can,' I said.

There was a small silence. 'That's the whole thing, isn't it? If I can. I almost can. But I have to decide by tomorrow at the latest. Give them time to find someone else.'

'Take Ilaria with you,' I suggested.

'She wouldn't go,' she said positively, and then more doubtfully, 'Would she?'

'You can but ask.'

'Yes. Perhaps I will. I do wish, though, that you could go, yourself, I'd sail through the whole thing if I knew you were there.'

'Not a chance,' I said regretfully. 'But you will be all right.'

We talked for a while longer and disconnected, and I spent some time wondering if I could, after all, wangle a week off and blow the fare, but we were at that time very shortbanded in the office, Tony Vine having been called away urgently to Brazil and four or five partners tied up in a multiple mess in Sardinia. I was constantly taking messages from them on the switchboard in between the advisory trips to racehorse owners, and even Gerry Clayton's folded birds of paradise had given way to more orthodox paperwork.

Nothing happens the way one expects.

Morgan Freemantle, Senior Steward of the Jockey Club, went to Laurel for a week to be the guest of honour of the president of the racecourse, a courtesy between racing fraternities.

On the second day of his visit he was kidnapped.

The Chairman sent me round to the Jockey Club, where shock had produced suspended animation akin to the waxworks.

For a start there were very few people in the place and no one was quite sure who was in charge; a flock without its leader. When I asked which individual had received the first demand from the kidnappers I was steered to the office of a stiff-backed middle-aged woman in silk shirt and tweed skin who looked at me numbly and told me I had come at a bad time.

'Mrs Berkeley?' I enquired.

She nodded, her eyes vague, her thoughts elsewhere, her spine rigid.

'I've come about Mr Freemantle,' I said. It sounded rather as if I'd said 'I've come about the plumbing', and I had difficulty in stifling a laugh. Mrs Berkeley paid more attention and said, 'You're not the man from Liberty Market, are you?'

'That's right.'

'Oh.' She inspected me. 'Are you the person who saw Mr Freemantle last week?'

'Yes.'

'What are you going to do about it?'

'Do you mind if I sit down?' I asked, indicating the chair nearest to me, beside her polished desk.

'By all means,' she said faintly, her voice civilised upper class, her manner an echo of country house hostess. I'm afraid you find us… disarranged.'

'Could you tell me what messages you have actually received?' I said.

She looked broodingly at her telephone as if it were itself guilty of the crime. 'I am taking all incoming calls to the Senior Steward's private number on this telephone during his absence. I answered…There was an American voice, very loud, telling me to listen carefully… I felt disembodied, you know. It was quite unreal.'

'The words,' I said without impatience. 'Do you remember the words?'

'Of course I do. He said the Senior Steward had been kidnapped. He said he would be freed on payment of ten million English pounds sterling. He said the ransom would have to be paid by the Jockey Club.' She stared at me with the shocked glaze still in her eyes. 'It's impossible, you know. The Jockey Club doesn't have that sort of money. The Jockey Club are administrators. There are no… assets.'

I looked at her in silence.

'Do you understand?' she said. 'The Jockey Club are just people. Members. Of a club.'

'Rich members?' I asked.

Her mouth, half open, stopped moving.

'I'm afraid,' I said neutrally, 'that kidnappers usually couldn't care less where the money comes from or who it hurts. We'll get the demand down to far below ten million pounds, but it may still mean that contributions will be sought from racing people.' I paused. 'You didn't mention any threats. Were there any threats?'

She nodded slowly. 'If the ransom wasn't paid, Mr Freemantle would be killed.'

'Straight and simple?'

'He said… there would be another message later.'

'Which you haven't yet received?'

She glanced at a round-faced clock on a wall where the hands pointed to four-fifty.

