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  “All right, I’ll say it. You’re not that old.”

  “Too old for work, apparently.”

  “Snap out of it, Pete.”

  “You want to see them lining up for unemployment benefit. Younger men than me. Much younger, some of them. Kids, straight out of school.”

  She heaped streaky bacon on his plate. “Things could be worse.”

  “You mean one of those unemployed kids could be ours.”

  She looked away, and he cursed himself for being so boorish. In her first marriage, to a shop manager, Steph had miscarried three times. She’d lost another baby when she married Diamond. That time she’d suffered complications that were finally resolved by a hysterectomy. Surgery had been the cure-all in the early seventies. She’d lost her womb, but not the maternal urge. Before he met her she’d taken on the role of leader to a pack of Brownies. Did it for years, and did much more than Baden-Powell had ever intended. Always willing to be a second mum to small girls whose parents neglected them. They were all young adults now and she still wrote to some of them.

  He put his hand over hers and said, “Sorry about last night, love.”

  Her face creased into a bewildered look. “Last night?”

  “In bed.”

  She stared at him with wide eyes.

  “The jigsaw piece.”

  “Oh!” She laughed. “I’d forgotten that. I thought you were on about something entirely different. It didn’t make sense at all.”

  The day was fine after more than a week of overcast skies and rain, so instead of joining the queue in the library again, he called in at the news agent’s, treated himself to his own copy of the Evening Standard and took it into Holland Park to read. Finding that nothing in the jobs columns grabbed him, he put the paper aside and basked in the sun for a while on one of the wooden benches facing the pond beside the Orangery, watching people walk their dogs and push their prams along the length of the arched cloister. Everyone but he had some accessory, some visible reason for being in the park. A model airplane, a tennis racket, a camera, a spiked stick for picking up waste paper.

  He got up decisively. Hell, he had no cause to be idle. He’d remembered an urgent job of work. Overnight a couple of air bubbles had appeared on the freshly emulsioned kitchen ceiling. Stephanie hadn’t said anything, but he was sure she’d noticed them. He’d see if he could rub them out with sandpaper.

  At home, trying to be tidy, he spread the sheets of the Standard across the kitchen floor below the bit of ceiling he was about to sand. Then he stood on a kitchen chair and examined the job. There were two bubbles the size of marshmallows. No question-they had to be removed. He picked at one with his fingernail. The paint was dry, so he gave it a tentative pull. It was pliant and springy, like plastic. He pulled harder and suddenly a sizeable piece of the coat of paint detached itself from the ceiling and flopped over his head and shoulders like a bridal veil.

  He swore, stepped down from the chair, extricated himself, and examined the damage. This was no longer a simple sanding job. The entire ceiling would have to be stripped and repainted. Worse, it needed washing before he applied the paint It was obvious even to an incompetent that the grease and grime from years of cooking should have been removed before the first coat was applied. The emulsion hadn’t adhered. By seeking quick results, he’d wasted an entire can of paint. In a couple of hours, Stephanie was going to come back from the shop to find her kitchen under occupation again.

  Resigned to the major redecoration, he tugged off the rest of the coat of emulsion. It came away in large pieces and spread like dust sheets over the units, table and chairs. That done, he put on the kettle. He deserved a break before he washed that ceiling.

  But it never did get washed, or repainted. Something more urgent came up.

  When Stephanie got home, she found the kitchen a disaster area, the sheets of dried emulsion festooned over everything, the ceiling as gruesome as it had looked the day they moved in, newspapers and sandpaper scattered around the floor and a half-filled mug of cold tea on the table. Diamond wasn’t there. He finally came home about seven, apologizing profusely.

  “But I’ve had an interesting afternoon, Steph.”

  “So it appears.”

  He related the episode with the paint. “So when it was all off the ceiling I made myself some tea, feeling gutted after what had happened, and while I was drinking it, I happened to pick up a section of the Standard that I’d spread on the floor to protect it, you see?”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  “I just wanted something for distraction, something to read and-”

  “You found a job in the paper? Oh, Pete!” She turned to him, arms spread wide.

