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  Diamond said, “It’s not for me to interfere, but do the Japanese hold pencils like that?” He took a pen from his pocket and demonstrated. “I thought they held them upright, like this.”

  Miss Musgrave’s first reaction was a cool stare. Then she accepted the validity of the information.

  The child allowed her fingers to be repositioned. A clean sheet of paper was placed on the table in front of her. Miss Musgrave stood behind Naomi and guided the pencil, making a mark on the paper. “Now prove me totally wrong, Naomi, and draw a picture.” But Naomi’s eyes weren’t on the paper, and as soon as Miss Musgrave stepped back, the hand was still.

  “I’ve had mutes before,” Miss Musgrave said, “and they can usually be persuaded to use a pencil.”

  “She’s mute?”

  “Silent, anyway. Not dumb. She makes little sounds if she’s surprised in any way.”

  “That’s something.”

  “Some autistics never learn to speak.”

  Rajinder seemed to take this as a challenge and started repeatedly saying, “Miss,” until Miss Musgrave examined his drawing, praised it and provided him with more paper. From the bookshelves came a new sound. Clive, tiring of paperwork, had taken a toy car from his pocket and was spinning the wheels with his finger, watching them intently.

  “He’ll do that for the rest of the lesson if he’s left. It becomes obsessive,” Miss Musgrave said. “He fits the stereotype of the autistic child.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “He shuns the company of others. Doesn’t use eye contact. Refuses to be cuddled. Throws these tantrums if he feels his privacy is being invaded.”

  “And is Naomi like that?”

  “She’s the aloof type. The muteness is a symptom.”

  “Have you tried cuddling her?”

  “She’s indifferent to it. Passive. That’s another kind of abnormality in these kids.”

  “The others, Rajinder and Tabitha-are they autistic?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does Clive speak?”

  She nodded. “But he tends to repeat things parrot fashion.”

  “Does he progress at all?”

  “A little. Listen,” she said, “if you want to try and get through to Naomi, please feel free.”

  The invitation was tempting, but he knew better than to accept. On first acquaintance a man his size terrified any kid if he went close. “At this stage,” he told Miss Musgrave candidly, “I’d rather get through to you. That’s my game plan for today.”

  She tensed. “What exactly do you mean?”

  “I want to convince you that I won’t be a nuisance. I want to come here again. And again. I can sit here and observe, or I can make myself useful, but I want to be here. I don’t kid myself that I can work a miracle for Naomi. I sense that if she’s going to give me any clues at all, it’s going to be slow progress. How would you feel about having me here on a regular basis?”

  She didn’t answer at once. She went over to attend to Clive, who started screaming again at her approach. For a moment she wrestled with him for the toy car. In the struggle he bit her hand and she cried out in pain. “If I don’t do this,” she told Diamond, “the entire lesson is wasted. Now will you let go?” She snatched the toy from Clive and he set up a piercing wail. “You’ll have it back presently. Now do me a drawing of the car. A drawing.” The child subsided by stages and picked up the pencil.

  Massaging her hand, Miss Musgrave returned to Diamond. “Before I say anything about this suggestion of yours, would you tell me something about yourself?”

  “Whatever you want to know.”

  “All right, then. Why did you leave the police?”

  He hesitated. “I resigned. I blew my top in front of the Assistant Chief Constable.”

  “What about?”

  “A kid. A boy of twelve. I was accused of hitting his head against a wall.”

  She stared. After an interval, she said, “At least you’re honest.”

  “Okay,” he added, “I’m hardly a suitable person to invite again. Forget it.” He picked up his hat.

  “Sit down, Mr. Diamond,” she told him firmly. “Did you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “Hit the boy?”

  “No, but it’s academic now. He came at me and I pushed him aside. He knocked his head on the wall. I wasn’t believed, so I said some things I lived to regret”

  “Have you got kids of your own?”

  He shook his head.

  “You’re married?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you like them?”