'The call came through just after two,' she said. 'I told Colonel Tansing. He thought it might have been a hoax, so we telephoned to Washington. Mr Freemantle wasn't in his hotel. We got through to the public relations people who are looking after his trip and they said he hadn't turned up yesterday evening at a reception and they didn't know where he'd gone. Colonel Tansing explained about the ransom demand and they said they would tell Eric Rickenbacker - that's the president of the racecourse - and Mr Rickenbacker would get the police on to it straight away.'

'Was there any mention of not going to the police, on your ransom-demand call?'

She shook her head slowly. 'No.'

She had a firm, tidy-looking face with brown wavy hair greying at the sides: the sort of face that launched a thousand pony clubs and church bazaars, worthy, well-intentioned, socially secure. Only something of the present enormity could have produced her current rudderlessness, and even that, I judged, would probably transform to brisk competence very soon.

'Has anyone told the British police?' I asked.

'Colonel Tansing thought it best to contact your Chairman first,' she said, 'Colonel Tansing, you see, is…' She paused as if seeking for acceptable words. 'Colonel Tansing is the deputy licensing officer, whose job is mainly the registration of racehorse owners. No one of any seniority is here this afternoon, though they were this morning. No one here now really has the power to make top-level decisions. We're trying to find the Stewards… they're all out.' She stopped rather blankly. 'No one expects this sort of thing, you know.'

'No,' I agreed. 'Well, the first thing to do is to tell the police here and get them to put a tap on ail the Jockey Club's telephones, and after that to get on with living, and wait.'

'Wait?'

I nodded. 'While the ransom negotiations go on. I don't want to alarm you, but it may be some time before Mr Freemantle comes home. And what about his family? His wife? Has she been told?'

She said glumly, 'He's a widower.'

'Children?'

'He has a daughter,' she said dubiously, 'but I don't think they get on well. I believe she lives abroad… Mr Freemantle never mentions her.'

'And, excuse me,' I said, 'is Mr Freemantle himself… er… rich?'

She looked as if the question were in ultra-poor taste but finally answered, 'I have no idea. But anyone who becomes Senior Steward must be considered to have personal funds of some sort.'

Ten million?' I asked.

'Certainly not,' she said positively. 'By many standards he is moderate in his expenditure.' Her voice approved of this. 'He dislikes waste.'

Moderate spending habits and a dislike of waste turned up often enough in the most multi of millionaires, but I let it go. I thanked her instead and went in search of Colonel Tansing, who proved to be a male version of Mrs Berkeley, courteous, charming and shocked to near immobility.

In his office I telephoned the police and got things moving there and then asked him who was the top authority at the Jockey Club in Mr Freemantle's absence.

'Sir Owen Higgs,' he said. 'He was here this morning. We've been trying to reach him…' He looked slightly apprehensive. 'I'm sure he will agree we had to call you in.'

'Yes,' I said reassuringly. 'Can you arrange to record all calls on all your telephones? Separately from and in addition to the police?'

'Shall be done,' he said.

'We have a twenty-four hour service at Liberty Market, if you want us.'

He clasped my hand. 'The Jockey Club is one of the most effective organisations in Britain,' he said apologetically. 'This business has just caught us on the hop. Tomorrow everything will swing into action.'

I nodded and departed, and went back to the Liberty Market offices reflecting that neither the Colonel nor Mrs Berkeley had speculated about the victim's present personal sufferings.

Stunned disbelief, yes. Tearful sympathetic devotion; no.

Sir Owen Higgs having formally engaged Liberty Market's services, I set off to Washington the following morning, and by early afternoon, their time, was driving a rented car towards Laurel racecourse to talk to Eric Rickenbacker, its president.

The racecourse lay an hour's drive away from the capital city along roads ablaze with brilliant trees, golden, red, orange, tan - nature's last great flourish of trumpets before winter. The first few days of November: warm, sunny and windless under a high blue sky. The sort of day to lift the spirits and sing to. I felt liberated, as always in America, a feeling which I thought had something to do with the country's own vastness, as if the wide-apartness of everything flooded into the mind and put spaces between everyday problems.

