Diamond Solitaire

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Stephanie's advice across the breakfast table was eminently sensible, if totally unacceptable.

"Face up to it, Pete-you've run out of time. You can't solve that little girl's problem."

"Which problem is that?"

She sighed. "Oh, don't get pernickety, love. It's too early in the day."

To demonstrate good will, he offered to put a slice of bread in the toaster for her. "I was only asking you to explain what you're on about. Which of her problems am I incapable of solving?"

"The speech."

"You mean the absence of it."

She sighed, rested her chin on the bridge she had made of her hands and gave him a look that said he was being unreasonably reasonable.

He told her, "I never expected to restore her speech. All I've been trying to do is find her people. I'm a policeman, not a speech therapist."

"You're neither," she reminded him mildly.

"An ex-policeman, then."

"But you weren't dealing with abandoned kids."

"I've been through the training. I know the procedures. Look, Steph, you know me well enough. I'm not giving up now."

She got up from the table and carried her plate to the sink. "What can you do? It's Saturday morning. You told me they're flying her out to Boston tomorrow."

"Correct."

"Can't you see it may be the best possible thing, Pete? The school is run by the Japanese. They have a wonderful reputation."

He had nothing against the school. "You want to know what I can do?" he said. "I can get her to draw things. She is definitely trying to communicate through the drawing. I'm getting her confidence now. She holds my hand."

Stephanie looked down at the water she was running over the dishes. Unseen by Diamond, she was smiling. By the simple act of holding his hand, one small, silent girl had succeeded in taming the bear.

"Would you like to come with me?" he offered.

"To the school?"

"We could take her out together."

She thought for a moment, pleased that he'd suggested it, and then shook her head. "She doesn't know me. She's not going to open up if there's a stranger tagging along. She's seen too many well-meaning women already, social workers and embassy people and special teachers trying to coax something out of her-worthy, I'm sure, but not what the kid wants. Heaven knows how or why, but you seem to have reached an understanding with her. You go alone, love, only don't pin your hopes on it."

Knowing the school routine on Saturdays, he timed his arrival for just before ten, after breakfast was finished, the rooms cleared and the kids dressed and playing. It was one of those brilliant, cloudless London mornings that make urban pollution seem like a myth. He could hear the children outside in the garden at the rear, so he walked around the side of the house. Clive spotted him immediately and came running, holding the toy car Diamond had given him and making a convincing engine sound. Diamond stopped and spread his hands in welcome, but the boy veered off to the left, as if he had just remembered that he was autistic and didn't, after all, relate to adults.

Mrs. Straw was on duty, seated on the bench under the sycamore, sedulously knitting something in a revolting shade of green.

He greeted her civilly and asked if Miss Musgrave was about. When speaking to Mrs. Straw, everyone on the staff referred to everyone else as Miss, Mrs. or Mr.

"She's busy."

"In her study?"

"Busy, I said."

"Yes, but where can I find her?"

"She doesn't want disturbing."

"I understand that. I'm asking where she is."

"On the phone."

Some of Mrs. Straw's statements, if taken literally, had a surreal quality. Diamond had a mental picture of Julia doing a balancing act on top of the phone. "I didn't actually ask you what she was doing."

Silence.

"The one in her office?" he asked. There were three phones that he knew about.

Still no word.

"I'll go in and see for myself, then. Where's young Naomi this morning?"

If anything, Mrs. Straw pressed her lips more tightly shut. This morning she was even more unobliging than usual. She continued to knit with tight, tense movements.

"Aren't you in charge?" Diamond asked, nettled by the dumb show. "Shouldn't she be out here with the others?"

"She's gone."

He tensed. "What do you mean-gone?"

"It's plain English, isn't it?"

"Gone away?"

She gave a nod.

"Left altogether, do you mean?"

"Collected this morning."

Mrs. Straw hadn't even looked up from her knitting. She gave the information casually, as if it were common knowledge, and now she had started the next row.

Diamond was so astounded that he could only say an inane, "What?"

"Are you deaf?"

He turned away and went to look for Julia Musgrave.

Just as Mrs. Straw had said, Julia was on the phone. Seeing him in the doorway of her office, she said into the phone, "It's all right. He's just walked in. I can tell him myself." She put down the phone and said, "I was talking to your wife."

"My wife

"Trying to contact you. I didn't know you were coming in. I have some news that might upset you."

"Mrs. Straw just told me about Naomi."

