The Danger Read online

  “You believed them?”

  A pause. Then she said “Yes” with a conviction that brought understanding of what she’d been through vividly to life. Cenci, although he had believed the threats himself, looked shattered. Pucinelli gravely assured her that he was sure she had been right: and so, though I didn’t mention it, was I.

  “They said . . . I would go home safely . . . if I was quiet . . . and if you would pay for my release.” She was still trying not to cry. “Papa . . .”

  “My dearest . . . I would pay anything.” He was himself close to tears.

  “Yes,” Pucinelli said matter-of-factly. “Your father paid.”

  I glanced at him. “He paid,” he repeated, looking steadily at Cenci. “How much, and where he paid it, only he knows. In no other way would you be free.”

  Cenci said defensively, “I was lucky to get the chance, after your men . . .”

  Pucinelli cleared his throat hurriedly and said, “Let’s get on. Signorina, please describe how you have lived for the past six weeks.”

  “I didn’t know how long it was, until Aunt Luisa told me. I lost count . . . there were so many days . . . I had no way of counting . . . and then it didn’t seem to matter much. I asked why it was so long, but they didn’t answer. They never answered any questions. It wasn’t worth asking . . . but sometimes I did, just to hear my own voice.” She paused. “It’s odd to talk as much as this. I went days without saying anything at all.”

  “They talked to you, though, Signorina?”

  “They gave me orders.”

  “What orders?”

  “To take in the food. To put out the bucket . . .” She stopped, then said, “It sounds so awful, here in this room.”

  She looked round at the noble bookcases stretching to the high ceiling, at the silk brocaded chairs, at the pale Chinese carpet on the marble-tiled floor. Every room in the house had the same unself-conscious atmosphere of wealth, of antique things having stood in the same places for decades, of treasures taken for granted. She must have been in many a meager room in her racing career, but she was seeing her roots, I guessed, with fresh eyes.

  “In the tent,” she said resignedly, “there was a piece of foam for me to lie on, and another small piece for a pillow. There was a bucket . . . an ordinary bucket, like out of a stable. There was nothing else.” She paused, “There was a zip to open one side of the tent. It would open only about fifty centimeters . . . it was jammed above that. They told me to unzip it, and I would find food . . .”

  “Could you see anything of the room outside the tent?” Pucinelli asked.

  She shook her head. “Beyond the zip there was just more tent . . . but folded a bit, I think . . . I mean, not properly put up like another room . . .” She paused. “They told me not to try to get into it.” Another pause. “The food was always where I could reach it easily, just by the zip.”

  “What was the food?” Cenci asked, deeply concerned.

  “Pasta.” A pause. “Sometimes warm, sometimes cold. Mixed with sauce. Tinned, I think. Anyway . . .” she said tiredly, “it came twice a day . . . and the second lot usually had sleeping pills in it.”

  Cenci exclaimed in protest, but Alessia said, “I didn’t mind . . . I just ate it . . . it was better really than staying awake.”

  There was a silence, then Pucinelli said, “Was there anything you could hear, which might help us to find where you were held?”

  “Hear?” She glanced at him vaguely. “Only the music.”

  “What music?”

  “Oh . . . tapes. Taped music. Over and over, always the same.”

  “What sort of music?”

  “Verdi. Orchestral, no singing. Three quarters of that, then one quarter of pop music. Still no singing.”

  “Could you write down the tunes in order?”

  She looked mildly surprised but said, “Yes, I should think so. All that I know the names of.”

  “If you do that today, I’ll send a man for the list.”

  “All right.”

  “Is there anything else at all you can think of?”

  She looked dully at the floor, her thin face tired with the mental efforts of freedom. Then she said, “About four times they gave me a few sentences to read aloud, and they told me each time to mention something that had happened in my childhood, which only my father would know about, so that he could be sure I was still . . . all right.”

  Pucinelli nodded. “You were reading from daily papers.”

  She shook her head. “They weren’t newspapers. Just sentences typed on ordinary paper.”

