Silver Tomb (The Lazarus Longman Chronicles Book 2) (5 page)

“Coffee? Yes, well it would be lovely to catch up, but I didn’t suppose that was why you wanted to see me. Besides, it wouldn’t be proper for an unmarried couple to sit in a café together.”

She stared at him. “Amazing. Two weeks together in a balloon, a shared secret about cities of gold that we can never tell anybody and you still have your damned English attitude towards conventions. Very well, I’ll say what I have to say to you here under these arches. I have just come from the police station. Our friend, Captain Hassanein sent his men round to Bayoumi Shipping this morning after you left and found the place deserted. Bayoumi must have panicked at your arrest and has shut up shop.”

“Doesn’t surprise me really,” said Lazarus. “Will you go looking for him?”

She shook her head. “No point. There are a hundred such businessmen who export antiquities out of this country. Squashing one won’t make a jot of difference. We need to go after the men who sell the items to the dealers; the ones who steal them from their original locations.”

Lazarus sighed. “Isn’t it about time you dropped the act now?”

She frowned. “How do you mean?”

“I mean I would have to be a man with a turnip for a brain if I were to believe that you had been sent here from Moscow to chase around black market dealers.”

“And what do you know of my orders?”

“I can make a fair stab in the dark. Your orders are to find Dr. Rutherford Lindholm and drag him back to your country so your government can pry open his brain and learn his secrets. You found out, as I did, that the only trail to him was through the black market, only you don’t have any contacts in that world and so the trail for you ran cold. Now you need my help in finding it again.”

“Well, what of it?” she said coldly. “It wouldn’t be the first time that we have worked together.”

“No. And it wouldn’t be the first time that we have sought the same man for our respective governments. Why do we always end up on opposite sides of the fence?”

“That’s the way of the world, Longman. Maybe if your government would give up its support for the blasted C.S.A. we might become friends.”

“Britain will never support the Union,” said Lazarus. “It’s not financially sound.”

“As always, the great decisions of the world come down to money. Enough of politics. Will you help me?”

“If I do then it must be on my terms.”

“As you say.”

“I know a man. My loyalty to him has run out as I have a feeling that it was he who led my friend and I into a trap at Bayoumi’s. Nevertheless, I don’t want him in the hands of the police. I can do without the reputation as a snitch for the likes of Captain Hassanein.”

“How can this man help us if we do not interrogate him?”

“I can interrogate him myself. Or follow him. I’ve an idea that with Bayoumi gone he will go running to his sources to tell them that he needs time to find another customer. They’ll be fellahs most likely, perhaps working on a dig somewhere, hopefully for Lindholm. We just need to keep our distance and see where he leads us. Where are you staying?”

“The Grand.”

“Good. So is Petrie. I will find out what I can and get word to you when the time is right.”

“All right. I must be getting along. It’s a shame we didn’t have that coffee. It’s been a long time.”

“Yes,” agreed Lazarus as she walked away. She turned and looked at him from beneath the frills of her parasol. He thought she was going to say that it was good to see him again for something similar was on the tip of his own tongue.

“Longman?”

“Yes?”

“No tricks this time.”

Chapter Five

In which a significantly longer voyage is undertaken

The house where Murad was staying was reflective of the whole area. It was a crumbling tenement with pokey, dark windows from which washing dangled. The sturdy-looking door was the only thing that looked solid about the whole structure.

Lazarus had been given the address by the proprietor of the café they had met Murad in two nights ago. He had slipped the man a couple of piastres to keep his mouth shut and not let on to Murad that he was looking for him.

Dawn was breaking over the rooftops of Cairo, and Lazarus rubbed his eyes. He had been standing on the street corner for over an hour, dressed in the shabby clothes of a European on his uppers to deter the Cairenes from asking him for
baksheesh
. He kept a good supply of outfits for various occasions in his hotel room and found they invariably came in useful for situations such as these.

At last, the door to the house opened and Murad slipped out, like a rat emerging from its hole. Murad was not a Cairene, and relied upon the generosity of friends and the vulnerability of women to sleep soundly whenever he was in the city. This made him a hard man to track, but Lazarus knew the right people and his hour of standing in the cold had paid off.

Resisting the urge to creep up on the villain and throttle him from behind, Lazarus followed Murad down endless streets and passageways where vendors were beginning to set up shop for the day. Cafes were starting to open, the scent of their freshly brewed coffee allowed to drift out and draw in the first customers of the day.

They drew near to the docks and Lazarus’s hopes rose. He had imagined the dealer would need passage on a vessel heading south to wherever his contacts dwelled, and he had hoped that Murad would make his move this morning. The chaos of Port Bulaq was no less at any time of day. Soon Lazarus found he had a job keeping up with his quarry as he was jostled from side to side by lost travelers, fellahs importing goods, urchins and pickpockets. He managed to keep one eye on the back of Murad’s tarboosh as it ducked down a side street.

