Peter Lovesey: Diamond Solitaire

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 confidence 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."

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."