The Lost Army of Cambyses (7 page)

his nostrils.

'When was it found?'

'Just before dawn,' replied his deputy. 'Probably

floated down from upriver and got caught in a

boat propeller, which is why the arms are all cut

up.'

'It was like this when you got here? You haven't

touched anything?'

Sariya shook his head.

Khalifa squatted beside the body, examining the

ground around it. He lifted the wrist, noting a

tattoo on the middle of the forearm.

'A scarab,' he said, smiling faintly. 'How

inappropriate.'

'Why inappropriate?'

'To the ancient Egyptians the scarab was a

symbol of rebirth and renewal. Not something

that's going to happen to our friend here by the

looks of things.' He laid the wrist down again.

'You've no idea who reported it?'

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Sariya shook his head. 'Wouldn't give his name.

Called the station from a payphone and said he'd

found it when he came down here to fish.'

'You're sure it was a payphone?'

'Pretty much. He cut off mid-sentence, like he'd

run out of money.'

Khalifa was silent for a moment, thinking, and

then, lifting his head, nodded towards a clump of

trees fifty metres away, beyond which could be

seen the roof of a house. The thin black line of a

telephone cable was clearly visible beneath its

eaves. Sariya raised his eyebrows.

'So?'

'The nearest payphone's two kilometres away,

back in town. Why didn't he just call from there?'

'I guess he was in shock. It's not every day

corpses wash up along these shores.'

'Precisely. You'd have thought he'd want to report

it as quickly as possible. And why wouldn't he leave

his name? You know what people around here are

like. Never miss a chance to get in the news.'

'You think he knew something?'

Khalifa shrugged. 'It's just strange. Like he

didn't want anyone to know it was him who'd

found the body. Like he was scared.'

There was a loud splash as a heron took off

from among the reeds, rising clumsily into the air

and arcing off downstream. Khalifa watched it for

a moment, then, with a shake of his head, turned

his attention back to the corpse. He worked his

hands into the trouser pockets and removed a

penknife, a cheap lighter and a slip of soggy paper,

folded. He laid the last on, the corpse's back and

carefully opened it out.

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'Train ticket,' he said, leaning close to examine

the faded writing. 'Return to Cairo. Dated four

days ago.'

Sariya handed him a plastic bag and he dropped

the objects into it.

'Come on, give me a hand here.'

Together they squatted beside the body and, get-

ting their hands beneath it, rolled it over onto its

back, the mud squelching beneath their feet. As

soon as he saw the face Sariya staggered away,

retching violently.

'Allah u akbar,'
he choked. 'God almighty!'

Khalifa bit his lip, forcing himself to look. He

had seen bodies before, of course, but never one as

badly mutilated as this. Even beneath its mask of

mud it was clear there wasn't much of the face left.

The left eye-socket was empty, the nose a mass of

ribboned flesh and cartilage. He stared at it for a

while, struggling to connect it with something that

might once have been alive. Then, coming to his

feet, he went over to Sariya and laid his hand on

his shoulder.

'Are you all right?'

Sariya nodded, putting a finger against one of

his nostrils and blowing hard so that a glob

of mucus flew out onto the sand. 'What happened

to him?'

'I don't know. Maybe a propeller, like you said,

although I don't see how a propeller could have

taken the eye out, or caused those sorts of wound.'

'You're saying someone did this deliberately?'

'I'm not saying anything. Just that a propeller

would churn the flesh up, not slice it like that.

Look how the skin has . . .' He could see his

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deputy was about to retch again and stopped mid-

sentence, not wishing to upset him more. 'We'll

wait for the autopsy,' he said after a pause.

He lit a couple of cigarettes and handed one to

Sariya, who took a deep drag before throwing it

aside and scrambling up the bank to be sick again.

Khalifa turned away and wandered back to the

river's edge, gazing over to the far shore. A pro-

cession of Nile cruisers was lined up along the

bank, with beyond them, just visible, the first

pylon of Karnak Temple. A felucca crossed his line

of sight, its giant triangular sail cutting across

the sky like a blade. He flicked his cigarette

into the water and sighed. It was, he suspected,

going to be a while before he got a chance to work

on his fountain again.

As Inspector Khalifa stood beside the river, a

group of tourists on donkeys were winding their

way up into the hills behind him. There were

twenty of them, Americans mostly, moving in

single file, with an Egyptian boy at their head to

guide them and another at the rear to make sure

no-one got left behind. Some clung nervously to

their saddles, uncomfortable on the precipitous

path, grimacing at every bump and jolt. One

in particular, a large woman with sunburnt

shoulders, was not enjoying the experience.

'They never said it would be this steep,' she

kept shouting. 'They said it would be easy. Oh

Christ!'

Others, however, seemed more relaxed, turning

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from side to side in their saddles to take in the

spectacular views. The sun was up now and the

plain beneath them throbbed and shimmered in

the heat. Far off could be seen the winding silver

ribbon of the Nile, with beyond it the jumbled

mass of eastern Luxor and beyond that a blur of

desert and mountains, no more than a rumour

against the white-blue sky. Their guide stopped

every now and then to point out some of the sights

below: the Colossi of Memnon, small as toys from

that distance; the broken ruins of the Ramesseum;

the vast compound of Ramesses III's mortuary

temple at Medinet Habu. Those who were not too

nervous lifted their cameras and snapped a photo.

