The Lost Army of Cambyses (8 page)

It was a frugal existence, monastic almost – just

himself, a cook and a small group of volunteers –

but it was the one place in the world, Tara

believed, where he was truly happy. His infrequent

letters revealed, in their minute descriptions of the

progress of his work, a sense of contentment that

seemed wholly absent from the other areas of his

life. That's why she had been so surprised when he

had asked her out to stay with him – this was his

world, his special place, and it must have taken a

leap of faith on his part to invite her into it.

The journey from the airport wasn't a comfort-

able one. Her driver seemed to have no concept of

road safety, thinking nothing of overtaking on

tight corners and in the face of heavy oncoming

traffic. On one stretch of road, alongside a foetid

green canal, he pulled out to go past a small truck

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only to see a lorry approaching from the opposite

direction. Tara assumed he would pull in again.

Far from it. He hammered his palm on the horn

and pressed his foot to the floor, moving slowly

past the truck which, in response, started to go

faster, as though racing. The oncoming lorry grew

larger by the second and Tara felt her stomach

knot, convinced they were going to crash. Only at

the last minute, when it looked as if a head-on

collision was inevitable, did the driver yank his

wheel to the right, swerving in front of the truck

and missing the front of the lorry by what looked

like a matter of centimetres.

'You frightened?' he laughed as they sped on.

'Yes,' Tara replied curtly. 'I am.'

Eventually, and much to her relief, they turned

right off the main road and, after following a

smaller, tree-lined road for a few kilometres, came

to a halt at the foot of a steep sandy escarpment,

above which peeped the upper courses of a step-

shaped pyramid.

'You get ticket here,' said the driver, pointing to

a ticket window in a building to the right.

'Do I need one?' she asked. 'My father works

here. I've come to visit him.'

The driver leaned out and shouted something at

the man sitting in the window. They held a brief

conversation, in Arabic, and then another man,

young, came out of the building and bent down to

the taxi, looking at Tara.

'Your father work here?' His English was

heavily accented.

'Yes,' she said. 'Professor Michael Mullray.'

'Excellent!' The man smiled broadly. 'Everybody

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know the Doktora. He most famous Egyptologist

in world. He my good friend. He teach me

English. I take you dig house myself.'

He came round to the other side of the taxi and

slipped into the passenger seat, giving instructions

to the driver.

'My name Hassan,' he said as they moved off. 'I

work here at main
teftish.
You very welcome.' He

extended a hand, which Tara shook.

'I was supposed to meet my father at the air-

port,' she said. 'I think we must have missed each

other. Is he here, do you know?'

'I sorry, I only just come. He probably in dig

house. You look like to him, you know.'

'Like him,' smiled Tara. 'I look like him. You

don't need the "to".'

The man laughed. 'You look like him,' he said

carefully. 'And you are good teacher like to him

too.'

They followed the road up to the top of the

scarp and then turned right onto a bumpy track

that ran along the edge of the desert plateau. The

step pyramid was behind them now, with two

other smaller pyramids nearby, both ruined and

slumped, so that Tara had the impression they

were all images of the same pyramid in different

stages of collapse. To the right the patchwork

fields of the Nile plain shimmered in the morning

heat; to the left the desert rolled and bumped off

towards the horizon, barren and empty and

desolate.

A hundred metres along the track they passed

through the middle of a small settlement and

Hassan signalled the driver to stop.

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'This
teftish,'
he said, indicating a large yellow

building to the right. 'Saqqara main office. I stop

here.
Beit Mullray,
your father dig house, more

further. I tell driver how go there. If you have

problem you come back here.'

He climbed out, said something to the driver

and they moved off again, continuing for another

two kilometres before pulling over beside a low,

one-storey house standing on the very edge of the

escarpment.

'Beit Mullray,'
said the driver.

It was a long, ramshackle building, painted a

dusty pink and arranged around three sides of

a sandy courtyard, in the centre of which stood a

huge wood and wire excavator's sieve. A rickety

wooden tower with a water tank on top stood at

one end of the building, a pile of wooden crates at

the other, with a mangy dog dozing in the shade

beside them. The windows were all closed and

shuttered. There seemed to be no-one around.

The driver said he'd wait, arguing that if her

father wasn't there he could take her back to

Cairo, where he knew lots of good hotels. She

declined the offer and, removing her bag from the

boot, paid the fare and set off towards the house,

the taxi reversing behind her and driving off in a

cloud of dust.

She crossed the courtyard, noticing what looked

like a row of painted stone blocks beneath a

tarpaulin in the corner, and hammered on the

front door. No response. She tried the handle.

The door was locked.

'Dad!' she called. 'It's Tara!'

Nothing.

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She walked around to the rear of the house. A

long shady terrace ran its full length, with pots of

dusty geraniums and cacti, some gnarled lemon

trees and a couple of stone benches. There were

fabulous views eastwards across the green Nile

plain, but she was oblivious to them. Removing

her sunglasses, she went up to one of the shuttered

windows and peered through the peeling slats. It

was dark inside and apart from the edge of a table

with a book on it she could see nothing. She

looked through another shutter further along,

making out a bed with a pair of battered desert

boots tucked beneath it, and then walked round to

the front of the house and hammered on the door

again. Still nothing. She walked back out onto the

track, stood looking to left and right for a few

moments, then returned to the terrace and sat

down on one of the concrete benches.

