Diamond Solitaire

by Peter Lovesey

  "Forty-seventh."

  "Thanks."

  "Which one are we looking for?"

  "Forty-ninth will do."

  They turned left and tracked the street to its limit, under the girders of the highway. Soon they were back in a dockland area. Presently she turned onto a tarmac stretch between warehouses. Red hazard lights marked the tops of some cranes.

  "He's hereV said Diamond in disbelief.

  "I told you it was cloak and dagger," she said. She flashed the headlights a couple of times.

  A figure came from the shadows of one of the warehouses. "Doesn't look like David Flexner," Diamond commented as if he knew him well.

  "This is one of his team," she said, touching the control to let the window down on Diamond's side.

  "I hope you'll be waiting," Diamond remarked to Joan as he prepared to get out "I wouldn't want to walk back to my hotel from here."

  "I'm in no hurry," she said.

  The man stooped to look in. "Mr. Diamond?" The face was unshaven and smelt of liquor. As the face of an executive's personal aide, it wasn't convincing.

  Diamond turned to look at the woman who called herself Joan. Even at this stage she returned a level look without a trace of perfidy. If this was a setup—and he now believed that it was—she had played her part immaculately. She'd disarmed him with her poise.

  The man outside reached for the door handle. Diamond snapped down the lock.

  Joan said, "Why did you do that?" And before she'd got out the words she had released the lock from the central control at her side.

  The man outside swung open the door. He was built like the stevedore he probably was.

  Joan shrilled, 'Take him!"

  Diamond jerked away from the door and made a grab for the steering wheel, whereupon Joan stabbed the sharp end of the keys into the back of his hand. The searing pain weakened his grip. She opened her door and leapt out on her side, yelling something across the quayside.

  At the same time the thug leaned inside the car and put an arm lock around Diamond's throat. It was painful and disabling, but it wasn't enough to eject him. He braced his legs to press his back against the seat and groped for the man's face, which was close to his own. He found a handful of hair, but he knew better than to work on that. You go for the eyes and ears.

  He slid his hand across the surface of the face, got bitten badly in the fleshy area under his thumb, but succeeded in thrusting the same thumb hard into a fold of soft, moist flesh that could only be the man's eyesocket.

  There was a scream and the arm lock loosened.

  But there were voices. Someone was shouting, "Get out of my way!"

  Something swung in a huge arc towards Diamond's skull. He couldn't duck. He put up an arm a fraction too late. The impact was terrific. His face hit the dashboard and smashed through glass. A second blow crunched into his shoulder. He was lucky to be registering anything.

  "You got him," someone was saying.

  What now? he thought. Do I come quietly, or play dead?

  Someone had two hands under his armpits and dragged him off the car seat. He went limp before hitting the ground.

  "Bastard."

  Words, he guessed, wouldn't be enough for the man whose eye he had damaged. Two kicks in his kidneys followed. He couldn't stop himself crying out in pain. For this, he got another mighty crack on the head.

  He was losing consciousness.

  "Grab a leg, will ya?"

  He didn't expect to survive. Joan had said this was the "in place" and now he knew what she meant. They were going to dump him in the Hudson River.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  He had swallowed a bellyful of foul-tasting liquid. His eyes were smarting and his nose was blocked. Repeatedly he spluttered and vomited and felt no better for it. Once or twice he opened his eyes and saw nothing. He was aware only of an occasional nudge against his right arm and shoulder. And that he was cold, indescribably cold. Parts of his body must have ached, but the cold subdued every other sensation.

  He was face up, most of him submerged.

  He remembered nothing. For all he knew, he could be lying in a primeval swamp.

  Waiting to die.

  A stronger jolt forced his arm across his chest, turning him almost on his side. More of the liquid washed over his face, filling his mouth and nostrils again.

  If this was drowning, he wouldn't recommend it as a way to go.

  He turned his head and emptied his mouth.

  Coughed.

  Gasped for air.

  Whimpered.

  Your strength is going, Diamond. If you don't do something to help yourself, this is where you go under forever.

  He flung out his right arm. His hand slapped against a surface slimy to the touch, but solid. He'd hardly begun to examine it when he felt the structure being moved out of reach. He groped for whatever it was and missed, realizing as this occurred that the surface hadn't moved, but he had. As he was towed back to the right, he tried again, made contact and felt for the texture under the slime. Maddeningly, the action of the water rocked him away again.

  His brain was beginning to function now. He realized that what he had taken to be nudging was the action of a current pressing him against some kind of obstruction. He pressed his hand hopefully towards it, grasped an object strange to the touch that he let go when he recognized its shape and texture as that of a large, dead bird. Then felt his knuckles come into contact with something smoother, some kind of container, a beer can, perhaps. Mentally he was back in the twentieth century. He was part of the floating rubbish that collects along the banks and shores of waterways.

  But there was some reason why the rubbish was trapped here. The current should have carried it downstream. Presumably he was caught against some obstruction.

  As his thinking process sharpened, so did the cold—penetrating, demanding to be recognized, persuading him mat it was futile to struggle. Feebly, he reached out again.

