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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2001
Copyright © Michael Pearce 2001
Michael Pearce asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008259334
Ebook Edition © APRIL 2017 ISBN: 9780007401338
Version: 2017-08-30
Praise for Michael Pearce
Pearce writes with a delicious wit and a firm sense of background
The Times
Pearce takes apart ancient history and reassembles it with beguiling wit and colour
Sunday Times
Irresistible fun
Time Out
The Mamur Zapts sly, irreverent humour continues to refresh the parts others seldom reach
Observer
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Praise
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Keep Reading
About the Author
Also by Michael Pearce
About the Publisher
1
Over towards the Nile the light shimmered and seemed to fall apart, and then it came together again and presented a beautifully clear picture of the river, with palms shifting gently in the river breeze, a pigeon tower, and children playing around a water buffalo in the shallows; so clear that you could make out every detail.
Only it was not a true picture, at least, not of this part of the river. The Nile bent away at this point and where the mirage was, was just scrub and desert.
The desert was playing tricks here, too, inland a quarter of a mile. Heat spirals danced away across the sand and dust devils chased among the graves, where galabeahed men stood silently, watching him.
Youre not a pet man, though, are you? said McPhee.
No.
Im dogs, myself.
Only it was cats here; dozens and dozens, hundreds and hundreds of them. They lay in open circular pits, uncovered by the archaeologists and then abandoned. Each pit was about eight feet in diameter and five or six feet deep. The cats lay on ledges around the sides, except that when space had run out they had been piled carefully on top of each other in the middle. Each cat had been tenderly mummified, the body treated first and then swathed in yards and yards of linen bandages. The pits stretched out towards the horizon.
They werent really pets, though, were they? said Owen.
Someone must have loved them, to lavish such attention on them.
But didnt you say ?
There are lots of inscriptions to the cat goddess round here, it is true, McPhee conceded.
So perhaps they were just running wild in the temples?
I dont know about running wild, said McPhee severely. Fed, and not ill treated, perhaps.
But hardly pets.
Perhaps not.
Objects of devotion?
Sacred, certainly.
But in the grave at Owens feet there was something which was clearly not an object of devotion. It lay across the middle of the pit and cat mummies had been clumsily pulled off the shelves and spread over it in an attempt to hide it. It was rather longer than a cat mummy but bandaged tightly like them.
Except at the head, where the district mamur, alerted by the village omda, had uncovered enough of the modern bandages to reveal that the body was that of a twentieth-century, fair-headed woman.
Identification? said Owen.
They all know her. The omda began the mamur.
Someone closer.
There is a husband, said the mamur, almost unwillingly.
Husband?
Owen looked at his papers. They made no reference to a husband.
Where is he?
Up at the factory.
Has he seen her?
He knows, said the mamur evasively.
Owen bent over the body. Already, in the heat, it was changing.
Youd better get it moved, he said.
The mamur nodded, and beckoned to two of the villagers.
Mustapha! Abu!
They came forward reluctantly.
Wait a minute! said Owen. Arent you going to ?
He stopped.
Yes? said the mamur.
Owen shrugged. It wasnt really any of his concern and out in the provinces things were done differently; when they were done at all.
It doesnt matter, he said.
Is there a hakim? asked McPhee.
In the provinces any autopsy was usually conducted by the local doctor.
He has been sent for, said the mamur.
The two villagers were hesitating on the brink of the pit.
Get on with it! said the mamur. What are you waiting for?
We dont like it, said one of the men.
Its nothing. Havent you seen a body before?
Were not bothered about the body, said the other villager. Its these.
He gestured towards the mummies.
Theyre bodies, too.
The men still hesitated.
Look, theyre only bodies. The bodies of animals, whats more.
We still dont like it.
Theyre not even recent bodies, said the mamur persuasively.
All the same
Are you going to do it or arent you?
The answer, unfortunately, was probably not.
Look, said the mamur, if I move the cats, will you move the woman?
The men looked at each other.
If you move the ones on top
And put them back in their right places
The mamur jumped down into the pit and began putting the mummies aside.
Satisfied?
The two looked at the other villagers.
We call upon the world to witness that it wasnt we who interfered with the grave.