She was worried now. Her father had let her

down on numerous occasions – too many to

remember – but she sensed that this time it was

different. Perhaps he had been taken ill or had had

some sort of accident? Scenarios flicked through

her head, each more upsetting than the one before.

She stood up and banged on the shutters again,

more out of frustration than hope.

'Where are you, Dad?' she muttered to herself.

'Where the fuck are you?'

She waited at the house for almost two hours,

wandering around, peering through the shutters,

occasionally hammering on the door, beads of

sweat bubbling across her forehead, eyes heavy

with exhaustion. A group of children playing in

the village beneath spotted her and came

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scrabbling up the dusty slope at the back of the

building, shouting, 'School pen! School pen!' She

took some pens out of her bag and handed them

round, asking if any of them had seen a tall man

with white hair. They didn't seem to understand

and once they had their pens they disappeared

down the escarpment again, leaving her alone

with the flies and the heat and the silent, shuttered

house.

Eventually, when the sun was at its zenith and

she was so tired she could barely keep awake, she

decided to go and look for Hassan, the man she'd

met earlier. She knew if her father had just been

delayed somewhere he would be angry at her for

making a fuss, but by now she was too concerned

to care. With her one remaining pen she scribbled

a note explaining what she was doing and wedged

it in the front door. She then set out back along the

dusty track towards the distant serrated bulk of

the step pyramid, the sun burning down on her,

the world silent apart from the crunch of her foot-

fall and the occasional whirr of a passing fly.

She had been walking for about five minutes,

head bowed, when something caught her eye away

to the right, a momentary glint. She stopped and

looked in that direction, shielding her eyes. There

was someone standing over there, about two

hundred metres out into the desert, on top of a

sandy hillock. They were too far away, and the

sun too bright, to make out much about them,

except that they seemed to be extremely tall and

dressed in white. There was another brief glint

and she realized they must be looking through

binoculars, the sun reflecting off the lenses.

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She turned away, assuming it was just a tourist

exploring the ruins. Then the thought struck her

that perhaps it was an archaeologist who might

know her father. She swung back again, intending

to call out, but whoever it was had disappeared.

She scanned the undulating mounds of sand and

rubble but there was no-one there and, after a

moment, she continued on her way, uncertain

whether it wasn't just something she had

hallucinated in her exhaustion and worry. Her

head had started to swim and her temples were

throbbing. She wished she had some water with

her.

It took her another twenty minutes to reach the

teftish,
by which point her shirt was damp with

sweat and her limbs ached. She found Hassan and

explained what was going on.

'I sure everything OK,' he said, ushering her to

a chair in his office. 'Perhaps your father go out

walking. Or to excavation.'

'Without leaving a note?'

'Perhaps waiting in Cairo?'

'I've called his flat and there's no reply.'

'He knew you come today?'

'Of course he knew I was coming today,' she

snapped. There was a moment's silence. 'I'm

sorry,' she said. 'I'm tired and worried.'

'I am understanding, Miss Mullray. Please, be

very calm. We find him.'

He picked up the walkie-talkie lying on his

desk, pressed a button on the side and spoke into

it, carefully enunciating the words 'Doktora

Mullray'. There was a crackle of static and then

several other voices, one after another, responded.

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The official listened, spoke again and then laid the

walkie-talkie down.

'He not at excavation and no-one see him. Wait

here please.'

He went into another room across the hall.

There was a low murmur of voices. He was back

within a minute.

'He go Cairo yesterday morning, then come

back Saqqara in afternoon. No-one see him since

then.'

He picked up the phone. Again he held a brief

conversation, emphasizing the words 'Doktora

Mullray'. He was frowning when he replaced the

receiver.

'That Ahmed. He driving taxi for your father.

He say your father tell him come
Beit Mullray
last

night, take him to airport, but when Ahmed come

your father not there. Now I worried too. This not

like the Doktora.'

He was silent for a moment, tapping his fingers

on the desk, and then, opening a drawer, he pulled

out a set of keys. 'This spare keys to dig house,' he

explained. 'We go see.'

They left the office and he pointed towards a

battered white Fiat parked outside. 'We take car.

Quicker.'

He drove fast, the car bumping and jolting

along the uneven track, skidding to a halt in front

of the house. They walked down to the front door,

where Tara immediately noticed that the note she

had left was gone. Her heart surged and, rushing

forward, she tried the door handle. It was still

locked and there was no reply to her frantic

knocking. Hassan selected a key from the ring,

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slipped it into the lock and turned it twice, throw-

ing the door open and walking in. Tara followed.

They were in a long whitewashed room, with a

rectangular dining table at the end nearest them

and at the other a couple of moth-eaten sofas and

a fireplace. Other rooms opened off to left and

right, in one of which Tara could make out the

edge of a wooden bedframe. It was dark and cool,

with a faintly sweet aroma in the air, which she

realized after a moment was the smell of cigar

smoke.

Hassan walked across and threw open a

window. Sunlight spilled across the floor. She saw

the body immediately, slumped against the far