The Amber Knight (8 page)

‘Then poured around Helmut von Mau’s body which had been placed in a coffin. Amber melts at 280 degrees centigrade which couldn’t have done the corpse much good. Perhaps it’s just as well that most amber clouds when it cools. I doubt the old boy’s a pretty sight.’

‘He was old?’

‘Thirty-three,’ Elizbieta supplied swiftly.

‘Don’t tell me you’re hooked on the legend as well?’

Elizbieta looked Adam coolly in the eye. ‘Of course. Haven’t you noticed heroes are an extinct breed? Every girl needs a man she can look up to, one who’s handsome, brave, chivalrous…’

‘And heading for eight hundred years old?’ Adam interrupted dryly.

‘If this is a copy, it could have been made with artificial amber.’ Feliks dropped one photograph in favour of another.

‘I didn’t know there was such a thing.’

‘Take a good look at the exhibits in some of the smaller museums next time you pass through them. It’s been around for centuries. A mixture of copal, camphor and turpentine.’

‘Can you tell if that’s artificial amber from the photographs?’

‘There are only two certain methods of differentiating between real and artificial amber. One is by heating. Artificial amber has a lower melting point. It also softens in cold ether. I couldn’t tell whether this is real or not without handling it.’

‘What he’s trying to say,’ Elizbieta interrupted, ‘is that it’s impossible to authenticate a piece from photographs.’

‘It has occurred to me that all you’d need to reproduce the knight is an outfit of medieval clothes and armour – not impossible given the number of museums in difficulties,’ Adam said, ‘and a stone coffin, a body and enough amber to cover it.’

‘Carbon dating the amber wouldn’t be any help. Most of the amber in circulation is a few million years old,’ Feliks pronounced authoritatively. ‘And a stone coffin?’ He opened his hands and turned down his mouth. ‘How do you go about authenticating one of those?’

‘But there are ways of distinguishing between a modern corpse and one that’s almost eight hundred years old.’ Adam thought about it and realised he wasn’t sure.

‘After it’s been in amber? I wouldn’t know, I’ve never seen a human corpse in amber.’ Feliks squinted at the photograph he was holding. ‘But I agree it could be difficult to spot a forgery. Unscrupulous amber-smiths have been putting insects into amber for centuries, so why not a body? Amber’s the easiest thing in the world to mould. All you have to do is heat a pile of shavings and crumbs, melt them and pour them into a mould. You wouldn’t believe what can be done these days with microwaves and dyes. Double or treble the size of a nugget at the push of a button. Name your colour and you can have it in amber.’

‘And sell it off to unsuspecting tourists as a rare and perfect piece,’ Adam suggested mischievously.

‘Tourists should research before they buy.’ Elizbieta opened a drawer. ‘Here.’ She handed Adam a bracelet set with a paperweight-sized polished nugget of amber. ‘Tell me what’s wrong with that?’

‘It’s hallmarked silver.’

‘Any fool can imprint a hallmark. It’s pewter, can’t you tell by the sheen?’

‘I’m no silversmith.’

‘And you’re in charge of the Institute’s budget?’ She shook her head in dismay. ‘Now look at the amber.’

‘It’s a large piece, which it makes it more valuable.’

‘It’s made of three pieces which have been heated and welded together, can’t you see the lines?’

‘Can’t those occur naturally?’

‘In that irregular pattern? Now turn it over.’

‘There’s indentations in the back.’

‘Caused by shrinkage after it was heated. There’s also a rough join in the middle. The edges are splintering.’

‘You make this with anyone in mind?’ Adam frowned.

‘I keep it to show tourists what to avoid.’

‘You’re all heart.’

‘We sell top quality goods at a fair price,’ Feliks declared. ‘I like people to go away happy. Give me the Amber Knight for a couple of days and I’ll give you an opinion on whether it’s genuine or not, but it will only be an opinion. Amber-smiths, like art experts, can be fooled.’

‘Then what chance do poor devils like me stand?’

Feliks handed Adam his glass. ‘Look at where the amber meets the sides of the coffin. It’s splintering.’

‘Like the bracelet?’

‘That’s not surprising given that we know the amber was heated and melted in a fire,’ Elizbieta contributed. ‘And I doubt whoever covered him was that fussy about air getting between the layers of amber.’

