Egypt

8

That evening, I said nothing to Tanefert about my audience with the Queen. Nor did I give her the little bag of gold. All night, as I lay on the couch, my mind toiled like a scarab beetle trying to push its ball of dung into the light, going over and over the conversation with Nakht. And when dawn glimmered on the floor of our bedchamber, I felt as if I had been fighting with myself for hours. Sometimes I have woken from a night’s sleep with the solution to a long-puzzled, intransigent mystery simply waiting for me. But that morning, my thoughts were still a jumble of shards.

Tanefert glanced at me as she rose from her couch, and pinned her long black and silver hair around her head.

‘You were restless.’

‘Did I disturb you?’ I asked.

After all the years of marriage, of raising children, of surviving the volatility of my working life, I was still in love with my wife. But recently I had realized that she needed more from me than I had been able to give her. A little distance had opened between us, almost unnoticed, rarely acknowledged. We made love infrequently. The couch was for sleep at the end of exhausting days. I confided in her less often. Perhaps that is the fate of all marriages.

‘You can tell me anything,’ she said quietly. ‘I hope you know that.’

I tucked a stray wisp of glossy hair behind her delicate ear. Outside, the girls were preparing their breakfasts, and taking charge of their baby brother. I could hear their amiable chatter, the banging of the dishes, and my son’s early morning protestations. I reached out quickly and embraced my wife, kissing her and drawing her back down to the couch with an open need that surprised her.

‘I miss you,’ she said suddenly, putting her hand against my chest, near my heart. Her eyes were shining.

‘I miss you, too,’ I said, and kissed her again.

By the time we appeared in the kitchen, Tanefert winding her hair about her head once more, me rubbing my face as if to pretend I had just woken, the girls were ready to leave for their lessons, and I was late. They allowed themselves a giggle at my expense-for the older two girls were no longer innocents. I washed my face in the yard basin, and then, having taken Thoth from his place and attached his collar and lead, the girls and I walked together down the lane in the shade, and along the Alley of Fruit, where the market was already lively with sellers hawking bright fruit and vegetables.

At the crossroads, I kissed the girls, and watched as they cheerfully made their way off along the street, talking and laughing and arguing, until they merged into the crowds. I stood for a moment, enjoying the warm light of a new day. I had made this family, I loved my wife, and now, thanks to Nakht, I could finally see a way forward for all of us. I felt the stirring of an unfamiliar sensation: I felt alive and confident. I shook my head cheerfully at my own foolishness, and set off with Thoth at my side, moving nimbly and excitedly down a different street, into a fresh day.

But as soon as I entered the Medjay headquarters, I knew something was wrong: several of the men glanced at me, and glanced quickly away. I hurried over to Panehesy.

‘What’s happened?’

The pity in his face told me the worst.

The body had been dumped in a foul side street of the slums, where locals tipped their stinking rubbish. It was a dismal place to deposit a man’s mortal remains, an offence to the spirits of the dead. A couple of younger Medjay officers were peering down the alley in awe. When they saw me, they tried to dissuade me from going any further. But I shoved them away. I had to see.

Khety’s head had been severed. It sat calmly in a small puddle of congealed black blood. With the cold habit of a lifetime, I noted the details: the sticky crimson prints of dogs and cats in the street dirt all around him. He must have been killed in the small hours of the night. His lips were blue, his skin inert, and his dead eyes half-open. When I examine a murder victim, I think about the kind of knife that might have made the wounds, but not about the suffering those wounds caused. This is because I owe it to the victim to work efficiently; I am not there for the benefit of my own feelings. I am there only to bear witness, as best I can, to the final truth of their death.

So I crushed the futile tears starting to my eyes, and the cries that stuck in my throat. Some force deep inside me was shaking me hard, but I steeled myself to do the necessary work; I focused, for Khety’s sake, for his honour, giving him my final respects. I saw how the blades that accomplished the beheading had been extremely sharp; the cuts in his flesh were precise and knowledgeable. There was no hesitation, no prevarication, no uncertainty. Khety’s head had been severed expertly, just like the Nubian boys’. And the killer had had a respect, amounting to an obsession, with neatness of composition: behind the head were the other parts of my friend’s corpse, butchered like an animal carcass. His arms and legs were stacked against his trunk, like logs of flesh and bone. His hands and feet had been cut off, too; his fingers, snipped off, were laid on top like a dreadful decoration. And on them, disgustingly, the shrivelled remains of his penis had been placed. The killer had started with his extremities. I realized he would probably have been alive throughout much of the butchery. The world around me was spinning. I turned away and hurried, crouching, into the further shadows of the alley, where I vomited on the filthy ground, bucking like an animal.

A crowd of fascinated little street children had gathered to watch me. I grabbed a handful of stones and gravel, and hurled it at them as if they were dogs. They scattered, shouting and laughing.

I returned to the mutilated remains of my friend. Khety’s dead eyes registered nothing. I reached out and took his head between my hands, as carefully as I could. A dead head is heavy. I felt a ridiculous urge to ask him questions, to interrogate him, even to slap his stupid face until his eyes flickered open, his jaw stirred into creaky motion, and he spoke again, if only to curse me for waking him from the dead. Like a madman, I kissed his cold brow, whispering my useless, propitiatory apologies. Two nights ago, my friend had asked for my help. And I had abandoned him. Now he was cruelly slaughtered. Perhaps I could have stopped him behaving recklessly. I could have saved him. Guilt hunched on my back like a vicious monkey, digging its sharp claws into me, and began to whisper its hot accusations into my ears.

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 cliches 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.