Bath. The perpetrator of the graffiti had done an effective job, for the walls were copiously covered in aimless scribble. Nor had the furniture escaped. The thick, black lines had turned the lower half of the room into what one of the teachers described as a Jackson Pollock. The reference went over Diamond's head, although it sounded apt.
Nobody, he learned by questioning Mrs. Straw, had actually seen Naomi at work with the marker. The child had been found with it later in the dining room. She had refused to give it up. 'I had to pry her fingers off one by one,' Mrs. Straw asserted. 'She was all set to do it all over the school.'
This, it turned out, was a false accusation. Doubtful that Naomi was the culprit, Diamond was able to demonstrate her innocence. When he examined the staffroom walls, he found that the scribbles ran higher man she was capable of reaching. Thus it was that the real culprit was apprehended in his usual hiding place behind the grass seed in the garden shed. Not only was Clive's reach four inches higher than that of any other child in the school, his hands and clothes were stained with black marks. It transpired that he'd wandered into the staffroom at a time when nobody was about and had done the deed, afterwards throwing the marker away in the garden. Later, Naomi had picked it up.
'I'm afraid Mrs. Straw is a vengeful woman,' Julia Musgrave confided to Diamond. 'She does work hard for the school, though. I don't think we'd manage without her.'
'She was right about one thing,' he admitted. 'I was daft to leave the marker out.' In this confessional vein, he went on rashly to promise to redecorate the staffroom-a severe penance indeed. This little crisis had sidetracked them from the more vital issue of whether it was right to put Naomi on television; not for long, he was resolved.
As he was leaving, calculating how many cans of emulsion he'd need, Julia called his name and came after him into the corridor.
He stopped, uncertain what to expect.
'You can have your marker back,' she told him. 'Believe it or not, the ink isn't all used up yet.'
He pocketed it, slightly puzzled. The marker belonged to the school anyway. She must have known.
She said,'You don't really have to go to all that trouble- over the staffroom, I mean.'
'It's no sweat for me,' he lied.
'I appreciate the offer, only I wouldn't want you to think it will change anything.'
'Except the color of the staffroom,' he said, grinning.
When he turned, he almost fell over Naomi. She must have been standing extremely close behind him, apparently waiting, because she stretched up her hand towards him. Twice in a day, he thought. This is too amazing to be true.
He extended his hand towards hers, but immediately she pulled it away. She didn't, after all, wish to renew the contact.
'Have it your way,' he said, wryly reflecting that even at that tender age, women played fast and loose with decent men's affections.
Sure enough, she proffered me hand a second time, only now her palm was outstretched as if she were asking for money.
'What is it, Naomi?' he asked, bending lower. 'What are you trying to say?'
Her eyes had lost that habitual glazed look. She was focusing on him intently, her forehead creased in concern. She began jabbing her hand at him repeatedly like a beggar in a Cairo bazaar.
He asked, 'Are you hungry?'
Whatever the problem was, she was really trying to communicate- a huge advance after six passive weeks-and the least he could do in return was discover what she wanted.
'It can't be money.'
As he bent even closer to her upturned face, she reached for his jacket, pulled it open and dipped her free hand into the inner pocket
'Young lady,' he said, 'you're sharper than anyone suspected.'
Only it wasn't his wallet she was after. It was the marker that he'd stowed away in there after seeing Julia. Naomi whipped it out and clutched it to her chest with both hands, as if she wanted nothing so much in the world.
'God help us!' he said to her. 'What do I do now?'
It was quite a dilemma. If he let her keep the thing, someone- Mrs. Straw, knowing his luck-was certain to see it and inform the rest of the school that they had a fifth columnist in their midst. Julia Musgrave would feel betrayed. If, on the other hand, he insisted on taking the marker back, the first shoots of affection he'd cultivated would be trampled upon, destroyed forever. He remembered Mrs. Straw's saying how she'd needed to pry Naomi's fingers away one by one. Clearly, that pen was a treasure to the child.
He decided to let her keep it, and run the risk that Clive might snatch it away and go on a graffiti spree again. He was pretty confident Naomi wouldn't lightly give up her prize.
Gently, he put a hand on her shoulder and steered her in the direction of the staffroom. She was as compliant as ever now that he'd made it plain that he wasn't going to take back the marker. Coming into the staffroom without thinking about Clive's handiwork, he was freshly shocked at the extent of the scribbling. No one was sitting in there, and he could understand why. He escorted Naomi to the wall where the scrawl was thickest.
'You see what happened?' he said, hoping she would share his outrage, even if the words meant nothing to her. 'Clive did it. You wouldn't, would you?' He swept the air with his hands to reinforce the message.
She stood solemnly facing the vandalized wall. Troubled that he might have been too heavy-handed, he reached out impulsively to stroke her hair, then decided he shouldn't. An action like that could be misinterpreted, by others, if not the child. But his hand was already on her head, so he ruffled the dark hair instead-and still felt it was a liberty he shouldn't have taken.
The drawing pad he'd used earlier remained on the table, open at the picture he'd done of Naomi. He folded the pad and handed it to her. 'This is for drawing. You can have it It's yours. Yours. All right?'
She appeared to understand. Her eyes briefly met his and she tucked the pad under her arm.
'Now let's find where you should be at this hour of the day.'
He found the class in a lesson that was down on the timetable as music, and consisted of indiscriminate tambourine-banging while the teacher, a cool young girl wearing a black fedora, strummed something on the guitar. Naomi settled cross-legged on the floor away from the others, continuing to hold the drawing pad and marker. She declined to take the tambourine Diamond found for her. He nodded to the teacher and left.
Now Julia Musgrave had to be told of his decision to entrust the marker to Naomi. He didn't want the news to be passed on by Mrs. Straw, or anyone else for that matter. He believed he could make a persuasive case
Julia wasn't alone in her office, but she called him in. Her visitor was a bearded, balding man in a brown corduroy jacket with patched elbows. An envelope file rested across his thighs and from his neck a thick pencil hung on a cord, all of which suggested to Diamond that this was a social worker. He was mistaken.
'Dr. Dickinson is a child psychiatrist,' Julia explained. 'He's here to make an assessment of Naomi.'
'Another assessment?' said Diamond, mildly enough considering the warning bells that were sounding in his head.
'On behalf of the Japanese Embassy,' Dr. Dickinson put in, using the kind of we-all-understand-how-the-world- goes-round tone that expects no disagreement. 'They want my opinion as to whether the child is autistic. The general idea is mat she'll be sent to the Hagashi School in Boston if it appears that she'd benefit She's a fortunate child.'
'Why is that?'
Dickinson frowned. 'The fees are out of most people's reach-about thirty thousand pounds a year.'
'I'm not impressed by money.'
Dickinson said cuttingly, 'Well, I'm extremely impressed by everything I've read about the school. As Naomi, I gather, is Japanese, this must be a happy arrangement.'
'You think so?'
'Mr. Diamond has some reservations,' Julia Musgrave quickly added.
'Oh, and what's your specialism?' Dickinson asked witheringly.
'Testing the truth,' said Diamond. 'I'm a detective, or was until recently.'
Dickinson caught his bream and turned to Julia Musgrave. 'Really, I can't begin to understand why a