  “Did you keep those papers?”

  “No, they told me to put them out through the zip.” She paused. “The only times they turned the music off was when I made the recordings.”

  “Did you see a microphone?”

  “No . . . But I could hear them talk clearly through the tent . . . so I suppose they recorded me from outside.”

  “Would you remember their voices?”

  An involuntary shudder shook her. “Two of them, yes. They spoke most . . . but there were others. The one who made the recordings . . . I’d remember him. He was just . . . cold. The other one was beastly . . . He seemed to enjoy it . . . but he was worse at the beginning . . . or at least perhaps I got used to him and didn’t care. Then there was one sometimes who kept apologizing . . . ‘Sorry, Signorina’ . . . when he told me the food was there. And another who just grunted . . . None of them ever answered, if I spoke.” “Signorina,” Pucinelli said, “if we play you one of the tapes your father received, will you tell us if you recognize the man’s voice?”

  “Oh . . .” She swallowed. “Yes, of course.”

  He had brought a small recorder and copies of the tapes with him, and she watched apprehensively while he inserted a cassette and pressed a button. Cenci put out a hand to grasp one of Alessia’s, almost as if he could shield her from what she would hear.

  “Cenci,” HIS voice said. “We have your daughter, Alessia. We will return her on payment of one hundred and fifty thousand million lire. Listen to your daughter’s voice.” There was a click, and then Alessia’s slurred words. Then, “Believe her. If you do not pay, we will kill her. Do not delay. Do not inform the carabinieri, or your daughter will be beaten. She will be beaten every day you delay, and also . . .” Pucinelli pressed the stop button decisively, abruptly and mercifully shutting off the worse, the bestial threats. Alessia anyway was shaking and could hardly speak. Her nods were small and emphatic. “Mm . . . yes . . .”

  “You could swear to it?”

  “. . . Yes . . .”

  Pucinelli methodically put away the recorder. “It is the same male voice on all the tapes. We have had a voiceprint made, to be sure.”

  Alessia worked saliva into her mouth. “They didn’t beat me,” she said. “They didn’t even threaten it. They said nothing like that.”

  Pucinelli nodded. “The threats were for your father.”

  She said with intense anxiety, “Papa, you didn’t pay that much? That’s everything . . . you couldn’t.”

  He shook his head reassuringly. “No, no, nothing like that. Don’t fret . . . don’t worry.”

  “Excuse me,” I said in English.

  All the heads turned in surprise, as if the wallpaper had spoken.

  “Signorina,” I said, “were you moved from place to place at all? Were you in particular moved four or five days ago?”

  She shook her head. “No.” Her certainty however began to waver, and with a frown she said, “I was in that tent all the time. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “The last few days, there was a sort of smell of bread baking, sometimes, and the light seemed brighter . . . but I thought they had drawn a curtain perhaps . . . though I didn’t think much at all. I mean, I slept so much . . . it was better . . .”

  “The light,” I said, “it was daylight?”

  She nodded. “It was quite dim in the tent, but my eyes were so used
to it . . . They never switched on any electric lights. At night it was dark, I suppose, but I slept all night, every night.”

  “Do you think you could have slept through a move, if they’d taken the tent from one room in one place and driven it to another place and set it up again?”

  The frown returned while she thought it over. “There was one day not long ago I hardly woke up at all. When I did wake it was already getting dark and I felt sick . . . like I did when I woke here yesterday . . . and oh,” she exclaimed intensely, “I’m so glad to be here, so desperately grateful . . . I can’t tell you . . .” She buried her face on her father’s shoulder and he stroked her hair with reddening eyes.

  Pucinelli rose to his feet and took a formal leave of father and daughter, removing himself, his note-taker, and myself to the hall.

  “I may have to come back, but that seems enough for now.” He sighed. “She knows so little. Not much help. The kidnappers were too careful. If you learn any more, Andrew, you’ll tell me?”

  I nodded.

  “How much was the ransom?” he said.

  I smiled. “The list of the notes’ numbers will come here today. I’ll let you have them. Also, do you have the Identikit system, like in England?”

