Diamond Solitaire (23 page)

They weren't very adaptable.

The autism, then, was confirmed. As a corrective to the elation he was experiencing, he tightened inwardly upon seeing the word. Against all the evidence, he'd cherished the hope that something could be done to unlock the little girl's mind.

By fleshing out the report with a few reasonable assumptions, he pictured Yuko Masuda, the mother, a bright young woman who had given up her studies to marry, devastated by the death of her young husband, struggling to raise this difficult child who refused to respond in the way other women's children did. A problem she probably didn't understand until Naomi was three or four.

Was the poor mother under so much strain, Diamond pondered, that Mrs. Tanaka, who worked in the university, had offered to take the child on a visit to Europe and America? A temporary reprieve for Dr. Masuda from the stress of raising an autistic child?

How could such an act of kindness have led to murder and kidnap?

He shook his head, sighed and scribbled a note of thanks to Yokohama and, as a personal touch, added the one word of Japanese he knew:
Sayonara.
Then tore it up. Damn it, he wasn't functioning properly yet. This wasn't the time to sign off with Japan. It might be late over there, but the case had just opened up.

26th Precinct, NYPD

To: Police Headquarters, Yokohama

Your cooperation is appreciated. The details tally with the missing child. Request that you trace the mother, Dr. Masuda, as a matter of urgency. We need to know the circumstances in which the child traveled to London prior to September this year. She was believed to be in the company of Mrs. Mirtori Tanaka, 36, former secretary in Yokohama University. Request fullest possible information about these two women.

When he'd fed this into the machine, he left the station house and walked to his new hotel to get a shower and a shave. He'd managed three hours' sleep at most, but this morning he felt like a billion
yen.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The first person he spoke to in Columbia University Library said with a sense of discovery, "You must be from England!"

He said tamely, "How right you are!" Each time this happened— and here in New York it was commonplace—he felt that simply admitting his Englishness didn't come up to expectations. Something extra seemed to be expected of him: a burst of "God Save the Queen," or a hitch of the trousers to reveal Union Jack socks. He couldn't manage either.

He introduced himself, claiming that he was a detective attached to the New York Police Department, a slight distortion of the facts, but he'd never had a conscience about embroidering the truth in the cause of justice.

The senior librarian he was addressing, a strange, thin man with the peculiar fixed smile seen usually on the faces of politicians and the earliest Greek statues, said that he just adored the British police, and was he at the library on official business, or personal?

Diamond explained that he hoped to consult an international data bank of postgraduate research projects, if the library possessed one.

He already knew it did.

En route to the computer suite, the librarian confided that his knowledge of Scotland Yard owed much to the British film industry. "Did you know mat the late Lord Olivier once played a lowly English bobby in a movie?"

Diamond undermined this promising conversation by saying,
"The Magic Box."
It happened that he'd seen the film quite recently on TV one afternoon when it was too wet to go walking in Holland Park.

"Oh, you saw it. The story of the man who invented cinematography."

"Friese-Greene."

"You're so right!" the librarian said admiringly.

"But Friese-Green wasn't the inventor of cinematography."

"Wasn't he?" The smile began to look strained.

"My understanding is that several people in different countries, including yours, made the significant discoveries. Friese-Greene was a minor figure."

"You're sure of this?"

"Check the facts, if you like. We're in the right place."

"No need, Mr. Diamond, I'll take your word for it, of course."

"The film was a flag-waving exercise," Diamond went on without much tact. "Britain needed cheering up at the time. As a nation we're unequaled at making heroes out of nobodies."

After a pause, the librarian said staunchly, "This doesn't affect what I was about to say about the movie. The acting was superb. Do you recall the scene?" Without pausing for response, he added, "Just a cameo performance by Laurence Olivier as the bobby invited in to look at the images being projected, but one of his greatest, in my opinion. If he'd done nothing else, you'd have known from that scene that the man was a genius. Hardly a word spoken."

Diamond nodded. "Pity it wasn't true."

"Ah, but remember the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn': 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'"

"Not in my job," said Diamond. He'd never believed in mixing poetry and police work.

They entered the computer suite, a place, he reflected, that a more cultured policeman might have observed had a hum like a hedge of lavender on an August morning. Ranks of display units stretched far back. The librarian showed Diamond to a vacant position and demonstrated how to access information. "It was a directory of scientific research you required?"

"The International Directory of Research Projects in Biochemistry. I'd like to know what a certain Japanese graduate was working on a few years ago."

