The Danger

by Dick Francis

“Oh,” she said blankly.

  “Your man with the microphone isn’t among them.”

  “Oh.” She looked at me guiltily, hearing, as I did, the faint relief in her voice. We were sitting in Popsy’s minute tree-shrouded garden where four lounging chairs squeezed onto a square of grass and low stone surrounding walls failed to obscure views of stable yard on three sides. We were drinking iced coffee in the heat wave which had followed the storms, clinking the cubes and being watched politely by equine heads peering in rows over half-doors.

  I had invited myself down on my day off, a move neither Alessia nor Popsy had objected to, and I’d found Popsy alone when I arrived, as usual out in her yard.

  “Hello,” she said, as I drew up. “Sorry about the wet.” She was standing in green gumboots, hose in hand, watering the lower hind leg of a large chestnut horse. Bob held its head. Its eyes blinked at me as if bored. The water ran in a stream across the yard to a drain. “It’s got a leg,” Popsy said, as if that explained things.

  I stifled a desire to say that as far as I could see it had four.

  “Alessia walked along to the shops,” she said. “She won’t be long.” She squelched away and turned off a tap, flinging the hose in loose coils beside it. “That’ll do for now, Bob,” she said. “Get Jamie to roll up that hose.” She dried her hands on the seat of her pants and gave me a bright blaze from the green eyes.

  “She rides, you know,” she said as Bob led the watered horse off to an empty box, “but only up on the Downs. She goes up and down with me in the Land Rover. We don’t discuss it. It’s routine.”

  “How is she otherwise?”

  “Much happier, I’d say.” She grinned hugely and clapped me lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t know how anyone so cold can bring someone else to life.”

  “I’m not cold,” I protested.

  “No?” She considered me quizzically. “There’s a feeling of iron about you. Like a rod. You don’t smile much. You’re not intimidating . . . but I’m sure you could be, if you tried.”

  I shook my head.

  “Do you ever get drunk?” she said.

  “Not often.”

  “Never, more like.” She waved a hand towards the kitchen. “Like a drink? It’s so bloody hot.”

  We went into a cool interior with her shaking off her gumboots on the doorstep, and she brought white wine from the refrigerator to the kitchen in fawn socks.

  “I’ll bet for instance,” she said, pouring, “that you never get helpless giggles or sing vulgar songs or generally make an ass of yourself.”

  “Often.”

  She gave me an “oh, yeah” look and settled her large self comfortably onto a kitchen chair, putting her heels up on the table.

  “Well, sometimes,” I said.

  She drank some wine cheerfully. “What makes you giggle, then?” she asked.

  “Oh . . . one time I was with an Italian family during a kidnap and they all behaved like a comic soap opera at the top of their voices, and it was painful. I had to go upstairs sometimes to stop myself laughing . . . awful giggles over and over, when really the whole thing was deadly dangerous. I had terrible trouble. My face was aching with the effort of keeping it straight.”

  “Like wanting to explode in church,” Popsy said, nodding.

  “Just like that.”

  We sipped the cold wine and regarded each other with friendliness, and in a moment or two Alessia appeared with a bag of groceries and a welcoming smile. There was color in her cheeks at last, and a sort of rebirth taking place of the girl she must have been before. I could see a great difference in even the carriage of her head; self-respect returning to straighten the spine.

  I got up at the sight of her and kissed her cheek in greeting and she put the groceries on the table and gave me a positive hug.

  “Hi,” she said. “Please note, I’ve been shopping. That’s the third time. We are now back in business . . . no nerves, not to speak of.”

  “Terrific.”

  She poured herself some wine and the three of us amicably ate lunch, and it was afterwards, when Popsy had gone off to her office to do paperwork, that I told Alessia in the garden about the new arrests.

  “Do you think they’ll catch him . . . the man with the microphone?” she asked.

  “He called himself Giuseppe,” I said, “though that’s almost certainly not his name. The six captured kidnappers knew him just as Giuseppe, and none of them knows anything else. I think he’s cool and intelligent, and I’m afraid Pucinelli won’t find him . . . or the bulk of your ransom.”

