The Gold of Thrace Read online

  Police are investigating robbery as a possible motive, but are asking the public’s help in identifying any potential suspects.

  Chatham is best known as one of the principal excavators of Tepe Hazarfen, where he unearthed some noteworthy Chalcolithic tombs, remarkable for their well-preserved pottery and tomb furnishings. A spokesman at the British Museum said that more recently he was working in eastern Bulgaria (ancient Thrace), where he recovered a singular hoard of Thracian gold that he was transporting to the museum. The gold has not been found.

  A woman who claimed to be his traveling companion, Irene Conway, who has disappeared, tentatively identified Chatham’s body. His wife, Emma, who has accompanied his body to their home in Turkey for burial, has since confirmed Chatham’s identity.

  Inquiries at the address on Rakofsky Street that was Chatham’s last known address revealed an empty apartment that had been rented for the past month to a Russian national who went by the name of Dimitri Karamazov, the name of a principal character in the well-known Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoyevsky.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Basel, Switzerland, August 15, 1990

  They arrived in Basel from Germany in the late morning, registered at the Drei Konig Hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Demitrius Konstantinopoulis, and handed the desk clerk Greek passports.

  They had come to find the gold. They had already checked out antiquities dealers in Berlin, posing as shipping magnates, collectors of ancient gold jewelry. When they asked specifically for Thracian gold, no one had any to offer. Now they were ready to try for the gold in Basel, ready to start with the foremost antiquities dealer in Switzerland.

  “Early this afternoon,” Demitrius said after they had settled in, “we start with Gilberto Dela Barcolo.”

  Irena still fumed about Chatham’s betrayal. “He lied about the insurance,” she said again. “And then, to get himself killed.” She looked into the mirror above the desk and smoothed her hair, tucked a strand behind her left ear, and turned her head to check the effect. “We could be blamed. We could get into trouble. We didn’t arrange for that.”

  “Neither did Chatham,” Demitrius told her. “There’s someone else betraying us, and they will pay the price.”

  ***

  Tamar stood in the foyer at Gilberto’s house looking down at the mosaic on the floor. “That’s what I mean,” she said. “Something for the entrance of the museum. A mosaic, perhaps.”

  Gilberto nodded and his hands blocked out an expansive area. “A fresco.” He smiled and moved his hands as though outlining a decoration in front of him. “My runner has arranged to purchase a fresco from a Roman villa near Pompeii that was buried in the eruption. The owner himself dug it out.”

  “I was thinking more of a mosaic floor.”

  “That also, but it needs restoration. Come, I’ll show you.”

  He led her into the salon and went into the adjacent alcove, opened the drawer of a marquetry chest and brought out a photograph. “This is the fresco. From the triclinium, the dining room.”

  “And the mosaic floor?”

  “We are presently restoring in my warehouse.”

  She looked at the photograph for a moment, then returned it. “You have a picture of the mosaic?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Both are from Pompeii?”

  “Not Pompeii. Another village in the shadow of Vesuvius, buried in the same eruption,” he told her.

  Maybe it really was from Italy, maybe she should look elsewhere for the mosaic.

  “I would like to see it,” she said.

  “The ash and tuff from the eruption must be removed carefully. Right now it’s not in condition to be seen. Another few days, perhaps.”

  He walked back to the chest and put the photograph away. “Meanwhile, I have a gift for you,” he said. “A beautiful gift for a beautiful woman.”

  He opened another drawer and held out a spiral bracelet of ancient gold with a horse’s head and bit at one end and a coiled tail at the other.

  “It’s Thracian,” he said. “You know of the Thracians, of course, who Herodotus called the wild people of the north.” He dangled the bracelet lovingly from his index and middle finger. “Thrace, the land where the Boreal Winds blow, the land of Dionysus, the land of the Hellespont and even the land of Byzantium, long before Constantine built his marvels and monuments there to rule his empire.”

  The harsh ring of the doorbell interrupted him.

  He waved his hand and moved closer. “Fabiana will answer it. I am expecting visitors from Greece.”

  He reached for Tamar’s hand and wound the bracelet around her arm.

