Turned to Stone (8 page)

“You’d better.”

Amanda winked—at whom, it wasn’t very clear—and left, swinging her hips. Without warning, Jaime let go of Paloma, scooted back across from her, and got straight to his original point. “I have to talk to you about our second-year piece on baroque sculpture.”

Paloma’s face went through a series of expressions: alarm, then panic, then momentary composure, followed by anxiety. As her hands clutched the edge of the table, they turned ivory, and her cheeks went a shade of pomegranate. “The . . . essay?” She tried unsuccessfully to sound calm.

“Gods and Monsters in Italian Baroque Sculpture.”

“So that’s why you’ve come: to thank me for letting you take credit for a piece I wrote almost entirely by myself?”

“I thanked you at the time.”

“How considerate. By the way, I read that trash you wrote in
Arcadia
. ‘The Curse of Medusa.’ You could have consulted me before quoting
my
study as a bibliographical source for that drivel.”

“It must have slipped my mind. But right now I need you to listen. Someone tried to kill me because they linked me to that study and to the bust of Medusa. I don’t know why, exactly, but I think you could be in danger, too.”

Paloma’s eyes grew bright and her grip tightened on the table until the ivory color almost reached her wrists. This lasted only a few seconds before she restored her state of feigned calm. “The statue was stolen from the museum in Verona last month.”

“Exactly.” Jaime raised an eyebrow. “Do you know something I don’t?”

Paloma turned her gaze away. “Only what the newspapers said. But what’s this business about someone trying to kill you? Is that true or just more of the same old bullshit?”

Jaime pointed at his swollen lips and the bruise on his forehead. “Do you really think this is about some old bullshit?”

“I wouldn’t put it past you.”

“What do you know about the Medusa, Paloma?”

“No more than you. Andrea Bolgi was a minor sculptor, virtually unknown. It makes no sense that someone murdered a security guard to get it.”

“The sculpture’s good. It looks ancient.”

“That’s not reason enough for someone to kill for it.”

The waiter appeared to take their order, but Jaime asked him to come back later. Next he rummaged in his leather bag and took out a dirty, crumpled issue of an academic journal that he placed on the table. “Ring any bells?”

“Where did you get that?”

“It was in my kidnappers’ van. All the pages of our essay have been marked with a cross.”

Suddenly, Paloma looked a little sick. She lowered her head into her hands and started to massage her temples. After a minute she glanced back at the copy of the
Revista Complutense
but she seemed unable to focus on it. “I’m sorry.” Her eyes looked glassy and tense. “I’m not well. I want to go home.”

“I’ll take you,” said Jaime, rising to his feet.

9

Glancing over at Paloma on the bus that was taking them down Calle Atocha, Jaime felt the pangs of conscience that visited him from time to time and then disappeared again, as if they’d found no place to take root. All these years later he still didn’t know whether leaving Paloma before graduation had been the right thing to do.

At first he’d justified his behavior with the idea that he and Paloma simply had different views of what it meant to be in a relationship. Jaime believed himself to be—or
wanted
to be—a free spirit, and he rebelled against the idea of someone being able to control him. He still agreed with this assessment, but how could it have been the right thing to leave without saying anything, throwing away a four-year relationship that he knew had not been a bad one? Despite Paloma’s earlier characterization of their relationship, the truth was he and Paloma had travelled, laughed, cried, and made love together countless times, often in charming places like country hotels, forest cabins, gorgeous ravines, old ruins, or at lakes. Back then they’d been drawn together, pushed apart, and reunited. Just as they were now, so many years later.

They made the journey in silence. When the bus arrived at her stop, Paloma jumped off and Jaime followed, trying not to get left behind. Her apartment was on Calle de la Cabeza, quite near the museum, though that was its only advantage. The building’s entrance was dirty and covered in graffiti. Jaime contemplated its regrettable state while Paloma tried to get the key in the lock. “So you finally managed to get your own place.”