"We should be able to locate it" He tapped something into the controls. "Maybe I should leave you to find your own way to the information. It's straightforward now. You just follow the instructions when they come up in highlighted text"

"I'd rather you stayed," Diamond admitted without shame. "My brain goes dead when I sit in front of one of these things."

"That's reassuring to hear. From some of the things you've been saying, I thought you were information-oriented, and nothing else. Do we have the researcher's name?"

"YukoMasuda."

The librarian keyed in an instruction. "I hope you weren't serious—about not being able to appreciate the film because it wasn't strictly true."

"Don't let it depress you," Diamond told him. "It's the way I was trained."

"Too much left hemisphere."

"Too much what?"

"Of the brain. The left side of the brain marshals facts. I've always thought the police would do well to recognize that they have a right hemisphere as well, with a capacity for intuition."

"How, exactly?"

"Not 'exacdy' at all, Mr. Diamond. I'm suggesting you clear your mind of all those facts you collect and allow it to be receptive to psychic forces."

"You mean tea leaves and Tarot cards?"

"No, no, I'm being serious. I think you detectives might benefit by tapping into your sixth sense occasionally."

"Don't give me that That's how the wrong people get stitched up," said Diamond. "A detective who thinks he knows the truth in advance of the evidence is a dangerous man. I've met a few in my time."

"Isn't this a hunch—4ooking up a research student?"

"No, this is desperation. I know damn all about this woman. I've got to start somewhere."

"And I think we've found her," said the librarian, who had been scrolling the text as they talked.

Diamond stared at the screen and saw, midway down:

Masuda, Yuko, Ph.D., Yokohama Univ. "An insult to the brain: coma and its characteristics." 1979381. S. Manflex. "Narcosis and coma states."
(American Journal
of Biochemistry,
May 1981.) "The treatment of alcoholic coma." Paper presented to Japanese Pharmacological Conference, Tokyo, 1983. "Drug- and alcohol-induced comas." 1983. S. Manflex.

"Talk about an insult to the brain," he said. "My brain cells turn their back and walk away when I'm faced with stuff like this. S. Manflex. Narcosis. Can you understand any of it?"

"That phrase, an insult to the brain, is faintly familiar," the librarian said. "Where have I heard it? Give me a moment." Given a moment, he said suddenly, "I've got it. That wonderful poet from your country, Dylan Thomas."

"Not my country," Diamond interjected. "From Wales."

"Isn't that the same thing? Anyway, they wrote 'an insult to the brain' on Dylan Thomas's death certificate. Seemed appropriate—a kind of irony, considering he imbibed so much alcohol. I thought the doctor must have had poetic leanings himself. I didn't know it was a medical term."

"I was talking about these other words," Diamond said, becoming impatient with the frequent digressions.

"Hold on." The librarian tapped some keys on the console and an insert appeared above the text explaining the abbreviations. "S stands for sponsor, right? The research was sponsored by Manflex. I figure that must be the pharmaceuticals giant. You've heard of Manflex?"

"Vaguely."

"If you buy something for a headache in this country, it's a fair bet it's made by Manflex."

"And what's the other thing?"

"I have no idea. Science isn't my area at all."

"Nor mine. Tell me about Manflex. Is it a Japanese company, by any chance?"

"You mean Japanese-owned? I doubt it"

"It sponsors Japanese research."

"That doesn't make it a Japanese company."

He accepted the correction. He'd been thinking aloud, trying to make connections that didn't exist, but should.

"You could be right," the librarian conceded. "They have their base in America, certainly, but, who knows who owns it? The Japanese have taken over large slices of Manhattan. Even Rockefeller Plaza. Would you like the address?"

This time it wasn't displayed on a screen. Diamond was handed the Manhattan telephone directory. In a few minutes he was phoning the Manflex Corporation on West Broadway, or trying to, because the number was busy. After ten minutes of dialing and swearing, he got through to a telephonist who, if anything, was in a more irritated state man he: "Who is this?"

"Am I through to the Manflex Corporation?"

"Uh huh."

"My name is Diamond and I'd like to speak to the managing director."

"Sorry. No chance. Are you press?"

"No I am not"

"Mr. Flexner is unavailable."

"When do you expect him to be available?"

"No comment"

"Listen, I don't know who you think I am. I'd simply like to speak to somebody in authority. Is there anyone else?"

"You people are so persistent," the voice said accusingly. "A statement will be issued in due course."

"About what? I just want to make an inquiry—"

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm just too busy to prolong this."

And she cut the call.

