Diamond Solitaire

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

One can only guess at Lieutenant Eastland's thoughts next morning when he arrived at the station house to find his office occupied by Peter Diamond wearing just an unbuttoned shirt and red jockey shorts. The fat Englishman was standing with the phone anchored between his shoulder and his fleshy jowl. The desk was heaped with clothes, some discarded, some obviously back from the cleaner. Judging by the clutter of phone books, notepads, pens and screwed-up tissues, he had been installed there for some time. "Beef, for a start," he was saying. "Have you got beef?… Right. What else? Liver, I should think. Lamb, yes… Well, as much as you can manage at short notice… Excellent. How soon?… Oh, give me strength! I'm talking about lunchtime today… Yes, today… Right, I know you will. I'll call you back around noon… One o'clock, then. No later." He put down the phone. "Morning, Lieutenant. Did you oversleep?"

Eastland regarded him with glazed, red-lidded eyes.

Diamond told him, "My clothes came back."

"So I see."

"There's just time to get down to the Sheraton Center."

Eastland said, "This used to be my office."

Diamond announced in the same up-lads-and-at-'em tone, "The conference opens at eleven."

"Conference?"

"Manflex. Remember? This is the big one, when they unveil the wonder drug. David Flexner will be there and so will Professor Churchward. We've got to be there."

"Who do you mean-weT

"You and I. Sergeant Stein as well if you want."

Eastland ran his fingertips down the side of his face as if to discover whether he'd shaved yet "The Sheraton Center, you said?"

"Seventh Avenue and Fifty-third."

"I know where the Sheraton is," Eastland said in a growl.

"Snap it up, then."

"Diamond, you have all the finesse of a sawed-off shotgun."

To be charitable to Eastland, he hadn't seen Diamond so animated before. The Englishman was unstoppable. Within three minutes they were in a car heading downtown.

"I've been turning things over in my mind," Diamond said, as if to explain the transformation. "Last night, the scene at Leapman's house seemed all wrong."

"Wrong?"

"What we found."

"The ballpoint?"

Diamond stared in surprise at the lieutenant. "No. The ballpoint wasn't wrong. That was a genuine find. Just about everything else was wrong."

"For instance?"

"The damage to the front room. It looked impressive at first, as if there'd been a fight, but what did it amount to in breakages? One smashed TV screen. The shelf unit had tipped across the sofa and some books and things were on the floor, a chair was overturned and lying across a table and that was it"

"The phone was pulled from its socket," Eastland added.

'True-but it wasn't damaged. To me, the scene looked as if it had been staged by a rather fastidious owner who didn't want to damage his living room more than was necessary."

"You think that was staged?"

"I think it's more than likely."

"Aren't you forgetting the bloodstains?"

"No, I haven't forgotten them. First, consider the state of the bedroom where the child was held. Immaculate-apart from the ballpoint There was no other evidence that Naomi had ever been there. Not so much as a hair on the pillow. Wouldn't you expect some sign that she'd been removed from there in a hurry?"

"Maybe she was already downstairs when the fight started," said Eastland.

"Dressed in her coat and shoes and everything? They're not in the house."

"Whoever took the kid must have taken her things."

"Picked them up with his bloodstained hands and helped her into her coat? Does it sound likely?"

"Do you have a better explanation?" asked Eastland.

"Then there's the matter of the car," Diamond continued as if the question hadn't been put. "How did the assailant-what do you call him, the prep?-how did he travel to the house. On foot? If he came in a car, where is it, because he couldn't have driven two vehicles away from the house after the attack."

"Two perps," said Eastland doggedly. "One drove his car, one drove Leapman's."

'Taking Leapman with him?"

"Yeah."

"All right-then why was it necessary to take Leapman as well as the child?"

"Maybe they killed him. There's enough blood, for sure. They got rid of the body."

'To hinder your investigation, do you mean?"

"Sure," said Eastland. "They carried him to the garage, loaded him in the car and then opened the garage door and drove out with the body in the back. That way they avoided carrying him out into the street in the view of the neighbors."

"And that's how you see it?"

"Do you have a better explanation?" Eastland asked for the second time.