  “A job? No.”

  Her arms flopped down. “What, then?”

  “I was telling you. I picked up the paper and saw this.” He handed her a scrap of newspaper.

  MYSTERY GIRL STILL UNCLAIMED

  The small girl who was the cause of a bomb scare when she was found in Harrods five weeks ago has still not been claimed or identified. The girl, believed to be about seven, and Japanese, is unable or unwilling to speak. A publicity campaign to find her parents has so 33 far been unsuccessful despite extensive enquiries among the Japanese community. Meanwhile she is in the care of Kensington amp; Chelsea social services department A spokesperson said, “We’re at a loss to understand why no one has come forward yet”

  “Poor mite,” said Stephanie, ever ready to brush aside her own concerns to take pity on a child. “She must be terrified. First the police, and now the social workers. I’m not surprised she’s silent.”

  “Then you don’t mind if I try and help?” said Diamond.

  She gave him a wary look. “If I did, would it make a jot of difference?”

  “I found out where she’s being kept.”

  Stephanie frowned, stared and then allowed her face to soften. “That’s why you dropped everything and went out? To see mis little girl? Peter, you’re a softie at heart”

  “Softie?” he said. “You’re calling an ex-cop a softie?”

  “You always had time for kids,” she insisted. “Who got a job as Father Christmas last year?”

  “That was work. This abandoned kid is a challenge, Steph. A chance to do what I’m trained for instead of standing on a chair washing a ceiling-which I will do, I give you my word. Face it, I’ve got experience. I was a bloody good sleuth.”

  “With a heart of gold.”

  He rolled his eyes upwards in dissent-and found himself staring at the grease marks. “Anyway, I tried the town hall, and they weren’t willing to release information. I don’t blame them. I could have been a weirdo, or something. They were perfectly entitled to show me the door. I went round to the police, told them I was ex-CID, and got an address. Some kind of assessment center. Of course, when I got there, the kid had been moved on. I needed to be a bloody Sherlock Holmes to track her down. They put me onto some child psychiatrist, and he was no help, but his secretary took pity and handed me the address of a special school in Earls Court”

  “Special?” Stephanie said dubiously. “You mean for kids with mental problems?”

  He nodded.

  “Is she retarded?” said Stephanie.

  “No one actually said so, but that’s where they’ve sent her.”

  “They must think she is. What kind of place is it?”

  “It’s residential. I didn’t get there this afternoon, but I’m going to try tomorrow. Apparently they haven’t given up entirely. A Japanese teacher visits the school and tries to get her to speak. Up to now she’s had no success.”

  She was frowning. “If everyone else has failed, what can you do about it? You don’t speak Japanese.”

  “I don’t propose to try. It’s just possible that everyone is too preoccupied with the speech problem. I’d like to tty other lines of inquiry.”

  “Such as?”

  He wouldn’t commit himself. “I’d need to win the kid’s co
nfidence first I’ve got the time to do it, Steph. For once in my life, I haven’t got someone breathing down my neck.”

  “Well���” said Stephanie, letting her eyes slide upwards.

  “Don’t say it. I’ll scrub the damned ceiling tonight.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  One useful thing Diamond had learned in the police is that anyone with an air of authority can get admitted anywhere, with the possible exception of 10 Downing Street. The children’s home was a detached Victorian house just behind the Earls Court exhibition building. The woodwork around the windows needed replacing and brickwork was visible here and there where weathering had invaded the layer of stucco. The local authority had more urgent priorities.

  He rang the bell and a woman in an apron came to the door. Raising the 1940s trilby he still wore in private homage to the great detectives of past years, he said, “Morning, madam. You must be Mrs��� ?”

  “Straw.”

  “Mrs. Straw, Mrs. Straw���” he said thoughtfully as if deciding whether she qualified for the holiday of a lifetime in the Caribbean.

  She waited, intrigued.

  He said, “You’re not the head of this school?”

  “No,” she said, fingering her apron. “I’m the general help.”

