Dick Francis - The Danger

The smile almost surfaced. 'A ten-year-old canal digger and his grandmother.'

"Very reliable,' I said.

'The boat was blue, clinker built, with a number seventeen in white on its bow and stern.'

'And the man?'

'The man was a man. They found the boat more interesting,' He paused again. 'There's a yard here in Itchenor with boats like that for hire. The trouble is they've got only ten. They've never had one with seventeen on it, ever.'

'But who's to know?' Tony said.

'Look for a house with a boat-shed,' I murmured.

Eagler said benignly, 'It wouldn't hurt, would it, to find the kid?'

'If they spot anyone looking they'll be off in a flash,' I said, 'and it would be dangerous for the boy.'

Eagler narrowed his eyes slightly at our alarm. 'We'll go round the agencies,' he said. 'If we turn up anything likely on paper we won't surround it without telling you first. How's that?'

We both shook our heads.

'Better to avoid raids and sieges if possible,' I said.

Tony said to Eagler, 'If you find a likely house on paper, let me suss it out. I've had all sorts of experience at this sort of thing. I'll tell you if the kid's there. And if he is, I'll get him out.'

There was an urgent message from the office at the Breakwater Hotel for me to telephone Alessia, which I did.

'Miranda's distracted… she's in pieces,' she said, sounding strung up herself beyond sympathy to near snapping point. 'It's awful… She's telephoned me three times, crying terribly, begging me to get you to do something…'

'Sweet Alessia,' I said. 'Take three deep breaths and sit down if you're standing up.'

'Oh…' Her cough of surprise had humour in it, and after a pause she said, 'All right. I'm sitting. Miranda's dreadfully frightened. Is that better?'

'Yes,' I said, half smiling. 'What's happened?'

'Superintendent Rightsworth and John Nerrity are making a plan and won't listen to Miranda, and she's desperate to stop them. She wants you to make them see they mustn't.' Her voice was still high and anxious, the sentences coming fast.

'What's the plan?' I asked.

'John is going to pretend to do what the kidnappers tell him. Pretend to collect the money. Then when the pretend money is handed over, Superintendent Rightsworth will jump on the kidnappers and make them say where Dominic is.' She gulped audibly. 'That's what went wrong… with me… in Bologna… isn't it?'

'Yes,' I said, 'an ambush at the R.V. is to my mind too high a risk.'

'What's the R.V.?'

'Sorry. Rendezvous. The place where the ransom is handed over.'

'Miranda says John doesn't want to pay the ransom and Superintendent Rightsworth is telling him not to worry, he doesn't need to.'

'Mm,' I said. 'Well, I can see why Miranda's upset. Did she talk to you from the telephone in her own house?'

'What? Oh, my goodness, it's tapped, isn't it, with the police listening to every word?'

'It is indeed,' I said dryly.

'She was up in her bedroom. I suppose she didn't think. And, heavens… she said John was regretting calling in Liberty Market, because you were advising him to pay. Superintendent Rightsworth has assured him the police can take care of everything, there's no need to have outsiders putting their oar in.'

The phrase had an authentic Rightsworth ring.

'Miranda says John is going to tell Liberty Market he doesn't want their help any more. He says it's a waste of money… and Miranda's frantic.'

'Mm,' I said. 'If she telephones you again, try to remind her the 'phone's tapped. If she has any sense she'll ring you back from somewhere else. Then reassure her that we'll do our best to change her husband's mind.'

'But how?' Alessia said, despairing.

'Get our Chairman to frighten him silly, I dare say,' I said. 'And I never said that. It's for your ears only.'

'Will it work?' Alessia said doubtfully.

'There are also people who can overrule Rightsworth.'

'I suppose there are.' She sounded happier with that. 'Shall I tell Miranda to telephone directly to you in your office?'

'No,' I said. 'I'll be moving about. When you've heard from her, leave a message again for me to call you, and I will.'

'All right.' She sounded tired. 'I haven't been able to think of anything else all day. Poor Miranda. Poor, poor little boy. I never really understood until now what Papa went through because of me.'

'Because of your kidnappers,' I said, 'and for love of you, yes.'

After a pause she said, 'You're telling me again… I must feel no guilt."

'That's right,' I said. 'No more guilt than Dominic'

'It's not easy…'

'No,' I agreed. 'But essential.

She asked if I would come to lunch on Sunday, and I said yes if possible but not to count on it.

'You will get him back alive, won't you?' she said finally, none of the worry dissipated; and I said 'Yes,' and meant it.

'Goodbye, then…"

'Goodbye,' I said, 'and love to Popsy.'

Liberty Market, I reflected, putting down the receiver, might have an overall success rate as high as ninety-five per cent, but John Nerrity seemed to be heading himself perilously towards the other tragic five. Perhaps he truly believed, perhaps even Rightsworth believed, that an ambush at the drop produced the best results. And so they did, if capturing some of the kidnappers was the prime overriding aim.

There had been a case in Florida, however, when the police had ambushed the man who picked up the ransom and shot him down as he ran to escape, and only because the wounded man relented and told where his victim was a few seconds before he slid into a final coma, had they ever found the boy alive. He had been left in the boot of a parked car, and would slowly have suffocated if the police had fired a fraction straighter.

I told Tony of Nerrity's plans and he said disgustedly, 'What is he, an effing optimist?' He bit his thumbnail. 'Have to find that little nipper, won't we?'

'Hope to God.'

'Better chance in this country than anywhere else, of course.'

I nodded. Among well-meaning peoples, like the British, kidnappers were disadvantaged. Their crime was reviled, not tolerated, and the population not afraid of informing. Once the victim was safely home, the trace-and-capture machinery had proved excellent.

Finding the hide-out before the pay-off was easier in Britain than in Italy, but still dauntingly difficult: and most successes along that line had come from coincidence, from nosey neighbours, and from guessing who had done the kidnap because of the close knowledge inadvertently revealed of the victim's private life.

'No one knew my daughter was going to be at that dance except her boy-friend,' one grief-stricken father had told us: and sure enough her apparently shattered boy-friend had organised the extortion - that time without the girl's knowledge, which wasn't always so. Collusion with the 'victim' had to be considered every time, human greed being what it was. The girl in that case had been found and freed without a ransom being paid, but she'd had a worse time in captivity than Alessia and the last I'd heard she was being treated for deep prolonged depression.

'I think I'll just mosey around a bit where the boats are,' Tony said. 'Can I borrow your car? You can use Miranda's if you're desperate. Do you mind if I go home later for some gear? I'll see you at effing breakfast.'

'Don't crunch it,' I said, giving him the keys.

'As if I would.'

I spent the evening eating the hotel's very reasonable dinner and packing Miranda's belongings. Dominic's clothes, quiet and folded, filled a neat small suitcase. I put his cuddly toys, a teddy and a Snoopy, in beside them, and shut the lid: and thought of him, so defenceless, so frightened, and knew that it was because of people like him and Alessia that what I was doing was a job for life.