Donovans 01 - Amber Beach

replaced the samples Jake had already seen and took out a box. He opened it and presented the contents with a subdued flourish.
    “You may handle it with your customary care,” the Russian said.
    Honor leaned forward. “What is it?”
    “A pendant, probably,” Jake said, looking closely at the item without lifting it out of the box. “Etruscan style with oversized eyes and the kind of nose we call Roman today. Broken and mended where the boy’s leg lies between the woman’s.”
    “Boy? It looks like a girl to me,” Honor said, peering at the carving. “It’s a smaller figure than the other one, with bigger eyes and more delicate features.”
    “Cultural bias,” he said succinctly. “Etruscan goddesses, and probably the wealthy Etruscan women as well, had much younger lovers. A mature woman’s face is more fully formed than a boy’s. In any case”—he handed Honor the loupe—“look where the figures are almost joined.”
    After a short silence, Honor handed back the loupe. “Right. Definitely not female. Not real delicate, either.”
    Jake laughed quietly. “From the position of the figures, this probably was a fertility fetish.”
    “Then it is a genuine piece,” Resnikov said with the air of a man stating the obvious.
    “I wouldn’t buy it.”
    Surprise and something less pleasant flashed across the Russian’s aristocratic face. It made Honor wonder if, like Jake, Resnikov had a gun stashed in his suitcase along with all the other odds and ends.
    Jake must have wondered, too. As the uneasy silence expanded, he watched Resnikov’s hands.

16
    R ESNIKOV SPREAD HIS fine-boned hands on the table as though he would have preferred to wrap them around Jake’s neck.
    “What are you saying?” the Russian demanded.
    Jake shrugged, but there was nothing casual about the way he was gathering himself for a fight, if it came to that. “There’s something about this carving I don’t like.”
    “Explain. But do not question or test the amber substance itself. It is real beyond a doubt. I will guarantee it.”
    “It’s not the amber that bothers me.”
    “Excellent. Continue.”
    “I’m not an art historian,” Jake said calmly, “but there’s something wrong about the drapery or wings or whatever they are on the woman’s figure. It’s hard to tell which on such a small piece.”
    “Examine it more closely.” Then, as though hearing the cold anger in his own voice for the first time, Resnikov forced himself to smile. “If you please.”
    Jake picked up the amber, set it on the lens of his flashlight, and turned on the beam. Light glowed through the tiny sculpture, setting it afire.
    “The crazing isn’t thick,” he said, looking at the network of hair-fine cracks all across the surface that gave a textured appearance to the amber.
    “If the piece came from a grave, locked away from oxygen and light for all the long centuries, then crazing would not develop greatly,” Resnikov pointed out.
    Though Jake nodded, he obviously wasn’t convinced. He bent over and examined the small carving for a long minute through the loupe.
    “Look at this edge,” he said, straightening. “It’s ragged and the others are smooth, as though a piece was broken off after the carving was finished. Yet the crazing is the same on the ragged edge as the smooth.”
    “It could have broken during the burial ceremony.”
    “It could have.”
    “You do not think so,” Resnikov said.
    “No. I think this is a copy of a real piece, a copy that was made without benefit of magnification and baked in an oven or hot sand to simulate the natural aging of time.”
    Resnikov took the flashlight and carving. Without waiting for a request, Jake handed over the loupe. Silence condensed in the room while the Russian bent over the amber. He began speaking softly in his native language. The look on his face said that he wasn’t composing love sonnets to the carving.
    Unhappily he stuffed the amber back into its box. His lack of care said more than words about how his opinion of the artifact had changed.
    “As I said,” he muttered, “I am merely quite good. You are best.”
    As he opened his small suitcase wider and reached in for another item, the door leading back to the main cafe´ swung inward. Jake didn’t have to move his head to see Ellen look around the room. Though her glance was fast, it missed nothing.
    “Oh,” she said, as though surprised. “Excuse me. I was looking for the rest room and thought