We witness, Mustapha!
Right then.
The two got down into the pit, picked up the body of the woman, tucked it nonchalantly under their right arms and set out across the desert towards the sugar cane.
Are you coming up to the house? asked the mamur.
We ought to check the identification, I suppose, said Owen.
It was probably being over-punctilious. When he had arrived in Minya the day before and presented the mudir, the local governor, with the list of names, the mudir, knowing most of them, had gone through them mechanically, ticking almost every one. It was only at the last one that he had stopped.
Theres been a development, he said.
He had gone to the door of his office and called in the mamur, sitting uneasily outside, and had shown him the list.
That one, he had said, pointing. Wasnt that the one ?
Yes, said the mamur. Shes been found, he said to Owen.
Found?
Found dead. This morning.
Are you sure? asked Owen.
Would you like to see her? You could come with me. Ive got to go back.
Perhaps Id better, decided Owen.
The mudir put a cross against her name.
Is she worth the journey? he said.
The path to the house led up through long plantations of sugar cane. The cane was twelve feet tall and planted so densely that the long ribbon foliage of one plant intertwined with the leaves of the next, making an impenetrable jungle. You could not see as much as a yard from the path; only the sky overhead, and the path itself, winding, not straight, and stubble underfoot.
Yet it was not the sudden loss of light, the hemmed-in feeling, that became troubling after a while, but the heat. The cane caught the sunshine and trapped it, so that, hot though it was outside the plantation, out on the open desert by the graves well over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit it was hotter still inside. In no time at all Owens shirt was sodden with perspiration.
McPhee took off his helmet, mopped his forehead, and swung the hat at the flies.
Of course, he said meditatively, theres the Speos Artemidos at Beni Hasan.
What? said Owen.
Used as he was to the heat of Egypt, this walk through the sugar cane was leaving him quite dazed.
The Cave of Artemis.
Really?
Artemis is the Greek version, of course, said McPhee.
The sweat running down Owens forehead was beginning to sting his eyes. Maybe McPhee was right. He took off his sun helmet too.
Greek version? he said.
Of Pakhet.
Packet? What the hell was McPhee on about?
The cat goddess, explained McPhee. The one those mummies were probably dedicated to.
Oh. And then, after a moment: You think there could be a connection?
Well, Beni Hasans not far from here, is it? There could even have been other temples nearer, of course. The whole area is noted for the special recognition it gives to Pakhet.
It was the kind of curious information in which McPhee excelled.
Fascinating! said Owen heartily.
It is, isnt it? agreed McPhee with enthusiasm.
And totally irrelevant. It had probably been a mistake to bring McPhee. The Deputy Commandants eccentricities were more easily containable in Cairo; but Owen had been desperately short of the right people for this sort of job.
It had probably been a mistake coming out here anyway. Why hadnt he just accepted the mamurs word in Minya and left it at that?
The path began to lead upwards now. The incline was slight but in this heat quite enough to make him break out in another shower of sweat. The mamur, too, stopped to mop his face.
Suddenly, from somewhere ahead of them and to the right, two shots rang out.
Owen looked at the mamur.
Abdul, said the mamur indifferently.
Abdul?
The ghaffir.
What would he be shooting at? said McPhee.
The mamur shrugged.
Brigands.
Brigands!
We have them here. They live in the cane.
Cant you root them out?
The mamur shrugged again.
Its not so easy, he said.
Again, it wasnt Owens concern. Nor McPhees either. The Cairo Police Force was quite separate from that of the rest of the country. He could see that, all the same, McPhee was wondering.
Are there many of them? he asked.
About forty. They come and go. At the moment theyre led by a Sudanese.
What do they do?
Rob. Protection.
The sugar factory?
The factorys got its own ghaffir. That was him shooting just then. No, mostly its the villages. Crops, cattle, that sort of thing. If you want them left alone, you pay the Sudanese.
Dont the villages have ghaffirs too?
The mamur laughed. Owen could guess why. The village watchman, the ghaffir, was normally just an ordinary villager, paid a piastre or two a month for his extra duties and armed, if he was armed at all, with an ancient gun dating back to the wars against the Mahdi. You could hardly expect him to take on forty brigands single-handed.