  “A general! General Help.” He made a gesture towards a salute.

  She didn’t smile. “You want Miss Musgrave.”

  “Miss Musgrave. Of course!” He stepped forward, compelling her to stand aside. “Peter Diamond, General Help, here to speak to Miss Musgrave.”

  She succeeded in saying, “You have an appointment.” If she meant it to sound like a question, as she probably did, the attempt was foiled by a huge, disarming grin from Diamond. The upshot was that Mrs. Straw’s utterance ended on a descending note and became a statement She added, “Miss Musgrave is very busy.”

  “Don’t I know it!” Diamond said.

  “You know Miss Musgrave?” she said with relief.

  He shrugged like a Frenchman in a way that could mean everything or nothing. “She’ll see me, I think.” He was in the hall now and Mrs. Straw was closing the door. From the depths of the house came the cries of children. “She’s not in class, is she?”

  “If you’d only wait, I’ll tell her you’re here.”

  At that moment a face appeared around a door halfway up the hall. Diamond called out, “There you are, Miss Musgrave.”

  It wasn’t a stab in the dark. The face was weighing him up with the look of a person in authority.

  “Peter Diamond,” he told her, advancing with his hand extended. A man of his size in motion isn’t easy to stop. “Mrs. Straw here was telling me how busy you are, but perhaps you can spare me a minute. I’m not selling anything.”

  Miss Musgrave must have been in her thirties, tall and slim, with blonde hair drawn back to a small ponytail and tied with a black ribbon. She didn’t immediately accept the handshake. She asked, “What is this about, then?”

  He beamed. “It’s about one of the children, the Japanese girl. I may be able to help.”

  “You’d better come in.”

  Her office evidently doubled as a classroom. There were three infants’ chairs and tables. Her own desk had a lineup of painted masks made from egg boxes. The floor was spotted with paint. A menagerie of stuffed animals sat on the filing cabinet. Children’s paintings ranging from competent to inept were taped to the walls. Diamond found it congenial. In the absence of a spare adult-sized chair, he perched himself on a wooden chest with a flat lid that he reckoned would take his weight.

  Miss Musgrave asked if he wanted a coffee. She had a full cup on her desk.

  “No thanks. I really don’t mean to be a nuisance.” At this stage he judged it wise to throw himself on her mercy. “I used to be in the police as a detective superintendent. Used to be. I must make it plain that I’m here in a private capacity.” He explained about losing the Harrods job. “I saw the little girl that night, and I’m appalled that after-what is it? Six weeks? -her people haven’t been found.”

  “I’m sure the police are doing their best,” Miss Musgrave said.

  “No question of that.”

  “Meanwhile we’re making her as comfortable as we can. She does need specialized care. That’s my province, Mr. Diamond.” She sounded defensive, yet well in control. From the guarded looks she was still giving Diamond, she hadn’t much cared for his steamroller tactics in gaining admittance.

  “It’s not easy, I imagine, when a child doesn’t speak at all,” he ventured.

  “We deal with a variety of problems here.”

  “With limited resources, no doubt.”

  “If you’re hinting that Naomi isn’t being given the attention her predicament deserves, Mr. Diamond, you’re mistaken. She’s been the subject of the most intensive tests and inquiries.”

  “Naomi-you know her name?”

  Miss Musgrave shook her head. “We have to call her something. One of the staff from the Japanese Embassy suggested it as a name that their people and ours have in common.”

  “Naomi. That’s Japanese? I thought it was Old Testament.”

  Hosanna! His early days as a choirboy paid off. Miss Musgrave’s expression softened. A man who knew his Bible couldn’t be wholly disreputable. “What exactly are you here for, Mr. Diamond?”

  “To help the kid find her people.”

  “Oh-and how will you succeed when everyone up to now has failed?”

  “By being the Sherlock Holmes round here-except that I come free.”

  “That’s fine as far as it goes, but I don’t know what the police would say about it.”

  “The police are up shit creek without a paddle, as Sherlock used to remark to Dr. Watson.”