  “Kids?” He nodded.

  She held out a hand. “My name is Julia.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Any idea how this happened?”

  David Flexner gazed at two blackened pillars rising some ten feet above the rabble that had once been Manflex Italia’s Milan plant. Immense heat had melted those pillars into stark, Daliesque images in the ashen landscape. All this, and a perfect, cloudless sky. What a location for a film, he found himself thinking.

  He had been driven there by Rico Villa, the plant manager, whose Zegna suit and D’Anzini shoes weren’t the best choice for stepping through ashes. Rico always dressed the part of the business executive, but David, casual as usual in white denims, black T-shirt and faded red running shoes, regarded him as a kindred spirit, one of the few in his father’s employ that he might actually have chosen to drink with.

  “Some electrical fault, I guess,” Rico answered. “Isn’t that what usually starts a fire?”

  “Or a lighted cigarette.”

  “I don’t allow smoking here.”

  In that gutted ruin, Rico’s use of the present tense amused David. He had to turn his face away in case Rico noticed. “Smokers will always find somewhere.”

  “That’s true, but the Saturday shift had finished when the fire started. The plant was empty except for the two security guards.”

  “A fire can take some time to get going,” David pointed out, adding with more tact, “but I guess the fire service is making a report.”

  “The fire team and the insurance investigators, too,” said Rico. “The boys from Prima Roma Assurance came out here the next day to see what they could find.”

  “Any theories yet?”

  “Nothing anyone will say.”

  “How about arson? Someone with a grudge against the company.”

  “Arson?”

  “Was anyone dismissed in the last six months?”

  Rico was shocked. He pressed his hand to his mouth as if unwilling to admit the possibility. “I guess five or six for absenteeism and petty theft. The personnel records went up in smoke with the rest. We won’t have their addresses anymore.”

  “Then the computer wasn’t linked to our offices in Rome?”

  “Some files were. Not personnel. That’s against the data protection legislation.”

  “We’ll have to rely on memory, then. How’s yours, Rico?”

  Rico made a negative gesture.

  “Let’s check with some of the people who worked in personnel. Draw up a list of everyone they can remember who was fired and anyone else with reason to dislike the company.”

  “I’ll see to it”

  “Fine.” David stared around at the devastation. “Must have been one hell of a fire. Where was your office in this heap?”

  “To your right, approximately sixty meters,” Rico answered bleakly. “Nobody would know.”

  “Lose anything personal?”

  He shrugged. “My certificates. I had them framed on the wall. Membership of the Institute of Pharmacists and so forth. They can be replaced. And some photos of my family. They can’t.”

  “What will you do? Do you want to move to Rome?”

  “Not really. I’m fifty-three. My home is here. My father is in a retirement home. I have kids in school. I guess I’ll look carefully at the redundancy terms.”

  “Jesus, Rico, we can’t afford to lose you,”
David heard himself say, and it was a perfectly obvious thing to say, except that he surprised himself by so readily taking on the role of spokesman for Manflex. Until now, he’d never truly identified with the company. He only attended Board meetings out of loyalty to his father. “We’ll find some way of keeping the family together. For the present, you’re wanted here in Milan, so no problem. We need a temporary office. Can you find one?”

  “Michael, I’m dying.”

  Michael Leapman jerked around to look at Manny Flexner. There was no hint of amusement in his features, but that wasn’t necessarily significant. Manny was capable of the straightest face when stringing hapless people along. He was a shameless liar in the cause of fun. And Manny’s style of humor frequently eluded Leapman.

  At Manny’s suggestion, they were walking through the Essex Street Covered Market in the Lower East Side after lunching on blintzes and beer in Ratner’s. This place throbbing with life, filled with pungent aromas of breads and cheeses, hardly seemed right for such a morbid announcement, but you could never be sure what Manny was up to.

  “Did I hear you correctly?”

  “How would I know?”

  “I thought you said you were dying.”

