Dick Francis - The Danger

There was a pause on the line, then Freemantle's own voice, sounding strong and tough and incredibly cultured after the other.

'If you do not pay the ransom, I will be killed. I am told this is so, and I believe it.'

Click. 'Did you get all that?' Gerry Clayton's voice said immediately.

'Yeah.'

'What do you think?'

'I think it's our man again,' I said. 'For sure.'

'Right. Same feel.'

'How long will you be on the switchboard?' I asked.

'Until midnight. Seven p.m., your time.'

'I'll probably ring again.'

'OK. Happy hunting.'

I thanked Rickenbacker and drove off to Washington, and after a few false trails found Captain of Detectives Kent Wagner in his precinct.

The Captain was a walking crime deterrent, big of body, hard of eye, a man who spoke softly and reminded one of cobras. He was perhaps fifty with flat-brushed dark hair, his chin tucked back like a fighting man; and I had a powerful impression of facing a wary, decisive intelligence. He shook my hand perfunctorily, looking me over from head to foot, summing up my soul.

'Kidnappers never get away with it in the United States,' he said. 'This time will be no exception.'

I agreed with him in principle. The American record against kidnappers was second to none.

'What can you tell me?' he asked flatly, from his look not hoping much.

'Quite a lot, I think,' I said mildly.

He eyed me for a moment, then opened the door of his glass-walled office and called across an expanse of desks, 'Ask Lieutenant Stavoski to step in here, if you please.'

One of the many blue-uniformed men rose to his feet and went on the errand, and through the windows I watched the busy, orderly scene, many people moving, telephones ringing, voices talking, typewriters clacking, computer screens flicking, cups of coffee on the march. Lieutenant Stavoski, when he came, was a pudgy man in the late thirties with a large drooping moustache and no visible doubts about himself. He gave me a disillusioned stare; probably out of habit.

The Captain explained who I was. Stavoski looked unimpressed. The Captain invited me to give. I obligingly opened my briefcase and brought out a few assorted articles, which I laid on his desk.

'We think this is definitely the third, and probably the fourth, of a series of kidnappings instigated by one particular person,' I said. 'The Jockey Club in England has today received a tape from the kidnappers of Morgan Freemantle, which I've arranged for you to hear now on the telephone, if you like. I've also brought with me the ransom-demand tapes from two of the other kidnaps.' I pointed to them as they lay on the desk. 'You might be interested to hear the similarities.' I paused slightly. 'One of the tapes is in Italian.'

'Italian?'

'The kidnapper himself is Italian.'

Neither of them particularly liked it.

'He speaks English,' I said, 'but in England he recruited an English national to utter his threats, and on today's tape the voice is American.'

Wagner pursed his lips. 'Let's hear today's tape then.' He gave me the receiver from his telephone and pressed a few preliminary buttons. 'This call will be recorded,' he said. 'Also all our conversations from now on.'

I nodded and got through to Gerry Clayton, who gave the kidnapper a repeat performance. The aggressive voice rasped out loudly through the amplifier in Captain Wagner's office, both the policemen listening with concentrated disgust.

I thanked Gerry and disconnected, and without a word Wagner held out a hand to me, his eyes on the tapes I'd brought. I gave him the Nerrity one, which he fitted into a player and set going. The sour threats to Dominic, the cutting off of fingers, the screams, the non-return of the body, all thundered into the office like as echo. The faces of Wagner and Stavoski both grew still and then judicious and finally convinced.

The same guy,' Wagner said, switching off. 'Different voice, same brain.'

'Yes,' I said.

'Get Patrolman Rossellini in here,' he told the Lieutenant and it was Stavoski, this time, who put his head out of the door and yelled for the help. Patrolman Rossellini, large-nosed, young, black-haired, very American, brought his Italian grand-parentage to bear on the third of the tapes and translated fluently as it went along. When it came to the last of the series of threats to Alessia's body his voice faltered and stopped, and he glanced uneasily around, as if for escape.

'What is it?' Wagner demanded.

'The guy says,' Rossellini said, squaring his shoulders to the requirement, 'well, to be honest, Captain, I'd rather not say.'

'The guy roughly said,' I murmured, coming to the rescue, 'that bitches were accustomed to dogs and that all women were bitches.'

Wagner stared. 'You mean-?'

'I mean,' I said, 'that that threat was issued to reduce her father to pulp. There seems to have been no intention whatsoever of carrying it out. The kidnappers never threatened anything like it to "the girl herself, nor anything indeed about daily beatings. They left her completely alone.'

Patrolman Rossellini went away looking grateful, and I told Wagner and Stavoski most of what had happened in Italy and England and in what ways the similarities of the two kidnappings might be of use to them now. They listened silently, faces impassive, reserving comments and judgement to the end.

'Let's get this straight,' Wagner said eventually, stirring. 'One: this Giuseppe-Peter is likely to have rented a house in Washington, reasonably near the Ritz Carlton, within the last eight weeks. That, as I understand it, is when Morgan Freemantle accepted Eric Rickenbacker's invitation.'

I nodded. 'That was the date given us by the Jockey Club.'

'Two: there are likely to be at least five or six kidnappers involved, all of them American except Giuseppe-Peter. Three: Giuseppe-Peter has an inside edge on racecourse information and therefore must be known to people in that world. And four,' with a touch of grim humour, 'at this moment Morgan Freemantle may be getting his ears blasted off by Verdi.'

He picked up the photocopy likeness of Giuseppe-Peter.

'We'll paper the city with this,' he said. 'If the Nerrity kid recognised him, anyone can.' He gave me a look in which, if there wasn't positive friendship, one could at least read a sheathing of poison fangs.

'Only a matter of time,' he said.

'But… er…' I said diffidently, 'you won't, of course, forget that if he sees you getting close, he'll kill Morgan Freemantle. I'd never doubt he means that part. Kill him and bury him. He'd built a tomb for little Dominic that might not have been found for years.'

Wagner looked at me with speculation. 'Does this man Giuseppe-Peter frighten you?'

'As a professional adversary, yes.'

Both men were silent.

'He keeps his nerve,' I said. 'He thinks. He plans. He's bold. I don't believe a man like that would turn to this particular crime if he were not prepared to kill. Most kidnappers will kill. I'd reckon Giuseppe-Peter would expect to kill and get away with it, if killing were necessary. I don't think he would do it inch by inch, as the tape threatened. But a fast kill to cut his losses, to escape, yes, I'd bet on it.'

Kent Wagner looked at his hands. 'Has it occurred to you, Andrew, that this Giuseppe-Peter may not like you personally one little bit?'

I was surprised by his use of my first name but took it thankfully as a sign of a working relationship about to begin; and I answered similarly, ' Kent, I don't think he knows I exist.'

He nodded, a smile hovering, the connection made, the common ground acknowledged.

Silence from the kidnappers, indignation from the about-to-be-dunned members of the Jockey Club and furore from the world's sporting press: hours of horrified talk vibrating the air-waves, but on the ground overnight a total absence of action. I went to the Press Breakfast in consequence with a quiet conscience and a light heart, hoping to see Alessia.