Mr Rickenbacker had left instructions about me at the race-club entrance: I was to be conveyed immediately to his presence. Not so immediately, it transpired, as to exempt me from being stamped on the back of the hand with an ultraviolet dye, normally invisible to the eye but transformed to a glowing purple circular pattern under special lamps. My pass into the Club, it was explained: without it I would be stopped at certain doorways. A ticket one couldn't lose or surreptitiously pass to a friend, I thought. It would wash off, they said.

Mr Rickenbacker was in the president's domain, a retreat at the top of the grandstand, reached by elevator, hand-checks, a trudge through the Members' lounges, more checks, an inconspicuous doorway and a narrow stair. At the top of the stair, a guardian sitting at a table. I gave my name. The guardian checked it against a list, found it, ticked it, and let me through. I went round one more corner and finished the journey. The president's private dining room, built on three levels, looked out across the course through acres of glass, with tables for about a hundred people; but it was almost empty.

The only people in the place were sitting round one of the furthest tables on the lowest level. I walked over and down, and they looked up enquiringly at my approach. Six men, four women, dressed for tidy racing.

'Mr Rickenbacker?' I said generally.

'Yes?'

He was a big man with thick white hair, quite clearly tall even though sitting down. His eyes had the reflecting brilliance of contact lenses and his skin was pale and smooth, immensely well-shaven.

'I'm Andrew Douglas,' I said briefly.

'Ah.' He stood up and clasped my hand, topping me by a good six inches. 'These are friends of mine.' He indicated them with a small gesture but made none of the usual detailed introductions, and to them he said, 'Excuse me, everyone, I have some business with Mr Douglas.' He waved to me to follow him and led the way up deep-carpeted steps to a yet more private eyrie, a small room beyond, above, behind his more public dining room.

'This is a goddam mess,' he said forcefully, pointing me to an armchair. 'One minute Morgan was telling me about John Nerrity's troubles, and the next…" He moved his arms frustratedly. 'We've heard nothing ourselves from any kidnappers. We've told the police both here and in Washington of the ransom demand received in London, and they've been looking into Morgan's disappearance. How much do you know about that?'

'Nothing,' I said. 'Please tell me.'

'Do you want a drink?' he said. 'Scotch? Champagne?'

'No, thank you.'

'We have a public relations firm that handles a lot of things here for us. This is a social week, you follow me? We have a lot of overseas visitors. There are receptions, press conferences, sponsors' parties. We have guests of honour -Morgan was one of those - for whom we arrange transport from the hotel to the racecourse, and to the various receptions, you follow?'

I nodded.

'The public relations firm hires the cars from a limousine service. The cars come with drivers, of course. The public relations firm tells the limousine service who to pick up from where, and where to take them, and the limousine service instructs its drivers, you follow me?'

'Yes,' I said.

'Morgan was staying at the Ritz Carlton, you follow? We put him in there, it's a nice place. The racecourse is picking up the tab. Morgan was supposed to join us at a reception in Baltimore the evening before last. The reception was for the press… many overseas sportswriters come over for our big race, and I guess we do everything we can to make them feel welcome.'

'Mm,' I said, understanding. 'World coverage of a sports event is good for the gate.'

He paused a fraction before nodding. Maybe I shouldn't have put it so baldly; but the public-relations-promotions bandwagon generated business and business generated jobs, and the artificial roundabout bought real groceries down the line.

'Morgan didn't arrive at the reception,' Rickenbacker said. 'He was expected… he had assured me he would be there. I know he intended to say he was glad to be representing British racing, and to tell the press of some of the plans the English Jockey Club is making for the coming year.'

'He was going to speak?' I said. 'I mean, make a speech?'

'Yes, didn't I make that clear? We always have three or four speakers at the press party, but very short and informal, you follow, just a few words of appreciation, that sort of thing. We were surprised when Morgan didn't show, but not disturbed. I was myself surprised he hadn't sent a message, but I don't know him well. We met just three days ago. I wouldn't know if he would be careful about courtesies, you follow?'

