Diamond Solitaire

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."

"You say nobody knows the cause of this, em, what did you call it?… Elective, er…?"

"Mutism." Ettlinger shrugged. "One can't generalize. Sometimes school phobia is thought to trigger it. You move the child to a new school, or a new class, and the speech returns. But in most cases the onset comes earlier in the child's life and the problem isn't so clear, or so easily resolved. It may result from some emotional disturbance of which adults are unaware."

Diamond made the coffee and handed over a steaming mug. "In Naomi's case, she's been parted from her parents. Abandoned, possibly. Is that the kind of disturbance you mean?"

"Yes, an experience as shocking as that could amount to a trauma."

"Trauma? That's a different ball game."

Ettlinger pulled a face at the metaphor, making it plain that matiness had its limitations. "I would define trauma as a deep emotional wound, an injury to the psyche."

"Can it make a child mute?"

"Certainly."

"And is it curable?"

"Let's say that the condition is usually of limited duration."

"So she will recover her speech?"

"I wasn't discussing a particular case."

Diamond conceded with a nod. "That's another possible explanation, then. So far we have autism, elective mutism, and now, trauma."

Ettlinger beamed. "Have we muddied the water sufficiently?"

Diamond nodded. Confusion wasn't the object, of course; quite the contrary. He'd enlisted the support of an expert in questioning the assumption that Naomi was autistic. He hadn't enough clout to prevent her being put on that flight to Boston on Sunday, but he felt more clear in his own mind that he was right to protest

Late that afternoon there was another boost. A call from the BBC. A generous minded producer who had given him not a glimmer of hope that morning had since talked to someone's PA over lunch at the Television Center, and she'd passed on the word about Naomi to her producer, who was now on the line. A new program Diamond had never heard of called "What About the Kids?" had been running on BBC2 for two weeks, a Friday afternoon show featuring children and presented by children. It consisted mainly of two- or three-minute items such as song and dance, circus acts, animal training, a word game, demonstrations of toys, interviews with kids who'd been in the news and with adults like writers and artists who produced work for children.

The whole thing sounded like a dog's breakfast, but Diamond was careful not to say so. "I bet the kids love it."

"Surprisingly, the audience figures aren't all that encouraging," the producer, who reveled in the name of Cedric Athelhampton, admitted, "but we are back-to-back with Tin-Tin and Jackanory. The controllers are willing to live with moderate figures as long as we have some educational content, social issues and so forth. We're trying to include some items with more weight."

Try me for size, Diamond frivolously thought In fact, he felt lighter than air at this minute. "You're looking for serious issues?"

"Exactly-only they have to be conveyed simply and directly. And they must involve children, which is why I pricked up my ears when I heard about your Japanese girl. She is the child found in Harrods?"

"Yes."

"And she still doesn't speak a word?"

"Not a syllable."

"And nobody has identified her in all this time? I'll tell you how I see mis, Mr. Diamond. I've had a rather creative idea. We'll present it as a challenge. Do you follow me?"

With admirable self-restraint, Diamond indicated mat he was keeping up.

Cedric Athelhampton's voice thickened and swelled in anticipation. "This will really engage our audience. Kids adore playing detective. See if they recognize her from school or the park or the street where they play. Tell me, Mr. Diamond, what exactly is your connection with this girl?"

He was primed for this one. "I just took an interest in her case. Speaking of detectives, I'm ex-CID myself."

"How divine."

It was the first time he'd heard it so described.

The only hitch in all this euphoria was that Cedric was thinking in terms of the program a week on Friday.

"Sorry. No chance," said Diamond. "Can't you slot her in this week?"

"I wish I could, ducky, but we're in pink script for Friday."

"Does that make a difference?" he enquired, trying manfully not to let the "ducky" unsettle him.

"It's a live show, Mr. Diamond. We can't take more risks than we have to."

"A live show for children? Is that usual?"

"Nothing about our show is usual. That's why it's so riveting. Can you come in on Friday week?"

"No. She'll be in America by then."

"America! Whatever for?"

Without hesitation, he said, "Prime-time television. She's going to be a sensation over there, they tell me." He could be creative too, when pushed.