Diamond Solitaire (9 page)

It was quite a dilemma. If he let her keep the thing, someone— Mrs. Straw, knowing his luck—was certain to see it and inform the rest of the school that they had a fifth columnist in their midst. Julia Musgrave would feel betrayed. If, on the other hand, he insisted on taking the marker back, the first shoots of affection he'd cultivated would be trampled upon, destroyed forever. He remembered Mrs. Straw's saying how she'd needed to pry Naomi's fingers away one by one. Clearly, that pen was a treasure to the child.

He decided to let her keep it, and run the risk that Clive might snatch it away and go on a graffiti spree again. He was pretty confident Naomi wouldn't lightly give up her prize.

Gently, he put a hand on her shoulder and steered her in the direction of the staffroom. She was as compliant as ever now that he'd made it plain that he wasn't going to take back the marker. Coming into the staffroom without thinking about Clive's handiwork, he was freshly shocked at the extent of the scribbling. No one was sitting in there, and he could understand why. He escorted Naomi to the wall where the scrawl was thickest.

"You see what happened?" he said, hoping she would share his outrage, even if the words meant nothing to her. "Clive did it. You wouldn't, would you?" He swept the air with his hands to reinforce the message.

She stood solemnly facing the vandalized wall. Troubled that he might have been too heavy-handed, he reached out impulsively to stroke her hair, then decided he shouldn't. An action like that could be misinterpreted, by others, if not the child. But his hand was already on her head, so he ruffled the dark hair instead—and still felt it was a liberty he shouldn't have taken.

The drawing pad he'd used earlier remained on the table, open at the picture he'd done of Naomi. He folded the pad and handed it to her. "This is for drawing. You can have it It's yours. Yours. All right?"

She appeared to understand. Her eyes briefly met his and she tucked the pad under her arm.

"Now let's find where you should be at this hour of the day."

He found the class in a lesson that was down on the timetable as music, and consisted of indiscriminate tambourine-banging while the teacher, a cool young girl wearing a black fedora, strummed something on the guitar. Naomi settled cross-legged on the floor away from the others, continuing to hold the drawing pad and marker. She declined to take the tambourine Diamond found for her. He nodded to the teacher and left.

Now Julia Musgrave had to be told of his decision to entrust the marker to Naomi. He didn't want the news to be passed on by Mrs. Straw, or anyone else for that matter. He believed he could make a persuasive case

Julia wasn't alone in her office, but she called him in. Her visitor was a bearded, balding man in a brown corduroy jacket with patched elbows. An envelope file rested across his thighs and from his neck a thick pencil hung on a cord, all of which suggested to Diamond that this was a social worker. He was mistaken.

"Dr. Dickinson is a child psychiatrist," Julia explained. "He's here to make an assessment of Naomi."

"Another assessment?" said Diamond, mildly enough considering the warning bells that were sounding in his head.

"On behalf of the Japanese Embassy," Dr. Dickinson put in, using the kind of we-all-understand-how-the-world-goes-round tone that expects no disagreement. "They want my opinion as to whether the child is autistic. The general idea is mat she'll be sent to the Hagashi School in Boston if it appears that she'd benefit She's a fortunate child."

"Why is that?"

Dickinson frowned. "The fees are out of most people's reach—about thirty thousand pounds a year."

"I'm not impressed by money."

Dickinson said cuttingly, "Well, I'm extremely impressed by everything I've read about the school. As Naomi, I gather, is Japanese, this must be a happy arrangement."

"You think so?"

"Mr. Diamond has some reservations," Julia Musgrave quickly added.

"Oh, and what's your specialism?" Dickinson asked witheringly.

"Testing the truth," said Diamond. "I'm a detective, or was until recently."

Dickinson caught his bream and turned to Julia Musgrave. "Really, I can't begin to understand why a detective..."

Julia Musgrave briefly explained the reason for Diamond's presence in the school and finished by remarking that only that morning his perseverance had paid a wonderful dividend.

"Oh, and what was that?"

"Naomi got up from her chair and held my hand," Diamond informed him. "It may not sound like much, but it's a real advance."

"Let us hope so," the psychiatrist commented in a tone that suggested the reverse. "Unfortunately the condition of autism is full of false dawns—not that I question the accuracy of what you experienced. It's so tempting with these children to draw unscientific assumptions from their behavior. You assumed when she took your hand that she wished to express some trust, or affection. On the contrary—"

"But I didn't say that," Diamond interrupted him. "All I said was that she got up from the chair and held my hand. And speaking of unscientific assumptions, I'm surprised to hear you talking about autism in relation to Naomi before you've actually seen her."