'Yes,' I said. 'I follow.'

He smoothed a muscular hand over the white hair. 'Our public relations firm told the limousine service to pick Morgan up from the Ritz Carlton and take him to the Harbor Room in Baltimore.' He paused. ' Baltimore is nearer to this racetrack than Washington is, you follow me, so a majority of the press stay in Baltimore.' He paused again, giving me time for understanding. 'The Ritz Carlton report a chauffeur coming to the front desk, saying he had been assigned to collect Morgan. The front desk called Morgan, who came down, left his key, and went out with the chauffeur. And that's all. That's all anyone knows.'

'Could the front desk describe the chauffeur?' I asked.

'All they could positively remember was that he wore a chauffeur's uniform and cap. He didn't say much. They think he may have spoken with some sort of non-American accent? but this is a polyglot city and no one took much notice.'

'Mm,' I said. 'What happened to the real chauffeur?'

'The real…? Oh, no, nothing. The Ritz Carlton report a second chauffeur appeared. They told him Morgan had already been collected. The chauffeur was surprised, but not too much. With an operation of this size going on there are always mix-ups. He reported back to his service, who directed him to another assignment. The limousine service thought Morgan must have taken a ride with a friend and not told them. They were philosophical. They would charge the racetrack for their trouble. They wouldn't lose.'

'So no one was alarmed,' I said.

'Of course not. The public relations firm called the Ritz Carlton in the morning - that was yesterday - and the front desk said Morgan's key was there, he must already have gone out. No one was alarmed until we had the call from your Colonel Tansing asking about a hoax.' He paused. 'I was at home eating breakfast.'

'Rather a shock,' I said. 'Have all these pressmen woken up yet to the story under their noses?'

With the first faint glimmer of humour he said that things were at the unconfirmed rumour stage, the whole hive buzzing.

'It'll put your race on the world map like nothing else will,' I said.

'I'm afraid so,' He looked undecided about the worth of that sort of publicity, or more probably about the impropriety of dancing up and down with commercial glee.

'You told the police,' I said.

'Sure. Both here in Laurel and in Washington. The people in Washington are handling it.'

I nodded and asked which police, specifically: there were about five separate forces in the capital.

The Metropolitan Police,' he said. 'Sure, the FBI and the Missing Persons Bureau have taken an interest, but they've sorted it out that it's the Metropolitan Police's baby. The man in charge is a Captain Kent Wagner. I told him you were coming. He said I could send you along, if you wanted.'

'Yes, please.'

He took a wallet from an inner pocket and removed a small white card. 'Here you are,' he said, handing it over. 'And also…' he sorted out another card, 'this is my home number. If I've left the racetrack, you can call me there.'

'Right.'

'Tomorrow morning we have the Press Breakfast,' he said. 'That's when all the overseas owners and trainers and jockeys meet downstairs here in the club.' He paused. 'We have a Press Breakfast before most big races in America… have you been to one before?'

'No,' I said.

'Come tomorrow. You'll be interested. I'll arrange passes for you.'

I thanked him, not sure whether I could manage it. He nodded genially. A small thing like the abduction of Britain 's top racing executive was not, it seemed, going to dent the onward steamrollering of the week's serious pleasures.

I asked him if I could make a call to Liberty Market before I went to the police in Washington, and he waved me generously to the telephone.

'Sure. Go right ahead. It's a private line. I'll do everything possible to help, you know that, don't you? I didn't know Morgan himself real well, and I guess it couldn't be thought this racetrack's fault he was kidnapped, but anything we can do… we'll give it our best shot.'

I thanked him and got through to London, and Gerry Clayton answered.

'Don't you ever go home?' I said.

'Someone has to mind the store,' he said plaintively: but we all knew he lived alone and was lonely away from the office.

'Any news from the Jockey Club?' I asked.

