The Amber Knight (16 page)

‘The whole country,’ she retorted. ‘The Hotel’s fine, although the decor’s not quite to my taste…’

‘Too refined?’ he interrupted caustically.

‘– but at least they do room service. However there’s a problem with the children’s food. The burgers and fries don’t look like the ones back home, and you know how fussy Niklas and Janine are.’

‘Try the brats on real food, Georgiana. You never know, you might improve their personalities.’

‘Niklas has this thing. He’ll only eat chicken burgers. They were fine in Paris…’

‘Call a taxi. There are MacDonald’s in Gdansk.’

‘Really? It’s all right, Nanny, Adam says there are MacDonald’s here. But Adam, the children need more than just a place to eat. There’s nowhere for Nanny to take them when I’m working. She’s read all the brochures and there doesn’t seem to be a Disney park between here and Paris…’

‘Try the real thing.’

‘What real thing?’

‘Sorry, Georgiana, must run, important meeting.’

‘We’ll see you soon? Courtney is…’

He hung up to see Edmund grinning like a chimpanzee in a truckload of bananas. ‘You as much as drop a hint to my sister or wife where I am, or give them the telephone number of the Historical Museum, and you can kiss every exhibit on loan from the Institute goodbye. I am not joking.’ He picked up his bag and briefcase and walked out of the door.

Adam hesitated when he reached the ground floor. He looked down the narrow street towards the impressive, red brick, Gothic bulk of St Mary’s church. Tucked away on the left just in front of the building were the display cases from Felix Malek’s shop. The last person he wanted to see was Elizbieta but it certainly would be worth leaving a copy of the list Edmund Dunst had given him with Feliks. After glancing at his watch, he decided he could spare ten minutes. If whoever had the knight was employing help of Brunon Kaszuba’s calibre, there was no telling what had been lifted from the hiding place and with luck, sold on, possibly leaving a trail for him or Josef to follow.

Going on the premise that the more public the place, the safer it was, he gripped his briefcase and stepped into the centre of the narrow street, dogging the steps of a party of tourists who were stumbling over the cobblestones as they headed for the church.

To his relief there was no sign of Elizbieta in the jewellery store. Feliks was chatting to an elderly German couple over a counter filled with samples of his most elaborate and expensive work. Adam went to the back of the tiny shop and pretended to study an amber sculpture of a fully-rigged sailing ship while Feliks closed a large and lucrative sale.

‘That will pay the rent for the next three months.’ Feliks grinned as he pocketed the bundle of euros the couple had given him.

‘Where’s Elizbieta?’ Adam asked warily.

‘Out shopping for clothes to replace the ones you ruined, and possibly cyanide to flavour the coffee the next time you visit. Where did you take her?’

‘A country hotel that didn’t come up to expectations.’

‘A likely story. One mention of your name was enough to send her into a frenzy, so I didn’t push for an explanation but Josef said something last night about you being quarantined because you’d strayed into an area contaminated with foot and mouth.’

‘Government accommodation is rather basic.’

‘Basic?’ He laughed. ‘It must have been hell. Elizbieta actually hugged and kissed me when she came in. My heart’s still throbbing along with a few other delicate parts that aren’t used to so much excitement.’

‘I suggest you make the most of her enthusiasm.’

‘I always do but unfortunately kissing is about all I’m up for these days. From Elizbieta’s reaction I take it she’s over her crush on you.’

‘I have that impression, too.’ Adam opened his case and removed the file Edmund had given him. ‘Here are a couple of lists of the artefacts that disappeared from Konigsberg the same time as the knight. If they’ve been stored together for the last fifty years it’s possible something else might reappear on the market. Could you distribute these among the dealers and wholesalers? I’d be grateful if they contact Edmund at the museum if they come across any of them.’

‘How grateful?’

‘Full market value, plus twenty percent for their trouble.’

‘That’s what I call grateful. You given the list to the police?’

‘Edmund has.’

‘I take it you’re thinking of the more unorthodox dealers?’

‘I know your friends.’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’ Feliks scanned the list. ‘Considerate of you to categorise them by gold, silver, amber, painting and sculpture, but did you have to put the Amber Room and Amber Knight on top? Anyone who gets offered either of those is likely to go to the police anyway. There’s no way they could be shifted on the open market.’

‘Unless they’re broken up.’

‘That would be sacrilege,’ Feliks asserted indignantly.