“I lived with Amanda for a while, but then she got married, and . . .”

Jaime realized she was trembling. He took the keys from her and opened the door. A nauseating smell immediately invaded his nostrils. “It’s the drains,” Paloma explained as the elevator door opened for them. “They’ve been promising for months to get them fixed.”

The climb to the fourth floor seemed endless. Over the hum of the old elevator, Jaime could clearly hear Paloma’s agitated breathing. He imagined he could even hear her heart beating. Looking at their reflection in the mirror he noted that he still towered above her. How many elevator mirrors had witnessed their many expressions of affection during those years? But this wasn’t the best time to revisit old memories. The sliding doors had opened.

Paloma began to unlock the door to her apartment, but then she hesitated. That one moment of doubt told Jaime that something was not right. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She wiggled her key too easily in the dead bolt.

“Come on, Paloma. Since when have you not locked your door when you left?”

“I must’ve forgotten. My mind’s been all over the place lately. Thanks for taking me home, but I’d like to be alone now.”

She pushed the door open and was about to go in, but Jaime stopped her. “Are you crazy?” he whispered. “They could still be in there.”

“Don’t be silly. There’s no one there.”

“They’re going after you, Paloma.”

“Leave, or I’ll scream.”

“Very well, we’ll both go. But first we’ll call the police.”

“Since when do you call the police?”

“Good point.” Jaime reached into his bag and took out the shiny object he’d kept as a souvenir from his adventure in El Burgo de Osma.

Paloma gave a start when she saw it. “Where did you get that?”

“From the Italian mafia. Now let me go first, and stick close.”

“Sorry, but no. You’re not going into my home with a weapon.”

“Wanna bet?” Jaime pushed the door open with his foot. Together they stood at the threshold, listening.

The only sound was the noise from the street, four floors down.

And then, suddenly, a sneeze.

“Excuse me,” Jaime said, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

“I hope there really isn’t anyone in there,” Paloma whispered, sounding irritated. “Because if there is, they sure as hell know we’re here now.”

“I’d like to see
you
not sneeze after spending three hours in a freezer.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

Jaime advanced, holding the pistol in both hands like he’d seen people do in the movies, and stretching out his arms every time he walked through a door or turned a corner in the hallway. Followed closely by Paloma, he checked the kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom, then returned to the entrance hall. “There’s nobody here.”

“What did I tell you?” Paloma said. “Now can you leave me in peace?”

“Why the hurry?”

“You’ve seen there’s no one here. You’re as paranoid as ever. I’m grateful for your concern, but I’m not in any danger. So do me a favor and get that gun out of my house.”

“You always bolt your door, Paloma.”

“I told you, I must have forgotten.”

“Forgotten? Remember that time I picked you up at your parents’ and we went to see
Gladiator
? You made me go back and make sure you’d locked the door, even though the movie was about to start. I missed the entire opening battle.”

“Look, Jaime, I’ll ask you one last time: go. I’m not in a good place at the moment. I’m barely holding it together. This isn’t a good time for you to show up and try to drag me into some James Bond adventure.”

“Why don’t we sit down and you can tell me all about it?”

“I don’t have anything to tell you!”

Jaime noticed that his vision was starting to blur. He hadn’t had a great day, either, and he needed to get some sleep before he did irreparable damage to himself.

“Suit yourself. But if you want to talk, call me.”

As the door closed behind Jaime, Paloma ran to her bedroom and opened her desk drawer. Her data CDs were gone.

Preston. That son of a bitch Preston.

Her heart accelerating, she ran to the shelves where she kept her music CDs and took down Handel’s
Water Music
. Back at her desk she pressed a button on the old computer that had belonged to her father and still worked as if it were brand-new.

It didn’t turn on.

