SWITZERLAND. WHEN THE BANK CLEARS THE DRAFT, MORGAN FREEMANTLE RETURNS. AFTER THAT, WATT. POLICE MUST NOT INVESTIGATE. WHEN ALL IS PEACE, I WILL BE FREE. IF THE MONEY IS NOT ABLE TO BE TAKEN OUT OF THE SWISS BANK, I WILL BE KILLED.
'Well,' I said. 'It's much better.'
He reached again for the tape recorder.
'They won't pay ten million,' I said.
His hand paused again. 'I know that.'
'Yes. I'm sure you do.' I wished I could rub an itch on my nose. 'In the normal course of events you would expect a letter to be sent to your Swiss account number from the Jockey Club, making a more realistic proposal.'
He listened impassively, sorting the words into Italian, understanding. 'Yes,' he said.
They might suggest paying a ransom of one hundred thousand pounds,' I said.
'That is ridiculous.'
'Perhaps fifty thousand more, to cover your expenses.'
'Still ridiculous.'
We looked at each other assessingly. In the normal course of events negotiation of a ransom price was not conducted like this. On the other hand, what was there to prevent it?
'Five million,' he said.
I said nothing.
It must be five,' he said.
'The Jockey Club has no money. The Jockey Club is just a social club, made up of people. They aren't all rich people. They cannot pay five million. They do not have five million.'
He shook his head without anger. 'They are rich. They have five million, certainly. I know.'
'How do you know?' I asked.
His eyelids flickered slightly, but all he said again was, 'Five million.'
'Two hundred thousand. Positively no more.'
'Ridiculous.'
He stalked away and disappeared between the laurel bushes, and I guessed he wanted to think and not have me watch him at it.
The Swiss bank account was fascinating, I thought: and clearly he intended to move the money more or less at once from ZL327/42806 to another account number, another bank even, and wanted to be sure the Jockey Club hadn't thought of a way of stopping him or tracing him, or laying a trap. As some of England 's top banking brains could be found either in or advising the Jockey Club, his precautions made excellent sense.
One victim in return for the ransom itself.
One victim in return when the ransom had disappeared into further anonymity.
Morgan Freemantle for money, Andrew Douglas for time.
No drops to be ambushed by excitable carabinieri: no stacks of tatty - and photographed - notes. Just numbers, stored electronically, sophisticated and safe. Subtract the numbers from the gentlemen of the Jockey Club, add the total, telex is to Switzerland.
With his money in Zurich, Giuseppe-Peter could lose himself in South America and not be affected by its endemic inflation. Swiss francs would ride any storm.
Alessia's ransom, at a guess, had gone to Switzerland the day it had been paid, changed into francs, perhaps, by a laundryman. Same for the racecourse owner, earlier. Even with the Dominic operation showing a heavy loss, Giuseppe-Peter must have amassed an English million. I wondered if he had set a target at which he would stop, and I wondered also whether once a kidnapper, always a kidnapper, addicted: in his case, for ever and ever.
I found I still thought of him as Giuseppe-Peter, from long habit. Pietro Goldoni seemed a stranger.
He came back eventually and stood in front of me, looking down.
I am a businessman,' he said.
'Yes.'
'Stand up when you talk to me.'
I thrust away the first overwhelming instinct to refuse. Never antagonise your kidnapper: victim lesson number two. Make him pleased with you, make him like you; he will be less ready to kill.
Sod the training manual, I thought mordantly: and stood up.
'That's better,' he said. 'Every time I am here, stand up.'
'All right.'
'You will make the recording. You understand what I wish to say. You will say it.' He paused briefly. 'If I do not like what you say, we will start again.'
I nodded.
He pulled the black tape recorder from the leather bag and switched it on. Then he plucked the sheet of instructions from his jacket pocket, shook it open, and held it, with his own version towards me, for me to read. He gestured to me to start, and I cleared my voice and said as unemotionally as I could manage:
'This is Andrew Douglas. The ransom demand for Morgan Freemantle is now reduced to five million pounds -'
Giuseppe-Peter switched off the machine.