"Let me take you back a bit," said Diamond. "Leapman definitely took the child to his house at some stage. We found the ballpoint where I said it would be. We agree on that, right?"

"Uh huh."

"Look at this from Leapman's point of view. Yesterday when David Flexner arranged to meet me at the ferry, Leapman was listening. Either the office or the phone was bugged. He has links with organized crime and he alerted his criminal friends and asked them to meet me and dispose of me, while he created a smoke alarm diversion at Manflex Headquarters to delay David Flexner. Is that a reasonable inference from the facts as we know them?"

"It's conceivable."

"Conceivable? I was dumped in the river. You won't question that?"

"No, I don't question that."

"Leapman must have believed I was dead, but he still had a problem, because you-the cops-brought David Flexner in for questioning the same night. He couldn't understand how you made the connection, but he knew how dangerous it was. It was getting too close to home. And home was where he was holding Naomi."

Eastland was waking up. "He didn't want the cops calling. This is not a good time in his life to get arrested."

"Right. If he's going to cash in on PDM3, it's essential that the conference goes ahead. Are you with me so far?"

Eastland only gave a shrug and said, "Let's say I've been listening."

"Now, Leapman isn't the spokesman for PDM3. He's just the Vice Chairman. It isn't absolutely necessary that he puts in an appearance at the conference. David Flexner and the professor can handle it. The only thing liable to ruin the day-and the big hike in his shares-is if he-Leapman-has a visit from the cops and is found to have the child in his possession. That would be a disaster."

"So?"

"So he arranges to disappear. He will take the child with him, leaving no evidence that she was ever in the house. First he dresses the child and puts her in the car. Then he tidies her room so well that you wouldn't know she was ever there."

"Unless you were smart enough to look under the mattress," said Eastland in a bland tone that didn't amount to mockery, but wasn't respectful either.

Diamond's eyes narrowed, and one of them hurt. The black eye was still swollen. He sensed that he was being sent up, but he refused to be deflected. "Then he fakes the attack. Tips over several items of furniture and smashes the TV screen."

"How about the blood? You telling me it was ketchup?"

"No."

"Self-inflicted?"

"I don't know."

"That's a switch."

There followed an interval when neither man spoke. Diamond needed to draw breath and Eastland was gathering himself to demolish the theory. "It's one hell of a scenario to build on one ballpoint," he said finally. "In a nutshell, you believe Leapman arranged the scene himself, leaving us to deduce that he was beaten up and probably murdered?"

"Yes. I think you'll find that the only prints are his own. Probably he wore gloves to handle the baseball bat and the phone."

Eastland supplied unexpected support here. "It's true that whoever handled those objects wore gloves. That much we have established. And you think Leapman is alive and well? He drove off with the kid sometime before we arrived?"

"That's it"

"Where to?"

"I've no idea, but at least we know who to look for. We can put out a description."

"We circulated details last night," Eastland said with a yawn.

"No response?"

"None."

Diamond didn't have to be told about the problems tracing cars in New York.

"What's your reaction, then?"

"To what?" said Eastland.

'To what I've just been telling you."

"I don't buy it."

And that was that

They arrived at the Sheraton Center and shared an elevator to the third floor with a throng of people wearing name tags marked with the Manflex logo. The conference was to be in the Georgian suite. Young women in red blazers and white skirts were handing out information packs. Diamond took one and saw with grim satisfaction that an amendment sheet was included: Mr. Michael Leapman, Vice Chairman, will not, after all, be chairing the session with Professor Churchward. His place will be taken by the Chairman, Mr. David Flexner.

Seated inconspicuously towards the back, Diamond and Eastland watched David Flexner enter, accompanied by the professor, a slim, brown-suited man with cropped hair who took a chair beside the podium. Flexner was the first to speak. He addressed his large audience confidently, unaffected, it seemed, by the alarms of the previous twenty-four hours. After welcoming everyone, he briefly outlined the history of Manflex under his father's management, listing the principal drugs for which the firm was known. This was a stage of the proceedings when a few latecomers were still finding seats and many of the audience were looking around them to see which faces they recognized.

