The Lost Army of Cambyses (6 page)

waved the severed digit around in the air.

On the morning of her fifteenth birthday – and

this was her favourite memory – she had woken to

find an envelope addressed to her sitting on her

44

mantelpiece. Opening it, she had found the first

clue in a treasure trail that had taken her all round

the house and garden before eventually leading

her up into the attic, where she had discovered an

exquisite gold necklace concealed at the bottom of

an old trunk. Each clue had taken the form of a

rhyming verse and been written on parchment,

with drawings and symbols to add to the air of

mystery. Her father must have spent hours arrang-

ing it all. Later he had taken her mother and her

out to dinner, regaling them both with wonderful

tales of excavations and discoveries and eccentric

academics.

'You look beautiful, Tara,' he had told her, lean-

ing forward to adjust the new gold necklace,

which she had worn specially. 'The most beautiful

girl in the world. I am very, very proud of you.'

It was moments like these – few and far between

as they were – that somehow balanced out her

father's coldness and self-absorption, and bound

her to him. It was why she had phoned him two

years after her mother's funeral, asking for a

reconciliation after their long silence. And it was, in

a sense, why she was travelling to Egypt now.

Because she knew that deep down, in his own way

and despite his innumerable faults, he was a good

man and he loved her, and needed her too, just as

she needed him. And of course there was always the

hope – just as there was every time she saw him –

that maybe this time things would be different.

Maybe they wouldn't bicker and shout at each other

and sulk, but would be happy and relaxed in each

other's company, like a normal father and daughter.

Maybe this time they could make things work.

45

Some chance, she had thought to herself as

they'd begun their descent. You'll be pleased to see

him for about five minutes, and then you'll start

arguing again.

'I suppose you know,' said her neighbour

jovially, 'that more planes crash during landing

than at any other time during the flight.'

Tara had ordered more ice cubes from the

stewardess.

She emerged finally into the airport arrivals hall

almost an hour after they'd touched down. There

had been an interminable wait at passport control,

followed by a further delay at the baggage

carousel, where security guards were carrying out

random luggage checks.

'Sayf al-Tha'r,' a fellow passenger had said to

her, shaking his head. 'What problems he causes.

That one man can bring the country to a

standstill!'

Before she could ask what he meant he had

spotted his luggage and, signalling a porter to

collect it for him, marched off into the crowd. Her

own bag had come round a few minutes later and,

everything else for the moment forgotten, she had

hefted it onto her shoulder and set off through

customs, heart thudding with anticipation.

Since her father had first said he'd come out to

meet her she had imagined herself emerging into

the arrivals hall to find him standing there wait-

ing, the two of them yelping with joy and rushing

towards each other, arms open. As it was, the only

person who greeted her was a taxi driver touting

for work. She peered along the row of faces lining

46

the arrivals barrier, but her father's wasn't among

them.

The terminal, even at that hour, was busy.

Families greeted and took leave of each other

noisily, children played among the plastic chairs,

package tourists crowded around harassed-

looking reps. Black-uniformed policemen were

very much in evidence, guns held across their

chests.

She waited at the barrier for a while and then

began wandering around the hall. She went out-

side, where a tour rep mistook her for one of his

party and tried to hustle her onto a coach, then

came back in again, walking around for a while

longer before changing some money, buying a

coffee and sitting down in a seat that afforded a

good view both of the entrance and the barrier.

After an hour she called her father from a pay-

phone, but there was no reply either from his dig

house or the flat he kept in central Cairo. She

wondered if his taxi had been held up in

traffic – she presumed he would have come in a

taxi, he'd never learnt to drive – or if he had fallen

ill or, and with her father it was always a possi-

bility, simply forgotten that he was supposed to be

meeting her.

But no, he wouldn't have forgotten. Not this

time. Not after sounding so pleased that she was

coming. He was late. That was all. Just late. She

got herself another coffee, settled back in the chair

and opened a book.

Damn, she thought. I didn't get his
Times.

47

5

LUXOR, THE NEXT MORNING

Inspector Yusuf Ezz el-Din Khalifa rose before

dawn and, having showered and dressed, went

into the living room to say his morning prayers.

He felt tired and irritable, as he did every morning.

The ritual of worship, the standing and kneeling

and bowing and reciting, cleared his head. By the

time he was finished he felt fresh and calm and

strong. As he did every morning.

'Wa lillah al-shukr','
he said to himself, moving

into the kitchen to make coffee. 'Thanks be to

God. His power is great.'

He put on some water to boil, lit a cigarette and

looked out at a woman hanging washing on the

roof opposite, which was just below the level of

his kitchen window, about three metres away.

He'd often wondered whether it would be possible

to jump from his building to hers, across the

narrow alley that divided them. When he was

48

younger he would probably have tried

it. Ali, his brother, would certainly have been up

for the challenge. Ali, however, was dead and he

himself now had responsibilities. It was a twenty-

metre drop to the ground and with a wife and

three young children he couldn't afford to take

such risks. Or perhaps that was just an excuse.

After all, he'd never liked heights.

