The Isis Covenant

XIV

‘The Eye of Isis is a jewel?’

He could see the excitement building as the calculations ran through her mind. ‘And at its centre, the great gemstone known as the Eye of Isis,’ he repeated.

‘A diamond, you reckon? A great big diamond.’

‘A diamond or a ruby. Remember the red teardrop on the eye symbol. That would make sense.’

‘How big is a great gemstone? How much would it be worth today?’

‘Let’s not get carried away, Detective,’ he laughed. ‘We’re talking about a single reference in a single book. And not from a historian or an academic. You said yourself this is a book of fairytales.’

‘But it must have come from somewhere. It’s too specific. The description is too precise. You don’t make stuff like that up.’

‘Don’t kid yourself, it may be a hundred years ago, but these guys were in the business of selling books.’

She gave him her shrewd look. ‘But you don’t believe that.’

He didn’t reply. The truth was that he wanted to believe in the existence of an enormous unknown diamond.

‘How big would it be? Gimme your best guess.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know enough to make a guess. Wait here.’

She sat for five minutes, taking in the very English unfamiliarity of what was going on around her in the museum until he returned with another book.

‘The only big diamond I know anything about is the Koh-i-noor, which is part of the Crown Jewels, that’s—’

‘Yeah, Jamie,’ her voice dripped with sarcasm, ‘I’ve heard of the Crown Jewels.’

‘Well, it says here that the Koh-i-noor, also known as the Mountain of Light, is the size and shape of a small hen’s egg. About this,’ he made an oval with his thumb and fingers, ‘and it weighs about 109 carats. That’s after it was cut and polished for Queen Victoria in the mid-nineteenth century, on the personal orders of Prince Albert. Before it was cut it weighed in at 186 carats.’

‘They cut it in half?’

He nodded. ‘It was very controversial at the time. Many people thought Albert, who wasn’t particularly popular, had botched things by insisting it be cut. The Eye of Isis referred to in the book, if it ever existed, would have been uncut — we’re talking about two-thousand years ago — but I suppose there’s a likelihood it was polished in some way.’

‘So how much?’

He stared at her. ‘Priceless.’

‘C’mon, Saintclair, you can do better than that.’

‘The Koh-i-noor has never been bought or sold. It may be about three thousand years old, which could make it contemporary with our jewel. Throughout its history it has been gifted, bartered or plundered, mostly plundered. Anything that valuable has been paid for in blood.’

‘How much?’ she insisted.

‘A hundred million pounds, at least. Possibly many hundred millions of pounds. Call it a billion dollars, but it could be as much as ten billion. We’ll never know, because it will never be sold.’

‘And the Eye of Isis?’

‘Potentially the same,’ he admitted. ‘But only if it exists.’

‘Oh, it exists all right,’ she said with utter certainty. ‘You said anything that valuable has been paid for in blood. Well, the Hartmanns paid for it, and the British Hartmans, and God knows how many other folks. And if it exists, it must have left a trail.’

They studied each other for a few moments, oblivious to the bustle around them. Eventually, Jamie broke the silence. ‘Who’s the top British expert on Ancient Egypt?’

She frowned at him. ‘Now how would I know that?’

‘Sorry,’ Jamie laughed. ‘I was talking to myself. Bad habit. One of many. Anyway, it was a stupid question, because they’ll be able to tell us over there.’ He pointed across the Great Court to the entrance to the Egyptian section.

‘Why do we want to know?’

‘I said we had two options, follow the Hartmanns or follow the Eye. Well, you’re going to follow the Eye. In the meantime, we’ve been so focused on the Eye, if you’ll pardon the pun, we’ve forgotten about the Hartmann connection. I’ll dig up everything I can about the last days before the Fall of Berlin and we can meet up again tomorrow.’

‘Okay,’ she said in her slow drawl. ‘But I have a better idea. How about we meet up later and you take me out to dinner. Somewhere fancy. I’d like that.’

He grinned. ‘I’d like that too.’

The first two experts on Danny’s list were, not surprisingly given it was the digging season, working on projects in Egypt, but the third was happy to meet her. Professor Helen Dayton opened the front door of her terraced house in Richmond carrying a feather duster and with two fair-haired toddlers wrapped around her legs. Fisher introduced herself and they shook hands.

‘Please excuse them.’ The Egyptologist smiled. ‘I’ve only been back from Cairo for a week and they’re still a little hyper. To be honest, I’d much rather be up to my neck in dust dealing with lazy Egyptian labourers and argumentative archaeologists, not to mention venal officials from the Department of Culture. Come through into the study while I find them something to occupy themselves with. Coffee?’

‘No thank you.’ British coffee and the American variety seemed to be only distant relations, although it was better than the warmed-up water they called tea.

She was ushered to a book-lined room with a view over the garden and waited until the other woman returned, still carrying the feather duster, which she absently pushed into an umbrella stand made from an elephant’s foot. Two leather chairs sat either side of the window.

‘This is lovely.’ Fisher gestured to the lawn beyond the window, with its apple trees and flower beds where late roses still bloomed among the greenery.

‘All down to my husband and the previous owners, I’m afraid. I don’t have too much time for gardening.’

Fisher smiled at the subtle hint and got down to business.

‘Firstly, Professor, thank you for agreeing to help. We’re very grateful.’

‘You said it was some kind of investigation?’

‘That’s right, a homicide investigation. A young family.’

Helen Dayton’s head came up. In Fisher’s experience most honest citizens were happy to help the cops, but the mention of murder always shook them a little.

