Diamond Solitaire

When the doors were opened, a woman immigration officer was waiting. Diamond introduced himself.

'May I see your ID?' she asked, taking stock of him. He didn't fit the stereotype of a British detective, judging by the way she eyed his waistline.

'Will my passport do?' Helpfully, it had been issued four years ago and still listed his profession as police officer.

'Would you come with me, sir?'

The 'sir' was encouraging. Stiff from the journey and slightly disorientated, but eager to see Naomi, he was taken through a roped barrier and along a corridor lined with filing cabinets. Another door, another corridor, and into an office looking like a scene out of a television police series with its sense of stage-managed activity as people walked through, stopped, exchanged words, presumably to develop different plotlines in the story, and moved on. A black officer in tinted glasses carved a way around a couple of desks and said, 'You've got to be the guy from Scotland Yard.'

'Peter Diamond,' he said, offering his hand without going into the matter of where he was from. 'You still have these people detained, I hope?'

'Sure have.' The man didn't need to give his name. He had a tag hanging from his shirt that identified him as Arthur Wharton.

'Are they giving any trouble?'

'No, sir.'

'What have you told them?'

'The usual. A small technical problem over their passport. They're yours.' Arthur Wharton nodded to the woman who'd brought Diamond this far and she beelined determinedly between two people crossing the office from different directions and into another corridor. Diamond realized that he was meant to go with her. Striving to go the same way, he found that he wasn't so adept at dodging people.

He caught up with her by an open doorway. A uniformed member of the airport police was sitting outside, drinking coffee from a paper cup.

Diamond looked into the room.

He stared.

A woman and child were in there, certainly, but the child wasn't Naomi.

She was at least two years younger. Seated on a steel-framed chair, swinging her legs, this little girl still had a baby face, tiny features and chubby cheeks. She wasn't even dressed like Naomi. She had a blue dress, white socks and black shoes made of some shiny material like patent leather. She was Japanese, admittedly, but there the resemblance ended.

The Japanese woman who looked up anxiously at Diamond didn't match the description he'd been given either. She was in a red skirt and jacket and she was wearing rimless glasses.

At a loss, he turned to his escort, but she'd already gone.He spoke to the man at the door. 'Those aren't the people. There's some mistake.'

The cop shrugged.

He found his way back to the hub of the Immigration Department, and vented his frustration on Officer Wharton. 'You detained the wrong people. I've never seen that kid before and they're wearing different clothes, for Christ's sake.'

'Hold on, Mac,' Wharton told him, pointing a finger. 'Don't give lip to me. We held the people you wanted. You gave us no description, just a name. That's Mrs. Nakajima in there, no mistake. You want to see the passport?' He handed one across.

Diamond opened it No question: these people were called Nakajima. 'But they don't match the description,' he said.

'You mean this passport belongs to some other woman?'

'No. What I mean is that the people who were seen at Heathrow were dressed differently from Mrs. Nakajima and child.' Even as he spoke the words, the mistake he'd made dawned on him. 'Oh, no!'

Wharton eyed him dispassionately.

'I assumed because Mrs. Nakajima and her daughter were Japanese and traveling alone that they had to be die woman and child seen going through the departure gate at Heathrow. After BA came up with these people, I just didn't check the other airlines. They must have taken some other flight. They could have gone anywhere-any damned place in the world.' Mad with himself for being so obtuse, he ended by thumping his fist down so hard on Officer Wharton's desk that paper clips jumped.

Three thousand five hundred miles on the Concorde chasing the wrong people. What a pea-brain! 'Listen,' he said to Wharton, 'it may be too late, but I want to contact Terminal Three at Heathrow. I want to fax every airline to check their passenger lists for a Japanese woman traveling alone with a child sometime after one P.M. today. Could you arrange that for me?' Sensing that die request was too stark, he added, 'Arthur?'

'You want me to authorize those faxes?' Wharton's expression didn't look promising.

'You have the facilities here,' Diamond told him frankly.

'But you want me to handle this?'

'Exactly. If my name is given, there's so much to explain. If the request comes from U.S. Immigration, they'll act on it promptly. No explanation needed. Speed is the key here.'

'Checking passenger lists? You've got to be joking, man.'

'They're computerized,' Diamond pointed out. He'd not often thought of modern technology as an ally, but he had no scruples in this emergency. 'It's just a matter of tapping a few keys.'

Wharton rubbed the side of his face.

'Listen,' Diamond steamed on, 'while you're doing this for me, I'll go back to Mrs. Nakajima and make your apologies. Fair enough?'

It wasn't fair, and he knew it. Wharton knew it, too, but the urgency in the way it was put to him was compelling. 'You'd better write down the message you want me to send,' he said with a sigh.

The crucial reply from London came in forty minutes later. By mat stage of the exercise, Officer Wharton had been thoroughly briefed about the quest to find Naomi and now he identified himself totally with the challenge. 'Hey, man, this is it' He held up the fax he had just taken from the machine. 'You want some good news? She's here after all!'

Diamond was galvanized. 'Here? In New York, you mean?'

'Right on. They flew in this afternoon on a United flight A Japanese woman and a kid.'

'Brilliant! When did they land?'

'Seventeen-twenty. About an hour ago.'

'An hourl' Diamond's elation withered and died. 'By now they must have cleared customs and left the airport.'

But Wharton gave a reassuring grin. 'Not this airport. Takes a while to get through Immigration in JFK. The United flight?' He looked at his watch. 'I figure they could be as far as the customs hall by now, but I wouldn't bet on it'

Diamond was on his feet. 'Which way?'

'Hold on, Peter,' Wharton told him. 'You're in serious danger of doing yourself an injury. We can check from here.' He pointed upwards to a set of eight television monitors mounted on the ceiling. 'Video surveillance. See if you can spot your people. I'm going to see if I can raise the crew of that flight.'

Cameras were in positions where they could pan slowly over the entire queue snaking around the system of barriers towards the kiosks where their passports were examined and stamped. Diamond studied each screen keenly, looking for a child. Some were tantalizingly half obscured by adults.

Wharton was busy on the phone. 'I've spoken to the chief steward on the United flight,' he presently informed Diamond. 'There's no question they were on board. He remembers Naomi in the red corduroy, and the woman in the gray Rohan jacket.'

'That's wonderful, but where are they now, I'd like to know,' said Diamond. 'I can't see them in the queue.'

'You won't. Seems the United flight has cleared Immigration. Take a look at the baggage claim hall-the monitors to your right. They should be in mere somewhere. I'm trying to establish which of our officers dealt with