'I did not tell you to say that,' he said intensely.
'No,' I agreed mildly. 'But it might save time.'
He pursed his lips, considered, told me to start again, and pressed the record buttons.
I said:
'This is Andrew Douglas. The ransom demand for Morgan Freemantle is now reduced to five million pounds. This money is to be sent by certified banker's draft to the Credit Helvetia, Zurich, Switzerland, to be lodged in account number ZL327/42806. When that account has been credited with the money, Morgan Freemantle will be returned. After that there are to be no police investigations. If there are no investigations, and if the money in the Swiss bank has been paid clear of all restrictions and may be moved to other accounts without stoppage, I will be freed.'
I halted. He pressed the stop buttons and said, 'You have not finished.'
I looked at him.
'You will say that unless these things happen, you will be killed.'
His dark eyes looked straight at mine; level, at my own height. I saw only certainty. He pressed the start buttons again and waited.
'I am told,' I said in a dry voice, 'that unless these conditions are met, I will be killed.'
He nodded sharply and switched off.
I thought: he will kill me anyway. He put his tape recorder into one section of his bag and began feeling into another section for something else. I had the most dreadful lurch of fear in my gut and tried with the severest physical will to control it. But it wasn't a gun or a knife that he brought out of the bag: it was a cola bottle containing a milky-looking liquid.
The reaction was almost as bad. In spite of the chilly air, I was sweating.
He appeared not to have noticed. He was unscrewing the cap and looking in the bag for what proved to be a fat, plastic, gaily-striped drinking straw.
'Soup' he said. He put the straw into the bottle and offered it to my mouth.
I sucked. It was chicken soup, cold, fairly thick. I drank all of it quite fast, afraid he would snatch it away.
He watched without comment. When I'd finished he threw the straw on the ground, screwed the top of the bottle and replaced it in the bag. Then he gave me another long, considering, concentrated stare, and abruptly went away.
I sat down regrettably weakly on the loamy ground.
God dammit, I thought. God dammit to hell.
It is in myself, I thought, as in every victim; the hopeless feeling of indignity, the sickening guilt of having bees snatched.
A prisoner, naked, alone, afraid, dependent on one's enemy for food… all the classic ingredients of victim-breakdown syndrome. The training manual come to life. Knowing so well what it was like from other people's accounts didn't sufficiently shield one from the shock of the reality.
In the future I would understand what I was told not just in the head but with every remembered pulse.
If there were a future.
NINETEEN
Rain came again, at first in big heavy individual drops, splashing with sharp taps on the dead leaves, and then quite soon in a downpour. I stood up and let the rain act as a shower, soaking my hair, running down my body, cold and oddly pleasant.
I drank some of it again, getting quite good at swallowing without choking. How really extraordinary I must look, I thought, standing there in the clearing getting wet.
My long-ago Scottish ancestors had gone naked into battle, whooping and roaring down the heather hillsides with sword and shield alone and frightening the souls out of the enemy. If those distant clansmen, Highland-born in long-gone centuries, could choose to fight as nature made them, then so should I settle for the same sternness of spirit in this day.
I wondered if the Highlanders had been fortified before they set off by distillations of barley. It would give one more courage, I thought, than chicken soup.
It went on raining for hours, heavily and without pause. Only when it again began to get dark did it ease off, and by then the ground round the tree was so wet that sitting on it was near to a mud bath. Still, having stood all day, I sat. If it rained the next day, I thought wryly, the mud would wash off.
The night was again long and cold, but not to the point of hypothermia. My skin dried when the rain stopped. Eventually, against all the odds, I again went to sleep.
I spent the damp dawn and an hour or two after it feeling grindingly hungry and drearily wondering whether Giuseppe-Peter would ever come back: but he did. He came as before, stepping quietly, confidently, through the laurel screen, wearing the same jacket, carrying the same bag.
I stood up at his approach. He made no comment; merely noted it. There was a fuzz of moisture on his sleek hair, a matter of a hundred per cent humidity rather than actual drizzle, and he walked carefully, picking his way between puddles.