  She was quiet for a while and then said, “Poor Papa. Poor all of us. I love the house on Mikonos . . . so full of brilliant light, right by the sapphire sea . . . Papa says the money so far recovered won’t be enough to save it. He says he keeps postponing putting it up for sale, just hoping . . . but it’s not just its value, there’s the upkeep, and the fares there two or three times a year. It was always a luxury, even before.” She paused. “Part of my childhood. Part of my life.”

  “Giuseppe took it,” I said.

  She stirred slightly and finally nodded. “Yes, you are right.”

  We drank the iced coffee. Time passed tranquilly.

  “I thought of going to the races next week,” she said. “To Brighton. Mike Noland runs a lot of horses there, because he used to train in Sussex, and many of his owners still live there. I may as well go and talk to them . . . show them I’m still alive.”

  “If I went,” I said, “would I be in your way?”

  She smiled over at the still-watching horses. “No, you wouldn’t.”

  “Which day?”

  “Wednesday.”

  I thought of switchboard schedules. “I’ll fix it,” I said.

  GERRY CLAYTON HAVING agreed with a thoroughly false martyred expression to sit in for me from four to midnight, I drove early to Lambourn to collect Alessia, pausing only for coffee and encouragement from Popsy before setting off on the three-hour trek to Brighton.

  “I could have got a lift,” Alessia said. “You didn’t have to come all this huge way round.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  She sighed, but not apparently with regret. “Half a dozen trainers or jockeys will be driving from here to Brighton.”

  “Bully for them.”

  “So I could always get a lift back.”

  I looked at her sideways. “I’ll drive you unless you definitely prefer not.”

  She didn’t answer; just smiled. We drove to Brighton and talked of many things for which there had never been peace enough before; of likes and dislikes, places, books, people; cabbages and kings.

  It was the first time, I thought, that I had seen her in a skirt: if one excepted, of course, the dress I had pulled over her unconscious head. A vision of her lean nakedness rose unbidden; an agreeable memory, to be honest. For Brighton she had covered the basics with a neat pale-coffee-colored dress, and wore big gold earrings under her short curls.

  Her reappearance on a racecourse was greeted with a warmth that almost overwhelmed her, with everyone who saw her seemingly intent on hugging her until her bones cracked. She introduced me vaguely many times but no one took any notice. The eyes were only for her, devouring her with curiosity, but also with love.

  “Alessia! How super!”

  “Alessia! Fantastic!”

  “Alessia! Marvellous . . . smashing . . . delirious . . . terrific . . .”

  She need not have doubted that Mike Noland’s owners would notice her reemergence. At least four widely grinning couples assured her that as soon as she was fit they would be thrilled to have her back in their saddles. Mike Noland himself, big and fifty, told her it was time to leave Popsy’s jumpers and come to ride work on the two-year-olds; and passing bright-silked jockeys, I was interested to see, greeted her with genuine pleasure under more casual greetings.

  “Hello, Alessia, how’s it going?”

  “How ya doing?”

  “Well done; glad you’
re back.”

  “Get your boots on, Cenci.”

  Their direct camaraderie meant a lot to her. I could see the faint apprehension of the outward journey vanishing minute by minute, replaced by the confidence of being at home. She kept me beside her all the same, glancing at me frequently to check I was still there and never moving a step without being sure I followed. One might have thought of it as a courtesy except for what had gone before.

  I saw little enough of the races themselves, and nor did she, from the press of people wanting to talk; and the afternoon was cut short, as far as I was concerned, by a message broadcast over the loudspeakers after the fourth event.

  “Would Mr. Andrew Douglas please go to the Clerk of the Course’s office. Mr. Andrew Douglas, please, go to the Clerk of the Course’s office.”

  Alessia, looking worried, said she’d show me where the office was, and told me that messages of that sort nearly always meant bad news. “I hope it’s not . . . Papa,” she said. “Popsy would ask for you . . . so as not to frighten me.”

  We went quickly to the Clerk’s office, brushing away the nonstop clutching greetings with quick smiles. Alessia’s anxiety deepened with every step, but when we arrived at the office the Clerk of the Course himself put her fears to rest.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Douglas,” he said to me, “but we have a distressing message for you. Please would you ring this number . . .” He handed me a slip of paper. “Your sister has had a bad accident . . . I’m so sorry.”