The apprehension Paloma had been feeling since she got home multiplied a hundredfold. She pressed the button several times, but the damn computer didn’t respond. Crouching down, she realized that the cable was unplugged. With a trembling hand, she reconnected it, and the speaker beeped. Feeling calmer, she sat down and fiddled with the keyboard and mouse as a succession of messages informed her that the system was cranking up. When the computer was ready, Paloma inserted the Handel CD and clicked on the icon for drive D. Within a few seconds another menu appeared. Paloma clicked on an unnamed document and opened it.

She was relieved to find everything in its place, and at last breathed more freely. But this lasted only for a moment, and then she burst into tears, overwhelmed with anxiety.

A young brunette holding a bag and a man with his nose in a plaster cast watched from farther down the street as Jaime Azcárate exited the building. “That was a close call,” she said.

“This guy is everywhere,” the man grumbled. “We should’ve waited for him in the apartment and cut his balls off.”

His companion gave him a look of disgust. “You’ll get your revenge, Clark.”

“What’s the problem, cousin? You hot for this guy?”

“Don’t talk crap. You’re on your own for now. Leonardo wants me to get the disks back to the
Phoenix
. You stay here and wait for instructions.”

The man was about to complain, but the woman silenced him with a wad of hundred-euro notes.

“For the inconvenience. I don’t want to know what you do with it.”

And then she disappeared into the crowds walking toward Calle Atocha, while her cousin stared shamelessly at her backside.

10

After sleeping through the remainder of Saturday and much of Sunday, Jaime left his attic apartment on Calle Jesús del Valle, deep in the Malasaña neighborhood. After taking the metro to the CHR building, in the heart of Madrid’s university district, he took the elevator up to see Laura. Based on what Roberto had told him, he guessed that his imminent meeting was meant to serve some convoluted purpose—a feeling that was confirmed when he looked into the great lagoons of concern that were Laura’s green eyes. “Good God, Jaime. You look like you’ve been dragged backward through a bush.”

“Yeah, and a particularly thorny one.”

Laura didn’t smile. For as long as Jaime had known her, she’d possessed a restless, productive personality, one that had fueled her promotion from president of the society to editor of its magazine. Many of her contributors had known her since her previous job, so her old job title had stuck as a nickname; it wasn’t unusual for her close friends, including Jaime Azcárate, to address her as “La Presidenta.”

“Are you going to tell me what all this is about or do I have to guess?” Jaime asked.

“Let’s head to the lecture hall. Isidro Requena’s waiting for us.”

Jaime looked at Laura in surprise. Although
Arcadia
operated under the auspices of the Center for Historical Research, CHR director Requena rarely meddled in the magazine’s affairs. “This sounds important.”

“It is. Jaime, you should know before we go in there that they’re going to propose something unusual, and of course you’re well within your rights to refuse.”

“Can I refuse to go to the lecture hall? I need a coffee more than I need air.”

“There’ll be time for that later.”

“There won’t be a ‘later’ for me if I don’t get some coffee.”

Ignoring his complaints, Laura led the way to the elevator, and they descended to the second floor. The lecture hall was an elongated room filled with blue armchairs and a dais where talks were delivered and the CHR’s projects were discussed. The walls were wood paneled, and portable partitions kept too much light from coming in through the windows.

As Jaime was walking into the room, a blonde woman with fair skin and blue eyes was just coming out. She looked to Jaime to be just shy of forty, and she gave him a polite smile before disappearing down the hallway.

Laura figured that if Jaime kept devouring the woman with his eyes, pretty soon there’d be nothing left of her, so she took him by the arm and led him into the hall. “Who was that angel?” he asked, continuing to follow her with his eyes until Laura shut the door behind them.

“That’s Sonia Durán,” replied Isidro Requena in his booming voice. The director of the CHR stood in the center of the room, dressed as always in a gray suit that matched his hair, mustache, and character. “The Center’s new hire. She’s an expert in heritage management, and I don’t want to see you or that fat security guard you hang out with anywhere near her.”

Jaime shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll do my best. I can’t speak for Roberto.”