He added coffee and sugar to the boiling water,

allowing it to bubble up to the rim of the flask

before pouring it into a glass and going through

into the front hall, a large gloomy space off which

all the rooms in the flat opened. For six months

now he'd been building a fountain here and the

floor was an assault course of cement bags and

tiles and lengths of plastic tubing. It was just a

small fountain and the work should have taken

only a couple of weeks. Something always came

up to distract him, however, so that the weeks had

dragged into months and it was still only half

finished. There wasn't really room for it and his

wife had complained bitterly about the mess and

expense, but he'd always wanted a fountain and,

anyway, it would bring a bit of colour to their

otherwise drab flat. He squatted and poked at a

pile of sand with his finger, thinking perhaps he'd

have enough time to set a few tiles before going

into the office. The phone rang.

'It's for you,' said his wife sleepily as he entered

the bedroom, 'Mohammed Sariya.'

She handed him the receiver and slipped out of

bed, lifting the baby from its cot and disappearing

into the kitchen. His son came in and leaped onto

the bed beside him, bouncing up and down.

49

'Bass,
Ali!' he said, pushing the boy away. 'Stop

it! Hello, Mohammed. It's early. What's going on?'

The voice of his deputy echoed at the other end

of the line. Khalifa held the phone with his right

hand while using his left to fend off his son.

'Where?' he asked.

His deputy answered. He sounded excited.

'You're there now?'

Khalifa's son was laughing and trying to hit him

with a pillow.

'I told you to stop it, Ali. Sorry, what was that?

OK, stay where you are. And don't let anyone go

near it. I'll be right over.'

He replaced the receiver and, seizing his son,

turned him upside down, kissing each of his bare

feet in turn. The boy roared with laughter.

'Swing me, Dad,' he cried. 'Swing me round.'

'I'll swing you round and out of the window,'

said Khalifa. 'And then maybe you'll fly away and

let me have a bit of peace.'

He dropped the boy on the bed and went

through into the kitchen where Zenab, his wife,

was making more coffee, the baby suckling at her

breast. From the living room came the sound of

his daughter singing.

'How is he this morning?' he asked, kissing his

wife and tickling the baby's toes.

'Hungry,' she smiled. 'Like his father always is.

Do you want breakfast?'

'No time,' said Khalifa. 'I've got to go over to

the west bank.'

'Without breakfast?'

'Something's come up.'

'What?'

50

He looked at the woman hanging washing on

the roof opposite. 'A body,' he said. 'I probably

won't be home for lunch.'

He crossed the Nile on one of the brightly painted

motor launches that plied back and forth between

the two shores. Normally he would have taken the

ferry, but he was in a hurry and so paid the extra

and got a boat to himself. Just as they were pulling

off an old man came hurrying up, a wooden box

clutched under one arm. He grasped the rail of the

boat and clambered aboard.

'Good morning, Inspector,' he puffed, setting

the box down at Khalifa's feet. 'Shoeshine?'

Khalifa smiled. 'You never miss a trick, do you,

Ibrahim?'

The old man chuckled, revealing two rows of

uneven gold teeth. 'A man has to eat. And a man

has to have clean shoes, too. So we help each

other.'

'Go on, then. But be quick. I've got business on

the other side and I don't want to hang around

when we land.'

'You know me, Inspector. Fastest shoeshine in

Luxor.'

He pulled out rags, a brush and polish, and

slapped the top of his box, indicating that Khalifa

should put his feet up. A young boy sat silently

in the stern working the outboard, his face

impassive.

They slid forward through the glassy water, the

Theban Hills looming ahead, their colour chang-

ing from grey to brown to yellow in the growing

light of day. Other launches were crossing to either

51

side of theirs, one, away to the right, carrying

a group of Japanese tourists. Probably going for a

balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings, thought

Khalifa, to see the sunrise. It was something he'd

always wanted to do himself, although at three

hundred dollars a go he couldn't afford it.

Probably never would, police wages being what

they were.

They came in to the western shore, sliding into

a gap between two other launches and riding up

onto the gravel with a crunch. The old man gave

Khalifa's toecaps a last swift buff and clapped his

polish-stained hands together to show he'd

finished. The detective handed him two Egyptian

pounds, gave the same to the boy and leaped

down onto the shore.

'I'll wait for you,' said the boy.

'Don't bother,' he replied. 'See you soon,

Ibrahim.'

The detective turned and climbed to the top of

the bank, where a large crowd was waiting for the

ferry. He wove his way through the throng,

squeezing through a gap between a wall and a

rusty chain-link fence and setting off along a

narrow dirt track beside the river. Farmers were

out working in the fields, harvesting their maize

and sugar cane, and two men were up to their

waists in an irrigation ditch clearing weeds.

Groups of children in neat white shirts hurried

past him on their way to school. The heat was

rising. He lit another cigarette.

It took him twenty minutes to reach the body,

by which time the buildings of western Luxor had

receded to a distant blur and his newly polished

52

shoes were white with dust. He emerged from a

forest of reeds and there in front of him was

Sergeant Sariya, squatting on the shore beside

what looked like a bundle of wet rags. He stood as

Khalifa approached.

'I've called the hospital,' he said. 'They're send-

ing someone over.'

Khalifa nodded and descended to the water's

edge. The body was lying on its front, arms

splayed, face buried in the mud, its shirt ripped

and bloodstained. From the waist down it was still

in the water, the lapping of the waves causing it to

roll back and forth like someone rocking in their

sleep. A faint odour of decay wafted upwards to