To a scattering of polite applause, the man in the brown suit was introduced as Professor Alaric Churchward. Gaunt and pale, but well in control, Churchward surveyed the audience with pinpoint blue eyes for a few seconds before opening with an attention-grabbing statement. Some four million Americans, he said, could no longer remember the names of their friends and families. They couldn't put names to everyday objects, such as chairs and tables. They were sufferers from Alzheimer's disease and they included people who had held highly responsible and demanding jobs. The roll of victims of Alzheimer's was as impressive as it was distressing, including the actress Rita Hayworth, film director Otto Preminger, mystery writer Ross Macdonald and artist Norman Rockwell. The cause was unknown; it was likely that a number of different areas of the brain contributed to the symptoms. Research scientists the world over had been working intensively for the last fifteen years to find a successful treatment.

He summarized the main targets of the research in a way that signaled something new and revolutionary, describing how the bulk of the work had concentrated on finding ways of increasing supplies of the brain chemical acetylcholine, which has a vital and mysterious process in the functioning of the memory. The brain's supply of this chemical was known to diminish rapidly with the onset of Alzheimer's.

Churchward went on to say that his own approach (and now more pens came out in the audience and tape recorders were switched on) was different because it was directed toward the nerve cells themselves. For twelve years, teams of scientists under his direction based in America, Europe and Asia had made animal studies to test the effectiveness of certain compounds as protective agents that could delay, or even prevent, nerve cell death. In the last eight years their work had been concentrated on a compound known as Prodermolate, or PDM3, that had proved to be something more than a protective agent

Alaric Churchward was quite a showman. Having got to his product, he kept everyone in suspense by introducing film footage of some Alzheimer's patients he had tested five years previously, prior to the administration of PDM3.

The bemused people who were shown on the screen being asked which month it was and when they were born and who was the current president of the United States were not exclusively the elderly that Peter Diamond associated with the illness. There was a woman of forty-seven and a man of fifty-two, although the others were over sixty-five. The spectacle of people of intelligent appearance puzzling over quite basic facts was profoundly disturbing, particularly a couple of men who demanded angrily to be told who they were and where they came from.

"I guess this is the 'before,' " Eastland commented to Diamond.

"Is it? I don't mink I… Oh-I see what you mean." In his concentration on the film, he must himself have sounded mentally lacking. These pathetic people moved him more than he had expected. Progressive loss of memory was a deep-seated fear of his own, and he had no difficulty in identifying with their distress.

After the lights were turned up, the professor talked at length about PDM3, a technical briefing couched in scientific terminology that Diamond found increasingly difficult to follow. His attention drifted back to the poignant images of the Alzheimer's patients.

Then the room was darkened for another sequence of film, the "after" interviews. Introducing them, Churchward explained that some of the volunteers (as he insisted on calling them, rather than patients, or subjects) had been administered with PDM3, and some, as a control, with a placebo.

The film was eloquent. The effects on those who had been given the drug were striking. Not only did they answer the questions they had found so baffling before, but they went on to give unsolicited accounts of the improvements in their lives. They could dress themselves, go for walks, use shops, write letters. In the standard word test, they had averaged a seven-point improvement. The results contrasted cruelly with the steady deterioration of the group who had taken the placebo. For Diamond, cynical as he felt about the sales pitch, it was difficult to remain detached, difficult not to wish that every one of those sad, benighted people had been given the drug.

In a neat coup de thedtre when the lights went on, Churchward was seen to have been joined by a man and a woman, whom he introduced as people just seen in the film, volunteers whose lives had been transformed by PDM3. Each answered two or three questions lucidly and testified to the improvement in their memory and concentration. They left the platform to spontaneous applause.

David Flexner stepped up to play his part as Chairman. He invited questions.

A bearded man near the front made the point that certain drugs patented by other pharmaceutical companies had appeared to produce remarkable improvements in Alzheimer's patients, but the effects had proved only temporary. In two years, the deterioration had set in again. Was there any real possibility, he asked, that PDM3 could sustain the improvement?