Laura gestured toward a second man in the room, whom Jaime had not yet noticed. The man standing beside Requena was tall and blond. He was neatly dressed in a dark suit and tie and his scarred faced smiled at Jaime with perfect white teeth. Jaime almost retched at the sight of him. “Jaime. I think you already know Señor Vicente Amatriaín, from Europol’s Heritage Unit.”

Amatriaín shook Jaime’s hand. He was wearing leather gloves, just as he had been in El Burgo de Osma. “How are you, Jaime?” Unlike at their first meeting, this time he spoke informally. “I’ve heard you had a terrible experience. I’m very sorry to hear it.”

“It was your fault,” Jaime replied.

“How do you mean?”

“The people who grabbed me were after you. I hope you feel terrible about it. And that you’ve taken precautions.”

“Someone in my position can never be too careful. I’m truly sorry for the incident, and I can assure you we’re doing everything possible to establish the facts and catch the perpetrators. That’s part of the reason I asked your boss to arrange this meeting.”

“If Laura sends for me, I drop everything.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Requena said in his gruff voice. “There’s a lot at stake for all of us in this operation. I personally don’t think
Arcadia
’s involvement is necessary, but Señor Amatriaín considers it essential.”

“If not exactly essential,” the Europol officer replied, “it is at least convenient, and an interesting offer for all parties involved. Anyway, the idea wasn’t mine; it came from my superiors.”

Laura suggested they sit. She and Jaime lowered themselves into armchairs in the front row of the hall, while Amatriaín and Dr. Requena stepped onto the dais and took office chairs. Jaime found it ridiculous that four people were meeting in a lecture hall when they could’ve met in a café surrounded by coffee and buns, but he said nothing.

Dr. Requena’s deep voice filled the room, creating a menacing effect. “You may not be aware of this, but a few days ago a meeting was held in this very room to prepare an action plan—one that will help us combat the plundering of heritage. The EHU is a recently formed unit, and it has many excellent investigators, but very few art experts. That’s why they’ve turned to us and to other centers and universities around Europe. Mr. Amatriaín will now explain about an initiative to recover stolen artwork, approved by the European Commission just last Thursday, for which they’ve asked our help.”

Amatriaín cleared his throat. He stood stiffly and his eyes darted from Jaime to Laura, as if quickly trying to gauge their reactions. His gaze came to rest on Jaime, whose attention was noticeably elsewhere.

Jaime was aware of his distracted state, but did nothing to hide it. In his condition he had no desire to listen to this man ramble on about an operation that they clearly wanted to involve him in. They probably needed him to write a report on the methods the European police used to track down stolen art, something he had no wish to do. He still had a cold and was exhausted, even after spending a weekend recovering, and his attention span was short. His thoughts were still drifting between Sandra and Paloma. He’d have liked nothing more than to go home and sleep for ten hours straight, but eventually curiosity got the better of him. He rubbed his tired eyes and tried to focus on Amatriaín, who was arranging some documents on the table.

“Right, well, I won’t waste time explaining who we are or what we do—I did that at our first meeting and there’s plenty more information on the Internet. Europol is the organization that coordinates the fight against crime within the European Union, its headquarters are located in The Hague. It was first formed to fight drug crimes, but since then its operations have expanded. One of its most successful missions was the dismantling of a child pornography network, but there have also been several antiterrorism operations and even an investigation into the trafficking of stolen cars in Spain. You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with art. The answer is in the unit I represent, which was created a year ago.”

Jaime nodded. Amatriaín’s words had rekindled a memory. He had seen something in the news. It happened in Amsterdam. A guy stole a painting from the Van Gogh Museum and then destroyed it when he found himself cornered by the police. The media had laid into those responsible for the operation. Jaime had no doubt that one of those men sat in front of him right now.

