Dick Francis - The Danger

'Hello, Dominic,' I said.

Tony looked over briefly. 'He's awake?'

'Yes.'

'Good.'

I interpreted the 'good' to be satisfaction that the patient had survived the anaesthetic. Dominic's eyes slid slowly in Tony's direction and then came back to watch mine.

'We're taking you to your mother,' I said.

'Try mummy,' Tony said dryly.

'We're taking you to your mummy,' I said.

Dominic's eyes watched my face, unblinking.

'We're taking you home,' I said. 'Here's your teddy. You'll soon be back with your mummy.'

Dominic showed no reaction. The big eyes went on watching.

'You're safe,' I said. 'No one will hurt you. We're taking you home to your mummy.'

Dominic watched.

'Talkative kid,' Tony said.

'Frightened out of his wits.'

'Yeah, poor little bugger.'

Dominic was still wearing the red swimming trunks in which he'd been stolen away. The kidnappers had added a blue jersey, considerably too large, but no socks or shoes. He had been cold to the touch when I'd taken him out of the hold-all, but his little body had warmed in the rug to the point where I could feel his heat coming through.

'We're taking you home,' I said again.

He made no reply but after about five minutes sat upright on my lap and looked out of the car window. Then his eyes came round again to look at mine, and he slowly relaxed back into his former position in my arms.

'Nearly there,' Tony said. 'What'll we do? It's only four. She'll pass effing out if we give her a shock at this time of night.'

'She might be awake,' I said.

'Yeah,' he said. 'Worrying about the kid. I suppose she might. Here we are just down this road.'

He turned in through the Nerrity gates, the wheels crunching on the gravel: stopped right beside the front door, and got out and rang the bell.

A light went on upstairs and after a considerable wait the front door opened four inches on a chain.

'Who is it?' John Nerrity's voice said. 'What on earth do you want at this hour?'

Tony stepped closer into the light coming through the crack.

'Tony Vine.'

'Go away.' Nerrity was angry. 'I've told you…

'We brought your kid back,' Tony said flatly. 'Do you want him?'

'What?'

'Dominic,' Tony said with mock patience. 'Your son.'

'I…" he floundered.

'Tell Mrs Nerrity,' Tony said.

I imagined he must have seen her behind her husband, because very shortly the front door opened wide and Miranda stood there in a nightgown, looking gaunt. For a moment she hovered as if terrified, not daring to believe it, and I climbed out of the car with Dominic hanging on tight.

'Here he is,' I said, 'safe and sound.'

She stretched out her arms and Dominic slid from my embrace to hers, the rug dropping away. He wrapped his little arms round her neck and clung with his legs like a limpet, and it was as if two incomplete bodies had been fused into one whole.

Neither of them spoke a word. It was Nerrity who did all the talking.

'You'd better come in, then,' he said.

Tony gave me a sardonic look and we stepped through into the hall.

'Where did you find him?' Nerrity demanded. 'I haven't paid the ransom…'

'The police found him,' Tony said. 'In Sussex.'

'Oh.'

'In conjunction with Liberty Market,' I added smoothly.

"Oh." He was nonplussed, not knowing how to be grateful or how to apologise or how to say he might have been wrong in giving us the sack. Neither of us helped him. Tony said to Miranda, 'Your car's still at the hotel, but we brought all your gear - your clothes, chair, and so on - back with us.

She looked at him vaguely, her whole consciousness attuned to the limpet.

'Tell Superintendent Rightsworth the boy's back,' I said to Nerrity.

'Oh… yes.'

Dominic, seen by electric light, was a nice-looking child with a well-shaped head on a slender stalk of a neck. He had seemed light in my arms but Miranda leant away from his weight as he sat on her hip, the two of them still entwined as if with glue.

'Good luck,' I said to her. 'He's a great kid.'

She looked at me speechlessly, like her son.

Tony and I unloaded their seaside stuff into the hall and said we would telephone in the morning to check if everything was all right; but later, when Nerrity had finally come up with a strangled thank you and shut his door on us, Tony said, 'What do you think we'd better do now?'

'Stay here,' I said decisively. 'Roughly on guard. There's still Terry and Peter unaccounted for, and maybe others. We'd look right idiots if they walked straight in and took the whole family hostage.'

Tony nodded. 'Never think the enemy have ceased hostilities, even though they've effing surrendered. Vigilance is the best defence against attack.' He grinned. I'll make a soldier of you yet.'

For one day there was peace and quiet. Tony and I went to the office for a few hours and wrote a joint report, which we hoped would be acceptable to the assembled partners on the following morning. Apart from being misleading about the order in which Dominic's escape and the entry of the gladiators had occurred, we stuck fairly closely to the truth: as always it was in the wording itself that the less orthodox activities were glossed over.

'We deduced that the child was being held in the upper storey,' he wrote, without saying how the deduction had been made. 'After the child had been freed, Superintendent Eagler was of the opinion that he (the child) should be reunited with his parents as soon as possible, and consequently we performed the service.'

On the telephone Eagler had allayed our slightly anxious enquiries.

'Don't you fret. We took them without a fight. They were coughing and crying all over the place.' His voice smiled. 'There were three of them. Two were on the top storey running about, absolutely frantic, looking for the kid and not being able to see for tears. They kept saying he'd fallen down the chute.'

'Did you find the chute?' I asked curiously.

'Yes. It was a circular canvas thing like they have for escapes from aircraft. It slanted from the hole in the floorboards into a small cupboard on the floor below. The door of the cupboard had been bricked up and wallpapered and there was a wardrobe standing in front of it. All freshly done, the cement wasn't thoroughly dried. Anyway, they could have slid the boy down the chute and replaced the chunk of floorboards and put a rug over the trapdoor, and no ordinary search would have found him.'

'Would he have survived?' I asked.

'I should think so, yes, as long as they'd taken him out again, but to do that they'd have to have unbricked the doorway.'

'All rather nasty,' I said soberly.

'Yes, very.'

Tony and I put Eagler's account of the chute into our report and decided not to tell Miranda.

Eagler also said that none of the kidnappers was talking; that they were tough, sullen, and murderously angry. None of them would give his name, address or any other information. None of them had said a single word that could with propriety be taken down and used in evidence. All their utterances had been of the four-letter variety, and they had been sparing even with those.

'We've sent their prints to the central registry, of course, but with no results so far.' He paused. 'I've been listening to your tapes. Red hot stuff. I'll pry open these fine oysters with what's on them, never fear.'

'Hope they utter pearls,' I said.

'They will, laddie.'

Towards midday I telephoned to Alessia to postpone the lunch invitation and was forgiven instantly.

'Miranda telephoned,' she said. 'She told me you brought Dominic home. She can't speak for tears, but at least this time they're mostly happy.'

'Mostly?' I said.

'John and that policeman, Superintendent Rightsworth, both insisted on Dominic being examined by a doctor, and of course Miranda didn't disagree, but she says they are talking now of treatment for him, not because of his physical state, which isn't bad, but simply because he won't talk.'