'Yeah, and how. Want me to play you the taps they got by Express Mail?"

'Fire away.'

'Hang on.' There was a pause and a few clicks, and then an American voice, punchy and hard.

'If you Brits at the jockey Club want Freemantle back, listen good. It's going to cost you ten million English pounds sterling. Don't collect the money in notes. You're going to pay in certified bankers' checks. You won't get Freemantle back until the checks are clear. You've got one week to collect the bread. In one week you'll get more instructions. If you fool around, Freemantle will lose his fingers. You'll get one every day, Express Mail, starting two weeks from now.

'No tricks. You in the Jockey Club, you've got money. Either you buy Freemantle back, or we kill Mm. That's a promise. We take him out. And if you don't come up with the bread, you get nothing, you don't even get his corpse. If we kill him, we kill him real slow. Make him curse you. Make him scream. You hear us? He gets no tidy single shot. He dies hard. If we kill him, you'll get his screams on tape. If you don't want that, you're going to have to pay.

'Freemantle, he wants to talk to you. You listen.'

There was a pause on the line, then Freemantle's own voice, sounding strong and tough and incredibly cultured after the other.

'If you do not pay the ransom, I will be killed. I am told this is so, and I believe it.'

Click. 'Did you get all that?' Gerry Clayton's voice said immediately.

'Yeah.'

'What do you think?'

'I think it's our man again,' I said. 'For sure.'

'Right. Same feel.'

'How long will you be on the switchboard?' I asked.

'Until midnight. Seven p.m., your time.'

'I'll probably ring again.'

'OK. Happy hunting.'

I thanked Rickenbacker and drove off to Washington, and after a few false trails found Captain of Detectives Kent Wagner in his precinct.

The Captain was a walking crime deterrent, big of body, hard of eye, a man who spoke softly and reminded one of cobras. He was perhaps fifty with flat-brushed dark hair, his chin tucked back like a fighting man; and I had a powerful impression of facing a wary, decisive intelligence. He shook my hand perfunctorily, looking me over from head to foot, summing up my soul.

'Kidnappers never get away with it in the United States,' he said. 'This time will be no exception.'

I agreed with him in principle. The American record against kidnappers was second to none.

'What can you tell me?' he asked flatly, from his look not hoping much.

'Quite a lot, I think,' I said mildly.

He eyed me for a moment, then opened the door of his glass-walled office and called across an expanse of desks, 'Ask Lieutenant Stavoski to step in here, if you please.'

One of the many blue-uniformed men rose to his feet and went on the errand, and through the windows I watched the busy, orderly scene, many people moving, telephones ringing, voices talking, typewriters clacking, computer screens flicking, cups of coffee on the march. Lieutenant Stavoski, when he came, was a pudgy man in the late thirties with a large drooping moustache and no visible doubts about himself. He gave me a disillusioned stare; probably out of habit.

The Captain explained who I was. Stavoski looked unimpressed. The Captain invited me to give. I obligingly opened my briefcase and brought out a few assorted articles, which I laid on his desk.

'We think this is definitely the third, and probably the fourth, of a series of kidnappings instigated by one particular person,' I said. 'The Jockey Club in England has today received a tape from the kidnappers of Morgan Freemantle, which I've arranged for you to hear now on the telephone, if you like. I've also brought with me the ransom-demand tapes from two of the other kidnaps.' I pointed to them as they lay on the desk. 'You might be interested to hear the similarities.' I paused slightly. 'One of the tapes is in Italian.'

'Italian?'

'The kidnapper himself is Italian.'

Neither of them particularly liked it.

'He speaks English,' I said, 'but in England he recruited an English national to utter his threats, and on today's tape the voice is American.'

Wagner pursed his lips. 'Let's hear today's tape then.' He gave me the receiver from his telephone and pressed a few preliminary buttons. 'This call will be recorded,' he said. 'Also all our conversations from now on.'

