'So what exactly is the problem?'
'Is she here, or not?'
'Sure, she's here. You want me to phone the room?'
Mentally, Diamond turned a back flip of triumph. 'Could I see the register?'
George De Wint leaned to his left, placed a hand on a dog-eared exercise book, and slid it along the counter.
Diamond opened it at the latest entry, which was
'So what? Kids don't have to register.'
'How about the man?'
'The guy isn't staying here. He carried the suitcase.'
'Has he left yet?'
'Not to my knowledge. What exactly is this about, mister? I don't want trouble.'
'Which room?'
'Twelve.'
'Upstairs?'
'Third floor. She wanted a twin with bathroom, so I gave her my biggest'
'Show us up.'
The Firbank reeked of some cheap scented spray. It didn't run to a lift and the stairs creaked so mere was no point in trying to approach the room by stealth.
A 'Do not disturb' notice was hanging from the handle of room twelve. Diamond knocked.
No one responded.
'Seems they went straight to bed,' De Wint suggested.
'With a child in the room?' said Ken in disbelief.
'To sleep. They could be jetlagged if they came from England.'
Diamond called out, 'Anyone there?'
Still silence.
He rattled the handle. The manager unhooked a bunch of keys from his belt.
When the door was unlocked, there was still no word from inside. And the room was not in darkness.
Diamond stepped in.
A moderate-sized, cheaply furnished room. Twin beds, one with the bedding pulled back. On the other, an open suitcase.
'They went out, then,' De Wint commented. 'People are so dumb, leaving notices on the door like that. When are my staff supposed to make up the rooms?'
'You said they were up here.'
'So I made a mistake. Mister, this is a hotel, not the city jail.'
Diamond crossed to the bathroom door, tapped once and opened it. The light was on. A saturated towel lay on the floor. There was water in the bath to the level of the overflow. He stepped closer.
'Someone is in after all,' he said.
The manager went closer. His reaction was less restrained. 'Jesus-why in my hotel, of all places?'
Lying along the base of the bath under several inches of water was a body, facedown and dressed in a white blouse, gray trousers and shoes. The hair was short and dark.
Diamond warned Ken not to look.
Discovering a death is disturbing in any circumstances. What made this the more shocking was that the wrists were fastened behind the woman's back, bound with cord. Around the ankles a belt had been wound several times and fastened.
Diamond took off his jacket and handed it to De Wint, who was still carrying on about his misfortune. He rolled up his shirtsleeves and stooped over the bath in an attempt to turn the body face upwards. The New York Police Department wouldn't be too thrilled at having the corpse disturbed; however, he needed to confirm the victim's identity at once. Taking a grip of the clothes, he tugged, but his figure wasn't shaped for turning over bodies in baths and he had to ask for the manager's assistance. 'Come on, man. I'm not talking to myself.'
De Wint was backing out of the bathroom. 'I can't touch it. No way.'
Fortunately, Ken was less inhibited. She came forward and said, 'Let me help. I'm not bothered.'
Splashing themselves liberally in the process, they managed the maneuver at the second attempt
Without any doubt the body was that of the Japanese woman they'd followed from John F. Kennedy Airport, the woman who had brought Naomi from England.
He turned to De Wint, water dripping from his arms. 'Is she the woman who occupied this room? Come forward, man. Now, do you recognize the lady, or don't you?'
'Oh my God, yes. She's the one.'
Now the head could be lowered under the water again.
The question no one had spoken because it was so horrible to contemplate had to be faced, and quickly: where was Naomi?
Diamond felt some unsteadiness in his legs. He was literally shaking at the knees, and it wasn't brought on by what he had just discovered. He feared for what he might discover next. Without a word, he straightened, turned and moved back to the bedroom, leaving the manager bowed over the toilet bowl in the act of retching.
There weren't many places where a child's body could have been concealed. He could tell without pulling back the bedding that nothing was trapped beneath it And the space under the divan beds was far too narrow. He opened the wardrobe. It contained only a woman's jacket, gray, with the name Rohan embroidered on the front in yellow.
There remained the window to check. In truth, he didn't expect to find Naomi dead inside the room. Some combination of intuition and experience told him she wasn't here. He felt less secure about looking out of the window.
It faced the rear of the building in the next street, and overlooked a narrow yard bounded by grime-stained brick.
He had to brace himself to look down.
Plastic bins. Some tired-looking geraniums in pots. A few dead leaves and scraps of paper shifting fitfully with the breeze. Nothing resembling a small body. A pigeon eyed him from a window ledge opposite.
He leaned out further. 'This fire escape on the left,' he called to De Wint. 'How do you reach it from inside?'
'The door at the end of the corridor.'
'And if I had to go down it, how would I get to the street?'
'There's a passage to 113th. You can't see from up here.'
'That's the way he left with the child, I reckon.' He withdrew from the window.
Time was precious. Faced with the dilemma of immediate pursuit, or trying to make sense of what was happening by going through the woman's things, he chose the latter and started a rapid search of the bedroom. No doubt he'd be hammered for disturbing the scene of a murder. Sod that: Naomi's safety came before anything else, and if there were clues here, they had to be found fast.
He went through the suitcase first, a blue fabric case with no manufacturer's name and no labels on the exterior.
The dresses and underwear folded neatly in layers were of fine quality. There were also some clothes for the child, bearing the Marks and Spencer label. He ran his hand several times through the contents of the case in hope of locating documents or an address book. There was nothing more helpful than an A-Z Street Atlas of London and a copy of
He flicked over the pages of the A-Z and found a cross penciled in against the location of the school. That, finally, made a categorical connection with Naomi.
With a face not markedly different from the pale green of the bathroom he was emerging from, the manager reappeared in time for more questions from Diamond.