Her face tightened. "That woman! She handed the child over without informing me or the social services or anyone else."

"Weren't you here?"

"It all happened before I arrived. About eight this morning, when the children were having breakfast. The only staff here were Mrs. Straw and the Malaysian girl who cooks. I gather that this Japanese woman knocked at the door and announced that she was the mother and had come to collect her child. As proof of identity, she produced a passport and a photo of Naomi and Naomi definitely recognized her, according to Mrs. Straw."

He was trying to assimilate the information. "A passport and a photo, or a passport containing a photo?"

Julia shook her head. "The photo was separate. The passport belonged to the woman, but the child was mentioned in it."

"Naomi?"

"Some other name. Naomi was the name we gave her, if you remember."

"What was this woman like?"

She shook her head. "You know what it's like trying to drag information out of Mrs. Straw. I was so incensed when she told me that she'd handed Naomi over without reference to anyone that I lost my chance of a normal conversation with her."

"We'd better have her in here immediately," said Diamond. "She's got to give a proper account of what happened."

"All right. You'll stay?"

"You bet I will. I'll fetch her now."

In the garden he got a glare fit to petrify, but Mrs. Straw folded her knitting and went with him.

They sat stiffly among the children's toys and pictures in Julia's office, Diamond on the wooden trunk, Mrs. Straw on a chair just inside the door, as if poised for a quick exit.

Julia explained that she wanted to go over the details of what had happened that morning.

Pointedly ignoring what was said to her, and thrusting out her chin defiantly, Mrs. Straw demanded, "What's he doing here?"

Diamond drew breath to lambaste her, but Julia got in first, and her rebuke was the more effective for being spoken in a soft, measured voice. "Mr. Diamond, as you very well know, takes a special interest in Naomi. He has worked for the police."

"It's nothing to do with the police."

"I didn't say it was, but I have to be sure about this woman who claims to be Naomi's mother. She could be an impostor."

"Impossible," said Mrs. Straw.

"Not at all. It's quite possible that some childless woman could have seen Naomi on television and decided that she could pose as the mother."

Mrs. Straw was unimpressed. "The woman had the photo of Naomi."

Diamond intervened. "Before we go into that, can we have it from the beginning, when the woman arrived?"

Without a glance in his direction, Mrs. Straw said, "I already told Miss Musgrave."

"You gave me the essential facts," said Julia. "Now we need to know more."

Mrs. Straw sat back, exhaled noisily and folded her arms. "There isn't any more."

"Then tell me again, so that Mr. Diamond can hear exactly what you recall."

She rolled her eyes upward in protest. "It's simple enough. I answered the door when the children were having breakfast."

"What time?" Diamond asked.

"Round about eight. I don't have a watch. It was this Japanese woman. She asked if the little girl who was on the television yesterday was here. She said, 'I am the mother.'"

"What was she like? Can you describe her?"

"She was Japanese."

This, apparently, said it all, so far as Mrs. Straw was concerned.

"And…?" Diamond prompted her.

"They all look the same to me."

"What age would she have been?"

"I can't say. You can't tell."

"Young enough to be the mother of Naomi?"

"I suppose so."

"What was she wearing?"

"I'd have to think about that."

"Please do. Now."

After a pause, she said, "A gray jacket of some kind and trousers to match."

"Shoes?"

"Black, I think."

"With heels?"

"I didn't notice."

"Would you describe her as smartly dressed?"

"The clothes were Rohan, if that's what you mean."

He hadn't meant it. He didn't know anything about Rohan clothes, or how you recognized them, but from Mrs. Straw's tone, he took it that she was sure. "How did she wear her hair?"

"Short."

"Very short, do you mean? Cut close to the head?"

"No. It was permed."

"In curls?"

"Waves."

Little by little, he was getting a mental picture, though not one that would distinguish the woman from a million other Japanese.

"What height would she have been?"

"Average."

"Average for a Japanese?"

She responded once more with the unsatisfactory, "I suppose so."

After some more probing as to skin quality and coloring, and makeup (the woman had been well-groomed, it appeared), Diamond gave a nod to Julia, who said, "Shall we continue, then? You invited the woman in."

"Only after she showed me Naomi's photo and the passport."

"Her own passport?"

"Her picture was in it."

"A Japanese passport?"

"Any fool could see she wasn't from Timbuktu," Mrs. Straw said with contempt.

Diamond just about contained himself. "She might have held an American passport, or Australian."

"How would I know?"

