The Amber Knight by Katherine John Page B

rock-hard slice of bread. A rickety, worm-eaten chair stood next to the table and another had been placed in front of a dust-coated work bench in the corner. A sagging sofa covered with blankets, so blackened with ingrained dirt it was difficult to see what colour they had originally been, filled the space in between. The threadbare mats on the concrete floor felt spongy underfoot. Adam almost expected to hear a squelch as he tip-toed to the window. There were only two doors, the one they had entered by and another that opened into a cupboard-sized, filthy bathroom that contained a grimy toilet pan without a seat and a chipped and cracked sink. The smell was even more overpowering in there than the living room, which suggested its origins lay in more than the decomposing kitten. Adam turned to see Magdalena covering the tiny corpse with one of the blankets. Elizbieta was examining the work bench.
    ‘If these are Krefta’s tools it’s no wonder he hasn’t exhibited in years. No amber-smith worth his salt would attempt to work with this junk.’ Elizbieta held up a cutter blackened with neglect and eaten by rust. ‘There are some amber nuggets too.’
    ‘A lot?’ Adam asked, thinking of the missing shipment.
    ‘Not enough to keep the average workshop going for a day.’ She picked up one of the pieces. ‘The quality’s appalling, the sort of thing beginners are given to practise on.’
    Adam kicked aside the debris of rags and rubbish that littered the floor, sifting through it patiently with his foot, too fastidious to touch it with his fingers.
    ‘What are you looking for?’ Magdalena asked.
    ‘Something that might indicate where he’s gone and when he left.’
    She rose to her feet and looked behind the door. ‘There’s a small key hanging on a nail that might open his mail box.’
    ‘I’ll go,’ Elizbieta took it from her. ‘If anyone stopped either of you, you wouldn’t have a clue whether they were offering you a good time or asking the time of day.’
    Steeling himself against the smell, Adam returned to the bathroom. On a shelf behind the door he found a piece of cracked, dried, red soap, an old jam jar filled with water and a pair of hideous, grinning false teeth. ‘He left his teeth behind.’ He showed them to Magdalena.
    ‘There’s an old bus ticket here.’ Magdalena continued to sift through the papers piled on the table. ‘But there’s no passport, no identity card…’
    ‘And not even circulars in the mail box.’ Elizbieta closed the door behind her.
    ‘Looks like your Mr Krefta doesn’t believe in the principles of basic hygiene.’ Adam flushed the toilet in an attempt to alleviate the smell.
    ‘I think moving the cat out might do more than that,’ Elizbieta suggested.
    ‘We should bury it.’
    ‘Under the rubbish in here is as good a place as any.’
    ‘I meant outside,’ Magdalena broke in, unimpressed by Adam’s attempt at humour.
    ‘I’m not touching that cat,’ Elizbieta announced firmly.
    ‘Adam.’ Magdalena looked expectantly at him.
    ‘Be practical, there’s nowhere to bury it in this concrete jungle.’
    ‘Then we’ll take it to the forest.’
    ‘I’m not getting into the same car as a dead cat,’ Elizbieta snapped.
    ‘We can’t leave the poor thing lying here,’ Magdalena insisted.
    ‘My mother says I’m too easy-going for my own good.’ Folding the blanket around the pathetic remains, Adam lifted it from the floor. ‘Open the door.’
    ‘I’ll come with you,’ Magdalena offered.
    ‘There are some things a man should do alone.’ Negotiating the maze of corridors to the outside he abandoned the blanket on top of a bank of rubbish bins.
    ‘What did you do with it?’ Magdalena demanded when he returned, hands outstretched and made a bee-line for the bathroom.
    ‘What’s the difference?’ Adam had always thought of Magdalena as a hard-headed woman. Hardly the type to turn sentimental over a dead cat.
    ‘I hate to think of a corpse, any