Churchward answered the question so smoothly that it might have been seeded before the conference, and perhaps it had been. "Of course I'm aware of the products you're referring to, sir, and I agree that they have disappointed as long-term remedies. There are six drugs to my knowledge that have been undergoing tests intended to give a boost to the cholenergic system that produces acetylcholine. It is beyond dispute that a certain amount of success has been achieved. Unfortunately, as you just implied, the duration is severely limited. The reason-and this is a personal opinion-would appear to be that the nerve cells that produce the acetylcholine continue to die. Our own approach, with PDM3, is quite different, for we are actually regenerating those cells. Our experiments in Indiana and at our other centers in Tokyo and London have been running for seven years, and no significant deterioration has been observed. Clearly the patients get older-let's not forget that we are dealing mainly with geriatrics-but our tests and interviews are consistently encouraging. There is, of course, documentary backup that some of my colleagues will present this afternoon. Next question."

A woman to the right of Diamond asked if any adverse drug reactions to PDM3 had been reported.

"Remarkably few," Churchward told her. "Every drug produces some unwanted reactions, but in this case they are negligible. The majority of volunteers reported no untoward effects."

"Maybe they forgot," Diamond muttered to Eastland in a facetious aside. He was becoming irritated by the smoothness of Churchward's presentation.

"Fewer than twenty percent of our volunteers reported mild dizziness, but this is notoriously difficult to assess, and was of short duration," Churchward added. "Five percent of those taking the placebo also reported dizziness. It isn't perceived as a serious problem."

Diamond leaned closer to Eastland and told him in a low voice that he was going out to make a phone call. It may have sounded remarkably like a smoker's excuse for a quick drag outside the room, but it was genuine. He was in the seat closest to the aisle, so he was able to move out without disturbing anyone.

When he returned ten minutes later, the question and answer session was still in progress. Someone asked if PDM3 could be described as a "smart drug."

"That's not a term a serious biochemist would use, madam," Churchward answered, "but I know what you're referring to, and you have touched on a matter of real significance. It's estimated that up to 100,000 healthy Americans take drugs daily in the expectation of increasing their mental capacity. Call them cognitive enhancers or smart drugs, the point is that their effects are as yet unproven. I read somewhere that as many as 160 cognitive enhancers are under development, many of them being vasodilators. Do you know what I mean by that? A vasodilator has the effect of widening the blood vessels, thus increasing the supply of blood to the brain. However, if your blood supply is normal, there's no evidence that vasodilators will make you any smarter. I have yet to be convinced that any of the so-called smart drugs are effective. And yet…"

The professor paused, smiled slightly, and then leaned forward like a preacher, with one finger raised to focus the attention of his listeners. He need not have troubled, for they were totally attentive. "… PDM3 raises exciting possibilities. This afternoon, I shall give you details of a limited experiment that we undertook with a group of student volunteers. It's well known that certain highly intelligent people have poor memories. We administered PDM3 to twenty undergraduates from the University of Corydon in Indianapolis. Three of them were consistently below average scorers on memory tests and there is no question that the drug produced a marked improvement in their mental performance. We're not talking about forgetful elderly people here. This is something else. And now…" Churchward folded his arms and kept everyone in suspense for a moment. "… I want to take it a stage further. In Phase Three of our tests, I propose to examine in a wide-scale test the ability of this remarkable drug to regenerate and prolong the mental capacities of normal people. If our prehminary findings are right, the implications;-for individuals, for society, as a whole, for the economy, for the welfare of our nation, the progress of mankind, are truly-"

"Mind blowing?" the questioner suggested.

Churchward smiled. "I'm tempted to say that anyone taking PDM3 runs no risk of having his mind blown. But, yes, we can scarcely imagine the potential of such a discovery."

It seemed a good note on which to end, or so David Flexner thought, because he reached for the microphone. "Unless there are any other questions, ladies and gentle-men-"

"Yes, I have one more, if you don't mind." Suddenly Peter Diamond was on his feet. He hadn't planned to intervene so publicly as this and he hadn't discussed it with Lieutenant Eastland (who muttered, "Jesus!"). Only in the last few minutes had he come to a decision to fire a broadside across the bows of the two well-defended men at the front. A scare at this stage, when they thought they were fully in control, might panic them into revealing something really culpable- if they were implicated. "This session was to have been chaired by Mr. Michael Leapman. What is the significance of his absence?"