  His fingers found something that didn't move, about the shape and thickness of a prison bar, only this was horizontal. He held on.

  It was securely anchored. Without releasing his grip, he explored the shape, discovering a ninety-degree angle, a shorter length and then, coated with waterweed, the masonry from which it projected. He had found an iron rung attached to a stone structure.

  He flexed his arm to draw closer. Then reached over and upwards with his left hand to see if a similar rung was located above the one he was holding.

  The hand scrabbled against weed and stone.

  Yes. His fingers curled around a second rung.

  There was a ladder set into the wall.

  But had he the strength to drag himself out of the water? Such an exercise would require an exceptional effort anytime, and he was weak.

  Try, or die, he told himself. One rung at a time.

  He released his hold on the first and reached up with his right hand. Gripped and pulled. Found himself too feeble. Got both hands on the rung and slackened his body. His shoulders were out of the water, and now one of them was giving him pain he hadn't felt before. From the chest down he was submerged, and he just hung there, cursing his size, unable to achieve any more.

  Then he was aware that his thighs were in contact with something. There was distinct pressure above bis knees.

  He'd found a lower rung. The ladder extended below the waterline. Not so far down as his feet, unfortunately, but if he could raise his legs high enough to get a foothold on this rung, he'd have a chance of making progress.

  He raised his knees to the required level but found that, being pudgy, his knees wouldn't give him any purchase. The only way was to hoist himself up a couple of rungs by using his arms alone.

  He breathed deeply and reached up. Got his fingers around the next rung and immediately felt such a searing pain in the shoulder that he let go. Now he knew he was injured. The right arm was virtually useless.

  With the imminent prospect of sinking back into the filthy water,
he braced himself for one more effort to go higher, reaching up with the left hand while holding on agonizingly with the right.

  He made fingertip contact, got a grip and hauled himself higher one-handed, immediately releasing the right arm from its painful duty. The sense of achievement set the adrenaline flowing. Without pause, he forced the right hand into use again and held on, while jackknifing his body in an attempt to get a foothold on the lowest rung.

  He managed it

  Now it was a matter of leverage rather than brute strength and stoicism. With both feet securely positioned, he heaved himself upwards, raising his torso clear of the water. Clawing at the higher rungs, he began a steady ascent up the side of what he now perceived as a stone pier.

  And as he climbed, his brain began to deal with his bizarre situation. Dimly at first, but with increasing clarity, he recalled where he was and why. He understood the reason for the pain that afflicted him, not just in the shoulder, but—as bis circulation was restored—in his head and lower back. It had been a savage beating, and his attackers had assumed he would drown. Maybe the extra poundage that he was finding such a handicap while climbing the rungs had saved him. The body blows—apart from those to his skull—had been cushioned. In the water, his built-in insulation had kept him alive for longer.

  But he still felt grim.

  Not to say unsafe. He hesitated on the higher rungs, wondering whether anyone would spot him and throw him back again. A mere push in the chest would be enough. He wouldn't survive another ducking.

  The darkness was an ally. He put his head above the wall, satisfied himself that no one was near and then climbed up the remaining rungs and flopped like a beached whale.

  With no choice but to lie still, he waited for his pulse and breathing to reduce to rates he could cope with. He was getting messages from parts of his body that had suffered injuries he hadn't registered. Now his face was smarting. He put his hand to his left eye and felt a large swelling. There was a cut across the center of his nose.

  He couldn't tell how long he'd been in the water. There had certainly been an interval while he was unconscious. Presumably the shock of immersion had revived him.

  In the open, darkness is never total. He rolled over and peered across the expanse of open ground between the pier and the warehouse from which his attackers must have come. The limousine had gone, maybe—he told himself optimistically—with the men as passengers. The instinct of killers is to leave the scene.

  What now?

  Clearly, he needed to get to the police. It was vital that they were informed what had happened, for the Manflex connection was no longer tenuous. Those people were revealed as willing to kill, and he wanted them interrogated as soon as possible. He wanted to hear David Flexner's explanation.

  He just hoped he was capable of staying on his feet long enough.

  Staying? He realized that he had yet to get to his feet, and now he was about to try. The effort required was immense. He achieved the standing position by a process of crouching for a while, then stooping, propped with hands on knees, and finally trying unsuccessfully to straighten and groaning at the effort. Movement was going to be a painful, shuffling process that made him think how useful a zimmer-frame would have been. Even the light shore breeze threatened to bowl him over.

  Obviously he needed to find a way back to the streets, but getting there would be like finishing a marathon. To be positive, he still had both shoes on. All he seemed to have lost was his hat.

  In the next twenty minutes he made it across the waterfront, over a no-man's-land cluttered with rubbish, and down a slope to where one of the West Side streets terminated. The nearest block of tenement buildings didn't really have the look of a haven for a half-drowned, badly-beaten Brit, but he staggered to the first door he could find, and looked for a doorbell—a facility the household lacked. He rapped the woodwork with his knuckles. Nobody came. He could hear nothing from inside.

