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‘I’m sorry.’

‘No,’ she said, shifting, running a hand through her hair, taking the mug of coffee from me, ‘there’s no need. I’ve been living in a dream since he died, before that even, since the time we finally admitted to ourselves he was ill, the evening he came home and told me it had been diagnosed as malignant. It’s been unreal since then, a waiting, not daring to hope, not daring to think.’

‘I have not thought for years,’ I told her. ‘I have existed. Each day a conscious act of will, to live without thinking. If I tried hard enough it almost worked. Daiva, the baby, the work with Vassily. It was enough. What cause was there to think of anything else, to remember that there had been anything else? But perhaps you were right, yesterday evening, maybe it’s time I faced up to it.’

‘So what are you going to do?’ she asked.

‘I think I should find Kolya.’

Tanya nodded and reached out to take my hand. ‘But how will you find him?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ I confessed. ‘I really don’t know.’

The café on the bank of the Vilnia was closed. Scaling the high wall, I peered over into the beer garden. The chairs were upturned on the wooden tables and the glass doors closed and curtained. Squinting into the early sun, sharp and bright after the rain, I scanned the trees down by the water. Against the brilliant shimmer on the surface of the river it was impossible to see whether the letter was there still, balled in the mesh of twigs. For some moments I considered climbing over the wall to go and see, but the street was busy and I had no desire to involve the police in my search.

Disappointed, I wandered back across the bridge into the Old Town, heading along Bernadinu in the direction of the university. A large crowd of students congregated in the courtyard of the university, smoking and talking and laughing. Often Vassily would visit his old friend Gintaras Zinotis, a professor in the Department of Archaeology at the university. Zinotis knew everything there was to know about ancient jewellery and was an expert on the history of amber. He had served in Afghanistan in the very early eighties. Though he looked every centimetre the university professor, it was possible to see beneath the worn jacket and the spectacles, beneath the slight paunch and his pipe, the lean figure of the soldier he had once been. Zinotis belonged, I knew, to the Afghan Vets organisation, and it was possible, I considered, that through his contacts he might have heard something about Kolya, or would be able to direct me to somebody who might know where he was.

His small office was at the end of a long corridor. I had been to the university on only one previous occasion when Vassily had asked me to pick up a book the professor had promised to loan him on the jewellery of the Kushan Empire. Now I knocked on the door and waited, feeling out of place among the young students, folders tucked beneath their arms, waiting for their lectures.

When the door did not open, I knocked again, loath to be disappointed for the second time that morning. A creased face appeared at the door, staring furiously over the top of half-moon spectacles.

‘Yes?’ Zinotis said irritably. He looked me up and down and, realising at once I was not one of his students, his frown eased a little. ‘Who are you looking for?’ he added a little more pleasantly.

‘Professor Zinotis?’ I asked, though I recognised him immediately.

‘Yes?’

‘My name is Antanas, I am a friend and colleague of the jeweller Vassily. We have met once before.’ The professor opened the door a little wider. He took off his glasses and polished them absently on the sleeve of his pullover.

‘I heard the news,’ he said. ‘I’m very sorry.’

I nodded. Zinotis stepped to one side and indicated I should enter his office. The room was small and oppressive. Books lined every wall and were piled in high, unstable heaps on the floor and desk. On the sill, beneath the small, dusty window, were various lumps of amber, some of them worked, displaying their inclusions, organisms trapped when the resin was still liquid, while others were dull, raw, milky pieces. There were two chairs in the room, one by his desk and a second by the wall, beneath a particularly wobbly-looking pile of volumes.

‘Please sit down,’ Zinotis said, offering me his chair. ‘I would offer you a drink, but I’m afraid I don’t have a bottle. Always when Vassily came he would bring one with him, but it has been a long while since he was last here.’

Zinotis perched himself on the edge of the desk, shifting a pile of folders aside.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘Vassily, I know, often came to talk to you about jewellery,’ I said, not sure how to raise the topic or how much I should say.

Zinotis laughed. ‘Vassily and I always talked about ancient jewellery. He had a fascination with the history of amber and its spread around the ancient world. He had some wonderful stories about its origins.’ I nodded and paused. Zinotis raised his eyebrows, waiting.

‘I’m looking for somebody,’ I said, ‘and I thought there was the smallest chance you might be able to help me.’

‘I can try.’ He smiled, a little bemused.

‘Kolya. Kolya Antonenko,’ I said. ‘He served with Vassily and me in Afghanistan. Perhaps you have heard something about him through the veterans organisation?’

‘Kolya Antonenko?’ Zinotis played with his half-moon spectacles. He thought hard, then blew out his cheeks. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Have you any idea who might be able to help me find him?’

Zinotis twisted the spectacles between his fingers. His watery blue eyes examined me.

‘It’s important, is it?’ he asked.

I hesitated a moment, considering what I should tell him.

‘Before Vassily died,’ I said, ‘I went to visit him. He was sick, but very lucid. He told me about a jewel. He wanted Kolya to have it.’

Zinotis followed my words with evident interest. When I paused he urged me to continue.

‘Did he describe the jewel?’ he asked.

‘You know what he was like with his tales,’ I said. ‘Perhaps this was no more than one of those. He said it was a bracelet. A filigree gold band which held an oval piece of amber. The amber was a large piece, I believe, and without flaws, but what interested him were the inclusions in it. There were two beetles, perfectly preserved, copulating.’

‘This bracelet,’ Zinotis clarified, ‘it is something Vassily had? He gave it to you?’

I hesitated again. ‘No,’ I said, ‘not exactly, but he wanted Kolya to have it.’

At that moment there was a knock on the door. Zinotis stood up. He looked across at the door and seemed to consider whether he should answer it. After glancing at me, he stepped over to it and, opening it, poked his head into the corridor. When, a few moments later, he closed the door and turned back to me he was once more polishing his spectacles on the sleeve of his pullover.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, shaking his head. He paused and fitted the spectacles back on to his nose and gazed at me through them, as if weighing me up. ‘I can certainly ask around. This bracelet, though… would be very interesting to see, if you were able to bring it to me. It might be worth quite something, if it’s as good an example as you suggest.’

‘I’m not interested in the jewel,’ I said. ‘Vassily wanted me to find Kolya. There is something he wanted me to hear from Kolya, something about the bracelet. I don’t know, it makes little sense to me.’

Zinotis continued to stare at me. His gaze was at once penetrating and absent. ‘Kolya Antonenko,’ he said, turning the name on his tongue. ‘Maybe I did meet him, with Vassily, now that you mention it◦– years ago. I will have to make some enquiries.’

I stood up, a little disappointed that he knew no more.