Egypt (9 page)

And then, even in the midst of my new agony, a thought crossed my mind; although the jawbone was already stiff, I prised open my friend's teeth as carefully as I could, and reached inside his dead mouth. And there it was: another fold of papyrus. I tenderly replaced my friend's head on the ground. I was shivering now, although not with cold, and I forced my hands to do my bidding, to open up the delicate papyrus. Inside was the black star, with its evil arrows pointing in every direction.

I heard footsteps. Nebamun was walking towards me. I hid the papyrus in my satchel. He glanced at Khety's remains and shook his head with no more respect or feeling than if he were looking at a dead dog. Then he took a deep, dramatic breath, as if he had something momentous to convey.

‘What a world,' he managed.

His trite little clichés had always incensed me.

‘He was a good officer. I know he was your friend. But I can't have you running around the city like a madman trying to track down his killer. I'm instructing you to remain at home, and I'm assigning someone else to this case…'

I turned to him.

‘He was my partner. He's
mine
. This is
my
investigation. You can assign your arse,' I said.

Nebamun squinted, and spat.

‘I've tried to be sweet and compassionate, in your hour of need, and all that … and you've thrown it right back in my face. So listen to me carefully, Rahotep. If I hear you're meddling in this, I'll have you arrested and thrown into the darkest cell I can find, and I'll seal you in there for ever, and let some of the more enthusiastic and less fastidious members of the Medjay have a go at you. Understand?'

The blood burned in my hands.

‘You have no intention of investigating this, any more than you've “investigated” any of the other murders,' I said. ‘What's that about?'

I noticed the twitching of the thin blue veins in the wrinkled skin around his beady eyes.

‘That kind of talk will cost you more than you know,' he said, staring coldly at me.

‘I've nothing left to lose,' I added. ‘What is it about me that alarms you so badly that you've spent the last years stripping me of everything that's rightfully mine?'

‘It's because you think you're so fucking special, Rahotep. You seem to think you operate by some code of honour that exalts you far above the rest of us. But you know something? You're not special. Your honour's a sham. You're a failure. I didn't have to do anything. I just had to watch you turn your own career into a joke. I've enjoyed the spectacle. But now I'm bored with you; and when you start making accusations against me, then that's the day you've gone too far,' Nebamun snarled.

‘Just try me,' I said deliberately.

He raised his stubby finger at me.

‘You think you've still got it, don't you? The truth is, no one cares. You're on your own. Some partner you must have been; you've been doing nothing, and yet here he was doing the real work, and he ends up like this?' And he jerked his head back at Khety's remains.

I only realized what I'd done when he staggered backwards, dabbing at the blood on his lip. The other officers trotted over, stupid as goats, exclaiming at my crazy action. Nebamun waved them away, but I saw to my intense satisfaction he was furious.

‘Hitting a superior officer is grounds for immediate dismissal. So don't bother coming back to headquarters now, or ever. Just
fuck off
!'

He turned away, and then, as an afterthought, called back.

‘Oh, I forgot. There is one last thing you can do.
Tell Khety's wife
.' And he laughed.

When Kiya saw me standing there, her smile instantly died. She half-closed the door, murmuring, ‘No no no no no,' over and over. When she stopped, I stood listening to the terrible silence on the other side of the door. I called her name quietly.

‘I can't let you in. If I let you in, it'll be true,' she said, eventually. ‘Please go away.'

‘I can't. I'll wait here until you're ready,' I replied, through the door.

As I stood there, waiting quietly, the people going about their daily business in the street seemed small and irrelevant. How little they knew, I thought, of the darkness of death behind and beneath and inside everything in their lives. How little they understood their own mortality, as they went unknowingly through each day in the enchantment of new clothes, and appetites fulfilled, and amusing love affairs. They had forgotten that at any moment all we hold dear, all we take for granted, all we cherish and prize, can be torn away from us.

Eventually, the door opened silently. I sat with Kiya in the small room at the front of the house. Khety and I had rarely socialized together; and although I knew where he lived, I had never visited him at home. Now I saw this other side of his life: the ornaments and trinkets, the little divine statuettes, the average-quality furniture, the efforts to make the place look better than it was. A pair of his house sandals waited by the door for his return.

I told Kiya the simple facts. I heard myself swearing and promising I would track down Khety's killer, and bring him to justice. But the words were meaningless to her. She just stared right through me. Nothing I could do would redeem what had been lost, for ever.

Suddenly her focus seemed to swim up from the black depths of despair.

‘You were his best friend. He was never as happy as when he was working with you.'

I had to turn my face away. Outside, the noises of the street continued. Somewhere a girl was singing lightly, casually, a phrase of a love song.

‘I have to ask you something: did he tell you where he was going last night?' I said, despising myself.

She shook her head.

‘He never told me anything,' she replied. ‘He thought it was better that way. It wasn't. Not for me, anyway.'

We sat in silence for a moment.

‘This new child will never know his father,' she said, as she looked down at her belly.

‘I will care for it as if it were my own,' I said.