‘The whole thing looks real enough.’ Feliks retrieved his glass and picked up another photograph. ‘It’s also somewhat the worse for wear. As well as the splintering, there’s evidence of deeper cracks. See the way the flash has broken up the light on these fissures in the surface. They could be the result of exposure to frost, or damage that occurred when it was moved out of Konigsberg Castle. If it was a fake I think they would have taken more care with its appearance.’

‘Or they could be cleverer than you think,’ Elizbieta suggested.

‘Or it could be decay,’ Feliks said thoughtfully.

‘I thought amber lasted for ever.’ Adam’s mind was racing to absorb the implications of what Felix and Elizbieta were saying.

‘After it’s been exposed to air it can deteriorate with age if it’s not cared for properly.’

‘But we’ve got two thousand-year-old Roman beads made of the stuff in the museum,’ Adam protested.

‘Which Edmund keeps in a glass case at a fixed temperature.’

‘So, after listening to you two for half an hour, all I know for certain is that this might, or might not be a forgery?’

‘Does it matter?’ Elizbieta retrieved her threads of gold wire and laid them on the workbench beside her. ‘Put it on display anyway. People love corpses. They’ll flock to see one in amber.’

‘That’s supposing I can track it down.’

‘You don’t have it?’

‘Whoever has it sent a demand along with the photographs. They want bids in excess of fifty million dollars.’

‘American?’ Feliks asked.

‘Oh, yes,’ Adam confirmed.

‘Old zlotys and you might be talking.’ Feliks picked up a ruler from the desk, measured the magazine in the photograph, scribbled down the dimensions and began measuring the coffin. ‘Give me the magazine and I’ll give you a rough estimate as to the quantity of amber you would need to fill that coffin.’

‘You don’t know the size of the body.’

‘To get in there he has to be short.’

‘Or they chopped his legs off,’ Elizbieta said practically. ‘Father Ignatious told me that medieval monks often used to cut down bodies to fit the coffins they had in stock. It was easier to re-shape the body than carve out a larger coffin.’

‘If this is a fake made with real amber, they would have needed more than the supply used by an average workshop in a year. I could ask around for you. See if anyone’s been buying in unusually large quantities lately, lucky sods.’

Elizbieta looked up. ‘You didn’t get any today?’

‘The consignment was hi-jacked.’

‘Stolen!’ Adam exclaimed.

‘Too late to make this, if that’s what you’re thinking.’ Feliks returned the photographs to Adam. ‘It left Kaliningrad last night, but failed to arrive in Gdansk this morning.’

‘How was it being brought in?’ Adam stowed the photographs back in the envelope.

‘I value my poor hide too much to tell someone outside the business that. You want to know, go ask the Mafia, or a certain high ranking official. He’s paid enough to look the other way when it comes in.’

‘I don’t suppose either of you has Krefta’s address?’ Adam asked hopefully.

‘Last I heard he was in Konigsberg,’ Feliks answered.

‘Kaliningrad, Feliks,’ Elizbieta corrected him.

‘I can never remember new-fangled names.’

‘The Russians renamed it in 1945.’

‘Yesterday.’

‘Only to the senile.’ Elizbieta gave Adam the benefit of her most winsome smile. ‘Krefta moved to Kaliningrad after his wife died. I met him there a couple of times, but only at his workshop. I still have my father’s old address book. Do you want me to look it up?’

‘If it’s not too much trouble.’

She disappeared up the stairs.

‘She likes you.’ Feliks opened a door set below a display cabinet and pulled out a bottle of vodka.

‘And she’s living with you.’

‘Only because she wants the trade secrets I keep up here.’ Feliks tapped his head. ‘I love her,’ he declared mournfully, ‘and I’d do anything to make her happy. Sleeping with you would make her happy.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘No, it isn’t. She doesn’t get enough sex from me.’

‘I don’t sleep with my friends’ women.’

‘Damned western morality.’

‘Here it is.’ Elizbieta, who had overheard the last part of their conversation, slid her forefinger along Adam’s thumb as she handed him Krefta’s address. ‘You going to write to him?’

‘I thought I might look him up in the flesh.’

‘In Kaliningrad? You don’t speak Russian,’ Feliks reminded him.

‘He’s probably moved on since Elizbieta last saw him,’ Adam replied.

‘And even if he hasn’t, you might have difficulty recognising him from that photograph. You’ll need an interpreter. If you like, I could go with you,’ Elizbieta offered archly.

‘That could be helpful, seeing as how you’ve met him.’

