Peter Lovesey: Diamond Solitaire

"May 1 use a phone? I want to call New York."

They took him into the chief librarian's office. Fortunately he could remember the number he wanted.

"Police," said a weary American voice.

"Is this the Twenty-sixth Precinct? Lieutenant Eastland, please."

"Who is this?"

"Peter Diamond, Superintendent Diamond, speaking from Yokohama."

"Lieutenant Eastland isn't here just now, sir."

"In that case, would you give me his home number. It's extremely urgent."

"We can't disturb him right now, sir. Do you know what time it is here?"

Diamond erupted. He didn't care what the sodding time was in New York. A child's life was at stake and he needed to speak to Eastland right now.

She took the number and promised that she would insure mat the lieutenant called right back within the next few minutes.

The promise was kept.

The familiar voice, husky with sleep, protested angrily, "Diamond? For Chrissake-"

"Listen. That conference at the Sheraton. Are you with me?"

"Yeah," said Eastland, already capitulating. He must have been tired.

"Do you still have the literature?"

"Literature?"

"The press pack. The stuff about PDM3."

"I don't know. I could have thrown it out. It may be downstairs. Do you want me to look?"

"Oh, come on. Would I be phoning you?"

"Hold the line. I'll be right back."

Through the door he could just see Yamagata doing an exercise that involved propping his left leg on a bookshelf. It looked liable to cause a disaster.

"Peter, you there?"

"Of course. Have you got it?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Now, turn to the first page of that blue leaflet, the one that introduces PDM3. Somewhere, there's a chemical formula. Know what I mean?"

"Hold on Okay. You want me to read it out?"

"No, let me try. Listen carefully. Check every figure, would you?"

C 18

"Correct."

"H 13 "

"Check."

Diamond's pulse beat more strongly. He was reading out the formula for Jantac. "NOC."

"Yeah."

It had to be the same now. His voice breaking up with tension, he completed the formula. It was precisely the same. Jantac, the drug dumped by Manny Flexner in 1985, had been resurrected as Prodermolate-the miraculous PDM3.

"Is that all you wanted?" said Eastland in a less than cordial tone.

"That's all I wanted-unless you can give me the form on a couple of hatchet men called Lanzi and Frizzoni."

"Never heard of them. Can I go back to bed now?"

Diamond thanked him and put down the phone. He gestured to Yamagata to come into the office and the big fellow thoughtfully grasped Miss Yamamoto's wrist and brought her in as well. Blushing as only a Japanese girl can, but not displeased- for his grip was gentle-she remained standing beside him when he released her.

It was vital that Yamagata understood the significance of this discovery. Others, including Dr. Hitomi and a couple of librarians, had followed him in, but Diamond couched his explanation in terms meant for the wrestler. "Do you see what I'm driving at?" he said when he'd given the gist of the phone call. "Jantac was discredited here. It's dangerous, and shouldn't have been used again. We now know that another team of researchers, headed by Professor Churchward, worked independently with the same compound and came up with sensational results in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. I'm not going to speculate whether Churchward knew that he was working with a dangerous drug, but someone at Manflex headquarters certainly knew, which is why all mention of Jantac was erased from Yuko Masuda's computer record." He waited for mis to be translated, and he had to repeat it more slowly. In his eagerness he'd strung too many sentences together. Also he suspected that Miss Yamamoto was distracted by Yamagata.

Yamagata said recognizably, "Leapman."

"Yes, it had to be Leapman. All his actions confirm that he's responsible. And something else was altered on the computer. Dr. Masuda's project was stopped in 1985, but the computer record was falsified to make it appear that her research continues. Some other group of drugs is mentioned, but that's just a smoke screen. On second thought," he said quickly, "don't try translating that last bit."

After Miss Yamamoto had filled in, Diamond resumed, "It isn't just a matter of falsifying the records. Leapman is in deep with organized criminals, who are set to make big profits out of PDM3. Manflex was on the slide at the beginning of this year." He mimed the downward slope of a sales graph. "Before Manny Hexner committed suicide, there was a big fire at one of their plants in Europe. Milan. Manflex dropped even lower on the stock markets. There's a police investigation still going on into a possible arson attack. To me, that suggests this plot was being hatched many months ago."

He paused for the translation. Yamagata nodded gravely. He seemed to be following what was said.

"If they're capable of doing that, they're capable of murdering Yuko Masuda, who could have exposed them. I can't say for certain yet, but I very much fear that she is dead. I believe her little daughter-the child I know as Naomi-was given to Mrs. Tanaka, a woman desperate to adopt. Maybe they drew the line at killing a child. Mrs. Tanaka was ordered to get the child out of Japan, to Europe. She was horrified to discover that Naomi was autistic. She couldn't cope and she abandoned her. I'm sorry, I'm not giving you a chance," he admitted to Miss Yamamoto.

"It's all right," she said, launching into a translation directly, looking up earnestly at the wrestler.

"As you know," Diamond picked up his thread again, "in England we did all we could to publicize Naomi's plight. After I went on television, Mrs. Tanaka panicked and snatched Naomi back. She was in trouble now. She couldn't possibly stay in Britain, so she phoned her contact for orders. They told her to fly to New York, and she obeyed, a fatal move, if only she'd realized. Obviously the people behind this scam had decided Mrs. Tanaka was unreliable and dispensable, and they hired a man to meet her and murder her."

He stopped. He'd told most of it now. It all hung together so well. And yet…

Yamagata listened to the Japanese version and then spoke a few words that, translated into English, pinpointed the problem. "If Dr. Masuda is dead, why has Leapman come to Japan with Naomi and two American strongmen?"

Diamond was about to admit he was stumped for an explanation when someone interrupted in Japanese. It was Dr. Hitomi, speaking in the modulated tone he had used before.

Modulated it may have been, yet it brought a swift, excited response from Yamagata.

The translation followed for Diamond's benefit. "Dr. Hitomi says he thinks you are mistaken in saying Dr. Masuda is dead. He saw her here on the campus only last week."

He made an effort to stay calm. "Is he certain? When the police checked her last address, she was missing."

Now one of the librarians chimed in, using imperfect, but perfectly comprehensible English. "Is true. She alive. She sometimes use library. If you like I show you her name on computer."

"No need," said Diamond. "I believe you, both of you."

He loosened his lips and blew out, making them vibrate. It eased his tension, somehow. "And now we know the answer to Mr. Yamagata's question. Leapman and his friends are in Japan to do the job properly this time and silence Dr. Masuda for good."

"With the child?" Miss Yamamoto said spontaneously.

"They'll use the child as bait. The point is, have they found her mother already?"

When this had been turned into Japanese, Yamagata spoke.

"He says the real point is, where to look for Dr. Masuda."

He was right. They did the obvious thing first, and checked the library records for an address. It proved to be the same place that Diamond had been informed by the Yokohama police was now let to someone else. A phone called confirmed this.