‘And you’re working with the British police?’

‘Correct.’ She produced her identification and the accreditation she’d been issued at New Scotland Yard.

‘Well, I’m not sure how I can contribute, but what can I help you with?’

Her face paled as Fisher explained the Egyptian symbolism found on Elizabeth Hartmann and the theory that the killings could be linked to the goddess.

‘So you see, anything you can tell us about Isis might be of use in explaining why the victims were chosen.’

Helen Dayton rose and went to the window. Fisher waited for her to gather her thoughts. Finally, the other woman nodded to herself. Danny Fisher had deliberately made the question as broad as possible to allow Helen to relax into her role as expert witness. She listened as the Egyptian specialist went over the Isis/Osiris/Horus myth that Jamie had already explained.

‘Isis is the divine mother and goddess of fertility. In the Egyptian pantheon she holds her place among the very greatest and is one of the few deities whose worship was exported beyond the borders of Egypt. Temples dedicated to her have been found all over the Roman Empire, even in Rome itself. She was believed to be the most powerful god in the ways of magic, which, I suspect, is what endeared her to the Romans. She had the power to destroy life with mere words, but she is also the only member of the Egyptian pantheon credited with the ability to resurrect the dead and offer them new life.

‘I think you are correct in linking the symbol you found to the goddess. Von Bulow, though his work was dismissed by his rivals after the outbreak of the First World War, was a very meticulous archaeologist and scholar. His paper on the Eye of Isis was the product of years of research. I have no doubt the Eye existed in the form he suggested.’

‘What about in another form?’

‘I’m sorry?’

Danny consulted her notes, although she had no need to. ‘I’m talking about the great gemstone known as the Eye of Isis. The one that is associated with the Crown of Isis.’

The words were interrupted by a high-pitched shriek from the adjoining room, followed by the sound of infant squabbling. Helen pursed her lips, but Fisher couldn’t be certain whether the children had annoyed her, or the question.

‘The Eye of Isis,’ she placed unnecessary emphasis on the words, ‘as you suggest it, does not exist, in any context that I’m aware of. I am an academic, Detective, and as such I deal in fact, not fairytale. I’m aware that over the years there have been whispers about some fabled jewel, but these kinds of stories exist in many different cultures. The “Great Mogul” diamond seen by Jean Baptiste Tavernier in 1665 in India was mythologized into three or four different enormous stones, but is now accepted to be the uncut Koh-i-noor. As far as I know, this all stemmed from a few scraps from a so-called “lost version” of Tacitus’ Annals … You know who Tacitus was?’ Danny nodded, wondering why every Brit seemed to think she was an idiot. ‘The “book” was supposedly discovered in a convent archive in Italy in the nineteenth century and taken to Berlin in nineteen forty-four, where it conveniently disappeared. It was an elaborate fraud that spawned a conspiracy theory, nothing more, Detective Fisher.’

Danny Fisher resisted the temptation to dispute the academic’s hypothesis, but she had another question.

‘Does that mean the Crown of Isis doesn’t exist either?’

‘Oh, the Crown of Isis existed. There is plenty of evidence of that.’ Helen went to one of the shelves, selected a book and flicked through until she found the page she wanted. ‘Look, you can see it here.’ She placed it where Fisher had a view of the page. ‘On the right of the stele is Cleopatra.’ She smiled. ‘Yes, Detective Fisher, Cleopatra, wearing the double crown of Egypt and looking surprisingly manly, is pictured — and named in the inscription below — making an offering to The Lady, Isis, seen feeding the baby Horus at her breast and wearing her own headdress, or crown. The Crown of Isis was a diadem, topped with the stylized horns of a cow, and with the sun disk between them. The sun disk would have been beaten gold, and when the headdress was worn by the priestess at the two great festivals dedicated to the goddess, from a distance, it would have seemed like Ra himself was shining upon them, the goddess was wearing a star plucked from the sky, or perhaps a great diamond.

‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Detective, is that all?’

‘Just one thing, Ma’am. You said the Crown of Isis existed, past tense. What happened to it?’

For a moment, Helen Dayton’s face went blank and Danny saw the lie that was about to emerge as clearly as if it was written in lights on her forehead. Before she could say anything another burst of screaming froze the words on her tongue and she excused herself to see to the children.

Danny gathered up her things. When Helen appeared in the doorway with a tiny figure in each arm, she was certain she was about to be invited to leave. But the academic sighed and kissed the head of the girl in her right arm.

‘You said children were killed? Murdered?’

Danny nodded.

‘You won’t find this in any books, because no academic would want to be associated with it. It is gossip, no more than that. It may have reached some of the more wild conspiracy sites on the internet, but if it has I have never heard of it.’

‘Yes?’

‘In the resurrection myth associated with Isis, there’s a hint, no more than a hint, that for the dead to become the living, a price must be paid. A blood price.’

‘Human sacrifice?’

Helen Dayton’s face might have been set in concrete, but she managed a vigorous, almost spastic nod.

‘There’s more. I had a colleague who planned a research project on the Crown of Isis. He came up with a wild theory, which he would only talk about with trusted friends. One night when he was drunk he said that he was on the point of proving that the Crown had reappeared at certain times through history. Times of strife. And that each time it appeared, it was associated with magic, witchcraft and murder.’ She hugged the babies closer. ‘Child murder.’

Danny Fisher caught her breath. ‘Where can I get in touch with this man? It could be important.’

Helen shook her head and Danny saw tears streaming down her cheeks.

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible.’