‘Only a couple of times, a long time ago when my father worked for him. But Feliks is right – he might not still be at this address.’

‘It’s somewhere to start.’

‘When are you thinking of going?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Perfect, I could do with a day off. But Americans need a visa to cross the border.’

‘That’s not a problem. I’ll pick you up here. Be ready at six, we’ll leave before the heat sets in.’

Felix accompanied Adam up to street level. ‘Enjoy yourself with her.’

‘I’ll have her back before nightfall and, just to ensure there’ll be no hanky-panky, I’ll take Magdalena along.’

‘You Americans never know when you’re well off.’

‘We’re worse off than most Poles think we are, which reminds me. Helga said something about a pair of gold and sapphire earrings?’

‘She was taken with them, but then she would be, a collector like her, and I don’t mean jewellery. Why don’t you find yourself a nice girl…’

‘Like Elizbieta?’

‘At least she doesn’t charge for her favours.’

‘If there’s one thing I’ve learnt about women in the last twenty-eight years, it’s that they always present a bill for their services. How much are the earrings?’

‘The ones she saw were a special order for Radek. He’s paying three thousand dollars.’

‘American?’

‘No, Mickey Mouse money,’ Feliks mocked. ‘What do you think I am? A miracle worker? You want top quality goods; you have to pay the price.’

‘Not three thousand dollars, I don’t. What can you do for three hundred?’

‘You expect me to answer that?’

‘Come on, there can’t be that much gold in them.’

‘Now you’re telling me my business.’

‘Haven’t you anything you can substitute for sapphires?’

‘Nothing that will fool Helga or the jeweller she’ll sell them to.’

‘Three hundred’s my limit.’

‘I could do crystal for that price.’

‘Only if it’s blue.’

‘I’ll see what I can find.’

‘Adam!’ Waleria waved to him from across the street. ‘Josef Dalecka’s looking for you.’

‘Probably to warn you against buying any hi-jacked shipments of raw amber.’ Feliks was still smarting at the loss. Adam presumed because he’d have to buy in Polish amber at an inflated price in order to continue trading.

‘Whoever has the knight has offered it to more than one museum. Do you think they could have stolen the shipment to make a copy?’ Adam asked.

‘Could probably make a few, certainly two, on what went missing.’

‘What price the knight when every major museum in western Europe has one?’ Adam murmured.

‘I’m in the wrong business. Amber-encased bodies at fifty million American dollars a time have to be a better investment of time and resources than three hundred dollar earrings.’

‘You’d need a body, Feliks,’ Adam reminded him.

‘This is Poland. They’re commoner than amber nuggets if you know where to look.’

Adam started to protest, remembered Rat, and waved goodbye.

Adam found Josef waiting for him in his office in the Historical Museum, coffee cup in hand, wearing an even gloomier expression than he had in the Milan.

‘Feliks told me last night’s amber shipment has gone missing.’ Adam shrugged off his jacket and hung it on the back of his chair.

‘So much for trying to keep anything that happens in this town quiet.’ Josef reached for the coffee jug and poured Adam a cup. ‘Have you also heard that Brunon Kaszuba’s skipped custody?’

‘You let him go?’

‘Not exactly, although we couldn’t have held him much longer.’

‘After he dropped fifty thousand dollars in the casino?’

‘Gambling is a stupidity, not a crime. He refused to shift from the story that Rat gave him the money, and as we had no evidence to the contrary, we had to take his word for it.’

‘But Rat was murdered.’

‘While Kaszuba was in custody, and you can’t get a better alibi than that. All we had to hold him on was the fracas in the casino and you know how reluctant casino people are to prosecute. Kaszuba’s a good customer.’

‘So he walked?’

‘We were going to release him at midday, but he beat us to it. When the duty officer took down the morning coffee he found an empty cell.’

Adam sat back in his chair and rested his chin on his fingertips. ‘Could Kaszuba’s fifty thousand be connected to the missing amber shipment?’

‘How?’

‘You’re the detective.’

‘If Kaszuba took the amber, which seems unlikely given that he was gambling in the casino before the loss was discovered, he would have had to move like lightning to negotiate and collect on the sale by two in the morning. Now if it had disappeared last week, I might have bought a link with the sudden re-appearance of your knight.’

‘When did the amber go missing?’

‘All we know from Melerski is that it was loaded on to a boat in Kaliningrad yesterday afternoon and it wasn’t on board when the ship came into Gdansk this morning.’