  “I can’t accept it,” Tamar said.

  He patted her hand and smiled. “No strings attached.”

  “It’s an artifact. As an archaeologist….”

  The visitor was Enzio, not the Greeks whom Gilberto expected.

  Enzio leaned against the doorjamb and smiled at Tamar. “Take the bracelet,” he said. “It’s all right.”

  She shook her head.

  “Trust me,” Enzio said.

  Gilberto looked from Enzio to Tamar and back again. “Can she trust you, Enzio? Can either of us trust you?”

  She felt the weight of it. It was real gold. “It’s too valuable,” she said. Besides, what did he expect in return?

  The doorbell sounded again, with the bracelet still on her wrist.

  “Ah, my Greek visitors, at last,” Gilberto said.

  Demitrius entered the room with a rush, carrying a battered cardboard suitcase. He laid it on the table in front of Gilberto, then stood back dramatically waiting for a comment. Instead, Gilberto made introductions all around.

  Demitrius stared at the bracelet on Tamar’s wrist, took her hand, and bent low to kiss it. He straightened up and nodded at Irena, still grasping Tamar’s hand, turning it slightly so that the bracelet glinted in the light.

  After a few moments, he dropped her hand and gestured toward the battered suitcase.

  “I give you the privilege of opening it,” he said to Gilberto.

  “You brought me something?”

  “Something marvelous.”

  Gilberto reached for the suitcase, unsnapped the lock, opened it, and lifted out a gold pendant of Aphrodite. He held it to the light, said “Perbacco,” put it on the table and took out another piece.

  “Belle cose, beautiful things,” he said, almost in a whisper. “It’s the Bactrian hoard.”

  He lifted a golden crown, balanced it on the open palm of his left hand and traced along the edge with a finger of his right hand. “Beautiful. How did you find it?”

  “That’s only part of what I have.” Demitrius looked at the others as if he expected appreciative comments and, again, his gaze stopped at the bracelet on Tamar’s wrist.

  “The rest I have in a vault,” Demitrius said more slowly.

  Gilberto lifted a coin. “A gold drachma with the head of Alexander.” He reached into the drawer of the table, took out a jeweler’s loupe and a knife, picked up the Aphrodite again, and scraped at it with the knife. “Solid gold,” he said. He turned to Demitrius. “All this was found together?”

  “I have a dagger studded with jewels, twenty thousand coins, all from the same collection,” he said, still looking at Tamar’s arm. “Seven tombs in northern Afghanistan excavated in the seventies by a Soviet archaeologist. All of it disappeared when they invaded Afghanistan.”

  “And you found it?”

  Demitrius inhaled deeply, looked around the room, and concentrated again on the bracelet on Tamar’s arm. Irena followed his gaze and moved toward Tamar. She seemed ready to reach for the bracelet.

  Tamar didn’t notice. She was watching Enzio and saw him move to the suitcase and peer inside, saw him flick his finger, quick as a lizard’s tongue, and pocket a coin.

  Was she imagining things? No one else seemed to see it.

  Irena grasped Tamar’s hand and tu
rned Tamar’s wrist this way and that as she examined the bracelet, and finally said, “An unusual piece.” She turned Tamar’s hand palm up and Tamar began to pull away.

  “Lovely. Where did you get it?” Irena asked when she finally released Tamar’s hand.

  “A gift from a friend,” Enzio said.

  Tamar hid her arm behind her back and moved away from Irena. I shouldn’t be wearing the bracelet, Tamar thought. I should have refused it. But it was Demitrius who stared at Tamar, his lip curled in controlled anger in the silence that followed.

  Enzio watched from across the room. He sat in the chair near the fireplace, unbuttoned and rebuttoned his jacket, brushed an imaginary piece of lint from his lapel, and rested his elbow on the arm of the chair.

  He crossed his leg over his knee. “That oinichoe I brought you,” he said to Gilberto. “It came from Mr. Konstantinopoulis.”

  Demitrius glanced toward the corner of the room. He seemed surprised. “I brought no oinichoe.”