  “Something like it, yes.”

  “I could build a picture of one of the other kidnappers, I think. Not the ones in the siege. If you like.”

  “If I like! Where did you see him? How do you know?”

  “I’ve seen him twice. I’ll tell you about it when I come in with the lists.”

  “How soon?” he demanded.

  “When the messenger comes. Any time now.”

  The messenger obligingly arrived while Pucinelli was climbing into his car, so I borrowed the Fiat runabout again and followed him to his headquarters.

  Fitting together pieces of head with eyes and mouth, chin and hairline, I related the two sightings. “You probably saw him yourself, outside the ambulance, the night the siege started,” I said.

  “I had too much to think of.”

  I nodded and added ears. “This man is young. Difficult to tell . . . not less than twenty-five, though. Lower thirties, probably.”

  I built a full face and a profile, but wasn’t satisfied, and Pucinelli said he would get an artist in to draw what I wanted. “He works in the courts. Very fast.”

  A telephone call produced the artist within half an hour. He came, fat, grumbling, smelling of garlic and scratching, and saying that it was siesta, how could any sane man be expected to work at two in the afternoon? He stared with disillusion at my composite efforts, fished out a thin charcoal stick, and began performing rapid miracles on a sketch pad. Every few seconds he stopped to raise his eyebrows at me, inviting comment.

  “Rounder head,” I said, describing it with my hands. “A smooth round head.”

  The round head appeared. “What next?”

  “The mouth . . . a fraction too thin. A slightly fuller lower lip.”

  He stopped when I could think of no more improvements and showed the results to Pucinelli. “This is the man as your English friend remembers him,” he said, sniffing. “Memories are usually wrong, don’t forget.”

  “Thanks,” Pucinelli said. “Go back to sleep.”

  The artist grumbled and departed, and I said, “What’s the latest on Lorenzo Traventi?”

  “Today they say he’ll live.”

  “Good,” I said with relief. It was the first time anyone had been positive.

  “We’ve charged the two kidnappers with intent to kill. They are protesting.” He shrugged. “So far they are refusing to say anything about the kidnap, though naturally we are pointing out that if they lead us to other arrests their sentences will be shorter.” He picked up the artist’s drawings. “I’ll show them these. It will shock them.” A fleeting look of savage pleasure crossed his face: the look of a born policeman poised for a kill. I’d seen it on other faces above other uniforms, and never despised it: and he deserved his satisfaction, after the strains of the past week.

  “The radio,” Pucinelli said, pausing as he turned away.

  “Yes?”

  “It could transmit and receive on aircraft frequencies.”

  I blinked. “That’s not usual, is it?”

  “Not very. And it was tuned to the international emergency frequency . . . which is monitored all the time, and which certainly did not pick up any messages between kidnappers. We checked at the airport this morning.”

  I shook my head in frustration. Pucinelli went off with eagerness to his interrogations, and I returned to the villa.

  ALESSIA SAID, “DO you mind if I ask you something?”

  “Fire away.”

  “I asked Papa but he won’t answer, which I suppose anyway is an answer of sorts.” She paused. “Did I have any clothes on, when you found me?”

  “A gray plastic raincoat,” I said matter-of-factly.

  “Oh.”

  I couldn’t tell whether the answer pleased her or not. She remained thoughtful for a while, and then said, “I woke up here in a dress I haven’t worn for years. Aunt Luisa and Ilaria say they don’t know how it happened. Did Papa dress me? Is that why he’s so embarrassed?”

  “Didn’t you expect to have clothes on?” I asked curiously.

  “Well . . . ” She hesitated.

  I lifted my head. “Were you naked . . . all the time?”

  She moved her thin body restlessly in the armchair as if she would sink into it, out of sight. “I don’t want . . .” she said; and broke off, swallowing, while in my mind I finished the sentence. Don’t want everyone to know.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I won’t say.”

