'Eagler wanted to see us anyway at about five,' he said. 'In the Silver Sail cafe in that place the boy mentioned. Itchenor. Sounds like some disgusting effing disease.'
The football-kicker in green shorts was presently talking to a little girl whose mother bustled up in alarm and protectively shepherded her nestling away.
'Never mind,' Tony said. 'That smashing bit of goods in the pink bikini over there is a policewoman. What'll you bet green-shorts will be talking to her in two effing ticks?'
'Not a pebble,' I said.
We watched while green-shorts got into conversation with pink-bikini. 'Nicely done,' Tony said approvingly. 'Very natural.'
The pink-bikini girl stopped looking for shells exclusively and started looking for small girls as well, and I took my shirt off and began turning a delicate shade of lobster.
No dramas occurred on the beach. The hot afternoon warmed to tea-time. The football-kickers went off across the breakwaters and the pink-bikini went in for a swim. Tony and I stood up, stretched, shook and folded our towels, and in good holidaymaker fashion got into my car and drove westwards to Itchenor.
Eagler, inconspicuous in an open-necked shirt, baggy grey flannels and grubby tennis shoes, was drinking tea in the Silver Sail and writing a picture postcard.
'May we join you?' I asked politely.
'Sit down, laddie, sit down.'
It was an ordinary sort of cafe: sauce bottles on the tables, murals of sailing boats round the walls, brown tiled floor, plastic stacking chairs in blue. A notice by a cash desk stated 'The best chips on the coast' and a certain warm oiliness in the atmosphere tended to prove their popularity.
'My WPC found your girl child,' Eagler said, sticking a stamp on his postcard. 'Name of Sharon Wellor, seven years old, staying in a guest house until Saturday. She couldn't describe the man who asked her to deliver the note. She says he gave her some fruit pastilles, and she's scared now because her mother's always told her never to take sweets from strangers.'
'Did she know whether he was old or young?' I asked.
'Everyone over twenty is old to a seven-year-old,' Eagler said. 'She told my WPC where she's staying, though, so perhaps we'll ask again.' He glanced at us. 'Come up with any more ideas, have you?'
'Yeah,' Tony said. 'Kidnappers often don't transport their victims very far from their snatching point. Lowers the risk.'
'In holiday resorts,' I said mildly, 'half the houses are for rent.'
Eagler fiddled aimlessly with his teaspoon. 'Thousands of them,' he said dryly.
'But one of them might have been rented sometime last week.'
We waited, and after a while he nodded. 'We'll do the legwork. Ask the travel agents, estate agents, local papers.' He paused, then said without emphasis, The kid may have been taken off in a boat.'
Tony and I paid fast attention.
'There was a motor-boat there,' Eagler said. 'One of those putt-putt things for hire by the hour. My detective constables were told that when the dinghy went on fire the other boat was bobbing round in the shallows with no one in it, but a man in swimming trunks was standing knee-deep in the water holding on to it by the bows. Then, our informants said, the dinghy suddenly went up in flames, very fast, with a whoosh, and everyone ran towards it, naturally. Our informants said that afterwards the motor-boat had gone, which they thought perfectly normal as its time was probably up.' He stopped, looking at us neutrally but with a smile of satisfaction plainly hovering.
'Who were your informants?' I asked.
The smile almost surfaced. 'A ten-year-old canal digger and his grandmother.'
'Very reliable,' I said.
'The boat was blue, clinker built, with a number seventeen in white on its bow and stern.'
'And the man?'
'The man was a man. They found the boat more interesting,' He paused again. 'There's a yard here in Itchenor with boats like that for hire. The trouble is they've got only ten. They've never had one with seventeen on it, ever.'
'But who's to know?' Tony said.
'Look for a house with a boat-shed,' I murmured.
Eagler said benignly, 'It wouldn't hurt, would it, to find the kid?'
'If they spot anyone looking they'll be off in a flash,' I said, 'and it would be dangerous for the boy.'
Eagler narrowed his eyes slightly at our alarm. 'We'll go round the agencies,' he said. 'If we turn up anything likely on paper we won't surround it without telling you first. How's that?'
We both shook our heads.
'Better to avoid raids and sieges if possible,' I said.
Tony said to Eagler, 'If you find a likely house on paper, let me suss it out. I've had all sorts of experience at this sort of thing. I'll tell you if the kid's there. And if he is, I'll get him out.'
