Dick Francis - The Danger

The raceclub lounges we're packed when I arrived, the decibel count high. Glasses of orange juice sprouted from many a fist, long-lensed cameras swinging from many a shoulder. The sportswriters were on their feet, moving, mingling, agog for exclusives, ears stretching to hear conversations behind them. The majority, knowing each other, clapped shoulders in passing. Trainers held small circular conferences, the press heads bending to catch vital words. Owners stood around looking either smug or bemused according to how often they'd attended this sort of shindig; and here and there, like gazelles among the herd, like a variation of the species, stood short light-boned creatures, heads thrown back, being deferred to like stars.

'Orange juice?' someone said, handing me a glass.

Thanks.'

I couldn't see Rickenbacker, nor anyone I knew.

No Alessia. The gazelles I saw were all male.

I wandered about, knowing that without her my presence there was pointless; but it had seemed unlikely that she would miss taking her place among her peers.

I knew she'd accepted Laurel 's invitation, and her name was plainly there at the breakfast, on a list pinned to a notice board on an easel, as the rider of Brunelleschi. I read through the list, sipping orange juice. Fourteen runners; three from Britain, one from France, one from Italy, two from Canada, two from Argentina, all the rest home-grown. Alessia seemed to be the only jockey who was a girl.

Presumably at some sort of signal the whole crowd began moving into a large side room, in which many oblong tables were formally laid with flowers, tableclothes, plates and cutlery. I had vaguely assumed the room to be made ready for lunch, but I'd been wrong. Breakfast meant apparently not orange juice on the wing, but bacon and eggs, waitresses and hot breads.

I hung back, thinking I wouldn't stay, and heard a breathless voice by my left ear saying incredulously, 'Andrew?' I turned. She was there after all, the thin face strong now and vivid, the tilt of the head confident. The dark bubble curls shone with health, the eyes below them gleaming.

I hadn't been sure what I felt for her, not until that moment. I hadn't seen her for six weeks and before that I'd been accustomed to thinking of her as part of my job; a rewarding pleasure, a victim I much liked, but transient, like all the others. The sight of her that morning came as almost a physical shock, an intoxicant racing in the bloodstream. I put out my arms and hugged her, and felt her cling to me momentarily with savagery.

'Well…' I looked into her brown eyes. 'Want a lover?'

She gasped a bit and laughed, and didn't answer. 'We're at a table over there,' she said, pointing deep into the room. 'We were sitting there waiting. I couldn't believe it when I saw you come in. There's room for you at our table. A spare place. Do join us.

I nodded and she led the way: and it wasn't Ilaria who had come with her from Italy, but Paolo Cenci himself. He stood up at my approach and gave me not a handshake but an immoderate Italian embrace, head to head, his face full of welcome.

Perhaps I wouldn't have recognised him, this assured, solid, pearl-grey-suited businessman, if I'd met him unexpectedly in an American street. He was again the man I hadn't known, the competent manager in the portrait. The shaky wreckage of five months earlier had retreated, become a memory, an illness obliterated by recovery. I was glad for him and felt a stranger with him, and would not in any way have referred to the anxieties we had shared.

He himself had no such reservations. 'This is the man who brought Alessia back safely,' he said cheerfully in Italian to the three other people at the table, and Alessia, glancing briefly at my face said, 'Papa, he doesn't like us to talk about it.'

'My darling girl, we don't often, do we?' He smiled at me with intense friendship. 'Meet Bruno and Beatrice Goldoni,' he said in English. 'They are the owners of Brunelleschi.'

I shook hands with a withdrawn-looking man of about sixty and a strained-looking woman of a few years younger, both of whom nodded pleasantly enough but didn't speak.

'And Silvio Lucchese, Brunelleschi's trainer,' Paolo Cenci said, introducing the last of the three.

We shook hands quickly, politely. He was dark and thin and reminded me of Pucinelli; a man used to power but finding himself at a disadvantage, as he spoke very little English very awkwardly, with an almost unintelligible accent.

Paolo Cenci waved me to the one empty chair, between Alessia and Beatrice Goldoni, and when all in the room were seated a hush fell on the noisy general chatter and Rickenbacker, followed by a few friends, made a heralded entrance, walking in a modest procession down the whole room, heading for the top table facing everyone else.

'Welcome to Laurel racecourse,' he said genially, reaching his centre chair, his white hair crowning his height like a cloud. 'Glad to see so many overseas friends here this morning. As I expect most of you have now heard, one of our good friends is missing. I speak of course of Morgan Freemantle, Senior Steward of the British Jockey Club, who was distressfully abducted here two days ago. Everything possible is being done to secure his early release and of course we'll keep you all informed as we go along. Meanwhile, have a good breakfast, and we'll all talk later.'

A flurry of waitresses erupted all over the place, and I suppose I ate, but I was conscious only of my stirred feelings for Alessia, and of her nearness, and of the question she hadn't answered. She behaved to me, and I dare say I to her, with civil calm. In any case, since everyone else was talking in Italian, my own utterances were few, careful, and limited in content.

It seemed that the Goldonis were enjoying their trip, though one wouldn't have guessed it from their expressions.

'We are worried about the race tomorrow,' Beatrice said. 'We always worry, we can't help it.' She broke off. 'Do you understand what I'm saying?'

'I understand much more than I speak.'

She seemed relieved and immediately began talking copiously, ignoring repressive looks from her gloomier husband. 'We haven't been to Washington before. Such a spacious, gracious city. We've been here two days… we leave on Sunday for New York. Do you know New York? What should one see in New York?"

I answered her as best I could, paying minimal attention. Her husband was sporadically discussing Brunelleschi's prospects with Lucchese as if it were their fiftieth reiteration, rather like the chorus of a Greek play six weeks into its run. Paolo Cenci told me five times he was delighted to see me, and Alessia ate an egg but nothing else.

An ocean of coffee later the day's real business began, proving to be short interviews with all the trainers and jockeys and many of the owners of the following day's runners. Sports-writers asked questions, Rickenbacker introduced the contestants effusively, and everyone learned more about the foreign horses than they'd known before or were likely to remember after.

Alessia interpreted for Lucchese, translating the questions, slightly editing the answers, explaining in one reply that Brunelleschi didn't actually mean anything, it was the name of the architect who'd designed a good deal of the city of Florence; like Wren in London, she said. The sportswriters wrote it down. They wrote every word she uttered, looking indulgent.

On her own account she said straightforwardly that the horse needed to see where he was going in a race and hated to be shut in.

'What was it like being kidnapped?' someone asked, transferring the thought.

'Horrible' She smiled, hesitated, said finally that she felt great sympathy for Morgan Freemantle and hoped sincerely that he would soon be free.

Then she sat down and said abruptly, 'When I heard about Morgan Freemantle I thought of you, of course… wondered if your firm would be involved. That's why you're here, isn't it? Not to see me race.'