Flexner's right hand went straight to his long hair and raked through it. "Mr. Leapman is, um… Excuse me, sir, this is an organizational matter. I don't see that it has any relevance to what we have heard."

"Ah, but it has," Diamond insisted. "It's well known that Mr. Leapman is strongly identified with this drug. He promoted it actively within your company. He, more than any other individual, is responsible for this conference, for the decision to go into Phase Three of the testing. Yet he isn't here this morning. What are we to make of this, Mr. Flexner? Does it mean that Michael Leapman has gone cold on the project?"

Flexner was staring. "Sir, would you mind telling me who you represent?"

"My name is Diamond."

This simple statement made a satisfying impact. Men don't return from the dead all that often, and David Flexner had not been informed that Diamond had survived his dip in the Hudson River. His hair didn't stand on end, but in every other respect he gave a fair impression of a man seeinga ghost.

To give him time to find his voice again, Diamond went on to say, "I'd better identify myself properly. I'm a detective working with Lieutenant Eastland of the New York Police Department, with whom you are acquainted. He's sitting beside me, in case you can't see from there. But my question was about Mr. Leapman. As you no doubt know, he has gone missing. I think your audience is entitled to know the circumstances."

Flexner looked more bloodless than the specter in front of him. "It has no relevance," he managed to say.

Churchward got up and spoke to Flexner and his remark was close enough to the mike to be heard all over the room.

"Let's wrap this up fast."

No one else had any desire to leave. Diamond said, "You may prefer to wrap it up fast, gentlemen, but the rest of us won't be impressed if you do. Mr. Michael Leapman has disappeared from his house in suspicious circumstances. A certain amount of damage has been done inside his house in New Jersey. There are signs of a scuffle. Overturned furniture. Bloodstains. His car is missing. I believe you were informed of this when you tried to call him this morning."

Flexner appeared to give a nod.

Seeing that his Chairman was bereft of words, Professor Churchward reached for the microphone and said, "This is a scientific conference, not a police investigation. We're sorry to hear about the attack on Michael, but with all due respect it has no bearing on what we are discussing today."

Diamond said at once, "I believe you're mistaken there. You've assumed that Mr. Leapman was the victim of an attack."

"But you just described it," said Churchward.

"No, Professor, I described the scene at the house. The evidence is that the attack was faked."

There were gasps. Everyone had turned to hear what Diamond was saying.

"I was doubtful of the setup anyway, so I asked the forensic lab to check the blood spots found at the scene. I phoned to get the results a few minutes ago." Savoring the moment, he found a wicked way of prolonging it. "As mere are so many scientists present, you may care to know that they test whether it's human by diluting it and bringing it into contact with animal serum. There should be a precipitin reaction between the human protein and the animal serum. A white line forms. No white line was found in this case. The forensic people have a good stock of antisera from a variety of animals." He paused. He was as capable as Churchward of working an audience. "The blood spots in Michael Leapman's living room were bovine in origin, probably from calf liver, which is as bloody as most things one keeps in a freezer." Again he waited, allowing the facts to sink in. "So I'm bound to ask whether either of you gentlemen has any idea why Mr. Leapman should have gone missing in these suspicious circumstances at this crucial time."

Churchward was careful to switch off the mike before conferring with Flexner, who had a glass of water to his lips.

Diamond remained standing.

Without getting up, Lieutenant Eastland muttered reproachfully, "You could have told me first."

"There wasn't time."

"Was this what you were setting up this morning when I came in?"

"With the lab, yes. I called them back just now. The beef test was the first they tried."

"I thought you were ordering a sandwich."

David Flexner switched on again and did his best to sound composed: "We are not aware of any reason for the incident that has just been described. Michael Leapman has served as our Vice Chairman with honor and distinction for many years. We regret what has just been reported, but we can't see that it has any connection with our business here today. The program will resume after lunch. That is all I have to say at this time."

The press closed in on Diamond.

"Satisfied?" Eastland asked, when Diamond had finally shaken off the last of them.

"I'm not here for satisfaction. I'm here to find out how much Flexner and the professor know about Leapman's activities."

"So what did you learn?"

"Flexner, at least, was genuinely fazed. I'm less certain about the professor."

