'Call me anyway.'
'Yes, all right.'
He called me again on the following day, Friday, in the evening, while I happened to be on duty at the switchboard.
'I've been up in that damned village all day,' he said exhaust-edly. 'Those people… they shut their doors and their faces and their minds.'
'Nothing?' I asked with disappointment.
'There's something,' he said, 'but I don't know what. The name of Viralto was a shock to the kidnapper who talks, but he swears it means nothing to him. He swears it on his dead mother's soul, but he sweats while he swears. He is lying.' He paused. 'But in Viralto… we found nothing. We went into the bakery. We threatened the baker, who also keeps the very small grocery store. There is nowhere near his bakehouse that Alessia could have been hidden, and we searched everywhere. He gave us permission. He said he had nothing to hide. He said he would have known if Alessia had been brought to the village; he says he knows everything. He says she was never there.'
'Did you believe him?' I asked.
'I'm afraid so. We asked at every single house. We did even ask one or two children. We found nothing; we heard nothing. But…'
'But…?' I prompted.
'I have looked at a map,' he said, yawning. 'Viralto is up a side road which goes nowhere else. But if when one gets to the turn to Viralto one drives past it, straight on, that road goes on up into the mountains, and although it is not a good road it crosses the Apennines altogether and then descends towards Firenze. Above Viralto there is a place which used to be a castle but is now a hotel. People go there to walk and enjoy the mountains. Perhaps the Signorina didn't hear enough… perhaps it was at least an hour to Viralto, and longer still to wherever they planned to go? Tomorrow,' he paused, sighing, 'tomorrow I am off duty. Tomorrow I expect I will however be on duty after ah'. I'll go up to the hotel and blow the sirocco through that.'
'Send some of your men,' I suggested.
After a definite pause he said levelly, 'I have given instructions that no one is to act again in this case in any way without my being there in person.'
'Ah.'
'So I will telephone again tomorrow, if you like.'
'Tomorrow I'll be here from four until midnight,' I said gratefully. 'After that, at home.'
In the morning, Saturday, Popsy telephoned while I was pottering round my flat trying to shut my eyes to undone chores.
'Something the matter?' I asked, interpreting the tone of her hello.
'Sort of. I want your help. Can you come?'
'This instant, or will tomorrow do? I have to be in the office, really, by four.'
'On Saturday afternoon?' she sounded surprised.
'Fraid so.'
She hesitated, 'Alessia didn't ride out with the string yesterday because of a headache.'
'Oh… and today?'
'Today she didn't feel like it. Look,' she said abruptly, 'I'd say the idea scared her, but how can it, you saw how she rode?' The faint exasperation in her voice came over clearly, accompanying the genuine concern. When I didn't answer immediately she demanded, 'Are you there?'
'Yes. Just thinking.' I paused. 'She wasn't scared of the horses or of riding, that's for sure. So perhaps she's scared… and I don't think that's the right word, but it'll do for now… of being closed in, of being unable to escape… of being in the string. Like a sort of claustrophobia, even though it's out in the open air. Perhaps that's why she wouldn't go in the string before, but felt all right on her own, up on the Downs.'
She thought it over, then said, 'Perhaps you're right. She certainly wasn't happy yesterday… she spent most of the day in her room, avoiding me.'
'Popsy… don't press her. She needs you very badly, but just as someone there… and undemanding. Tell her not to try to go out with the string until she can't bear not to. Say it's fine with you, you're glad to have her, she can do what she likes. Would that be OK? Could you say that? And I'll come down tomorrow morning.'
'Yes, yes, and yes,' she said sighing. 'I'm very fond of her. Come to lunch and wave your wand.'
Pucinelli telephoned late in the evening with the news: good, bad and inconclusive.
'The Signorina was right,' he said first, sounding satisfied. 'She was taken past Viralto, up to the hotel. We consulted the manager. He said he knew nothing, but we could search all the outbuildings, of which there are very many, most used for storage, but once living quarters for servants and carriage horses and farm animals. In one of the old animal feed lofts we found a tent!' He broke off for dramatic effect, and I congratulated him.
'It was folded,' he said. 'But when we opened it, it was the right size. Green canvas walls, grey floor-covering, just as she said. The floor of the loft itself was of wood, with hooks screwed into it, for the tent ropes.' He paused. 'In the house in the suburbs, we think they tied the tent ropes to the furniture.'