He followed after, pushing his way past a man struggling with a cart load of tomatoes, diving into the ally where beggars held out their hands in a permanent state of helplessness. To his dismay, Lazarus could no longer see Murad. He broke into a jog.

The alley emerged onto a wharf where several transport agencies had set up business. Any one of them might offer the young Egyptian passage on a steamer or a
dahabeah
, but Lazarus guessed that Murad would choose one of the more run-down looking ones, partly because he was not a wealthy foreigner and partly because he would wish to remain inconspicuous.

He headed for the most slapdash looking outfit, which had its name painted freehand in both Arabic and miss-spelt English on the side of its rough wall, and went indoors. The man at the desk looked up from his ledger as if he had just finished penning something in.

“Do you have any vessels heading up the Nile today or tomorrow?” Lazarus asked the man.

“Assuredly,
effendi
,” said the clerk, eyeing Lazarus’s clothes as if he was evaluating whether the term of respect was warranted in this case. “How far do you wish to go?”

“Oh, we haven’t made up our minds yet, I, my wife and my friend, that is. Luxor at least. Perhaps as far as Abu Simbel. My wife wants to see those headless pharaohs or whatever they are.”

The clerk nearly rolled his eyes but saved himself just in time. He was clearly disgusted by this shabby European who didn’t even have enough coin to his name to be a Cook’s tourist, but not so disgusted that he would turn away his custom. “The
Nefertiti
leaves tomorrow morning at eight of the clock. Is that too early for you?”

“Not at all,” said Lazarus. “Put me down for three tickets.”

“Very well, I will just go and write them out then I will take down your details. A moment’s patience if you please.”

When the clerk disappeared into the back room, Lazarus leaned over and pulled the ledger towards him. It was open on the page of the
Nefertiti
’s passenger list. He ran his index finger down the page, scanning the names until he arrived at ‘Murad Yasin’ and knew that he had at least found the right company and the right vessel.

He whiled away the afternoon taking tea in Azbekya Gardens and packing his portmanteau. Evening had set in by the time he arrived at the Grand Continental Hotel. He left a message at reception for Katarina to meet him first thing in the morning at Port Bulaq. He considered trying to obtain her room number and asking her down for drinks or perhaps dinner, but knew he would feel like a cad if he did. She was exactly right about him, he realized. They had slept under the Arizona stars together and traversed a continent in a balloon, eating their meals at a small table and bunking in the same tiny cabin by the light of a single gas lamp, but here, in a passable example of civilization, he dared not ask her to dinner without a chaperone for fear of violating propriety.

He instead went to Petrie’s room and the two of them sipped at cognacs while Lazarus explained the events of the day to him.

“Up to another adventure?” he asked the Egyptologist when he was finished.

Petrie’s eyes twinkled but his brow was furrowed at the same time, as if he was fighting with himself. “Will it be dangerous?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“And that Russian woman will be coming?”

Lazarus’s eyes briefly rolled. “Yes. She’s a damned fine shot if that will make you feel any safer.”

“Oh, undoubtedly, undoubtedly,” Petrie said, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “But perhaps it would be safer for her if two men were to accompany her. I have a mind to purchase a revolver after yesterday’s encounter with those villains. I shall make enquiries first thing tomorrow.”

“Then you will come? Your knowledge of Akhenaten’s reign and religious movement may be invaluable to us if we do indeed find Rousseau’s site.”

This comment seemed to galvanize the young scholar. “Absolutely! I could not pass up an opportunity such as this! Imagine what secrets of the eighteenth dynasty a new site might unlock! The Silver Aten… The mind positively boggles!” He knocked down the rest of his cognac and spilled some as if he had suddenly remembered something. “That reminds me! I’ve been looking at my sketches—I always do them, you know, of my finds—including the ones that were stolen. And something has occurred to me.”

“Show me,” Lazarus said.

Petrie went over to his writing desk which was littered with bits of paper, books and sketchpads, and drew out a couple of sheaves with some drawings on them. They were very good ones, done with the painstaking attention to detail that Petrie was known for. Lazarus studied them.

“That’s a kohl container I found at Tell el-Amarna,” said Petrie, indicating the first sketch. “The one stolen from my poor man at the docks. Imagine that it was dropped nearly three thousand years ago by a lady at Akhenaten’s court, to lie in the sand after the city’s destruction, unseen by generations upon generations until I picked it up! Only to be stolen by an unknown murderer!”

Lazarus examined the drawing of the tube-shaped artifact once used to contain the black substance the Ancient Egyptians painted their eyelids with. Some hieroglyphics were engraved vertically along the length of the tube, but before Lazarus could decipher them Petrie slid another sketch in front of him.

“This is the sketch I did of the fragment I found and gave to Maspero’s museum. Also now stolen, of course.”

It was a relief fragment showing part of a woman’s head wearing a Nubian wig surrounded by hieroglyphics. Lazarus tried to read them and found that one of the hieroglyphics had been entirely obliterated, as if deliberately.