  “You’re sure?” Gilberto asked Enzio.

  “It passed through the hands of several other parties, but ultimately it came from Mr. K.”

  “I thought the oinichoe came from Italy,” Gilberto said.

  “And so it did,” Demitrius said. “I remember now.”

  It seemed clear that he didn’t remember anything about an oinichoe, and he wasn’t sure of what they were talking about, but he went on talking, with a depreciating shrug. “I only do the same as the ancient Greeks and Italians. They bought and sold objects of art from Greece, traded them, bought them to grace Etruscan tombs. It’s part of my heritage.”

  “Of course it is,” Gilberto said.

  “Part of the glory of my heritage,” said Demitrius.

  “And the Bactrian hoard? Is that also part of your heritage?” Enzio asked.

  Demitrius nodded. “The same. After all, Alexander was Greek. You are interested in the gold?”

  Gilberto fixed Demitrius with a penetrating look. “The Bactrian hoard came from Greece?”

  Demitrius looked at Gilberto as if to challenge him. “Not all Greeks lived in Greece,” he said. “Long, long ago, my ancestors came down from somewhere in the north until they reached the sea, and with a cry of ‘Thalassa, thalassa,’ they changed the history of the world. Like Vikings of the ancient world, they spread, first as Myceneans, to the islands, to Crete, to Santorini, to Troy.” He paused, took a breath, and leaned forward. “As the Sea Peoples, they spread to the Levantine coast, to ancient Egypt, around the coasts of north Africa. They lived wherever Ulysses journeyed, in Italy off the Amalfi coast and as far north as Cumae.”

  “And carried with them pottery like the red on black oinichoe?”

  “As Greeks they journeyed to Ionia and the Aegean coast of Turkey, the shores of the Black Sea, to Sicily, to Sardinia, and up the boot of Italy. Naples was a Greek city, Nea Polis. And they left their pottery to astonish and delight us. You are interested in the gold?”

  Gilberto shook his head. “At the moment….”

  “I don’t want to sell it,” Demitrius said.

  “What then?”

  “I want to lend it to a museum for an exhibit.”

  “And you want me to help.” Gilbert smiled. “So that it’s authenticated and you get more money for it when you sell it.” He shook his head. “I don’t know anyone at the museum.”

  “The Antikenmuseum?”

  “Don’t know the right people.”

  Demitrius wiped his hands together in a dismissing gesture, closed the suitcase, and snapped the lock shut.

  “Then we leave.” He turned to Tamar. “I can drive you back to your hotel?”

  Enzio stepped in front of her and answered for her. “She has an appointment.”

  “I can drive you to your appointment.”

  “Too far out of your way,” Enzio said.

  “Where do you stay?” Demitrius asked her.

  “Here in Basel,” Enzio answered again. “With friends.”

  ***

  They all left Gilberto’s at the same time. Outside, the breeze ruffled Enzio’s hair. He and Tamar stood in front of the house as they watched Demitrius and Irena walk toward a dark Mercedes at the far end of the street.

  “What was that about?” Tamar asked.

  “What?”

  “The conversation with Gilberto.” She continued to look down the street toward the dark Mercedes. “That’s strange. The license plate is Cyrillic, not Greek. You think they could be Russian?”

  “I’m not sure. The license is Bulgarian. Car is registered to a Dimitar Konstantinov.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Konstantinov is a gifted art forger. Lately he’s been concentrating on antiquities because that’s where the money is.”

  “He gets away with it?”

  “Hasn’t been caught yet.”

  “You know all this for a fact?”

  “His time is coming. Now we have their picture.”

  “Who are ‘we’?”

  Tamar watched the Mercedes, still idling at the corner. “What is Demitrius waiting for?”

  “For you,” Enzio said. “Let’s walk into town. I’ll treat you to an espresso.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “I have to go away for a few days.”

  “Back to Italy?”

  “France.” He waved his hand in the general direction of the river, toward France. “Lyon.”

  “Lyon?”

  “I have to….” He hesitated, contemplated the sky, the clouds gathering above the trees. He examined the street full of cars parked trunk to nose against the curb. The dark Mercedes was gone now. “I have to visit my mother.”