'Mm,' I said encouragingly.
'The loft is in a disused stable yard which is a small distance behind the hotel kitchens. It is perhaps possible she could smell baking… the hotel bakes its own bread.'
'Terrific,' I said.
'No, not terrific. No one there saw her. No one is saying anything. The stores of the hotel are kept in the outbuildings and there are great stocks of household items there, also cold stores for vegetables and meat, and a huge freezer room… vans make deliveries to these storerooms every day. I think the Signorina could have been taken to the hotel in a van, and no one would have paid much attention. There are so many outbuildings and courtyards at the back… garages, garden equipment stores, furniture stores for things not in use, barns full of useless objects which used to be in the old castle, ancient cooking stoves, old baths, enough rubbish to fill a town dump. You could hide for a month there. No one would find you.'
'No luck, then, with the pictures of the kidnapper?' I said.
'No. No one knew him. No one knew the two we have in jail. No one knew anything.' He sounded tired and discouraged.
'All the same,' I said, 'you do have the tent. And it's pretty certain that one of the kidnappers knew the hotel fairly well, because that loft doesn't sound like a place you'd find by accident.'
'No.' He paused. 'Unfortunately the Vistaclara has many people staying there and working there. One of the kidnappers might have stayed there, or worked there, in the past.'
'Vistaclara… is that the name of the hotel?' I asked.
'Yes. In the past there were horses in the stable yard, but the manager says they no longer have them, not enough people want to ride in the hills, they prefer now to play tennis.'
Horses, I thought vaguely.
'How long ago did they have horses?' I asked.
'Before the manager came. I could ask him, if you like. He said the stable yard was empty when he started, about five years ago. It has been empty ever since. Nothing has been stored there in case one day it would again be profitable to offer riding for holidays.'
'Pony trekking,' I said.
'What?'
'Riding over hills on ponies. Very popular in some parts of Britain.'
'Oh,' he said without enthusiasm. 'Anyway, there were grooms once and a riding instructor, but now they have a tennis pro instead… and he didn't know any of the kidnappers in our pictures.'-
'It's a big hotel, then?' I said.
'Yes, quite. People go there in the summer, it is cooler than on the plains or on the coast. Just now there are thirty-eight on the staff besides the manager, and there are rooms for a hundred guests. Also a restaurant with views of the mountains.'
'Expensive?' I suggested.
'Not for the poor,' he said. 'But also not for princes. For people who have money, but not for the jet-set. A few of the guests live there always… old people, mostly.' He sighed. 'I asked a great many questions, as you see. No one at all, however Song they had lived there, or been employed there, showed any interest in our pictures.'
We talked it over for a while longer but without reaching any conclusion except that he would try 'Vistaclara' on the talkative kidnapper the next day: and on that next day, Sunday, I drove down again to Lambourn.
Alessia had by that time been free for nearly two weeks and had progressed to pink varnish on her nails, A lifting of the spirits, I thought.
'Did you buy the varnish?' I asked.
'No… Popsy did.'
'Have you been shopping yet on your own?'
She shook her head. I made no comment, but she said, 'I suppose you think I ought to.'
'No. Just wondered.'
'Don't press me.'
'No.'
'You're as bad as Popsy.' She was looking at me almost with antagonism, something wholly new.
'I thought the varnish looked pretty,' I said equably.
She turned her head away with a frown, and I drank the coffee Popsy had poured before she'd walked out round her yard.
'Did Popsy ask you to come?' Alessia said sharply.
'She asked me to lunch, yes.'
'Did she complain that I've been acting like a cow?'
'No,' I said. 'Have you?'
'I don't know. I expect so. All I know is that I want to scream. To throw things. To hit someone.' She spoke indeed as if a head of steam was being held in by slightly precarious will-power.
'I'll drive you up to the Downs.'
'Why?'
'To scream. Kick the tyres. So on.'
She stood up restlessly, walked aimlessly round the kitchen and then went out of the door. I followed in a moment and found her standing halfway to the Land Rover, irresolute.
'Go on, then,' I said, 'Get in.' I made a questioning gesture to where Popsy stood, pointing to the Land Rover, and from the distance collected a nod.
The keys were in the ignition. I sat in the driver's seat and waited, and Alessia presently climbed in beside me.
'This is stupid,' she said.