'I specialize in autism," Dickinson said icily. "I wouldn't have been invited here unless the child had exhibited autistic tendencies."

Julia Musgrave judged it right to interrupt the exchange. "Peter, what was it you came in about? Something urgent?"

"Something I'd like you to hear from me before you get it from anyone else," he answered, and went on to tell her how it was that Naomi was back in possession of the marker. "You don't mind?" he said finally, encouraged that she'd nodded more than once as he was relating the episode.

"It's a risk I'm willing to take," Julia answered. "Anything is preferable to that passive state she's been in for so long. Yes, I'm really heartened. She's being positive at last."

Without much tact, Dr. Dickinson offered his interpretation. "This is very characteristic. Autistic children frequently become possessive about objects, to an exceptional degree, I mean. Mirrors, wheels, bits of crumpled paper. They refuse to be parted from them. It's compulsive." He took a writing pad from his folder and made a note.

"Oh, is that a pencil?" Diamond remarked. "I thought it was a necklace." Afterwards he regretted saying such a bitchy thing, not because he cared a sparrow's fart about Dickinson, but because it wasn't clever to fuel the man's evident dislike of him, which could easily prejudice his assessment of Naomi. Talking first and thinking after was a failing that had got Diamond into trouble in the past, and would again. He had the sense to leave Julia's office after that.

He slumped into an armchair in the staffroom, bemoaning his lowly status in the school. In his days in the police, he would have overruled Dickinson or any other headshrinker if a child's interests were under threat He wouldn't have taken mat horseshit about compulsive behavior. Well, he thought, I didn't take it. But I'd have shown him the bloody door.

He couldn't be sure which way Julia Musgrave would jump. Her calm personality was a tremendous asset in a school like this. She was approachable and open to suggestions; which meant inconveniently that people like Dickinson got a hearing. Under pressure from the shrinks, the Japanese Embassy and the borough council, she was going to find it difficult, if not impossible, to hold on to Naomi. She was massively outgunned. One failed policeman convinced mat everyone else was mistaken wasn't exactly the U.S. Cavalry riding to the rescue.

His thoughts were interrupted by die jingle of tambourines being carried along the corridor, and the music teacher tottered in with the instruments stacked in her arms and the guitar slung across her back, and still wearing her fedora. She dumped everything onto a chair and went to the kettle. "Want a coffee?"

"I wouldn't say no."

"Thanks for bringing Naomi in. I didn't know where she was."

He nodded. "Does she take to the music?"

"Not that I've noticed. Would you prefer tea?"

"Whatever you're having."

They waited for the kettle. The girl, an Australian from her accent, said, "Your name is Diamond, right?"

"Yep."

"Hold on, then. I've got something to show you. I won't be long." She left him to make the coffee.

Presently she was back, with a large sheet of paper. "Did you know you have a secret admirer?" She held the paper up.

He stared, disbelieving. "Naomi did this?"

"Who else?" she said. "And in my lesson. The little hussy won't bash a tambourine for me while you're on her mind."

The mark on the paper was bold and unmistakable:

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A narrow blue rectangle was visible between the World Trade Center and the New York Telephone Company. It was the Hudson River. Viewed from Manny Flexner's office on the twenty-first floor of the Manflex Building on West Broadway, it glittered brilliantly in the morning sun. Manny's office had windows from floor to ceiling, divided at the center, which was about head height. The upper sections slid open, a feature Manny had insisted on. He liked his air conditioning natural when he could get it Today was one of those blissful days when the wind was minimal and the temperature ideal.

While his eyes were on the river he was speaking on the phone to his son, David, in Milan, and the things he was hearing pleased him immensely. Why couldn't every Monday morning be like this?

" The meeting went more smoothly man I had a right to expect," David was saying. "Okay, we had a few tough questions about the decision to close the plant, but most of them understood the problems and appreciated the trouble we were taking to relocate them. It was all incredibly civilized."

Thanks to the hard work you put in last week," Manny said with approval. "You did your homework. People appreciate mat How many want to transfer to Rome?"

"Fifteen to twenty. Another twenty or so want more time to reach a decision."

"How many of those are researchers?"

"Eight at the latest count"

"Not bad. You want to keep the ratio of research high. The norm in the industry is one-third research, two-thirds development. I always tried to better that. How did the buyout offer do?"
J

"The union is asking for more, but that's a union's job. My feeling is that they're willing to settle."

