Dick Francis - The Danger

'What sort of treatment?'

'In hospital.'

'They can't be serious!' I said with alarm.

'They say Miranda can go with him, but she doesn't like it. She's trying to persuade everyone to let Dominic stay at home with her in peace for a few days. She says she's sure he'll talk to her, if they're alone.'

I reflected that once the news of his kidnap and return hit the public consciousness there would be little enough peace for a while, but that otherwise her instincts were right on the button.

I said, 'Do you think you could persuade John Nerrity, referring to your own experiences, that to be carted off to hospital among strangers would be desperately disturbing for Dominic now, even if Miranda went with him, and could make him worse, not better.'

There was a silence. Then she said slowly, 'If Papa had sent me to a hospital, I would have gone truly mad.'

'People sometimes do awful things with the best intentions.'

'Yes,' she said faintly. 'Are you at home?'

'No. In the office. And - about lunch, I'm very sorry…'

'Another day will do fine,' she said absently. I'll talk to John and ring you back.'

She telephoned back when Tony and I had finished the report and he'd gone home to a well-earned sleep.

'John was very subdued, you'd be surprised,' she said. 'All that self-importance was in abeyance. Anyway, he's agreed to give Dominic more time, and I've asked Miranda and Dominic down to Lambourn tomorrow. Popsy's such a darling. She says it's open house for kidnap victims. She also suggested you should come as well, if you could, and I think… I do think it would be the best ever thing… if you could.'

'Yes, I could,' I said. 'I'd like to, very much.'

'Great,' she said; then, reflectively, 'John sounded pleased, you know, that Miranda and Dominic would be out of the house. He's so odd. You'd think he'd be delirious with joy, having his son back, and he almost seemed… annoyed.'

'Think of your own father's state after you got home.'

'Yes, but…' she broke off. 'How very strange.'

'John Nerrity,' I said neutrally, 'is like one of those snowstorm paperweights, all shaken up, with bits of guilt and fear and relief and meanness all floating around in a turmoil. It takes a while after something as traumatic as the last few days for everything in someone's character to settle, like the snowstorm, so to speak, and for the old pattern to reassert itself.'

'I'd never thought of it like that.'

'Did he realise,' I asked, 'that the press will descend on him, as they did on you?'

'No, I don't think so. Will they?'

"Fraid so. Sure to. Someone down in Sussex will have tipped them off.'

'Poor Miranda.'

'She'll be fine. If you ring her again, tell her to hold onto Dominic tight through the interviews and keep telling him in his ear that he's safe and that all the people will go away soon.'

'Yes.'

'See you tomorrow,' I said.

Dominic was a big news item on breakfast television and near-headlines in the newspapers. Miranda, I was glad to see, had met the cameras with control and happiness, the wordless child seeming merely shy. John Nerrity, head back, moustache bristling, had confirmed that the sale of his Derby winner would go through as planned, though he insisted he was nowhere near bankruptcy; that the story had been merely a ploy to confound the kidnappers.

They all asked who had rescued his son.

The police, John Nerrity said. No praise was too high.

Most people in the office, having seen the coverage, read Tony's and my report with interest, and we both answered questions at the Monday session. Gerry Clayton's eyebrows rose a couple of times, but on the whole no one seemed to want to enquire too closely into what we had done besides advise. The Chairman concluded that even if Nerrity stuck to his guns and refused to pay a fee it shouldn't worry us. The deliverance of Dominic, he said contentedly, had been tidily and rapidly carried out at little cost to the firm. Liaison with the police had been excellent. Well done, you two chaps. Any more business? If not, we'll adjourn.

Tony adjourned to the nearest pub and I to Lambourn, arriving later than I would have liked.

'Thank goodness,' Alessia said, coming out of the house to meet me. 'We thought you'd got lost.'

'Held up in the office." I hugged her with affection.

'No excuse.'

There was a new lightness about her: most encouraging. She led me through the kitchen to the more formal drawing room where Dominic sat watchfully on Miranda's lap and Popsy was pouring wine.

'Hello,' Popsy said, giving me a welcoming kiss, bottle in one hand, glass in the other. 'Out with the wand, it's badly needed.'

I smiled at her green eyes and took the filled glass. 'Pity I'm not twenty years younger,' she said. I gave her an 'oh yeah' glance and turned to Miranda.

'Hello,' I said.

'Hello.' She was quiet and shaky, as if ill.

'Hello, Dominic'

The child stared at me gravely with the big wide eyes. Blue eyes, I saw by daylight. Deep blue eyes.

'You looked terrific on the box,' I said to Miranda. 'Just right.'

'Alessia told me… what to do.'

'Alessia told her to dress well, to look calm and to pretend everything was normal,' Popsy said. 'I heard her. She said it was a good lesson she'd learned from you, and Miranda might as well benefit.'

Popsy had made an informal lunch in the kitchen, of which Miranda ate little and Dominic nothing, and afterwards she drove us all up to the Downs in her Land Rover, thinking instinctively, I reckoned, that as it was there that Alessia felt most released, so would Dominic also.

'Has Dominic eaten anything at all since we brought him back?' I asked on the way.

'Only milk,' Miranda said. 'He wouldn't touch even that until I tried him with one of his old bottles.' She kissed him gently. 'He always used to have his bedtime milk in a bottle, didn't you, poppet? He only gave it up six months ago.'

We all in silence contemplated Dominic's regression to babyhood, and Popsy put the brakes on up by the schooling fences.

'I brought a rug,' she said. 'Let's sit on the grass.'

She and the two girls sat, with Dominic still clinging to his mother, and I leaned against the Land Rover and thought that Popsy was probably right: the peace of the rolling hills was so potent it almost stretched out and touched you.

Miranda had brought a toy car, and Alessia played with it, wheeling it across the rug, up Miranda's leg and onto Dominic's. He watched her gravely for a while without smiling and finally hid his face in his mother's neck.

Miranda said, her mouth trembling, 'Did they… did they hurt him? He hasn't any bad bruises, just little ones… but what did they do, what did they do to make him like this?'

I squatted beside her and put an arm round her shoulder, embracing Dominic also. He looked at me with one eye from under his mother's ear, but didn't try to squirm away.

"They apparently kept him fastened to a bed with a sort of harness you get in prams. I didn't see it, but I was told. I don't think the harness would have hurt him. He would have been able to move a little - sit up, kneel, lie down. He refused to eat any food and he cried sometimes because he was lonely.' I paused. 'It's possible they deliberately frightened him more than they had to, to keep him quiet.' I paused again. 'There was a hole in the floorboards. A big hole, big enough for a child to fall through.' I paused again. 'They might have told Dominic that if he made a lot of noise they'd put him down the hole.'

Miranda's whole body shuddered and Dominic let out a wail and clung to his mother with frenzy. It was the first sound I'd heard him utter, and I wasn't going to waste it.

'Dominic,' I said firmly. 'Some nice policemen have filled up that hole so that no little boys can fall down it. The three men who took you away in a boat are not coming back. The policemen have locked them up in prison. No one is going to take you to the seaside.' I paused. 'No one is going to stick any more tape on your mouth. No one is going to be angry with you and call you horrid names.'