Dick Francis - The Danger

Cenci walked with stiff legs to be lost among them, and in the way of chauffeurs I slouched down in my seat and tipped my cap forward over my nose. If I wasn't careful, I thought, I'd go to sleep…

Someone rapped on the window beside me. I opened my eyes, squinted sideways, and saw a youngish man in a white open-necked shirt with a gold chain round his neck making gestures for me to open the window.

The car, rather irritatingly, had electric windows: I switched on the ignition and pressed the relevant button, sitting up slightly while I did it.

'Who are you waiting for?' he said.

'Signor Cenci.'

'Not Count Rieti?'

'No. Sorry.'

'Have you seen another chauffeur here?'

'Sorry, no.'

He was carrying a magazine rolled into a cylinder and fastened by a rubber band. I thought fleetingly of one of the partners in Liberty Market who believed one should never trust a stranger carrying a paper cylinder because it was such a handy place to stow a knife… and I wondered, but not much.

'You're not Italian?' the man said.

'No. From Spain.'

'Oh.' His gaze wandered, as if seeking Count Rieti's chauffeur. Then he said absently in Spanish, 'You're a long way from home.'

'Yes,' I said.

'Where do you come from?'

'Andalucia.'

'Very hot, at this time of year,'

'Yes.'

I had spent countless school holidays in Andalucia, staying with my divorced half-Spanish father who ran a hotel there. Spanish was my second tongue, learned on all levels from kitchen to penthouse: any time I didn't want to appear English, I became a Spaniard.

'Is your employer having breakfast?' he asked.

'I don't know.' I shrugged. 'He said to wait, so I wait.'

His Spanish had a clumsy accent and his sentences were grammatically simple, as careful as mine in Italian.

I yawned.

He could be a coincidence, I thought. Kidnappers were normally much too shy for such a direct approach, keeping their faces hidden at all costs. This man could be just what he seemed, a well-meaning citizen carrying a magazine, looking for Count Rieti's chauffeur and with time to spare for talking.

Could be. If not, I would tell him what he wanted to know: if he asked.

'Do you drive always for Signor… Cenci?' he said casually.

'Sure,' I said. 'It's a good job. Good pay. He's considerate. Never drives himself, of course.'

'Why not?'

I shrugged. 'Don't know. He hasn't a licence. He has to have someone to drive him always.'

I wasn't quite sure he had followed that, though I'd spoken pretty slowly and with a hint of drowsiness. I yawned again and thought that one way or another he'd had his ration of chat. I would memorise his face, just in case, but it was unlikely…

He turned away as if he too had found the conversation finished, and I looked at the shape of his round smooth head from the side, and felt most unwelcome tingles ripple all down my spine. I'd seen him before… I'd seen him outside the ambulance, through the tinted glass, with cameras slung from his neck and gold buckles on the cuffs of his jacket. I could remember him clearly. He'd appeared at the siege… and he was here at the drop, asking questions.

No coincidence.

It was the first time I'd ever knowingly been physically near one of the shadowy brotherhood, those foes I opposed by proxy, whose trials I never attended, whose ears never heard of my existence. I slouched down again in my seat and tipped my cap over my nose and thought that my partners in London would emphatically disapprove of my being in that place at that time. The low profile was down the drain.

If I'd seen him, he'd seen me.

It might not matter: not if he believed in the Spanish chauffeur who was bored with waiting. If he believed in the bored Spanish chauffeur, he'd forget me. If he hadn't believed in the bored Spanish chauffeur I would quite likely be sitting there now with a knife through my ribs, growing cold.

In retrospect I felt distinctly shivery. I had not remotely expected such an encounter, and at first it had only been habit and instinct, reinforced by true tiredness, that had made me answer him as I had. I found it definitely scary to think that Alessia's life might have hung on a yawn.

Time passed. Eight o'clock came and went. I waited as if asleep. No one else came to my still open window to ask me anything at all.

It was after nine before Cenci came back, half-running, stumbling, sweating. I was out of the car as soon as I saw him, politely opening a rear door and helping him in as a chauffeur should.

'Oh my God,' he said. 'I thought he wouldn't telephone… It's been so long.'

'Is Alessia all right?'

'Yes… yes… '

'Where to, then?'

'Oh…' He drew in some canning breaths while I got back behind the wheel and started the engine. 'We have to go to Mazara, about twenty kilometres south. Another restaurant… another telephone. In twenty minutes.'

'Um…" I said. 'Which way from here?'

He said vaguely, 'Umberto knows,' which wasn't especially helpful, as Umberto was his real chauffeurs away on holiday. I grabbed the road map from the glove compartment and spread it on the passenger seat beside me, trying unsuccessfully to find Mazara while pulling in a normal fashion out of the car park.

The road we were on ran west to east. I took the first major-looking turn towards the south, and as soon as we were out of sight of the motorway drew into the side and paused for an update on geography. One more turn, I thought, and there would be signposts: and in fact we made it to Mazara, which proved to be little more than a crossroads, with breathing time to spare.

On the way Cenci said, 'Alessia was reading from today's paper… on tape, it must have been, because she just went on reading when I spoke to her… but to hear her voice…'

'You're sure it was her?'

'Oh yes. She started as usual with one of those memories of her childhood that you suggested. It was Alessia herself, my darling, darling daughter.'

Well, I thought. So far, so good.

'He said…' Cenci gulped audibly. 'He said if there are homers this time in the ransom he'll kill her. He says If there are marks on the notes, he'll kill her. He says if we are followed… if we don't do exactly as he says… if anything… anything goes wrong, he'll kill her.'

I nodded. I believed it. A second chance was a partial miracle. We'd never get a third.

'You promise,' he said, 'that he'll find nothing on the notes?'

'I promise,' I said.

At Mazara Cenci ran to the telephone, but again he was agonisingly kept waiting. I sat as before in the car, stolidly patient, as if the antics of my employer were of little interest, and surreptitiously read the map.

The restaurant at this place was simply a cafe next to a garage, a stop for coffee and petrol. People came and went, but not many. The day warmed up under the summer sun, and as a good chauffeur should I started the purring engine and switched on the air-conditioning.

He returned with his jacket over his arm and flopped gratefully into the cool.

'Casteloro,' he said. 'Why is he doing this?'

'Standard procedure, to make sure we're not followed. He'll be doubly careful because of last time. We might be chasing about all morning.'

'I can't stand it,' he said; but he could, of course, after the last six weeks,

I found the way to Casteloro and drove there: thirty-two kilometres, mostly of narrow, straight, exposed country roads. Open fields on both sides. Any car following us would have shown up like a rash.

'He made no trouble about you,' Cenci said. 'I said straight away that I'd brought my chauffeur because I have epilepsy, that it was impossible for me to drive, to come alone. He just said to give you instructions and not explain anything.'