'He's so angry,' she said piteously. 'He's… livid. He says it's my fault… He's so angry… you don't know what he's like… I don't want to talk to him… I can't.'
'Well,' I said. 'I'll telephone from another place. Not this room. I'll be as quick as I can. Will you both be all right?'
Alessia nodded, although she was herself shaking, and I went downstairs and found a public telephone tucked into a private corner of the entrance hall.;
Tony Vine answered from John Nerrity's number.
'Are you alone?' I asked.
'No. Are you?'
'Yes. What's the score?'
'The pinchers have told him he'll get his boy safe… on conditions.'
'Such as?'
'Five million.'
'For God's sake,' I said, 'has he got five million?' The Breakwater Hotel, nice enough, wasn't a millionaire's playground.
'He's got a horse,' Tony said baldly.
A horse.
Ordinand, winner of the Derby.
'Ordinand?' I said.
'No slouch, are you? Yeah, Ordinand. The pinchers want him to sell it at once.'
'How did they tell him?' I asked.
'On the telephone. No tap, of course, at that point. He says it was a rough voice full of slang. Aggressive. A lot of threats.'
I told Tony about the block-lettered note. 'Same level of language?'
'Yeah.' Tony's occasional restraint in the matter of eff this and eff that was always a source of wonder, but la fact he m seldom let rip in front of clients. 'Mr Nerrity's chief, not to say sole, asset, as I understand it, is the horse. He is… er
'Spitting mad?'! suggested. 01 'Yeah.'
I half smiled. 'Mrs Nerrity is faintly scared of him.
'Not in the least surprising.'
I told Tony how the kidnap had been worked and said I thought the police ought to investigate the dinghy very fast. 'Have you told the local fuzz anything yet?8
'No. Miranda will take a bit of persuading. I'll do it next. What have you told them from your end?'
'Nothing so far. I tell Mr Nerrity we can't help him without the police, but you know what it's like. 'Mm. I'll call you again, shortly.'
'Yeah.' He put his receiver down and I strolled out of the hotel and rolled my trouser legs up to the knees on the edge of the shingle, sliding down the banks of pebbles in great strides towards the sand. Once there I took off shoes and socks and ambled along carrying them, enjoying the evening sun.
There were a few breakwaters at intervals along the beach, black fingers stretching stumpily seawards, rotten in places and overgrown with molluscs and seaweed. Miranda's chair, towels and paraphernalia were alone on the shingle, most other people having packed up for the day; and not far away there was still a red plastic bucket and a blue plastic spade on the ground beside a half- trampled sandcastle. The British seaside public, I reflected, were still remarkably honest.
The burnt remains of the dinghy were the focal point for the few people still on the sand, the returning tide already swirling an inch deep around the hull. I walked over there as if drawn like everyone else, and took the closest possible look, paddling, like others, to see inside the shell.
The boat had been fibreglass and had melted as it burned. There were no discernible registration numbers on what was left of the exterior, and although the mast, which was aluminium, had survived the blaze and still pointed heavenward like an exclamation mark, the sail, which would have born identification, lay in ashes round its foot. Something in the scorched mess might tell a tale - but the tide was inexorable.
'Shouldn't we try to haul it up to the shingle?' I suggested to a man paddling like myself.
He shrugged. 'Not our business.'
'Has anyone told the police?' I said.
He shrugged again. 'Search me.'
I paddled round to the other side of the remains and tried another more responsible-looking citizen but he too shook his head and muttered about being late already, and it was two fourteen-sized boys, overhearing, who said they would give me a hand, if I liked.
They were strong and cheerful. They lifted, strained, staggered willingly. The keel slid up the sand leaving a deep single track and between us we manhandled it up the shingle to where the boys said the tide wouldn't reach it to whisk it away.
'Thanks,' I said.
They beamed. We all stood hands on hips admiring the result of our labours and then they too said they had to be off home to supper. They loped away, vaulting a breakwater, and I collected the bucket and spade and all Miranda's belongings and carried them up to her room.
Neither she nor Alessia was in good shape, and Alessia, if anything, seemed the more relieved at my return. I gave her a reassuring hug, and to Miranda I said, 'We're going to have to get the police.'
'No.' She was terrified. 'No… no…'
'Mm.' I nodded. 'Believe me, it's best. The people who've taken Dominic don't want to kill him, they want to sell him back to you safe and sound. Hold on to that. The police will be very helpful and we can arrange things so that the kidnappers won't know we've told them. I'll do that. The police will want to know what Dominic was wearing on the beach, and if you have a photograph, that would be great.'
She wavered helplessly. 'John said… keep quiet, I'd done enough damage…'
I picked up the telephone casually and got through again to her husband's number. Tony again answered.
'Andrew,' I said.
