Peter Lovesey - Diamond Solitaire

"And he's trying to connect this with the fire at the plant?"

"He says the Alfa Romeo was coming from the direction of the Manflex plant. They can tell by the skid marks that the car was traveling at high speed when it left the road. Apparently it turned over a couple of times. Inside the trunk they found five empty gasoline containers."

David hesitated, frowning.

Pia said helpfully, "I think he's implying that these men may have started the fire at the plant, but he hasn't exactly said so yet."

"What does he want from me?"

She had another brief exchange with Dordoni before turning back to David. "He says the fire service investigators haven't ruled out the possibility of arson. He's asking if you know of anyone who might have wished to destroy the plant."

"The answer is no."

Commissioner Dordoni didn't require a translation. He countered with a frenetic outpouring of Italian.

Pia, caught in the middle and handling her role with admirable cool, lifted her eyebrows a fraction and explained, "He wants me to tell you it's unwise to refuse to cooperate with the police."

"If mat's a threat, Pia, you can tell this arrogant jerk that I resent it. I spoke the truth. I've no reason to suspect anyone we employ, or have employed." Having let rip, David had second thoughts. "No. Hold it. Tell him this. The possibility is very disturbing indeed, and he'll have our full cooperation."

This Undertaking lowered the temperature a little. Dordoni and his assistant got down to facts-the names of the two security men, the times of shifts, the number of employees and so on, all of which David supplied. They also demanded a list of the staff, with addresses, but he couldn't supply one, not before Saturday's meeting.

"If he'd describe these two men, we can make some inquiries and find out if anyone recognizes them," he told Pia.

Dordoni gave a sinister laugh when this was translated, and made a rubbing motion with his finger and thumb while speaking his reply.

Pia impassively translated, "The men were incinerated beyond recognition. It's possible that the forensic pathologists will give some information, but that is likely to take weeks or months."

"What about the car?"

Dordoni revealed that the registration plates had been removed from the Alfa Romeo. Very little that would be useful was left.

David turned to Pia. "Would you ask him a question from me? If these men haven't been identified, is there any evidence at all that connects them with our company?"

She conferred with Dordoni. "He says no."

"It's circumstantial, then."

"Is that a question?"

"Don't trouble," he told her. He wasn't scoring points. "Ask him how this crash happened."

Pia sounded reluctant to put the question. "He already told us. The car was going too fast It turned over."

"Yes, but why? Was it being chased?"

She turned back to Dordoni and succeeded in getting the unhelpful answer, "Nobody knows."

Dordoni nodded to his assistant, preparing to leave. He wasn't waiting for any more idiot questions.

"Was another vehicle involved?" David pressed him.

Pia translated quickly.

Dordoni shrugged. At the door, he appeared to decide, after all, that he would volunteer something else. He turned and delivered a couple of sentences.

Now Pia gave a shrug. "The car was traveling on a perfectly straight stretch of road. It went out of control, but they don't understand why. They can see from the tire marks that it didn't have a blowout It's an extraordinary thing to happen. They are calling it-I think you have the expression in English-an act of God."

Later in the afternoon there was an opportunity to get Rico Villa's views on the mysterious car crash. He was dismissive, scornful of the suggestion that arsonists had started the fire. "Why won't they admit mat coincidences happen? Typical of the police, always looking for the first solution that suggests itself. Two serious incidents on one evening and they have to connect them."

"Only a couple of miles from each other," commented David, slipping into Dordoni's role.

"A couple of drunks turn their car over. What's so sinister about that?"

"How do you know they were drunk?"

"You're in Lombardy now, my friend. Have you tried the Oltrepo Pavese?

"They did have those empty petrol cans in their trunk."

"They were probably farmers. If you have farm vehicles to keep on the move, you collect extra petrol to take back with you."

"But he said the registration plates were missing."

"Kids. Souvenir hunters. They'll help themselves to anything." David wasn't overly impressed, and said so.

"Okay," Rico lobbed one back, "in a couple of days we can take a roll call. Then we'll know if anyone from Manflex Italia is missing. Want a bet?"

"The guys in the car don't have to be Manflex employees," David said. "Like Dordoni said, they could have been sacked. Or they could simply be troublemakers from outside."

"Let it go, Dave," Rico advised, putting a hand on his shoulder. "We have more important things to do right now. The police are going to take months over this. Years, probably. And then it's quite likely they'll file it as unsolved."

For the first time in their friendship, David Flexner had a stirring of unease about Rico.

"What exactly do you do in that school?" Stephanie asked one evening as they waited to eat A chicken casserole in the oven was sending out a rich aroma, but the vegetables still required their seven minutes in the microwave.

"A lot of sitting around."

"Can't you make yourself useful in some way?"

"Occasionally. Today I was doing the job I do best-putting a jigsaw together. An eight-piece jigsaw." Diamond offered the statement blandly, knowing Stephanie would pounce on it. Sometimes he took a wry pleasure in being the prey to his wife's sharp remarks.

"How many pieces went missing?"

"Unkind! Not a single one. They're the size of your hand."

'This is for the children's benefit, I take it?"

'Naturally."

"So you work with them, fitting the pieces together?"

He smiled. "Some hope! I fit them together and they pull them apart."

"Does Naomi join in?"

His voice altered, the byplay over. "Naomi? No."

"Why not? Jigsaws are pretty basic, when all's said and done. Language isn't involved."

"She doesn't join in anything. She's completely passive."

"Maybe she's terrified of the others."

"She was like this before she was brought to the school."

'Terrified?"

Diamond nodded. She was almost certainly right.

"But they insist she's autistic?" Stephanie asked.

"The diagnosis isn't carved in stone," he said. "Anyway, as far as I can tell it's a convenient label for a pretty broad spectrum of maladjusted kids. Give, for instance, has these tantrums and has to find some corner of the room he considers the safest from invasion. Naomi's not like that She'll sit where she's told. She's silent. Totally switched off. Her behavior is nothing like Clive's, but they're both thought to be autistic. Is that ready?"

He'd been interrupted by five electronic bleeps. The microwave oven was a symbol of more affluent times. He'd bought it on the day he resigned from the police, but it looked older than that, copiously speckled during the redecoration of the kitchen. Some of the marks had been impossible to remove.

"Standing time," Stephanie reminded him. "The veggies need their standing time. I don't know if you remember Maxine Beckington, one of the Brownies. She didn't last very long with us, but she was a bright little thing."

"That was probably why," said Diamond.

"Why what?"

"Why she didn't last. If she was as bright as you say, she probably objected to dancing around the toadstool on the grounds that it was a phallic symbol."