Dick Francis - The Danger

'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.