“We’ve conducted a couple of minor missions to date,” said Amatriaín, “but we plan to expand our area of operations. We’ve secured the cooperation of all the security forces of the member states of the European Union, with whom we constantly share information. At this very moment we are launching an operation whose main objective is to recover works of art stolen on European soil in recent months. Here’s the situation.”

Jaime made an effort to listen more carefully, presuming the important bit was about to come.

“You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with you. As Dr. Requena said, we met a few days ago with some colleagues in the CHR, and that was when it was decided that the magazine you work for should play a central role.”

Amatriaín gestured to Requena, who pressed a button set into the table. The overhead lights went out and the screen behind the dais came on, showing a photograph of a man with shaggy white hair and a wrinkled face.

“This is Nelson Krupa, known as Nelson the Pole, initiator and boss of one of the largest organizations in art contraband. In April 2012, two seventeenth-century oil-on-board paintings fortuitously appeared at El Rastro flea market. The Civil Guard’s Heritage Squad opened an investigation and found that the two paintings had been taken from a church in Terrazos de Bureba, in the Burgos province. Eventually two men were detained, and they helped facilitate the arrest of the Pole and his associates. They’re now serving prison sentences.” Amatriaín paused for effect. “Since then the number of art thefts has fallen dramatically, until a month ago.”

The photograph of the Pole disappeared and was replaced on the screen by an image of Bolgi’s Medusa. Jaime shivered.

“On September 14 of this year, this sculpture disappeared from the Pontecorvo House Museum in Verona. Our experts suspect the robbery could be the work of a member of the Pole’s group who is still at large. Our intention is to follow the trail of the statue to the thief and dismantle this criminal organization once and for all.”

By now, Jaime was awake enough to ponder what he’d just heard and formulate one or two questions. Five across, six letters, a thief of baroque sculptures and member of the Pole’s missing gang? Only one answer fit the puzzle: S-A-N-D-R-A.

“Something doesn’t add up. The group’s thefts were big news for a long time, but as you said yourself, all of those pieces were taken from churches or private collections. This sculpture was taken from a museum in the middle of the night, and a security guard was murdered. There are other, more valuable and more portable works of art in that museum, and yet the thieves broke in, poisoned the poor guard, and snatched the Medusa without touching anything else. It’s not the Pole’s modus operandi—his group would be more likely to grab the first thing they thought would find a buyer on the black market. What’s so special about this statue?”

A hyena-like smile formed on Amatriaín’s lips. “That’s what I wanted to know in El Burgo de Osma and, in fact, what I still want to know.”

Jaime rolled his eyes as he realized why Amatriaín had thought specifically of him for this mission. An image of Paloma Blasco popped into his head, spat in his face, and faded away again.

“Oh, no. You’re not going to start going on about that blasted essay in the
Revista Complutense
again, are you?”

“It included a chapter about the sculpture,” Requena pointed out.

“One page,” Jaime corrected him. He made eye contact with Laura, hoping for some assistance. “We mentioned it in the section on Bolgi simply because the rest of his works, other than the Saint Helena at the Vatican, are barely of interest. That doesn’t make me the ultimate expert on baroque sculpture.”

“
You
might not be. But your coauthor, Paloma Blasco—”

“Leave Paloma out of this. She just put her name to it. I was the one who did all the work.” This was a massive lie, but his intention was to protect Paloma. Although she could undoubtedly be a big help to Amatriaín, Jaime wanted her kept out of it. She seemed to have enough problems already, whatever they were.

“Which is why I must insist on your help,” said Amatriaín. “Don’t forget the article you wrote years later about the supposed curse of Medusa. For better or for worse, that damn statue seems to follow you everywhere. We’re certain that the solution to the mystery is in your research.”

“Well, there you have it. Both the essay and the article are in the public domain. Study them and draw your own conclusions, but leave me in peace. And please, someone bring me a coffee.”

Ten minutes later, Jaime Azcárate emerged from the room in a foul mood, feeling more tired than ever, and sworn to silence about everything that had just been said.