‘Not every amber-smith has your integrity.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment, even if it wasn’t intended as one.’ Feliks continued to read. ‘The missing thirteen beads from the necklace of Princess Dorothea manufactured in Gdansk 1610.’

‘The size of golf balls. Clear amber, crystal cut. I’ve seen the ten surviving ones in the Swedish exhibition in Malbork.’

‘So have I. Who do you think cleaned and prepared them for the exhibition?’ Feliks ran his finger over the inventory. ‘Three rings, two bracelets, four sets of earrings and one head-dress, all amber and silver, and all made for Princess Dorothea. Lucky lady, she must have had a big jewellery box. Nine amber caskets, four from the seventeenth-century workshop of Michel Redlan, altar crosses, crucifixes – a dozen fifteenth century goblets, with bowls of amber and stems of gold, once the property of the last king of Poland – I like the sketches by the way. Frames, figurines, panels – cabinets – anyone who reads this will be wary of buying anything pre-war.’

‘Not once word of my offer gets around. Let’s hope the present guardian of the knight is either broke or employs a few greedy helpers.’

‘Talking about greedy,’ Feliks opened a drawer and removed a small leather box. He opened it before handing it to Adam. ‘Blue stone earrings.’

Adam lifted them out. Ornate, highly-wrought gold mounts snaked around stones the size and shape of quail’s eggs. ‘Too large, too French Empire and too vulgar.’

‘Vulgarity is your Helga’s middle name.’

Adam held them up to the light. Even to his untrained eye they looked too pale to be sapphires. ‘The stones are the wrong colour.’

‘Aquamarines,’ Feliks explained, ‘the best I could do for the price.’

‘Helga will know the difference.’

‘She would have found out when she’d sold them. Ladies like her never keep their jewellery long. Next year, if her looks last that long, she’ll be wearing platinum and diamonds, not eight hundred dollar…’

‘I gave you a ceiling of three.’

‘Seeing as how it’s you, I’ll forgo my profit. Five hundred.’

‘No way.’

‘A man has to eat. Besides, you deprived me of my assistant for three days. I deserve compensation.’

Adam knew when he was beaten. He reached for his cheque book.

‘I prefer cash.’

‘Cashier’s cheque is the best I can do.’

‘Just this once I can make an exception.’

Adam pulled out his pen and cleared a space on the counter. ‘Now these are much more elegant.’ He picked out another pair of earrings. Elongated, fluted raindrops of amber dangled from art deco silver cones.

‘Crystal cut amber, an absolute swine to do. The technique hasn’t changed since Princess Dorothea’s day.’

‘How much are they?’

‘Helga will never wear amber.’

‘I wasn’t thinking of giving them to Helga.’

Feliks grinned. ‘I heard your wife was in town.’

‘How much?’

‘To you, two hundred dollars.’

‘A hundred.’

‘I’d be robbing myself. Have you any idea how many hours of work went into those?’

‘Knowing you, they weren’t your hours, and I can guess what you pay Elizbieta. A hundred and fifty, that’s my final offer. And, while I’m here, have you a couple of pieces of amber that I can borrow for a week or so?’

‘My stocks are low. You want amber, you buy it.’

Adam looked around the shelves. There was a large paperweight with a small panorama of insect life caught in its shimmering depths.

‘That will do. With everything, shall we call it seven hundred dollars?’

‘Eight fifty.’

‘Seven fifty.’

‘You drive a hard bargain. What do you want amber for, anyway?’ Feliks rummaged in the depths of a cupboard for a case for the amber earrings.

‘To get used to the feel of it. When I finally lay my hands on the knight, I want to make sure it’s the real thing.’

‘I’m glad you’re back.’ Magdalena looked up from her desk as he walked past the police officer into her office.

‘That’s a first.’

‘You remember I asked the Berlin Document Centre to forward us all the documents relevant to the treasures in Konigsberg Castle? This was waiting on my desk.’

Adam sat on the windowsill and read out the fax. ‘Standartenfuhrer Dieter Meyer was in command of the Wolfschanze in January 1945.’ He looked across at her. ‘So?’

‘Don’t you remember the signature on the document I showed you? Dieter Meyer signed a receipt for an unspecified consignment of goods four days after the treasure was sent out of Konigsberg.’

‘But there’s no proof that the consignment he signed for was the treasure?’