Eastland appeared to concur. "He's a different type. More mature as a personality. His mind was on damage limitation."

"That was my impression, too. A cool customer. I suspend judgment on Professor Churchward."

"His sort wouldn't be fazed if King Kong stepped into the conference."

"But that doesn't make him a guilty man."

"Want another look at him? He's taking the afternoon session."

Diamond said he had other plans. While the big shots were away, he was going to visit the Manflex Building. He meant to find out for himself whether Flexner had concealed anything of importance the evening before when he was being questioned about Yuko Masuda's file entry.

"You won't get in there without a warrant," Eastland told him. "They have security like a state pen."

"Want a bet?"

"Sure."

"I bet you the price of a meal, then," Diamond suggested.

"One of your meals? Get away."

Both men grinned. They worked better now they had the measure of each other.

Later, fortified by a sandwich (or two) he bought himself, Diamond stepped from a limousine and strutted confidently towards the front entrance of the Manflex Corporation. The security guard'-happily one he hadn't met on the previous visit-asked for his pass. Diamond admitted that he didn't possess a pass. He had something better.

"What's that?"

"A British passport"

"Mister, are you trying to be funny?"

"No, I'm giving you the chance to verify my name. I'm Peter Diamond."

"Am I supposed to have heard of you?" said the guard, a mite more cautiously.

"I'm glad you asked the question. You'd better give some thought to the answer." Diamond peered at the man's identity disc. "Officer William Pinkowitz."

Anyone who has played the power game knows that you put a man on the defensive by using his name. "Are you something in Safe Haven Security?"

Diamond repeated in a scandalized tone, "Something in it?"

"Do you work for us?"

"I wouldn't put it that way, but you're getting there." All this was an exercise in psyching out that he had used in various guises many times before.

"But you're not American."

"Didn't I just make that clear?" He left the wretched man dangling a moment longer before saying, "Safe Haven is just a subsidiary of Diamond Sharp International."

"Diamond Sharp…"

"International. Do you want to check with your superior?"

There was a certain amount of hesitation before Officer William Pinkowitz apparently decided that to cast any more doubt on the word of Peter Diamond was a risk he'd rather not take. "I'll just take a look at that passport, sir."

"Certainly."

After an interval came the inevitable, awed, "You're a Detective Superintendent?”

"You're doing a good job, Pinkowitz. Keep it up." He walked into the building. Behind him, he heard Pinkowitz's heels click in salute.

He got out of the elevator at the twenty-first floor, from which, he'd been told, Manny Flexner had jumped to his death. A woman was coming along the corridor and wasn't the sort to walk shyly past Thirtyish, with dark hair, brilliant makeup and, of all things, a kiss-curl in the center of her forehead, she couldn't wait to find out what he was doing there with his black eye and battered face. She called out when she was still fully fifteen yards away, "Can I help you?"

"Personnel records?" he said.

"They're all on computer now."

"Where could I, em…?"

"Are you Australian?"

"English."

"Oh, you can't be!" She checked the position of her curl. "I have some very dear friends in England. Which part of England?"

"London."

"Really? My friends are in Welwyn Garden City. Is that near London?"

"Tolerably near."

"Tolerably near-I love it! But what's happened to you? I hope you haven't had a bad experience in our country."

"No, just a fall. I'm fine."

"I wouldn't have said so! Are you here on vacation?"

"Research," he said, divining a way to get back on course. He wasn't sure how long he could rely on Officer Pinkowitz to keep his privileged knowledge to himself. "Family history. Mr., er, Leapman suggested I consult the records for information about a distant member of the family."

"Michael Leapman? He isn't here today. Isn't that just too bad?"

"It doesn't trouble me in the least But if I could be shown how to use a computer…"

"I don't know if there's a spare desk. Hold on-I'll think of something."

"Mr. Leapman's desk?"

"Why, yes-of course!"

Neat and simple, satisfyingly simple. At least, he told himself, I'm functioning again.

She showed him into Leapman's office, a place with signs of long occupation. A comfortable reclining chair, worn at the arms. A desk with cup stains apparently impervious to cleaning. Some far-from-new executive toys, including a Newton's cradle that Diamond couldn't resist disturbing. A poster of Stockholm, curling at the corners. Even the computer keyboard at a separate desk had the glaze chipped off some of the main keys.