  We were sitting in the library, the evening fading to dark, the heat of the day diminishing; freshly showered, casually dressed, waiting in the Cenci household routine to be joined by everyone for a drink or two before dinner. Alessia’s hair was again damp, but she had progressed as far as lipstick.

  She gave me short glances of inspection, not sure of me.

  “Why are you here?” she said. “Papa says he couldn’t have got through these weeks without you, but . . . I don’t really understand.”

  I explained my job.

  “An advisor?”

  “That’s right.”

  She thought for a while, her gaze wandering over my face and down to my hands and up again to my eyes. Her opinions were unreadable, but finally she sighed, as if making up her mind.

  “Well . . . advise me too,” she said. “I feel very odd. Like jet lag, only much worse. Time lag. I feel as if I’m walking on tissue paper. As if nothing’s real. I keep wanting to cry. I should be deliriously happy . . . why aren’t I?”

  “Reaction,” I said.

  “You don’t know . . . you can’t imagine . . . what it was like.”

  “I’ve heard from many people what it’s like. From people like you, straight back from kidnap. They’ve told me. The first bludgeoning shock, the not being able to believe it’s happening. The humiliations, forced on you precisely to make you afraid and defenseless. No bathrooms. Sometimes no clothes. Certainly no respect. No kindness or gentleness of any sort. Imprisonment, no one to talk to, nothing to fill the mind, just uncertainty and fear . . . and guilt . . . Guilt that you didn’t escape in the beginning, guilt at the distress brought on your family, guilt at what a ransom will cost . . . and fear for your life . . . if the money can’t be raised, or if something goes wrong . . . if the kidnappers panic.”

  She listened intently, at first with surprise and then with relief. “You do know. You do understand. I haven’t been able to say . . . I don’t want to upset them . . . and also . . . also . . .”

  “Also you feel ashamed,” I said.

  “Oh.” Her eyes widened. “I . . . Why do I?”

  “I don’t know, but nearly everyone does.”

  “Do they?”

  “Yes.”

  She sat quiet for a while, then she said, “How long will it ta
ke . . . for me to get over it?”

  To that there was no answer. “Some people shake it off almost at once,” I said. “But it’s like illness, or a death . . . you have to grow scar tissue.”

  Some managed it in days, some in weeks, some in years; some bled forever. Some of the apparently strong disintegrated most. One couldn’t tell, not on the day after liberation.

  Ilaria came into the room in a stunning scarlet and gold toga and began switching on the lamps.

  “It was on the radio news that you’re free,” she said to Alessia. “I heard it upstairs. Make the most of the peace, the paparazzi will be storming up the drive before you can blink.”

  Alessia shrank again into her chair and looked distressed. Ilaria, it occurred to me uncharitably, had dressed for such an event: another statement about not wanting to be eclipsed.

  “Does your advice stretch to paparazzi?” Alessia asked weakly, and I nodded, “If you like.”

  Ilaria patted the top of my head as she passed behind my chair. “Our Mr. Fixit. Never at a loss.”

  Paolo Cenci himself arrived with Luisa, the one looking anxious, the other fluttery, as usual.

  “Someone telephoned from the television company,” Cenci said. “They say a crew is on the way here. Alessia . . . you’d better stay in your room until they’ve gone.”

  I shook my head. “They’ll just camp on your doorstep. Better, really, to get it over.” I looked at Alessia. “If you could possibly . . . and I know it’s hard . . . make some sort of joke, they’ll go away quicker.”

  She said in bewilderment, “Why?”

  “Because good news is brief news. If they think you had a really bad time, they’ll keep on probing. Tell them the kidnappers treated you well, say you’re glad to be home, say you’ll be back on the racecourse very soon. If they ask you anything which it would really distress you to answer, blank the thoughts out and make a joke.”

  “I don’t know . . . if I can.”

  “The world wants to hear that you’re all right,” I said. “They want to be reassured, to see you smile. If you can manage it now it will make your return to normal life much easier. The people you know will greet you with delight . . . they won’t find meeting you uncomfortable, which they could if they’d seen you in hysterics.”