Manny let out a long, contented breath. "Dave, you did a fine job. Is there any more news how the fire started?"

"No, the police haven't been back. I sent them a list of everyone at the meeting. I figure that won't please them much because we've accounted for every Joe on the books. The cops I saw here were pushing the theory that it was an inside job."

"They still haven't identified the bodies in the Alfa Romeo?"

"Not so far as I know."

"Are the insurers any wiser?"

"I doubt it. Everyone is resigned to long delays. Pop, if it's still okay with you, I thought I might take a couple of days off at the end of this week, go and see Venice, like you suggested. Rico can hold the fort."

"Venice?" Manny brooded for a moment, then came to a decision. "Sure, son, you've earned it. I'm proud of what you're doing. But don't wait. Go now. Today. And, Dave, don't tell Rico where you're staying. Make it a real vacation. You understand?"

"Pop, I'm in no hurry. I have a couple of appointments in the morning."

Manny said earnestly. "Cancel them. Do this for me. I know what I'm saying. Get the hell out of there if you want to see Venice. And, Dave ..."

"Yes?"

"I love you, son."

"Love you, Pop," David answered in a bemused tone.

"Take care."

"Sure."

Manny cradled the phone. On his desk were a number of letters he'd written by hand. He picked out the one addressed to his son and wrote on the envelope
Hope Venice was
magic.
Then he got up and poured himself a large brandy from the bar and swallowed it rapidly.

He removed his reading glasses and replaced them in the case on the desk. Then he took out his wallet containing credit cards and some paper money and positioned it beside me eyeglass case.

On the other side of the office was an oval mahogany table with four matching chairs. Manny collected one of the chairs, carried it to the window and used it to climb onto his teak filing cabinet. His movements were ordered, automatic, and, for a man with a malignant illness, remarkably spry. He could easily step up to one of the open windows from there, and that was what he did. He got both feet on the metal frame and balanced there momentarily supported by his hands. The space was tall, so there was no need to stoop.

Manny didn't look down. His gaze was on the glittering section of river way ahead. The Hudson. And beyond, New Jersey. To Manny, in his fatalistic state of mind, the river might as well have been the Jordan, and beyond mat was the promised land—a comforting thought He was still looking ahead when he jumped. He kept watching the far shore while he started to drop, kept watching for as long as he was able.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Before everyone except Mrs. Straw arrived at the school next morning, Diamond was in the staffroom making an island of the desks and other furniture. He'd called early at a do-it-yourself shop in Hammersmith and purchased two three-liter cans of vinyl matte emulsion in a shade described as apricot. On the chart it had looked the sort of color that would blend with the furnishings—or so he'd easily convinced himself on seeing that it was offered at a special never-to-be-repeated discount. With the money he'd saved he'd gone straight into a toy shop across the street and bought a toy car with a friction motor. Later, he would give it to Clive; he had a place in his heart for the school vandal in spite of the extra work he had created.

So he was in his overalls applying the roller to the wall behind the door by 8:50, when the first of the teaching staff put in an appearance.

"What's all this?" Sally Truman, who took the youngest children, asked.

"A cover-up."

"Oh, it's you."

He dipped the roller into the paint tray and applied another band of apricot. Now that people had started arriving he wasn't going to down tools, just when he was entitled to some credit for this public-spirited effort. "And how are you this morning?" he asked Sally.

"Tired, until I looked in here. The color's woken me up "

"Do you like it?"

She evaded the question. "I expect it fades as it dries. They generally do. What is it?"

"Apricot"

"Looks more like tomato to me. Now would you mind if I lift the dust sheet and find my desk?"

He was gratified by a spate of congratulations in the next half hour, even though the consensus of the teaching staff seemed to be that he should have paid a pound or two more and got magnolia or some other insipid shade. He listened with good humor and carried on obliterating Clive's eye-swiveling murals. By ten he was ready for a coffee break, and that required a rearrangement of the desks to get at the kettle. He'd covered two walls. Now that he stood back, the effect did appear more red than apricot

He was earning plenty of good will for trying, however, and no one had complained about the disruption. They rummaged under the dust sheets for chairs and sat as usual with their coffee cups, catching up on developments since they had last shared a break. The news from yesterday of Naomi's drawing was the main topic this morning. In this small school every child was known to the teachers.

"It's got to be good news, Peter," the deputy head, John Taffler, said. "And by God, you deserve some encouragement after aU me time you've put in wim mat kid.''

Diamond was less sanguine. He'd had a night to think it over. "I'd be more encouraged if it was something I'd taught her."