He sat in front of it, and his latest helpmate pressed a switch. While the machine was booting up, she had a spasm of uncertainty. "Are you quite sure Michael said you could inspect the personnel files? Only a few of us have the password to get into them."

"That's all right," he assured her. "I'm not out to discover how much you people earn or what age you are. I just want to look up a research scientist, someone who is sponsored by Manflex."

"That's no problem," she said, with obvious relief. "It's much easier to access researchers man permanent staff. What name are you hoping to find?"

"Masuda. Dr. Yuko Masuda."

"That doesn't sound English."

"It isn't I have a cousin who went to Japan."

"Let's try, then. Masuda. Would you spell mat?"

When the name appeared on the screen, Diamond's hopes of new information were dashed. It was a thin account of twelve years of research.

Name: MASUDA, Dr. Yuko (female). Date of Birth:-

Address: Care of Dept. of Biochemistry, Univ. of Yokohama, Japan.

Qualifications: M.Sc, Ph.D.

Dates of Sponsorship: From: September 1979.

To: Continues.

Subject of Research: Drug- and alcohol-induced comas.

Drugs Under Research: Sympathomimetic.

Publications: "An insult to the brain: coma and its characteristics." Postgraduate thesis, 1981. "Narcosis and coma states." American Journal of Biochemistry, May 1981. "The treatment of alcoholic coma." Paper presented to Japanese Pharmacological Conference, Tokyo, 1983.

"It isn't much," he complained. "Hasn't she published anything since 1983? I thought research scientists were constantly publishing."

The woman gave a shrug. "Maybe the file hasn't been updated."

At least the file confirmed that David Hexner had been entirely frank about Yuko Masuda. This was all familiar stuff from the interview at the station house.

"Is there any way of telling when this file was put together?"

"Oh, sure. There's a checklist of all the dates when entries or deletions were made." She pressed two keys and a window was displayed on the right of the screen. "Just two entries. As you see, the file was created on September 10, 1987, and the latest entry was only three months back."

He hesitated. Something was wrong. "But the last entry on file refers to a conference in 1983. Which piece of this data is new? What did anyone find to enter three months ago when all I can see here relates to work published up to 1983?"

"I'm sorry, I can't answer that. I have no idea."

"The computer can't tell us?"

"No."

He sighed. Three months ago would have been shortly before Naomi was brought to London. Possibly there was a connection. Apparently there was no way of finding out.

He had another thought "Can anyone make additions to these files?"

"If they can get into them, sure, but only a few of us have the password."

"That would include the Chairman…?"

"The Vice Chairman, Personnel Director, Research Director, Senior Systems Analyst and some secretaries, including me.

"Whose secretary are you?"

"Mr. Hart's. He's Personnel."

"And you are…?"

"Molly Docherty. I thought you were never going to ask."

"I'm Peter Diamond. And who is the Research Director?"

"Mr. Greenberg. Would you like to meet him?"

"How long has he been in the job?"

"About two years."

"Then I don't think I want to meet him." Diamond tapped the screen with his finger. "Tell me, Molly, where was this information stored prior to September 1987?"

"It was all on a card index. Mr. Flexner-Mr. Manny Flexner, I mean-was a sweet man, but he was a little slow in catching up with the computer age. He didn't trust modem technology."

Nor I, thought Diamond. "And all the information on the card index was transferred to the computer?"

"Oh, yes. Everything. And triple-checked. I was one of the operators."

Before asking the next question, he sent up a silent prayer. He was agnostic in his thinking, but if help was to be had from any source he needed it now. "Do those filing cards still exist?"

There was an agonizing pause for thought before Molly Docherty said, "I believe they were put into storage somewhere." "Where?"

"Now you're really asking. The basement, I guess."

"Would you mind escorting me?"

She laughed, he supposed at the way he'd expressed himself. "I'll have to clear it with my boss."

"You don't have to mention me."

On the way down in the elevator, she said, "You must be very devoted to your family."

"Why?" He was thrown briefly, and then remembered his trumped-up reason for inspecting the files. "It isn't just a matter of making a family tree. I want to get the background on these people." Even to himself, he sounded pretty unconvincing.

