Peter Lovesey: Diamond Solitaire

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.

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."

"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."