Taffler wagged a finger at him. "Don't be so ungrateful, man. It's recognition. It's your name. She's registered that you exist"

"I wouldn't bet on it"

"Oh, come on—why else would she draw a diamond? She knows your name."

He looked around him at the faces of the staff. How would she know the symbol for it? I didn't tell her, and nor did anyone else, so far as I can make out"

"Maybe she plays poker," someone said, and got a few laughs.

Sally Truman said, "It proves that she speaks English. Surely hat's apparent now?"

Diamond pointed out gloomily that she didn't speak anything.

"Understands it, then," Sally insisted. "She heard your name and related it to the shape. She's trying to communicate."

Someone else, one of the part-time teachers, then voiced the uncertainty that Peter Diamond himself was feeling. "Let's not read too much into this. The kid could have drawn the shape in a random way. She may never repeat it."

"She may not have the opportunity," Taffler commented in the arch tone of someone with inside information. "Not in this place, at any rate. Did you hear that Oily Dickinson, the shrink who was here yesterday, confirmed her as autistic? She's off to America as soon
as
they can organize it"

Diamond had feared he would hear something like this before much longer, but it still raised his blood pressure by many points. He slammed down his mug, slopping coffee over the table. "So it's the tidiest outcome for everyone," he said bitterly. "This school unloads a kid it can't do anything for, and so do the social services. The police stop making inquiries. Dickinson pockets a fat fee. The embassy stumps up and salves its collective conscience. Out in America they cash the check and add a new name to the roll. Bully for everyone—except one small girl who can't speak a word to prevent it." He got up and marched out, straight to Julia Musgrave's office.

He swung the door open. "When is she due to leave?" he demanded without preamble.

Julia looked up from some paperwork she had on her desk. Her eyes widened, no doubt at the sight of his overalls. She hadn't been near the staffroom yet. "Peter, why don't you sit down a moment?"

"I'm too bloody angry, that's why. Just tell me how long I've got. That's all I want to know."

"What do you mean—how long you've got?"

"Isn't it obvious? To find her people."

The color had drained from her face. She said,' Peter, I'm not ungrateful for all the efforts you made with Naomi, only I have to remind you that you volunteered. It gave you no stake in her future."

He didn't exactly shake his fist at her, but he clenched it and pounded the space in front of him as he declared, "You talk about her future. I'm still trying to reconstruct her past. You and your cronies are about to blow it away."

She looked as if he'd struck her. Pitching her voice lower in the effort to control it, she said, "I resent that remark. I resent it deeply. If you want to know, I argued, I pleaded, for Naomi to remain here until we'd exhausted every possibility. I was in a minority of one."

There was a moment of strained silence.

"I'm sorry." Completely deflated, he took a couple of steps towards her, raising his hands in a futile gesture of disavowal. "Christ, that's me mouthing off again without getting a grip of the facts. Julia, I'm more sorry than I can say."

She shook her head in a way that seemed to mean words of any sort could only distress her more. She simply said, "Probably Sunday."

Sunday.

Four days.

By the time he returned to the staffroom everyone else had left. Instead of picking up the roller, he dragged the phone and the Yellow Pages from under the dust sheet and started calling television companies, trying the shows he'd targeted for a slot about Naomi and asking each time for the senior person on duty. If he found himself palmed off with a research assistant, he had no conscience about using his former police rank and asking for someone more senior. In the robust style of bis days in the murder squad, he badgered bis way steadily through the BBC, Thames TV and Sky, all the breakfast shows, the mid-morning studio debates, the women's interest programs and the talk shows, early evening and night He missed nothing out in selling the idea of an unsolved mystery involving a small girl who'd triggered the alarms in Harrods and still hadn't been identified two months later. From the majority came dusty answers. A few referred him elsewhere and some took his number and promised to call back if their editorial team (or whatever) expressed any interest.

After that, there was nothing for it but to pick up the roller again. By lunchtime the job was finished and no one had phoned back. His shoulders ached and his throat was dry. Mrs. Straw came in, obdurately ignored the immaculate, gleaming walls and pointed out some paint marks on the floor. He assured her that the paint was water based and easily removable. Feeling as he did, he didn't actually undertake to clear the offending spots immediately, so Mrs. S. made a production number out of fetching a bucket and squeegee and soaking the entire floor just as the staff were arriving for their lunch break.

But there was something to lift his spirits, and it wasn't a compliment on his decorating. John Taffler grabbed him by the arm and said, "Come and look at this, mate."