TWELVE
There was an urgent message from the office at the Breakwater Hotel for me to telephone Alessia, which I did.
'Miranda's distracted… she's in pieces,' she said, sounding strung up herself beyond sympathy to near snapping point. 'It's awful… She's telephoned me three times, crying terribly, begging me to get you to do something…'
'Sweet Alessia,' I said. 'Take three deep breaths and sit down if you're standing up.'
'Oh…' Her cough of surprise had humour in it, and after a pause she said, 'All right. I'm sitting. Miranda's dreadfully frightened. Is that better?'
'Yes,' I said, half smiling. 'What's happened?'
'Superintendent Rightsworth and John Nerrity are making a plan and won't listen to Miranda, and she's desperate to stop them. She wants you to make them see they mustn't.' Her voice was still high and anxious, the sentences coming fast.
'What's the plan?' I asked.
'John is going to pretend to do what the kidnappers tell him. Pretend to collect the money. Then when the pretend money is handed over, Superintendent Rightsworth will jump on the kidnappers and make them say where Dominic is.' She gulped audibly. 'That's what went wrong… with me… in Bologna… isn't it?'
'Yes,' I said, 'an ambush at the R.V. is to my mind too high a risk.'
'What's the R.V.?'
'Sorry. Rendezvous. The place where the ransom is handed over.'
'Miranda says John doesn't want to pay the ransom and Superintendent Rightsworth is telling him not to worry, he doesn't need to.'
'Mm,' I said. 'Well, I can see why Miranda's upset. Did she talk to you from the telephone in her own house?'
'What? Oh, my goodness, it's tapped, isn't it, with the police listening to every word?'
'It is indeed,' I said dryly.
'She was up in her bedroom. I suppose she didn't think. And, heavens… she said John was regretting calling in Liberty Market, because you were advising him to pay. Superintendent Rightsworth has assured him the police can take care of everything, there's no need to have outsiders putting their oar in.'
The phrase had an authentic Rightsworth ring.
'Miranda says John is going to tell Liberty Market he doesn't want their help any more. He says it's a waste of money… and Miranda's frantic.'
'Mm,' I said. 'If she telephones you again, try to remind her the 'phone's tapped. If she has any sense she'll ring you back from somewhere else. Then reassure her that we'll do our best to change her husband's mind.'
'But how?' Alessia said, despairing.
'Get our Chairman to frighten him silly, I dare say,' I said. 'And I never said that. It's for your ears only.'
'Will it work?' Alessia said doubtfully.
'There are also people who can overrule Rightsworth.'
'I suppose there are.' She sounded happier with that. 'Shall I tell Miranda to telephone directly to you in your office?'
'No,' I said. 'I'll be moving about. When you've heard from her, leave a message again for me to call you, and I will.'
'All right.' She sounded tired. 'I haven't been able to think of anything else all day. Poor Miranda. Poor, poor little boy. I never really understood until now what Papa went through because of me.'
'Because of your kidnappers,' I said, 'and for love of you, yes.'
After a pause she said, 'You're telling me again… I must feel no guilt.'
'That's right,' I said. 'No more guilt than Dominic'
'It's not easy…'
'No,' I agreed. 'But essential.
She asked if I would come to lunch on Sunday, and I said yes if possible but not to count on it.
'You will get him back alive, won't you?' she said finally, none of the worry dissipated; and I said 'Yes,' and meant it.
'Goodbye, then…'
'Goodbye,' I said, 'and love to Popsy.'
Liberty Market, I reflected, putting down the receiver, might have an overall success rate as high as ninety-five per cent, but John Nerrity seemed to be heading himself perilously towards the other tragic five. Perhaps he truly believed, perhaps even Rightsworth believed, that an ambush at the drop produced the best results. And so they did, if capturing some of the kidnappers was the prime overriding aim.
There had been a case in Florida, however, when the police had ambushed the man who picked up the ransom and shot him down as he ran to escape, and only because the wounded man relented and told where his victim was a few seconds before he slid into a final coma, had they ever found the boy alive. He had been left in the boot of a parked car, and would slowly have suffocated if the police had fired a fraction straighter.
I told Tony of Nerrity's plans and he said disgustedly, 'What is he, an effing optimist?' He bit his thumbnail. 'Have to find that little nipper, won't we?'
'Hope to God.'