"Couldn't you see the writing on the passport?"

"I can't read Japanese."

"So you think it was Japanese script. We're getting somewhere. We're not trying to catch you out, Mrs. Straw. We just want all the information you can give us."

"It was in some foreign language. That's all I'm prepared to say."

"And she also showed you this photo of Naomi?"

"Yes."

"You're certain it was Naomi?"

"I said so."

"You just implied that all Japanese people look alike to you."

"If they're strangers. I've seen Naomi plenty of times."

The point was fair.

"So was it a recent photo of Naomi?"

"Must have been."

Julia asked. "Did she have a name for Naomi?"

"Can't remember."

"Come on," Diamond urged her. "Surely she gave a name?"

"I said I can't remember. It was double-Dutch to me. Anyway," said Mrs. Straw, willing to move on with her account to avoid further discussion of the child's name, "I told her Miss Musgrave wasn't here and she said she wanted to see her little girl. She kept on saying it. She wouldn't be put off. So I let her come through to the dining room."

No one could doubt that any person who had talked her way past Mrs. Straw was uncommonly persistent.

"The children were on their own," she explained, to justify her capitulation. "I was forced to leave them when I went to the door. I couldn't stand arguing on the doorstep."

"Please go on."

"There's nothing else. She came in and went straight to Naomi and anyone could see she was the mother."

"How?" asked Diamond.

"You wouldn't understand," Mrs. Straw told him loftily. "It takes a woman to understand." She looked towards Julia for support.

Julia declined to conspire in this evasion. "We want to know precisely what happened. Did Naomi get up and run to her?"

"Yes, of course."

Diamond put up his hand too late to intervene, realizing that he couldn't caution Julia for putting words into Mrs. Straw's mouth, as he might if some raw police constable were asking leading questions. The damage was done now. Mrs. Straw was launched and away.

"They cuddled and kissed and wept a few tears and talked to each other in Japanese."

"Talked? Naomi talked?"

"The mother I mean. Then she said she was going to take Naomi home, so I said I didn't think she should until she'd seen Miss Musgrave. I tried my level best to keep her there, but you've got to remember I was on my own here apart from the girl in the kitchen. The other children had to be looked after."

"Why wouldn't she stay?" Diamond asked. "What was the hurry?"

"I can't say. You can't tell with foreigners."

"What happened then?"

"I asked the cook to keep an eye on the children while we went upstairs and collected the clothes Naomi came in. I let them take the things she was wearing. I knew Miss Musgrave wouldn't mind."

'Then what?"

"They left."

"Without leaving a name or address?"

"I forgot to ask."

"Brilliant."

"She was in a hurry to go," said Mrs. Straw in her defense.

"And you couldn't wait to show her the door."

"That isn't fair. And it isn't true, either." Reacting to a convenient scream from the garden, Mrs. Straw said, "Lord knows what the children are getting up to. I'd better go."

Diamond said firmly that he hadn't finished. He wanted to see the room where Naomi slept.

"Suit yourself. There's nothing to see," Mrs. Straw declared.

"Take us there now, if you please."

She took a sharp, indignant breath and turned in protest to Julia Musgrave, who told her firmly to do as Mr. Diamond instructed.

As if every step were on red-hot coals she led them upstairs and opened a door to a room containing three small beds. The quilts were thrown back.

"Which is Naomi's?"

Mrs. Straw pointed to the one nearest the door. A light green pair of child's pajamas lay over the pillow. Diamond picked them up.

"School property," Mrs. Straw informed him.

He tossed them back and opened the locker beside the bed. Nothing was inside. But before rising, he happened to notice the hard, straight edge of something squeezed between the bedstead and the mattress. He slipped his hand inside.

A remark of Julia Musgrave's came back to him: They can hide a favorite toy and weeks, months later, go straight to it. What he had found was Naomi's drawing pad. He withdrew it and flicked through the pages to be quite certain.

"She left this."

"Must have forgotten it," Mrs. Straw said tersely.

"That isn't likely. She carried it everywhere, as you very well know." He felt under the mattress again and this time found the marker pen. "She kept the things here because they were so precious to her. She's unlikely to have left without them. Not freely."

Ridges had formed at the edge of Mrs. Straw's mouth.

"You were here," Diamond pointed out. "Did she have the opportunity of collecting her things?"

She gave no answer.