He could tell that the rudeness wasn't personal. She was clearly under intense pressure.

"Can anyone tell me why a pharmaceuticals firm called Manflex should be under siege by the press?" he appealed to the librarians at me desk nearby.

There was some shrugging and head-shaking before one of them piped up, "I heard something about Manflex. Their price is rocketing on the stock exchange, that's what happening. They slumped badly and now they bounced back, only more so."

If Manflex was currently reversing a fall on the New York stock market, people were making money. And if Manflex had been the sponsor of Naomi's mother's postgraduate research, then perhaps there was some reason why Naomi had been kidnapped just as the company's stock was soaring.

He tried phoning again, but the line was busy.

There was plenty to occupy him in the library. He located some reference books on medical science that were written in English he could follow, so he made a determined effort to interpret the gobbledygook he'd copied from the computer. Yuko Masuda's research papers were all concerned with the treatment of comas induced by alcohol and drugs. All comas were attributed to some kind of insult to the brain, as it was so evocatively expressed. Dr. Masuda specialized in comas induced by poisoning of the brain, rather than by injury, pressure, infection or lack of sugar.

The half hour's concentrated study may not have turned Peter Diamond into a neurological specialist, but he reckoned he was better equipped to talk to the people at Man-flex.

He pressed out the number again. No one was answering.

Instead, he left the library and went to look for a taxi.

The Manflex Building was one of the older landmarks on West Broadway, tall by most standards, yet dwarfed by the twin towers of the World Trade Center nearby. When Diamond got close, he saw that the two sets of revolving doors to the entrance hall appeared to be locked. Armed security guards were preventing anyone from using the doors at the side. Two young women with the look of secretaries quite junior in the firm came out and were routinely approached by press people with microphones. They said with equal casualness that they were making no comment. It had the look of a ritual that had been going on for some while.

He ambled across to one of the reporters, a woman in an oversize suede coat and white boots. "Excuse me, could you tell me what's going on here? Is someone famous in there?" He added in excuse for ignorance, "I'm from England."

She gave him a sympathetic look. "This is the Manflex Building."

"Should I have heard of it?"

"Pharmaceuticals."

"Ah? Is that of interest to the press?"

Now she looked at him as if he were Rip Van Winkle.

"Manflex's rating on the stock market has been rocketing on rumors of a new wonder drug. They're due to make an announcement Tuesday and there's any amount of speculation."

"Manflex—is that an all-American firm?"

She was obviously starting to think that she was stuck with a headcase. "Haven't you heard of Manny Flexner? He was a legend in the pharmaceuticals business. Very dynamic. His son just became Chairman."

"What's he like?"

"Nobody knows yet. He only took over a few weeks back. He's keeping his head down right now."

"If this rumor is true, he's off to a good start."

"He needs it. There was a big loss of confidence after Manny jumped."

"Jumped?"

"Out of bis office on the twenty-first floor."

Diamond stared upwards.

"He fell on the other side," the reporter informed him. "A small executive parking lot"

Diamond thanked her and took a walk along Broadway, working out what to do next He'd heard enough about the seesawing fortunes of Manflex to justify more inquiries, but he doubted whether he'd be able to convince Lieutenant Easdand that something should be done. For the present he preferred to pursue this tenuous line of inquiry independently. However, he wasn't going to be able to bluff his way past the security guards. Some different strategy was wanted.

He found a stationery store and went in to buy a notepad and envelope. Then he wrote a letter to David Flexner, die Chairman of Manflex, introducing himself as a detective from England conducting an inquiry involving murder and the abduction of a child. As a matter of extreme urgency, he went on, he needed an interview with the Manflex management to discuss the mother of the child, Dr. Yuko Masuda, who had carried out research sponsored by Manflex at Yokohama University in the early 1980s. He gave the address and phone number of bis hotel and added the words "Detective Superintendent" below his signature. He addressed the envelope to Flexner, marking it "Personal—Extremely Urgent" Then he returned to the Manflex Building and handed the letter to one of the security guards, stressing that it was vital that it was delivered to the Chairman immediately. And once again his old police identity card came in useful; security staff are invariably ex-policemen themselves.

Before returning to the hotel he called at a bank and used his credit card to get more cash to patronize a deli he'd just passed. Later, he thought, he'd be able to tell Steph that for lunch he'd restricted himself to a sandwich. She'd never seen the size of an American sandwich garnished with dill pickles.

It wasn't surprising that he took a postprandial nap in his room.

The phone woke him.