Kiya was rocking back and forth, as if trying to console the unborn child in her belly for the loss of its father. Then she suddenly looked up.

‘You argued with each other that night, didn't you?' There was still nothing accusing in her voice. Only sorrow.

I nodded, relieved to confess it. She looked at me with the strangest expression, a mixture of pity and disappointment; but before I could say more, suddenly the door opened, and their daughter appeared. Her cheerful, delicate face was quickly wide-eyed as she absorbed the strange atmosphere in the room. The sight of the child instantly released Kiya's tears. She threw her arms open, and the child ran into them in confusion and distress, while her mother sobbed, grasping the little girl as tightly as she could.

I stood outside in the futile sunlight, feeling as empty as a clay vessel. I began walking without direction. Every street vendor's cry and call of laughter, every snatch of birdsong, every friendly shout from neighbour to neighbour, reminded me I no longer belonged to the land of the living, but had become a shadow. I found myself eventually facing the glittering imperturbability of the Great River. I sat down and stared at its perpetual waters, green and brown. I gazed at the sun, shining as if nothing had happened. I thought of the God of the Nile, in his cavern, pouring out the waters of the Great River from his jugs. I thought of the long futility of the impossible days ahead. And I felt a new coldness take possession of me: a single-minded impulse, a purity of intention, like a blade of hatred. I would find Khety's killer. And then I would kill him.

The stench from the garbage and mess in the street alone could have killed a mule. In the sowing season of
peret
the heat can be sweltering, and in the overcrowded slum on the wrong side of the city, far from the river and its graceful breezes, nothing stirred. All the passageways seemed to lead back into each other, going nowhere. I stood in the shadows on the street corner, and watched. It was late morning; people evaded the heat of the sun as if it were deadly. Old men and women dozed and muttered in grim, dark doorways. Street dogs lay on their sides in the dust, panting. Emaciated, filthy cats stretched out in whatever shadow they could find. Young mothers lazily fanned themselves, while their kids played in the rubbish and dirt that had piled up everywhere, and in the squalid streams that meandered thickly down the alleys. And occasionally young Nubian men–most no more than kids, but already tall and striking in their looks–sauntered past, roving the shadows, watching everything, guarding their territory.

This was one of the slums' streets notorious for the opium trade, where the low-level gang boys would sell to the more desperate addicts–those who dared to come here, despite the dangers, driven beyond fear by obsession. The slums were populated by immigrants from Punt and Nubia, originally drawn to Thebes by the lucrative southern trade routes that brought gold and copper, ebony, ivory, incense, slaves and rare animals–leopards, giraffes, panthers, little brown monkeys, ostriches–from beyond those lands. Others were drawn by the dream of a better life; the lucky ones ended up labouring on big construction projects, or being employed for their prized skills in metalwork. But in these years, the last royal constructions had been completed–such as the Great Colonnade Hall, inaugurated under Tutankhamun–or abandoned under Ay's austerity. It was taken as a sign of the dynasty's weakness that no new monuments or temples had been commissioned–for such triumphs in stone were symbols of power and honour. And so the children of those immigrants, with no prospect of work, and with a keen sense of their alienation from the wealth of the city, turned to the only other option available to them: crime. Not for them the business of tomb robbery, which required surveillance, organization, and effort, and which was in any case the preserve of the older thieving families. These teenagers were messengers, couriers and occasional killers for the opium gangs.

As I watched and waited, Khety's dead face kept flashing through my mind. I remembered Kiya holding on to her daughter for dear life. And I recalled Tanefert's desperate face as she had struggled to console me when I had finally found the courage to walk into my own yard, and sink to my knees before her. My heart was like broken glass in my chest. Would it be like this for ever? I struggled to keep my focus on the spectacle before me: the haggard shadows, the arrogant youths, and the yellow-toothed, ragged addicts, with their dulled eyes. One, obviously a rich boy, shambled along the street, his arrogance undermined by his fear and need. He had the signs of withdrawal: his legs shook with wild energy, and he was scratching at his arms, drawing blood. He wore good clothes, and gold rings on his fingers, and his hair was neatly cut. It was like watching an antelope being stalked by lions: the Nubian boys quickly closed in, tracking him along the street, and whistling to each other. One of them jauntily approached the rich boy. He was maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, already tall but still with a child's bony thinness and awkwardness, wearing a short white kilt, leather tassels, gold earrings, and with his hair immaculately plaited. He was full of bravado. Keeping always to the shade, he nodded, and beckoned the rich boy to follow him up a side alley. The rich boy nodded back. The Nubian boys sniggered, and made their way around the back. Those rings would soon be off the rich boy's hands, most likely with his fingers still wearing them.

I slipped up the alleyway. They were standing close together, but the Nubian boy had his dagger out, threatening the rich boy. I grabbed him from behind. His weapon clattered to the ground. He writhed in my grip like a feral cat.

‘Get out of here now,' I hissed at the rich boy.

He was trembling, but not with fear.

‘No–I need it, I have to have it…'

To my amazement, he actually picked up the dagger and wavered it uncertainly at me. The Nubian kid laughed at both of us with open contempt.