  “I thought you came from Naples.”

  “My mother lives in Lyon.”

  “Why Lyon?”

  “She likes the food. Best in France.” He put his hands in his pockets and gazed at Tamar. “You’ll be careful when I’m gone?”

  “I’ll look both ways before I cross the street.”

  “You do that. The Greek couple, Demitrius Konstaninopoulis and his wife, they’re not what they seem. And they could be dangerous. Be careful. They may kill if they find out you’re on to them.”

  “You’re not what you seem either,” Tamar said. “I saw you pocket the coin.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Basel, Switzerland, August 15, 1990

  All the way back to the Euler, Tamar checked the road behind her taxi and watched for signs that Konstantinopoulis had followed her, even suspicious of the cars in side streets that waited for traffic to pass before they made a turn. Once she spotted a dark blue Mercedes through the rear window and began to panic until she noticed the Swiss plates. Still, she breathed easier when the Mercedes pulled to the curb and parked before they reached the turn at Aeschenplatz.

  She arrived at the hotel without incident and went straight to her room. I’m just foolish, she thought. Enzio must be wrong. No one is after me.

  She lifted her arm to brush a tuft of stray hair and realized she was still wearing the bracelet. She wrenched it off her wrist as if it were contaminated, wrapped it in a tissue from the bathroom and hid it in the dresser drawer under her underwear, determined to give it back next time she saw Gilberto.

  She sat in the chair by the window, thinking about the mosaic, pondering what she must do to find it. Gilberto, charming as he was, was a dead end.

  I’m not made for this, she thought. I dig holes in the ground; I do research, analyze tools and bits of ceramics in laboratories and examine old collections in museums.

  This is also research, she told herself, and decided to try a more direct approach, starting with the museum. She crossed over to the telephone and found the listing for Antikenmuseum in the hotel handbook, called the Antiquities Museum and asked for the head curator.

  After a few clicks, a woman’s voice answered. “Hochstadtler hier.”
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br />   Tamar hesitated, unsure of what to say next. “This is Doctor Saticoy,” she began.

  “The American professor,” Hochstadtler said.

  “You know who I am?”

  “We are a tight little community. I even know what you have for lunch. Gossip keeps us busy, keeps us out of trouble.”

  Tamar made an appointment for later that afternoon and left the Euler. With time to kill, she took a leisurely stroll to St. AlbanGraben, stopping along the way at a coffee bar for filtered coffee and a gelato. She sat at a table outside, absentmindedly watching housewives marching home laden with packages and children running, laughing as they left school playgrounds. Sometimes a man passed, once a man in a polo shirt with a leather bag hanging from his wrist, another time a man wearing a dark suit and carrying a briefcase.

  She looked at her watch and saw that she still had a couple of hours to spare. She had heard about the Kunstmuseum, about how the city voted to buy two Picassos in a referendum, and how Picasso, touched by a city’s appreciation of art, donated four more.

  She made her way to the Kunstmuseum at the end of the street, walked around Rodin’s Les Bourgeois de Calais that stood at the entrance, smiled at the portly, self-important men of Calais, and went inside. She paid the entrance fee and bought a catalogue at the desk.

  The Picassos were on the second floor. On the first floor, she lingered at the Holbeins, examining paintings of Erasmus and the good burghers of Basel, then went upstairs to walk amid Picassos, Braques, Klees with lollipop faces, until it was time to leave for the Antikenmuseum.

  She found the staff entrance of the Antiquities Museum on the side of the building—a small door next to the loading dock—went inside and told the guard at the desk that she had an appointment with Dr. Hochstadtler. He folded his newspaper and asked her to wait, pointing to a bench near the door, picked up a telephone and murmured something into the mouthpiece.

  “A minute,” he said to Tamar and went back to his newspaper.

  Before the minute had passed, Dr. Hochstadtler, a small woman with ash blond hair and dimpled cheeks, came clicking down the hall.

  She smiled at Tamar and shook her hand vigorously. “Always good to meet a colleague.”