'Oh.' His voice lost its tension; he'd been expecting the kidnappers.
'Mrs Nerrity will agree to informing the police on her husband's say-so.'
'Go ahead then. He understands we can't act for him without. He… er… doesn't want us to leave him. He's just this minute decided, when he heard the 'phone ring.'
'Good. Hang on…' I turned to Miranda. 'Your husband says we can tell the police. Do you want to talk to him?'
She shook her head violently. 'OK.' I said to Tony. 'Let's get started and I'll call you later.'
'What was the kid wearing?' he asked.
I repeated the question to Miranda and between new sobs she said red bathing trunks. Tiny towelling trunks. No shoes, no shirt… it had been hot.
Tony grunted and rang off, and as unhurriedly as I could I asked Miranda to put some clothes on and come out driving with me in my car. Questioning, hesitant and fearful she nevertheless did what was needed, and presently, having walked out of the hotel in scarf and sunglasses between Alessia and myself, sat with Alessia in the rear seats as I drove all three of us in the direction of Chichester.
Checks on our tail and an unnecessary detour showed no one following, and with one pause to ask directions I stopped the car near the main police station but out of sight of it, round a corner. Inside the station I asked for the senior officers on duty, and presently explained to a chief inspector and a CID man how things stood.
I showed them my own identification and credentials, and one of them, fortunately, knew something of Liberty Market's work. They looked at the kidnappers' threatening note with the blankness of shock, and rapidly paid attention to the account of the death of the dinghy.
'We'll be on to that straight away,' said the Chief Inspector, stretching a hand to the telephone. 'No one's reported it yet, as far as I know.'
'Er,…' I said. 'Send someone dressed as a seaman. Gumboots. Seaman's sweater. Don't let them behave like policemen, it would be very dangerous for the child.'
The Chief Inspector drew back from the telephone, frowning. Kidnapping in England was so comparatively rare that very few local forces had any experience of it. I repeated that the death threat to Dominic was real and should be a prime consideration in all procedure.
'Kidnappers are full of adrenalin and easily frightened,' I said. 'It's when they think they're in danger of being caught that they kill… and bury… the victim. Dominic really is in deadly danger, but we'll get him back safe if we're careful.'
After a silence the CID officer, who was roughly my own age, said they would have to call in his super.
'How long will that take?' I asked. 'Mrs Nerrity is outside in my car with a woman friend, and I don't think she can stand very much waiting. She's highly distressed.'
They nodded. Telephoned. Guardedly explained. The super, it transpired to their relief, would speed back to his office within ten minutes.
Detective Superintendent Eagler could have been born to be a plain-clothes cop. Even though I was expecting him I gave the thin, harmless-looking creature who came into the room no more than a first cursory glance. He had wispy balding hair and a scrawny neck rising from an ill-fitting shirt. His suit looked old and saggy and his manner seemed faintly apologetic. It was only when the other two men straightened at his arrival that with surprise I realised who he was.
He shook my hand, not very firmly, perched a thin rump on one corner of the large official desk, and asked me to identify myself. I gave him one of the firm's business cards with my name on. With neither haste nor comment he dialled the office number and spoke, I supposed, to Gerry Clayton. He made no remark about whatever answers Gerry gave him, but merely said 'Thanks' and put down the receiver.
'I've studied other cases,' he said directly to me and without more preamble. 'Lesley Whittle… and others that went wrong. I want no such disasters on my patch. I'll listen to your advice, and if it seems good to me, I'll act on it. Can't say more than that.'
I nodded and again suggested seamen-lookalikes to collect the dinghy, to which he instantly agreed, telling his junior to doll himself up and take a partner, without delay.
'Next?' he asked.
I said, 'Would you talk to Mrs Nerrity in my car, not in here? I don't think she should be seen in a police station. I don't think even that I should walk with you directly to her. I could meet you somewhere. One may be taking precautions quite unnecessarily, but some kidnappers are very thorough and suspicious, and one's never quite sure.'
He agreed and left before me, warning his two colleagues to say nothing whatever yet to anyone else.
'Especially not before the press blackout has been arranged,' I added. 'You could kill the child. Seriously; I mean it.'
They gave earnest assurances, and I walked back to the car to find both girls near to collapse. 'We're going to pick someone up,' I said. 'He's a policeman, but he doesn't look like it, He'll help to get Dominic back safely and to arrest the kidnappers.' I sighed inwardly at my positive voice, but if I couldn't give Miranda even a shred of confidence, I could give her nothing. We stopped for Eagler at a crossroads near the cathedral, and he slid without comment into the front passenger seat.
Again I drove a while on the look-out for company, but as far as I could see no kidnappers had risked it. After a few miles I stopped in a parking place on the side of a rural road, and Eagler got Miranda again to describe her dreadful day.