Diamond followed him out to the garden, where the children had already started their playtime. Seated on a low wall beside the vegetable garden was Naomi. She had the drawing pad on her knees and she was using the marker, entirely absorbed.

With stealth, Diamond approached close enough to get a sight over her shoulder of what she was doing. She had drawn a series of fifteen or so diamond shapes, roughly similar in size, each one in isolation.

"How about that?" Taffler said. "Random, my arse. She's turning them out in batches."

Pleasing as it was to Diamond, the drawing left him mystified.

Taffler was crouching on Naomi's level and talking to her. "Nice work, my darling. Beautiful! Diamonds." He tapped several of the shapes consecutively. "Diamond, diamond, diamond." Then he pointed upwards. "Mr. Diamond. That's what you're telling us, sweetie, right?"

The child paused in her work and actually glanced up for a moment at Diamond. Inconveniently there was nothing in her look to support John Taffler's assumption, nothing remotely indicating that Diamond was on her mind. She frowned and turned away.

"Let's be thankful for what we've got," Diamond said, determined to be positive. "She's using the pen, and that's progress."

"Well, yes." Taffler stood upright again. "At least she's coming out of that totally passive state. On the other hand," he added as they started back towards the house, "it's a little worrying that she isn't drawing anything else. It could get obsessional."

Diamond was in no frame of mind to face that particular scare. Nor was he overjoyed to find Dr. Ettlinger in the staffroom when he returned there. The psychiatrist was holding forth to an audience of one—Mrs. Straw—about color in the working environment. Apparently apricot, or orange, as Ettlinger termed it, was a highly unsuitable choice for a common room, liable to stimulate aggression. Predictably, too, from a psychiatrist, there were sexual implications. Red and orange were the colors of heat and passion. Listening to all this, Diamond could hardly wait for the orgies over coffee and cheese sandwiches. Not content with putting suspicions of carnality into Mrs. Straw's head, Ettlinger went on to speculate that whoever had chosen such an unsuitable color must be in urgent need of therapy. There was a deep-seated and dangerous aggression in such a personality.

To which Diamond, dressed in his paint-spattered overalls, responded, "Rest assured, Doc, if I find him, I'll strangle him with my bare hands."

Hearing this, Mrs. Straw quit the room without her squeegee and bucket.

Ettlinger, the dour Dr. Ettlinger, actually raised a smile. He could appreciate a psychological quip, even if it was directed his way. "I didn't know you had suicidal tendencies," he said ponderously to Diamond. "Self-strangulation is difficult to achieve, I hear."

Curiously enough, this bizarre conversation got both men off on a better footing. Diamond admitted that he was feeling
angry
—not suicidal—about the decision over Naomi. This was the first Ettlinger had heard of it He shared in the indignation. After all, he regarded himself as the school's pet shrink.

Diamond suggested a coffee and switched on the kettle.

"I shouldn't say this about a professional colleague, but I will," Ettlinger declared. "Oliver Dickinson ought to be ashamed of himself. I defy any psychiatrist to diagnose autism in one session, particularly in the case of a child like Naomi, whose behavior is predominantly passive."

"He could be wrong?"

"I keep an open mind."

"I remember," said Diamond, sensing a way to pry more information from his new chum. "But without committing yourself, is there any other explanation for the fact that she refuses to speak?"

Ettlinger's eyes twinkled in triplicate through his thick lenses. "You want to muddy the waters a little?"

"I wouldn't say that, but I'm fishing."

"Well, it's not impossible that this is a case of elective mutism."

"Say that again."

Ettlinger obliged. "It's a psychological disorder that affects some children of three years and upwards. Something inhibits them from speaking. In certain cases this manifests itself at school and they talk normally at home. The most serious cases go totally silent, and keep it up for months and even years."

"Can it be treated?"

"There is no cure, as such. They grow out of it, and some of them are given help, but it's hard to say whether they would have recovered regardless. The best results are achieved one-to-one. Putting such children into a class with others is not always advisable, particularly if those others are disturbed in other ways. The child may imitate them, consciously or unconsciously."

"And ape their behavior?"

Ettlinger nodded.

"Such as biting?"

This drew a sly smile. "Why not?"

Diamond was finding elective mutism increasingly plausible as a theory. "Would this also explain the avoidance of eye contact?"

"I wouldn't regard that as the sort of behavior a child would notice in another," Ettlinger said. "However, if she is anxious to avoid speech, she will very likely shun situations requiring responses. So for that reason she may look away from people."