Alexandria

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The Director had named a local undertaker. His embalming salon was close to the Museion. One of the secretaries took us, leading us outside the complex, through early afternoon streets full of Alexandrian flatbed carts, each with its mound of green fodder for the horse or donkey. The beasts all had nosebags. The drivers all looked half asleep, until they spotted us to stare at.

There was fine dust everywhere. We walked through a small market, teeming with pigeons, rabbits, ducks, geese, chickens and bantams; all were for eating and were either caged or kept on pallets with their feet tied together. Behind the market, which remained highly audible, lay the dim premises we sought. Curious locals watched us going in, just as they would back home on the Aventine.

The head of the outfit was called Petosiris.

'I am Falco.'

'Are you Greek?'

'No fear!'

'Jewish? Syrian? Libyan? Nabataean? Cilician? -'

'Roman,' I confessed, and watched the undertaker lose interest.

He catered for all tastes, except Jewish. The jews had their own quarter, alphabetically called Delta, near the Gate of the Sun and the Eastern Harbour. They conducted their own rituals, which Petosiris assumed were unpleasantly exotic, compared with good Nilotic tradition. Likewise, he spoke disparagingly of Christians, whose dead were kept for three days in the deceased's house while their own friends and family washed and clothed them for burial – all deeply unhygienic – before mysterious ceremonies were performed by a priest amidst sinister lights and chanting. Christian priests were viewed askance in Alexandria, since a certain Mark the Evangelist had denounced Egyptian gods fifteen years ago: he was set upon by the mob and dragged by horses through the streets until he needed a grave himself. Petosiris saw this as a fine moment in history. He had not asked if we were Christians, but we thought it advisable to indicate a firm negative.

Otherwise Petosiris was extremely versatile. He could do you a nine-day mourning and cremation Roman-style with a full feast at your family tomb. He could fix up a respectful two-day Greek viewing, ashes in a traditional urn and enough ritual to ensure your soul would not hover between this world and the next as a disrespected ghost. Or he would bandage you up as a mummy. If you opted for mummification, once your brain had been hauled out through your nose with a long hook and your body organs were drying out in natron in a decorative set of soapstone jars, he could hire an artist from the south to paint your face extremely realistically and put it on a wooden plaque over your bandaging to identify you inside your coffin. Needless to say, for all of these systems there were numerous kinds of sarcophagus to choose from, and an even greater variety of memorial steles and statues, most of them horrendously expensive.

'Will Theon's family foot the bill?'

'He was a public official.'

'The state will bury him?'

'Of course. He was the Librarian!'

'Excellent,' said Aulus. 'So let's have a look at him, may we?'

I thought there was a pause. However, Petosiris soon led us to a body, which he displayed quietly enough. Assistants stopped their ministrations and stood back for us.

Aulus walked up to the top of the bier, cocking his head slightly as he considered the dead man's facial features. I stayed halfway down. Aulus stuck his thumbs in his belt. I kept my arms folded. We were thoughtful, but I concede that the way we posed may have looked unduly critical. Petosiris did not know we had met Theon when he was alive.

Before us lay a body, naked, with its head shaven. The nose was hooked, the cheeks rotund, the chin treble. A linen cloth had been placed across its middle for reasons of ritual or modesty. Beneath it, the belly rose abundantly, even with the man lying on his back. His fleshy arms lay at his side, his legs were short and sturdy.

People change in appearance when they die. But not that much.

Aulus turned and looked at me, puzzled. I signalled agreement. We nodded our heads as we counted to three, then we leapt into action. Aulus shoved Petosiris up against a wall, crushing his windpipe with one forearm. I indicated that the assistants should not intervene. 'My young friend who is attacking your leader has a kind nature. If I did it, I'd rip that lying bastard's head off.'

I grinned at the frightened embalmers, making it bloodthirsty.

Aulus then put his mouth right up to Petosins' left ear, and yelled: 'Don't mess with us! We asked to see Theon – not some poor three-days-dead cucumber-seller from Rhakotis!' The undertaker squawked. Aulus lowered his voice, which only stepped up the terror: 'Falco and I met the Librarian. The man is an aesthete – he's all skin and bone. Whoever it is you're washing with Nile water for his trip to eternity in the beautiful fields of reeds, we know this is not Theon!