Diamond Solitaire

here.'

'He runs mree or four girls in the street where he lives. He's small potatoes,' said Eastland. 'So what's behind this?

What's the motive? Why would anyone pay to have a woman murdered and a kid handed over to them? What are we dealing with here-a custody dispute?'

'The tug of love?' said Diamond. 'Not the way I see it Nobody has shown much affection for Naomi. She was abandoned in London until Mrs. Tanaka came along-and she didn't treat the child with noticeable kindness.'

'She wasn't the mother.'

'Right Where are the parents? They've been conspicuously silent If they were in dispute for custody of the child, they'd have declared themselves by now. The people in these cases need publicity.'

'Do you have a theory, then?'

Diamond stifled a yawn. 'Lieutenant I'm jetlagged. It's all I can do to stay awake. I'll say this much: whatever we're dealing with, it's high risk and mere's big money behind it But why a small, handicapped girl should be mixed up in it is a mystery to me.'

'For a ransom?'

'The parents would have to be very rich.'

'Japanese industrialists?'

'Surely they'd have reported by now that their daughter is missing. You've been in touch with the Japanese police. Did they say anything about a tycoon whose child has been taken away?'

'No,' said Eastland. 'But you and I know that kidnappings don't get reported every time. The parents could be dealing with the kidnappers directly.'

'How does Mrs. Tanaka fit into this theory?' Diamond asked in a tone that betrayed how unimpressed he was 'Why was she killed?'

'She was caught in the middle somehow. Maybe she double-crossed the people who hired her.'

'Do you really believe this?' Diamond asked.

'Can you think of anything better?'

He didn't answer, and for a time all that was heard was the car's suspension being tested by the uneven Manhattan street surfaces.

Finally, Eastland said, 'If we could positively identify the kid, we'd stand a better chance.'

'We've been trying to do that ever since she was found, ' said Diamond.

They pulled up outside the hotel and he got out and thanked Eastland for the ride, adding that he might drop bv in the morning.

He was deeply dispirited, and the prospect of another night in the Firbank did nothing to lift him. It occurred to him when he caught sight of the pay phone in the front hall that he hadn't spoken to Stephanie since leaving London. She wasn't the sort to panic, but she must have wondered why he hadn't been in touch before now. He felt in his pocket for some change, badly wanting to hear Steph's voice, even if she gave him some aggravation.

Then he made a mental estimate of the time in London About four in the morning.

Nothing was working for him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

In the morning when he tried phoning Stephanie, his timing was still wrong. After listening to the dial tone until his ear ached, he worked out that it was noon in England and she would be at the Save the Children shop. He went out to breakfast convinced already that this would be another frustrating day.,… u

But when he returned to the Firbank and tried again, she answered, and still the timing was wrong. Even five thousand miles and a time zone away the disapproval in her tone was unmistakable. He was in the doghouse. He didn't make much impression explaining that he'd tried phoning earlier. The legendary Diamond charm was put to the test, and he had to dredge deep. 'The reason I'm calling you now-apart from wanting to hear your voice, my love-is to check something you mentioned just before I left, about shoe sizes. Am I right? Is an English seven equal to an eight and a half over here?'…,J

There was time-out for thought during which he could sense the reproach evaporating. Then they had a normal conversation. He didn't mention that Mrs. Tanaka had been murdered, but he told her Naomi was still missing, and she sounded genuinely concerned.

He admitted, 'I may be forced to abandon this.'

'You wouldn't give up,' she said, shocked. 'Peter,

'You wouldn't give up,' she said, shocked. 'Peter, you couldn't leave the poor little soul a prisoner in New York. Besides, what would you tell that wrestler-the man who paid your fare?'

'I haven't even thought about that'

'Listen, if it's me you're bothered about, I'll be perfectly all right for a few more days. Don't worry. Just do what you can for that child. There must be some way of tracing her.'

'I hope you're right.' And he added, meaning it, 'Love you.'

'Love you, too.'

'Thanks, Steph. You're very understanding.'

There was a distinct pause before she said, 'Sometimes I understand more than you give me credit for, pussycat'

Outside, it had started to rain, so he borrowed an umbrella from the hotel before stepping out to the station house, where pandemonium reigned. He learned rapidly that Naomi's abduction was yesterday's news. Overnight, there had been a triple killing in a shooting gallery in West Harlem. It took him rather longer to work out that a shooting gallery was the slang for an abandoned house frequented by drug addicts and pushers. Some of them were having their prints taken while he waited to talk to anyone he knew.

Sergeant Stein came in and nodded. He would have walked straight through to another office if Diamond hadn't called across to him.

'Did you get any more out of Lundin?'

'Not much. He was sleepy.'

'Any clues about what happened to the child?'

'Zilch. Now, if you don't mind, I have the arrest report to type.'

'Nothing else has come through about her?'

Stein shook his head. 'Why don't you go sightseeing, look at the Empire State or something?'

'Is Lieutenant Eastland about?'

'This afternoon. Maybe.'

Biting back a sarcastic remark, Diamond walked out and hailed a cab, not to go sightseeing, but to drive out to Lundin's apartment in Queens. An idea had surfaced; when he was feeling fractious, his brain sometimes went into overdrive.

The van in the street indicated that a forensic team was at work in the house. Meeting one of them on the stairs, he explained who he was, which was received with a narrowing of the eyes, and then he mentioned Eastland's name, which made more of an impression. 'When we were here yesterday, we found some torn pieces of a photograph of the missing child.'

'In the toilet. Yeah, we have them. We found a couple of extra pieces trapped on the inside.'

'Could I examine them?'

'You'd better talk to my boss.'

The fragments of photograph were in a polythene bag in the van, and there was some reluctance to let Diamond see them until he explained his thinking to the senior man, giving it the sales pitch he'd noticed was obligatory when you wanted results in New York. 'The style of picture, from what I remember of it, full face with a pale blue background, strikes me as typical of a school photo. These commercial photographers are smart. They persuade a school to let them take shots of all the kids, one by one. The style is pretty much the same the world over. You see beaming kids in their school uniforms on businessmen's desks, the mantelpiece in the White House,