  Alessia said “Oh!” faintly, as if not sure whether to be glad or horrified, and I put a hand comfortingly on her arm.

  “There’s a more private telephone just over there,” the Clerk said, pointing to a small alcove at the rear. “Do use it. How splendid, Miss Cenci, to see you back.”

  She nodded vaguely and followed me across the room. “I’m so sorry . . .” she said.

  I shook my head. I had no sister. The number on the slip of paper was that of the office. I dialed the number and was answered by Gerry Clayton.

  “It’s Andrew,” I said.

  “Thank God. I had to tell all sorts of lies before they’d put out a call for you.”

  “What happened?” I said with an amount of agitation appropriate to the circumstances.

  He paused, then said, “Can you be overheard?”

  “Yes.”

  The Clerk himself was listening with half an ear and Alessia with both. Two or three other people were looking my way.

  “Right. I won’t expect comments. There’s been a boy kidnapped from the beach at West Wittering. That’s about an hour’s drive along the coast from Brighton, I’d guess. Go over there pronto and talk to the mother, will you?”

  “Where is she?” I said.

  “In the Breakwater Hotel, Beach Road, climbing the walls. I promised her we’d have someone with her in two hours, and to hang on. She’s incoherent, most unhelpful. We had a telephone call from Hoppy at Lloyds, the father got in touch with his insurers and got passed along a chain to us. The father’s had instructions to stay by his home telephone. Tony Vine’s on his way to him now. Can you take down the number?”

  “Yes, hang on.” I fumbled for pen and paper. “Fire away.”

  He read out the father’s number. “His name is John Nerrity.” He spelled it. “The child’s name is Dominic. Mother’s, Miranda. Mother and son were alone in the hotel on holiday, father busy at home. Got all that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Get her to agree to the police.”

  “Yes.”

  “Hear from you later? Sorry about your day at the races.”

  “I’ll go at once,” I said.

  “Break a leg.”

  I thanked the Clerk of the Course and left his office with Alessia still looking distressed on my behalf.

  “I’ll have to go,” I said apologetically. “Can you possibly get a lift back to Lambourn? With Mike Noland, perhaps?”

  Even though she had herself earlier suggested it, she looked appalled at the idea and vigorously shook her head. Panic stood quite clearly in her eyes.

  “No,” she said. “Can’t I come with you? Please . . . I won’t be a nuisance. I promise. I could help . . . with your sister.”

  “You’re never a nuisance, but I can’t take you.” I looked down at her beseeching face, at the insecurity still so close to the surface. “Come out to the car with me, away from these crowds, and I’ll explain.”

  We walked through the gates and along to the car park, and I said, “I haven’t any sisters. There was no crash. I have to go on a job . . . a child’s been kidnapped, and I have to go to his mother, so dearest Alessia . . . we must find Mike Noland. You’ll be safe with him. You know him well.”

  She was horrified and apologetic and also shaking. “Couldn’t I comfort the mother?” she said. “I could tell her . . . her child will come back . . . as I did?”

  I hesitated, knowing the suggestion stemmed from her not wanting to go home with Mike Noland but also thinking that perhaps it made sense. Perhaps Alessia would indeed be good for Miranda Nerrity.

  I looked at my watch. “Mrs. Nerrity’s expecting me,” I said indecisively, and she interrupted sharply, “Who? Who did you say?”

  “Nerrity. Miranda Nerrity. But . . .”

  Her mouth had literally fallen open. “But I know her,” she said. “Or at least, I’ve met her . . . Her husband is John Nerrity, isn’t he?”

  I nodded, nonplussed.

  “Their horse won the Derby,” Alessia said.

  I lifted my head.

  Horses.

  So many horses.

  “What is it,” Alessia said. “Why do you look so . . . bleak?”

  “Right,” I said, not directly answering. “Get in the car. I’d be glad for you to come, if you really mean it. But there’s a good chance we won’t be going back to Lambourn tonight. Would you mind that?”

  For answer she slid into the front passenger seat and closed the door, and I walked round to climb in beside her.

  As I started the engine and drove out of the gate she said, “The Nerritys’ horse won the Derby last year. Ordinand. Don’t you remember?”