Apart from the crunch and clatter of donkeys'

hooves and the voice of the woman with sunburnt

shoulders, they climbed in virtual silence, awed by

the scenery.

'Beats the shit out of Minnesota,' muttered one

man to his wife.

Eventually they came up onto the summit of the

hills and the path widened and flattened out, run-

ning evenly for a while before dipping away again

into a broad rocky valley.

'That is Valley of Kings in front,' shouted their

guide. 'Hold tight. Path down is very steep.'

'Christ!' came a shrill voice from behind him.

They had just started across the ridge, the

donkeys zigzagging their way between scattered

rocks, when a man suddenly leaped up from the

shadow of a boulder where he had been lying. His

djellaba was filthy and ragged, and his matted hair

came down well below the level of his shoulders,

giving him a wild, unkempt look. In his hand he

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carried something wrapped in brown paper. He

hurried over to them.

'Hello hello good morning good night,' he

jabbered, his words all running together. 'Look

here please friends. I have something good I know

you like.'

The donkey guide shouted at him in Arabic, but

the man ignored him and went up to one of the

tourists, a young woman in a large straw sunhat.

Lifting the object in his hand he pulled back the

brown paper to reveal a cat carved out of dark

stone.

'You see lady very very lovely carving. You buy

you buy. I very poor need eat. You beautiful

lady you buy!'

He thrust the carving towards her with one

hand, while lifting the other to his mouth in an

eating motion.

'You buy you buy. I no eat for three days. Please

you buy. Hungry. Hungry.'

The woman stared fixedly ahead, taking no

notice of him, and after stumbling beside her for a

few metres the man gave up and turned his

attention to the rider behind.

'Look look mister lovely carving. Very good

quality. How much you pay give me price give me

price.'

'Ignore him,' called the guide over his shoulder.

'He's mad.'

'Yes yes mad,' laughed the ragged man, twirling

round a couple of times and slamming his foot on

the ground in a sort of dance. 'Mad mad. Please

you buy no food I hungry. Best quality give me

price mister.'

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The man too ignored him and the ragged figure

began to scuttle up and down the line, his cries

becoming increasingly hoarse and desperate.

'You no like cat I have other carvings. Many

many carvings. Please please you buy. Antiquities?

I have antiquities. Three thousand per cent gen-

uine. You need guide I very good guide I know all

these hills every little bit. I show you kings valley

and queens valley very cheap. I show you tomb

very beautiful. New tomb no-one else know. I

need eat. No eat for three days.'

By now he was at the back of the line and,

urging his donkey forward, the boy at the rear

barged him out of the way, kicking him in the ribs

as he passed. The ragged man fell to the ground in

a swirl of dust and the tourists moved on.

'Thank you thank you thank you!' he cried,

rolling around like a wounded animal, his hair fly-

ing from side to side. 'So kind lovely tourist to

help me. No want cat no want see tomb no want

guide. I die! I die!'

He screwed his face into the ground, weeping,

hammering his fists on the sand.

The tourists, however, did not see him, for they

had already passed round an outcrop of rock and

begun their descent into the Valley of the Kings. It

was steep, as the guide had warned them, with a

near-vertical drop away to their right. The woman

with sunburnt shoulders clutched the neck of the

donkey and trembled, too frightened even to

complain. The wails of the madman gradually

grew fainter until they disappeared altogether.

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6

CAIRO

Tara waited at the airport until past ten a.m., by

which point her eyes were red from lack of sleep

and she was dizzy with tiredness. She had called

her father every half-hour, wandered round and

round the arrivals hall, even taken a taxi over to

the domestic terminal in case he'd gone to the

wrong place. All to no avail. He wasn't at the air-

port, he wasn't at his dig house, he wasn't at his

flat in Cairo. Her holiday had gone wrong before

it had even started. She clambered onto her seat

for the umpteenth time and gazed around the con-

course. So many people were now milling to and

fro, however, that even if her father had been

among them she wouldn't have seen him. She

jumped down, went over to the payphone and

called the dig house and flat one last time. Then,

swinging her bag over her shoulder and slipping on

her sunglasses, she went outside and hailed a taxi.

'Cairo?' asked the driver, a burly man with a

thick moustache and nicotine-stained fingers.

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'No,' Tara replied, sinking wearily into the back

seat, 'Saqqara.'

Her father had been excavating at Saqqara, the

necropolis of the ancient Egyptian capital

Memphis, for the best part of fifty years.

He had dug at other sites around Egypt, from

Tanis and Sais in the north right down to Qustul

and Nauri in upper Sudan, but Saqqara had

always been his first love. Each season he would

take up residence in his dig house and remain

there for three or four months at a stretch,

painstakingly working over a small area of sand-

blown ruins, uncovering a few more metres of

history. Some seasons he wouldn't dig at all, but

would spend his time in restoration work or

recording the previous year's finds.