  She put her fingers to her mouth, possibly, Diamond suspected, to hide a faint smile.

  He pointed to the cup and saucer on her desk. “Your coffee’s getting cold.”

  She lowered her hand and she was definitely smiling. “It’s Bovril. Is that an example of your detective skills?”

  He made a pistol shape with his fingers and held them to the side of his head.

  Miss Musgrave, serious again, said, “Naomi can’t answer questions, so I don’t see what good you can do.”

  “I can observe.”

  “And make deductions?” She mocked him with her eyes.

  “You’ve got to admit the kid needs help.”

  This was a telling point with Miss Musgrave. She took a long sip of the Bovril. “If you’re serious, come back at two this afternoon. I’ll be taking the autistic class. In this room. You can come in and see what happens. Then perhaps you’ll understand the difficulty.”

  An adult-sized chair had been installed just inside the door for Diamond. It wasn’t possible for a man of his bulk to be unobtrusive in an office so small, but Miss Musgrave didn’t mind and the children scarcely gave him a passing glance. They were shepherded in by Mrs. Straw and another woman who looked mightily relieved to be handing them over.

  One of them, a boy, was screaming, as if in rage rather than pain. On entering the room he broke away from Mrs. Straw, ran to a bookcase, swept the bottom shelf clear of books and squeezed into the narrow space underneath, where he continued to scream.

  “That’s Clive,” Miss Musgrave told Diamond above the racket. She made no move to restore the books to their places or to calm Clive. “And this is Rajinder.”

  Rajinder moved erratically, with a springy step, both arms flexed and his wrists limp. He went to one of the infant chairs and sat there, rocking, it seemed, in time to Clive’s screaming.

  “Come on, you two,” the second teacher urged the rest of the class, who seemed reluctant, not without cause, to enter. “Tabitha, Naomi, we can’t wait all day for you.” She cupped her hand around the back of one child’s head and drew her in, a pale, worried-looking girl of about seven with fine blonde hair, presumably Tabitha. She had thick plastic glasses fastened with a band around the back of her he
ad like a tennis player’s. She had scarcely taken a step into the room when Miss Musgrave remarked to the other teacher, “She needs changing. Do you mind?”

  Tabitha was recalled and Naomi was ushered forward in her place. Diamond had seen the child briefly that night in Harrods, and remembered how impassive she had looked, surrounded by security guards. This morning she had the same preoccupied expression, as if her eyes saw nobody. There was clearly a level at which her mind was functioning efficiently, because she moved normally, straight to a chair and sat down, composed, indifferent to Clive’s screaming and Rajinder’s rocking, or to the presence of the adults. Someone had fastened a white ribbon in her hair and she was in a red corduroy dress, black tights and trainers. “She’ll stay like that for as long as I let her,” said Miss Musgrave. “I can get through to the others. Outwardly they appear more disturbed than Naomi, but she’s inaccessible, and it isn’t just the problem of language. It must be some form of autism.”

  Diamond had seen television programs about autistic children who appeared physically normal, but tantalizingly locked in their inner worlds. They exhibited a range of behavior that could include tantrums, grimacing, avoidance of all human contact, inappropriate emotional reactions such as laughing when someone else was hurt and, in rare cases, strange feats of memory enabling them to play music they had heard only once before, or doing complex drawings of scenes and buildings only briefly visited. From what he remembered, there was controversy about how autism should be treated. He’d watched a disturbing film of mothers forcibly embracing their struggling children until they stopped resisting, which could take hours. In some cases, the results had been encouraging.

  Miss Musgrave closed the door and took a pencil and worksheet to the howling Clive. To Diamond’s surprise the boy took it, went silent and started to write or draw, still in his cramped position under the bookshelves. Rajinder, also, was persuaded to take a worksheet and give it his attention, though he needed a patient explanation of what was required.

  “Now see what happens with Naomi.” Miss Musgrave held out a pencil. Naomi stared ahead and didn’t move. Gently, Miss Musgrave took the child’s right hand and positioned the small fingers around the pencil.