I nodded and got through to Gerry Clayton, who gave the kidnapper a repeat performance. The aggressive voice rasped out loudly through the amplifier in Captain Wagner's office, both the policemen listening with concentrated disgust.

I thanked Gerry and disconnected, and without a word Wagner held out a hand to me, his eyes on the tapes I'd brought. I gave him the Nerrity one, which he fitted into a player and set going. The sour threats to Dominic, the cutting off of fingers, the screams, the non-return of the body, all thundered into the office like as echo. The faces of Wagner and Stavoski both grew still and then judicious and finally convinced.

The same guy,' Wagner said, switching off. 'Different voice, same brain.'

'Yes,' I said.

'Get Patrolman Rossellini in here,' he told the Lieutenant and it was Stavoski, this time, who put his head out of the door and yelled for the help. Patrolman Rossellini, large-nosed, young, black-haired, very American, brought his Italian grand-parentage to bear on the third of the tapes and translated fluently as it went along. When it came to the last of the series of threats to Alessia's body his voice faltered and stopped, and he glanced uneasily around, as if for escape.

'What is it?' Wagner demanded.

'The guy says,' Rossellini said, squaring his shoulders to the requirement, 'well, to be honest, Captain, I'd rather not say.'

'The guy roughly said,' I murmured, coming to the rescue, 'that bitches were accustomed to dogs and that all women were bitches.'

Wagner stared. 'You mean-?'

'I mean,' I said, 'that that threat was issued to reduce her father to pulp. There seems to have been no intention whatsoever of carrying it out. The kidnappers never threatened anything like it to "the girl herself, nor anything indeed about daily beatings. They left her completely alone.'

Patrolman Rossellini went away looking grateful, and I told Wagner and Stavoski most of what had happened in Italy and England and in what ways the similarities of the two kidnappings might be of use to them now. They listened silently, faces impassive, reserving comments and judgement to the end.

'Let's get this straight,' Wagner said eventually, stirring. 'One: this Giuseppe-Peter is likely to have rented a house in Washington, reasonably near the Ritz Carlton, within the last eight weeks. That, as I understand it, is when Morgan Freemantle accepted Eric Rickenbacker's invitation.'

I nodded. 'That was the date given us by the Jockey Club.'

'Two: there are likely to be at least five or six kidnappers involved, all of them American except Giuseppe-Peter. Three: Giuseppe-Peter has an inside edge on racecourse information and therefore must be known to people in that world. And four,' with a touch of grim humour, 'at this moment Morgan Freemantle may be getting his ears blasted off by Verdi.'

He picked up the photocopy likeness of Giuseppe-Peter.

'We'll paper the city with this,' he said. 'If the Nerrity kid recognised him, anyone can.' He gave me a look in which, if there wasn't positive friendship, one could at least read a sheathing of poison fangs.

'Only a matter of time,' he said.

'But… er…' I said diffidently, 'you won't, of course, forget that if he sees you getting close, he'll kill Morgan Freemantle. I'd never doubt he means that part. Kill him and bury him. He'd built a tomb for little Dominic that might not have been found for years.'

Wagner looked at me with speculation. 'Does this man Giuseppe-Peter frighten you?'

'As a professional adversary, yes.'

Both men were silent.

'He keeps his nerve,' I said. 'He thinks. He plans. He's bold. I don't believe a man like that would turn to this particular crime if he were not prepared to kill. Most kidnappers will kill. I'd reckon Giuseppe-Peter would expect to kill and get away with it, if killing were necessary. I don't think he would do it inch by inch, as the tape threatened. But a fast kill to cut his losses, to escape, yes, I'd bet on it.'

Kent Wagner looked at his hands. 'Has it occurred to you, Andrew, that this Giuseppe-Peter may not like you personally one little bit?'

I was surprised by his use of my first name but took it thankfully as a sign of a working relationship about to begin; and I answered similarly, ' Kent, I don't think he knows I exist.'

He nodded, a smile hovering, the connection made, the common ground acknowledged.