  “Correct.”

  “You really mean that?”

  Manny nodded solemnly. “I saw my physician this morning. He sent me for tests a while back. Now he has the results. It’s inoperable. I have maybe six months, maybe nine.”

  Leapman stared at him. There was still no indication that some kind of black humor was intended. “But that’s not possible.”

  “Precisely what I said to the doc. I have my faculties. I can read the paper still, eat a good meal, take a woman to bed when I want, and I don’t disappoint I’m not the biggest in that department, but what I got is in working order. He said fine, some people aren’t so lucky. They languish and droop. At least I was going out in style. I said I didn’t believe him. He asked if I wanted to bet I said okay, Doc, fifty bucks I’m still alive for Thanksgiving. I thought I was on a sure thing, but he suggested we put the money in a bfown envelope and leave it with his receptionist because he didn’t want to trouble my executors. That really brought it home to me, Michael. My executors. He meant it.” Manny exhaled, vibrating his lips. “I called off the bet.”

  “You should get a second opinion,” said Leapman, trying sincerely to be helpful while he assessed what this grim news would mean for his own prospects. He believed the story.

  “More tests, more bad news.” Manny groaned at the prospect. “No thanks. I’d rather spend my last days on earth profitably, robbing banks while I have my strength left.” He turned to a woman behind a fruit and vegetable stall. She must have overheard the last statement, because she was goggle-eyed. “Ignore me. I’m in shock. How much are your pineapples, ma’am?” He chose one and felt it for firmness. “Do you buy many pineapples, Michael? They can look fine outside, like me, and when you put in the knife, they’re rotten. No offense,” he told the woman. “I’ll take this. one.”

  They reached the end of the market and made their way back down Delancey Street. “Still, this isn’t all bad for Manflex,” Manny remarked altruistically. “We can do with a change at the top.”

  Leapman’s flesh prickled.

  Manny went on smoothly. “My shares will pass to Davey. He’ll have a controlling stake, and he’ll be fine.”

  “For Chairman, you mean? David?” Leapman tried to sound casual, but the shock couldn’t be stifled.

  “I can’t put it better than Shakespeare: some guys are born managers, some achieve management and some, like my son, have it thrust upon them.”

  “The market won’t like it,” said Leapman, impervious to Shakespeare.

  “Davey taking over, you mean?”

  “Your going.” An answer more tactful than honest.

  “What choice do I have?”

  A pause. “Fair point.”

  “He’ll need your support,” Manny said.

  “He can depend on it.”

  “And the know-how. You have a grasp of the business. He doesn’t”

  “Of course I’ll help any way I can.” Michael Leapman was functioning on autopilot. The news of Manny’s illness was bad enough. The prospect of his son taking over the Chairmanship was beyond everything.

  Manny shifted the pineapple to his left hand and rested his right on Leapman’s shoulder. “Thanks, Mike. You don’t have to tell me the sharks will be circling, but I have confidence in the boy. I like the way he’s shaping up. As a matter of fact, I called Rico last night. Davey’s doing a great job in Milan, and that isn’t easy, closing down a plant”

  It was a skill that might soon be required nearer home, Leapman thought cynically. “Have you told him?”

  “Told him what?”

  “This terrible news your doctor gave you.”

  “Not yet It’s not easy over the phone.”

  “You’ll wait, then?”

  “Davey doesn’t need to be told at this stage. Maybe not at all.”

  Frowning, Leapman said, “But you just told me. Surely you owe it to him. He needs time to adjust”

  “Weren’t you listening just now?” said Manny. “About management being thrust upon him? It’s better he doesn’t have time to think about it. Knowing Davey, he’d look for an out”

  Leapman didn’t pursue the point Maybe Manny was right from the company’s point of view, given the staggering premise that David Flexner had to be installed as the next Chairman. What was the point in getting steamed up about David’s sensibilities when his own had been ruthlessly trampled over?