  “Um . . .” No, actually, I didn’t.

  “It wasn’t one of the really greats,” she said assessingly,

  “or at least no one thought so . . . He was an outsider. Thirty-three to one. But he’s been winning this year quite well . . .” She stopped. “I can’t bear to think of that child.”

  “His name’s Dominic,” I said. “Haul the map out of the glove compartment and find the fastest route to Chichester.”

  She reached for the map. “How old is he?”

  “Don’t know.”

  We sped westwards through Sussex in the golden afternoon and came eventually to the Breakwater Hotel, right on the pebbly beach at West Wittering.

  “Look,” I said, putting on brakes and pulling off my tie.

  “Behave like a holidaymaker. Walk into the hotel slowly. Smile. Talk to me. Don’t seem worried. O.K.?”

  She looked at me with puzzlement turning to comprehension. “Do you think . . . someone’s watching?”

  “Someone usually is,” I said astringently. “Always take it for granted that someone is. Kidnappers post watchers to make sure the police don’t arrive in huge numbers.”

  “Oh.”

  “So we’re on holiday.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Let’s go in.”

  We climbed, stretching, out of the car, and Alessia wandered a few steps away from the hotel to look out to the English Channel, shading her eyes and speaking to me over her shoulder. “I’m going in for a swim.”

  I put my arm round her shoulders and stood beside her for a few seconds, then with me saying teasingly “Mind the jellyfish” we walked through the hotel’s glass entrance doors into a wide armchair-scattered lounge. A few people sat around drinking tea, and a girl in a black dress was moving to and fro behind a polished brown counter labeled “Rece
ption.”

  “Hello,” I said, smiling. “We think a friend of ours is staying here. A Mrs. Nerrity?”

  “And Dominic,” Alessia said.

  “That’s right,” the girl said calmly. She looked at a guest list. “Room sixty-three . . . but they’re probably still on the beach. Lovely day, isn’t it?”

  “Gorgeous,” Alessia agreed.

  “Could you give their room a ring?” I asked. “Just in case.”

  The girl obligingly turned to the switchboard and was surprised at receiving an answer. “Pick up the phone,” she said, pointing to a handset on the counter, and I lifted the receiver with an appropriate smile.

  “Miranda?” I said. “This is Andrew Douglas.”

  “Where are you?” a small voice said tearfully.

  “Downstairs, here in the hotel.”

  “Oh . . . Come up . . . I can’t bear . . .”

  “On my way,” I said.

  The girl gave us directions which we followed to a room with twin beds, private bathroom, view of the sea. Miranda Nerrity opened her door to us with swollen eyes and a clutched, soaking handkerchief and said between gulps, “They said . . . the man in London said . . . you would get Dominic back . . . he promised me . . . Andrew Douglas will get him back . . . he always does, he said . . . don’t worry . . . but how can I not worry? Oh, my God . . . my baby . . . Get him back for me. Get him back.”

  “Yes,” I said gently. “Come and sit down.” I put my arm round her shoulders this time, not Alessia’s, and guided her over to one of the armchairs. “Tell us what happened. Then we’ll make a plan to get him back.”

  Miranda took a very small grip on things, recognizing Alessia with surprise and pointing to a piece of paper which lay on one of the beds.

  “A little girl gave it to me,” she said, the tears rolling. “She said a man had asked her. Oh, dear . . . oh, dear . . .”

  “How old was the little girl?” I asked.

  “What? Oh . . . eight . . . something like that . . . I don’t know.”

  Alessia knelt beside Miranda to comfort her, her own face pale again and taut with strain, and I picked up the sheet of paper and unfolded it, and read its brutal block-lettered message.

  WE’VE TAKEN YOUR KID. GIVE YOUR HUBBY A BELL. TELL HIM TO GO HOME. WE’LL TELL YOUR HUBBY WHAT WE WANT. DON’T GO SQUAWKING TO NO ONE. NO ONE AT ALL, SEE. IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR KID AGAIN DON’T GO TO NO POLICE. WE’LL TIE A PLASTIC BAG OVER HIS HEAD IF YOU GET THE POLICE. SAVVY?