‘No, but don’t you think it’s an incredible co-incidence? What other transport could have warranted the personal attention of an SS Colonel?’

‘Arms, ammunition – any one of a dozen things the Germans wanted to keep out of the hands of the Russians.’

‘They would have given priority to the treasure over a shipment of military hardware,’ she persisted.

‘You can’t fight an invading Russian army with amber rooms and knights.’

‘In my opinion Dieter Meyer signed for the Konigsberg treasure because it had been sent to the Wolfschanze for safe keeping and, as there’s no record of his orders being rescinded, Meyer and the treasure were probably there until the Russian invasion.’

‘You said he disappeared at the end of the war?’

‘As did the treasure.’

‘He could have run off with it.’

‘All forty truckloads? More likely he hid it in the Wolfschanze before his command was wiped out by the Russian army.’

‘You won’t let go of that idea, will you?’ Adam pulled out his wallet and removed the bullet he had found in Krefta’s apartment.

‘What’s that?’

‘It was hidden in the soap in the Kaliningrad apartment. Careful,’ he warned as she took it from him. ‘It’s sharp.’

She turned it around slowly. ‘Russian markings, but nothing that shouldn’t be there. The edges are sharp because the cap’s been prised off at some time. Want me to open it?’

‘You might damage the contents, or worse, they could be poisonous.’

She had the cap off before he’d finished speaking. It took two taps against her desk to dislodge a small wedge of damp, swollen paper. ‘Someone soaked it in water.’

‘You were the one who made me carry out the dead cat. I had to wash my hands.’

‘And destroy the only potential clue we’ve found?’ She produced a pair of paper tweezers.

‘I didn’t know it was in the soap at the time. Can you do anything with it?’

She cleared a space on her desk and attempted to unfold the bullet-shaped, compressed wedge. The paper disintegrated at the first touch of the tweezers. ‘Not here.’ She laid the torn fragment on to a tissue. ‘It’s too fragile. But it would be a different story if we had our own fully equipped laboratory in the museum.’

‘Put forward a case for one and I’ll try to persuade the board.’

‘In the meantime, this will have to be sent to Warsaw.’ She took a clean envelope from a tray and transferred the paper, the corner she’d torn off, and the bullet, into it.

Adam scrutinised the plan laid out on her desk. ‘Is that the Wolfschanze?’

‘You’ve never been there?’

‘I’ve seen photographs. The knight’s no small trinket. You’re looking at something twice the size of this desk. Do you really believe it could have lain undiscovered in a tourist attraction for fifty years?’

‘Unlike you, I refuse to dismiss any possibility.’

‘OK, we’ll go to the Wolfschanze tomorrow.’

‘Time’s running out and it could turn out to be a wild goose chase,’ she warned.

‘Now who’s getting cold feet?’

‘I hate “I told you so’s”.’

‘There won’t be any. If I could think of a more constructive move, I’d make it,’ he said flatly.

‘And if we’re forced off the road into the forest again?’

‘You’re forgetting you have protection. I doubt even the Mafia will follow a police car.’

‘We’ll hardly be inconspicuous.’

‘The more conspicuous the better. That way no one could possibly mistake me for Brunon.’

‘I shouldn’t leave my brothers, not now. I’ve only just got back.’

‘Have you considered that your brothers might be safer without you around?’

Their eyes met. She looked away first. Sealing the envelope she left her desk. ‘I’ll tell Wiklaria to send this to Warsaw.’

‘Express,’ he ordered.

‘It could take days to process. The museums use the same forensic laboratories as the police, and police work has priority.’

‘I’ll talk to Josef, see if he can pull strings. And afterwards we eat.’

‘Again?’

‘We never saw the food we ordered at lunch time,’ he reminded her.

‘No, we didn’t,’ she recalled.

‘And, after we’ve eaten, I’ll take you home.’

‘I have a guard.’

‘I’m not leaving you.’

‘My apartment only has two rooms and there are three of us sleeping in them as it is. Four if Maria has returned from her sister’s.’

‘Then I’ll sleep in the corridor outside.’

‘You’d be a fire hazard. No one would be able to get in or out of their apartments.’

‘I’m not leaving you and that’s an end to it. Pass me the telephone.’ He suddenly remembered Edmund’s story that he’d seen Brunon in the city. ‘On second thoughts, I’ll send Wiklaria out for coffee and use hers.’