  And now the misguided old jerk was weighing the group’s prospects without mentioning the obvious fact that Manflex might be vulnerable to a takeover. “We’re lower down the league than I’d like to be, but we’re not in bad shape right now. We still have a good cash flow.”

  “Mainly from Kaprofix.”

  “What’s wrong with Kaprofix? It’s helped millions of people with angina.”

  “Nothing-except that it’s a declining asset.”

  “Since I put the lid on development costs, we boosted the operating margin by 2.6 points. You talk about Kaprofix as if it’s all we’ve got. We have a wide base of steady-selling products. The surplus from the pension fund was over ten million last year. Sure, we could do with a big-selling new drug-”

  “Soon,” said Leapman.

  “What?”

  “Soon-we could do with it soon.”

  “I wouldn’t argue with that.”

  Leapman wasn’t letting it pass so lightly. “We missed out on beta-blockers, salbutamol for asthma, L-dopa for Parkinson’s, H2-antagonists-”

  “Okay, okay,” said Manny irritably. “I get the point. We staked too much on Fidoxin. That was the biggest fuckup of my career. On the other hand, we’ve got a clean record. No one ever sued us. I can meet my Maker knowing I never damaged anyone through negligence.”

  “Leaving aside environmental damage,” Leapman couldn’t stop himself saying.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We did get fined for polluting French and Italian rivers.”

  “Piss off, Michael.”

  They walked on in silence for a bit, each feeling the strain of the changed situation.

  “Will you say anything to the Board while Davey’s away?” Leapman eventually asked.

  “About my condition? There’s no need. I’ll step down and then they’ll find out.”

  “So you want me to regard it as confidential?”

  “For the time being. How did I come to confide in an obstinate schmuck like you? What a mess.” He turned and looked at Leapman. There was just a glimmer of amusement in the look, yet the rest of the face was sad, undeniably sad. This time, Manny Flexner wasn’t kidding.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Three black limousines cruised along the stretch of Central Park West near the reservoir and presently halted and disgorged a number of large men in a motley collection of t
racksuits. Enough for a football team, except that a football team would never have looked so ill at ease. They were peeking over their shoulders as if someone they knew might be spying on this freak show. The last to climb out of the front car was Massimo Gatti, a man of influence in the Italian-American community-or at least that section of it that requires round-the-clock bodyguards. Unlike them, Gatti was short and overweight, with high blood pressure, which was why he had taken up jogging.

  As a preliminary, he went through a token exercise to limber up, flinging bis arms outwards like a cheerleader and simultaneously running in place. Some of the others in the party attempted sheepishly to do the same. Then Gatti moved off at a sedate jog, and with his henchmen in tow he could easily have been taken for a shorter, fatter embodiment of a recent President of the United States.

  As usual in the park, New York’s fitness freaks were out in force. This morning Michael Leapman was among them. He’d asked for an urgent audience with Gatti, and this was the arrangement, a refreshing variation on the working breakfast. Having spotted the group, he raised his pace and strode across to meet them. He was one of those envied beings who rarely take exercise, but succeed in keeping in shape.

  “Hi, Mr. Gatti.”

  They had met before, through a chain of intermediaries too tedious to list. Leapman’s inside knowledge of the drug industry-the legitimate drug industry-had appealed to Gatti. In the depressed world of finance, pharmaceuticals were one of the few commodities that promised good returns. Medical supplies were necessities, and as nearly recession-proof as anything could be. A stake in the industry was what Leapman had offered, and Gatti had found it irresistible.

  Gatti may have nodded in response to the greeting, or the dip of the head may have been part of his running action. It wasn’t in his nature to greet people, even in less demanding circumstances. After just a few minutes of slow jogging, he was moving with a spastic jerkiness and taking noisy gulps of air.

  A long exchange was clearly out of the question, so Leapman drew alongside and came quickly to the point “There’s a hitch in our arrangement, I’m sorry to say.”