The basement was a cold, echoing place stacked with outmoded office furniture: wooden desks with the veneers exposed, gray metal cupboards of the kind so popular in the sixties and a great variety of chairs with their covers ripped and frayed. The discarded personnel files were easy to locate, stored in five metal boxes-locked, but Molly had thoughtfully collected a set of keys from upstairs.

"These go back thirty years at least," she told him. "There must be a thousand in each box."

"Let's open one."

She stooped and found the appropriate box. As she tried the keys, she remarked, "This is like treasure hunting. I do hope it's worth your trouble."

She flicked through the cards rapidly with a long, lacquered fingernail, picked one out and handed it to Diamond. "Voila!"

He didn't need long. "This doesn't match the computer entry."

"It wouldn't," she said. "We're constantly updating,"

"Deleting information?"

"No, adding it."

"What do you make of this, then?" He handed back the card.

Name: MASUDA, Dr. Yuko

Address: c/o Dept. of Biochemistry, Yokohama University

Qualifications: M.Sc, Ph.D.

Dates of Sponsorship: From: September 1979.

To: July 1985.

Subject of Research: Comas, drug-induced and alcoholic

Drugs Under Research: Jantac

Publications: "An insult to the brain: coma and its characteristics." Postgraduate thesis, 1981.

"Narcosis and coma states." American Journal of Biochemistry, May 1981.

"The treatment of alcoholic coma." Paper presented to Japanese Pharmacological Conference, Tokyo, 1983.

"What's the problem?"

Clearly the details weren't written so indelibly in Molly Docherty's memory. Diamond explained. "It says here that the sponsorship terminated in July 1985. On your computer, that isn't mentioned. It states that the sponsorship continues. That's a big difference, surely?"

"I guess she resumed the research at a later date."

"Wouldn't that be recorded upstairs?"

"The point is that she's back with us now. I guess whoever updated the entry did the simple thing, deleted the date she stopped and substituted 'continues.' "

He wasn't satisfied with that. "It gives the impression she was continuously doing research. There must have been a gap"

"For a short period."

"Of about two years? The computer was installed in 1987, you said. And everything was triple-checked from these cards?"

As if resenting the implication that someone had erred, she said, "I'll just see if there's an entry on another card. Maybe the data from two cards was collated."

But there was no second card for Yuko Masuda.

"This drug-Jantac-isn't listed on the computer, either," Diamond pointed out. "There's something quite different and unpronounceable. Sympatho-something or other. What exactly is Jantac?"

"Sorry," she said, "but there are thousands of drugs. I can't tell you."

"Is it a Manflex product?"

"It isn't familiar to me, but we can check the list upstairs."

"And could we also make a photocopy of this card?"

She looked doubtful. "Is this really for family history?"

"Only remotely, I'm afraid. I'm a policeman on the trail of a little girl who is missing from home. Dr. Masuda is her mother."

"And what did you find out about this drug?"

Eastland looked more at ease sitting at his own desk in the station house.

"Jantac? Not much," Diamond admitted. "It was on the Manflex list of experimental drugs."

"Was?"

"It isn't any longer. They pulled it in 1985."

"The year your Japanese lady's research stopped."

"Exactly."

"Do we know why it was withdrawn?"

"No, but I intend to find out."

"You think it could be important?"

"Someone wiped it from the computer record. I'm satisfied that it must have been transferred accurately from the cards. Molly-the woman who helped me-insisted that everything on those cards went on to the computer and was triple-checked. But listen to this-the computer entry was altered for the first and only time three months ago."

"About the time you found Naomi in London?"

"Yes."

Eastland leaned back in his chair. "Where will you get this information-about Jantac?"

"Yokohama University, I reckon. That's where the work was done. I'll fax them."

"Before you do that, there's something I should tell you.

We found Leapman's car."

"Where?"

"JFK."

"The airport."

"It was in the parking lot. Been there some time."

"How do you know?"

"He flew out last night. Japan Airlines, direct to Tokyo. I've spent the afternoon checking passenger lists."

"Tokyo. Have you told them?"

"Too late. He's already landed and cleared. With Naomi."