  He tried two more houses before anyone appeared, and this was a small, black boy who stared. Anyone would have "Hi," said Diamond with an effort of the imagination.

  The stare persisted.

  "Are your parents about?"

  A blink, and then a resumption of the stare.

  "Your Mum and Dad? Sonny, I need help."

  The boy frowned and said, "Where you from?"

  He didn't want to go through that again, not in the state he was in, but the kid had broken his silence, so: "From England."

  "England?" The kid raised a hand as if to strike him.

  Just in time, Diamond saw what was intended and let his own right hand come in a sweeping movement to slap against the boy's in salute.

  A short time after, wrapped in a blanket, he was seated in a wicker armchair in the living room of the basement apartment, surrounded by a large Afro-Caribbean family. They brought him coffee laced with rum and they put a Band-Aid on his nose.

  Twenty minutes or so of this treatment revived him remarkably. He was ready to move on. They wanted to know where he was going and he named the police at the 26th Precinct.

  When the amusement had subsided, the boy's father offered to drive him there.

  Thus it was that towards ten P.M., Sergeant Stein of the 26th, passing the front counter, was confronted by the disturbing spectacle of a grinning man, notorious across New York for the terms he'd served for armed robbery, carrying a heap of wet clothes, accompanied by Superintendent Diamond dressed in a blanket, a Band-Aid on his nose, his left eye black and closed.

  The explanation had to be given twice over, because Lieutenant Eastland, who was off duty, was called in to make decisions. He didn't go so far as to smile at Diamond's state, but he wasn't sympathetic. "So what we have," he summed up, "is a link with Manflex through the child's mother. You set out to investigate, and you were beaten up and dumped in the river. By who?"

  "Come on," said Diamond angrily. "There were no lights out there except the car headlights. The girl who called herself Joan I'd know. But the point is that David Flexner himself must have given these people their instructions. Something I said must have really upset him."

  "You surprise me," said Eastland.

  "What did you say?" asked Stein.

  "Just that I wanted information about the research Dr. Masuda was doing some years ago in Yokohama on a grant from Manflex."

  "I wouldn't have said this was grounds for murder," commented Eastland. "Are we sure of this connection'"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean can we be certain that these people who jumped you were sent by Flexner?"

  "It's inescapable. The girl told me she was working for him. She knew about the meeting. She knew where to find me, and when."

  "Okay, we'll pull him in and see what this is about."

  "One more thing," said Diamond.

  "You want to see a doctor?"

  "I want to get my clothes to a laundry."

  "Okay. How you feeling now?"

  "Impatient... to see Flexner."

  "You should rest"

  "Go to hell."

  In fact, he did get almost an hour on the cot he d slept on the previous night They had to wake him when Flexner was brought in, and then he felt worse than ever for the short sleep. Every part of him ached.

  It was agreed that he should observe the first interview on closed-circuit TV. Lieutenant Eastland pointed out that Flexner had no reason to believe that Diamond had survived the attack. A first principle of interrogation was to give nothing away.

  The young, long-haired man on the screen certainly looked uneasy, revealing in body language how agitated he was at being brought in for questioning. He flicked the tip of his tongue repeatedly around the edges of his mouth and worked his hands around his face like some actor overplaying Hamlet . .

  Eastland's voice started up, giving the routine information about the taping of interviews. "You give your permission?"

  Flexner nodded.

  "Would you mind giving a verbal response?"

/>   "I don't mind."

  "You agree to us taping the interview?"

  "I agree."

  "Okay." . .

  While Eastland went through the preliminaries of establishing Flexner's identity and address, Diamond watched the young man keenly. For a business tycoon, he was pretty unconventional in style, dressed in T-shirt, jeans and wind-cheater with the mane of blond hair extending to his shoulders. It was pretty well the description he'd given of himself over the phone.

  "You know a guy called Diamond—a British cop?" Eastland asked. He wasn't in shot. The camera was continuously on Flexner.

  "I know the name, that's all. He called me this afternoon."

  "He called you? Is that an accurate answer, Mr. Flexner?"

  Flexner raked a hand nervously through his hair. "What I mean is, he wrote me a note. I called him at his hotel."

  "Let's have the truth, huh?"

  "I'm sorry. Was that important?"

  "Everything's important. Do you still have the note?"

  "Not here."

  "Can you tell me the contents, accurately?"

  Flexner closed his eyes as he spoke, as if trying to visualize the note. "He wrote that he was an English detective inquiring into a murder and an abduction, the abduction of a child. He wanted to meet me for information about the kid's mother who carried out research sponsored by my firm in Yokohama, Japan, in the 1980s. Her name was Dr. Yuko Masuda. He signed himself Peter Diamond, Detective Superintendent."

  "And he gave a number for you to call?"

  "The Brightside Hotel. I took it seriously. I looked up the records on this woman. Then I called Mr. Diamond and fixed a meeting at Battery Park, in the ticket office for the ferry."

  "Strange place for a meeting."

  Flexner gave a shrug. "My circumstances are pretty unusual right now, for reasons unconnected with this. It was simplest to meet him someplace outside the office."