"Just now you gave the impression that this was a joyful reunion with mother," Diamond commented. "Hugs and kisses and a few tears into the bargain. Were they tears of joy, Mrs. Straw, or distress? You see, this discovery has rocked my confidence. I'm beginning to wonder if the child was taken from here against her will. If that is the case, you'd better say so, fast."

She shook her head vigorously, either in defiance or to contest his interpretation.

Confronted with the familiar challenge of the uncooperative witness, a trained interrogator like Diamond might have coaxed out the truth, but while Naomi was under threat, he wasn't wasting time on refinements.

"You lied."

Mrs. Straw arched her mouth and glared.

He shoved the drawing pad towards her, forcing her to sway back. "She wouldn't have gone' without this."

"Get away from me," she muttered.

He felt Julia Musgrave's hand on his arm, wanting to restrain him, without result. "Admit it. That woman took Naomi off by force." He portrayed the scene vividly. "She dragged the kid out of here screaming and kicking."

"No."

He gave her a moment for a more considered answer.

She added, "That isn't true-about the screaming. You can ask the cook."

"I intend to."

"She only struggled a bit."

"We're coming to it," said Diamond.

"There wasn't no screaming."

"Crying?"

"No."

"And there wasn't any kissing and cuddling, was there, Mrs. Straw? You bed about that."

"No."

"But you just said the child struggled. Come on, what are we to believe-that after this touching reunion her so-called mother had to wrestle with her to get her out of the place?"

She emitted a sound between a gasp and a sob and clamped her teeth over her lower lip. The dragon who deterred visitors was a cornered creature now.

Julia, probably succumbing to the tension, said, "No one is blaming you, Mrs. Straw"-which wasn't strictly true, and Diamond didn't let it pass. He was angry. And, more vitally, he was conscious of the minutes passing.

"Blame is exactly what this is about," he said without deflecting his eyes from Mrs. Straw. "You thought you could avoid more blame by telling this crap about kissing and cuddling. You don't want us to know what really took place this morning. And while you feed us horseshit, this woman is heading for God knows where with a child who was in your charge. You're in deep trouble, Mrs. Straw. By Christ, you'd better speak up."

The force of his speech had a dramatic result. Mrs. Straw turned ashen. The rigid mouth softened and quivered. Her hand fumbled in a pocket of the apron she was wearing and extracted a large red handkerchief. She pressed it to her nose and, instead of blowing it, emitted a long, low moan of distress. Her eyes reddened and dampened. Huge sobs convulsed her. The outburst was the more disturbing because she had always seemed so implacable.

"Now, now," said Julia in sympathy.

Unmoved, Diamond remarked, "We don't have time for this, Mrs. Straw."

Dabbing her tears, she launched into a confession punctuated by frequent sobs. "I was too frightened to tell you exactly what happened. Naomi didn't want to leave. She put up a fight. What I said was true-about the picture and everything- and I'm positive they knew each other, only when it was obvious that the woman wanted to take Naomi with her, she went berserk-Naomi, I mean. She tried to run away and the woman grabbed hold of her arm and wouldn't let go. What could I do? I'm only supposed to be the help here. She kept on and on saying she was the mother and the passport was proof of it In the end I went upstairs for Naomi's things. What I told you about the two of them coming up here wasn't true. Naomi was in no state to do anything, so I collected her things myself. I didn't think to look for the drawing book. I put the spare clothes in a carrier and handed them over. Naomi had to be pushed and dragged all the way to the taxi."

"There was a taxi?"

"Yes, it must have been waiting. I noticed it when I first opened the door. And when they left, Naomi was struggling and kicking by the taxi door and only went in after her leg was slapped."

"Oh, no!" said Julia, who wouldn't allow anyone to strike a child in her school.

"What sort of taxi?" asked Diamond, trying to exclude everything but the essential information, though, he, too, was disturbed at the treatment of Naomi.

"The usual. I won't lose my job, will I, Miss Musgrave?"

"Black?"

"What?"

"The taxi, Mrs. Straw. Was it black?"

"Oh. Yes."

"I suppose it's too much to hope that you took the number?"

She shook her head.

"Anything about it-adverts on the doors. Try and remember."

"I can't. Anyway, I couldn't see it properly because of the hedge."

"What time did they leave? How long were they here?"

"I don't know-about twenty minutes, I suppose. It might have been less. It seemed like twenty minutes."

"Before eight-thirty, then?"

"I suppose so."

He told Julia, "I'm calling the ponce. We're going to need them."

Mrs. Straw covered her eyes and moaned.