“It was not uncommon for the names of the deceased to be scratched off monuments by people who were angry with them,” said Lazarus. “Akhenaten for instance, had the majority of his monuments defaced by his descendants. In fact, it’s a wonder we know his name at all. Without a name the deceased cannot find peace in the afterlife and is doomed to wander in limbo for all eternity, or so they once believed.”

“Quite so,” agreed Petrie, producing yet another sketch for him. “Fortunately the hieroglyph on this relief fragment was not wholly destroyed. One cannot make it out in the sketch, so I did a separate reproduction of just the damaged hieroglyph. Look here.”

Lazarus looked. “Seems to be part of a feather and the tip of a bird’s head. There doesn’t look to have been a cartouche surrounding them, so the person probably wasn’t royalty.”

“No. But compare the damaged hieroglyph to the one on the kohl container.”

Lazarus took his time, not jumping to the conclusion that Petrie had so obviously drawn. But he had to admit, the symbols could have been the same. The kohl container had two feathers, a bowl, a bird and a couple of slanted strokes. He mouthed the phonetic values of the symbols; “Kiya.”

“Kiya.” Petrie confirmed.

“The name doesn’t ring any bells, I’m afraid. You?”

“Not a jingle, but she must have made somebody very angry to have had her name scratched off this relief like that. It’s quite possible that the lady in the Nubian wig on the relief is this Kiya—the very Kiya who once owned the kohl container.”

“I’m not sure where all this is leading us,” Lazarus confessed.

Petrie sighed. “Nor I. But Kiya—whoever she was—must have been somebody of great importance at Akhetaten to appear on a relief like this, so beautifully painted… but then to have her name stolen from her, so to speak.”

“Who do you think she was?”

“Who knows? Perhaps one of Akhenaten’s wives or daughters. He had several you know. Of each, that is. We only know a handful of their names. Meriaten and Meketaten were two of his daughters, reflecting his habit for including the sun god’s name in the names of all members of his family. Apart from his great royal wife Queen Nefertiti, we don’t know of any other wives or consorts, but he probably had several. They often did, you know.”

“Yes, as well as that repugnant habit of marrying their siblings,” said Lazarus.

“Indeed. Whoever this Kiya was, she may have been tied up in the family of the Heretic Pharaoh in more ways than one. And perhaps our journey on the morrow will reveal her true identity as well as shed more light on Akhenaten’s reign. I only showed you these sketches because I find it so odd that both items stolen seemed to bear the name of Kiya. Coincidence, perhaps, but still…”

“Yes,” agreed Lazarus. “Still…”

Katarina had got Lazarus’s message, and was waiting for him with her usual punctuality on the dock of the appropriately named
Nefertiti
. Her beauty was a stark contrast to the state of the steamer that was to take them up the Nile, and Lazarus’s jaw dropped when he saw it. It was a wreck.

He was put in mind of the
Mary Sue—
that floating nest of villains he had penetrated on the Colorado River. This one was smaller but just as filthy, with rust streaking its once-white sides and its blackened, cancerous funnels caked with soot.

“It was on such a vessel that we first met, Katarina,” said Lazarus, trying to be jovial. “Do you remember?”

“I remember trying to kill you,” the Russian replied.

“Yes, well, we know each other a bit better now, eh?”

“That doesn’t mean that I will let you take Dr. Lindholm from me without a fight. Pray it doesn’t come to that.”

Flinders Petrie was hailing them as he made his way down the dock, a servant lugging his case a few paces behind.

“Good morning, Lazarus!” he cried with all the excitement of a schoolboy on holiday. “And Miss Mikolavna! Lazarus has told me all about you!”

“Has he?” Katarina said, eyeing Lazarus coolly.

Lazarus gave her a look to reassure her that he had most certainly not told Petrie
everything
about her.

“You have my eternal thanks, madam,” said Petrie, doffing his straw hat and bowing low, “for getting Lazarus and I out of that loathsome prison. I cannot thank you enough.”

“Don’t mention it,” replied Katarina, allowing with much reluctance, the Egyptologist to kiss her hand.

“And may I say that it is the highest of pleasures to be travelling with such a jewel of a woman. Queen Cleopatra herself would pale in comparison to your exotic complexion!”

“I think we had best be getting on board and finding our cabins,” said Katarina. “Egyptians are not punctual by anyone’s standards, but the vessel will no doubt be leaving sometime soon, and the sooner the better as far as I am concerned.”

Petrie insisted on carrying Katarina’s small carpetbag up the gangplank and tottered after her, trying to carry on his flattery. “I may not have military experience like Lazarus here, Miss Mikolavna,” he said, but I know how to shoot a gun and have one close to my person at all times! There is no need to fear anything while I am near you!” He made to draw an antique-looking pistol out of his breeches to show her, but Lazarus darted forward to stay his hand.

“Don’t go waving artillery about, for God’s sake, man! We are not here to attract attention.”