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  “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 famil
iar 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.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The person who took the call at Kensington Police Station expressed doubt whether it would be possible to trace an unnamed Japanese woman and child who had stepped into a taxi in Earls Court at

  8:30.

  Diamond hadn’t reprimanded a policeman for months, but he still had the knack. “Who the hell do you think you are-God Almighty?” he boomed down the line. “This is a bloody emergency. It isn’t your job to look down from the clouds and say what’s possible and what isn’t. Action the call. I was in the police, son. I know what I’m talking about. The morning rush hour is the busiest time of day for taxis.”

  “That’s just the point,” said the hapless officer.

  “What are you, a civilian? Put me through to someone in uniform, will you? Who’s the station sergeant?”

  “I am.”

  “God help us. Listen, I’m not telling you your job, sergeant, but there are ways of tracing taxis. Most of them work in fleets and radio their positions to the girl on the intercom, right? At the busiest times there’s a large demand for cabs. If one was standing outside a school for twenty minutes, someone is going to remember-because it was unavailable for other work-follow me?”

  “Yes, but-”

  “And this cab driver, whoever he may be, is going to remember sitting there. He’s also going to remember picking up a Japanese woman and a kid who was most unwilling to be with her. Now, you can’t trace every taxi in London, agreed, but you can call the offices telling them to check with their controllers, or whatever they call themselves.”

  “Have you any idea what you’re asking, Mr.-”

  “Diamond. Ex-Superintendent Diamond. Yes, I know exactiy what I’m asking, and it’s the obvious course of action apart from questioning the neighbors round here, which goes without saying. If you want help-”

  “That won’t be needed.”

  “Good. I’m glad you can handle that,” Diamond said and added before the sergeant had time to come in again, “In that case I’ll come straight down to the station. I can be more useful there.”

  This had the desired effect, a definite infusion of urgency. “Will you listen to me, sir? I want you to stay where you are. I’ll be sending someone to take a statement from you.”

  “Sod that. I’ve given you the facts. Do I have to repeat that this child was taken from the school against her will? Abducted, sergeant. We’ve got to know where she was taken, and we’ve got to know fast.”

  He ended the call.

  Julia Musgrave had overheard all this. She was pale, clearly disturbed by Diamond’s bulldozing, without knowing that it was the sure way to get things done in the police. “You said this is an emergency.”

  His response was guarded. “I know that sergeant’s type. If you told him a bomb had been planted in Buckingham Palace, he’d want it in writing first.”

  “Is Naomi in danger?”

  “We’ve got to assume she is. Whoever this woman is-and she may be the mother, for all I know-she behaved suspiciously.”

  “Maybe,” she commented. “But you c
an’t expect a mother deprived of her child to act rationally. She turned up here at breakfast time. Is that really to be interpreted as suspicious? If my child were missing, I wouldn’t think twice about knocking on someone’s door any time of the day or night.”

  “In that case why didn’t she come here yesterday, directly after the television program?”

  “We don’t know where she was when she saw it. If she was in Manchester, for example, she’d have had to travel to London, wouldn’t she?”

  “She could have phoned.”

  “Perhaps she tried. You told me yourself that the BBC switchboard was jammed.”

  He wasn’t going to get far with mis line of reasoning and he hadn’t started it anyway, so he mentioned another obvious cause for mistrusting the Japanese woman. “I can’t believe a genuine mother just reunited with her child would hit her.”

  “Stress.”

  He gave up. He knew really that his motives in treating the matter as an emergency were more instinctive than rational. Naomi had eventually come to trust him-at least to the extent of holding his hand. He wouldn’t have admitted to Julia Musgrave or anyone else-bar Stephanie-that the child had captivated him. He’d felt the small hand in his own and now it was a self-imposed duty to find out whether she was safe. But he didn’t want anyone running away with the idea that he-the veteran of a dozen murder inquiries-was a soft touch, literally a soft touch. He didn’t particularly want to admit it to himself.

  There was more to it, he insisted. He was deeply suspicious about the mother. How could she have allowed herself to be parted from her child for so long? Why hadn’t she alerted the police, or at least her own embassy, when Naomi first went missing? Foreigners could be forgiven some confusion in a strange country, but anyone, of any nationality, ought to have reacted promptly to a crisis as basic as that.

  So he wasn’t giving up without satisfying himself that the “mother” was the mother, and was capable of looking after her child.

  Before carrying out his promise (or threat) to call at the police station, he decided to give the area car ten minutes to drive up. Someone may have seen the woman forcing Naomi into the taxi and it was worth making sure that the right questions were asked. Thus far, he wasn’t over impressed by the caliber of the Kensington plod.

  Two PCs-male and female-arrived with a couple of minutes to spare, looking like extras in a TV soap opera. Why was it that no one in police uniform looked genuine anymore? To do them justice, they went about their duties efficiently and agreed to divide forces, one knocking on doors while the other questioned Mrs. Straw.