The Eye of the Serpent (13 page)

IT WAS JUST
before nightfall and Alec was taking his seat at the communal dining table between Madeleine and Coates when Mickey and Hassan got back to camp with the two Crossleys. Everyone was waiting for the Scottish cook, Archie McCloud, to dispense the evening meal. As it was an unusually mild evening, everyone had opted to eat in the open air. Archie had recently replaced the team's veteran cook, Henry Walters, who had retired back to his homeland after a nasty bout of malaria. Alec remembered from his previous visits that Henry had been an excellent chef, capable of creating good food out
of the most unpromising ingredients, but Archie was an unknown quantity. A few mumbled remarks around the table soon warned him not to expect the same high standards.

Mickey took his place across the table from Alec, looking harassed, a mood which wasn't helped when Ethan told him that all his belongings had been transferred to Archie's tent so that Madeleine could enjoy a little privacy; but in the best stiff-upper-lip tradition, Mickey assured her that it would be no problem.

‘Don't you worry yourself, miss,' he said. ‘I'll be fine once I find myself some ear plugs.'

‘Ee-yare plugs?' said Madeleine, mystified.

‘Archie is famous for his snoring,' explained Ethan. ‘On a good night they can hear him in Luxor.'

‘Oh, well, Coates might give you some competition there,' said Alec. ‘He's an absolutely
phenomenal
snorer when he gets going.'

‘Master Alec, may I just mention that it's not the done thing to point out a person's shortcomings?' said Coates coolly.

‘Sorry,' muttered Alec. ‘I was only making conversation.'

Ethan smothered a grin and helped Mickey to
a large tin mug of the local red wine. ‘You were a long time,' he said.

‘Yeah. Had to clean out every last bit of that engine. Never seen so much sand. I thought we'd never get the blessed thing going. And as for those dead hyenas . . .' Mickey frowned. ‘Funny thing though. Vultures circling them the whole time, but not one of 'em seemed to want to come down and feed. Fair gave me the creeps, it did.'

‘I never heard of a vulture that wouldn't eat,' said Alec.

‘It's true though,' said Mickey. ‘I was telling Llewellyn – they were there the whole time I was working on the car, just wheeling around . . .'

‘Llewellyn?' muttered Ethan.

‘Yeah, he passed us on the road, heading for the Winter Palace. Lucky blighter.' Mickey lowered his voice. ‘At least he'll be eating better than we will tonight.'

Ethan frowned and made a shushing motion. ‘Did he ask you any questions?'

‘A few. He was more interested in talking to Hassan though.'

‘Why Hassan?'

‘Because he only went and told Llewellyn that
he thought he'd seen Tom Hinton at the bazaar in Sharia el-Karnak a couple of nights ago.' Mickey raised his eyebrows.

Alec frowned. ‘You're kidding!' he said.

‘Nah . . . he mentioned it to me the other day, but . . . well, you know Hassan. He can be a bit of a romancer at the best of times.'

Ethan nodded. ‘True enough. I remember way back when I worked on that first dig. We found a mummified cat and he told everybody that he'd seen it moving. He had the workmen terrified – they were all for running out on us. In the end Will had to offer them more money to get them to stay. You warned Llewellyn about him?'

‘I tried to, but he got very excited about it all. Had Mohammed take him straight over to the bazaar. He must have thought it was worth checking out.'

‘Well, I guess it can't do any harm. He can always pick up a few souvenirs to take back to England.' He thought for a moment. ‘It's strange about the vultures though . . . And you know, there was something screwy about those hyenas from the word go. You just don't get hyenas this far north. And then I put two bullets into the heart of one of them but it kept right on coming
at me. I had to finish it off with a head shot.'

Madeleine nudged Alec in the ribs and surreptitiously made her hand into the shape of a gun. She fired an imaginary shot, then blew on the tips of her fingers, cowboy-style, as though dispersing gun smoke. Alec stifled a laugh with the flat of a hand. He had already decided that he and Madeleine were going to be good friends. Although she had a serious side, there was also a playful, mischievous quality to her that Alec really responded to. Coates regarded her antics with rather less amusement. He had been polite enough when Alec had brought her to the tent for coffee earlier, but it was evident that the valet did not approve of her liberated ways and had been quite scandalized when she lit up a cigarette in his presence. He was of the school that preferred females to sit quietly, look pretty and leave the talking to the gentlemen. But Alec knew that the times were changing – that world was all but gone.

Now Madeleine was looking across the campsite to where the large team of Arab workmen were gathered around a fire, preparing their own meal in a big black cooking pot. Hassan had just joined them and was sitting staring into the flames.

‘Such a pity the native workmen can't eat with the rest of us,' observed Madeleine.

‘Table is nae big enough,' growled a rough Glaswegian voice behind her. She turned to see Archie McCloud carrying a steaming metal pot towards the table. ‘Besides, I don't think they'd much care for the kind of grub we serve.' He was a big, red-faced fellow with a shock of unruly ginger hair and an equally unruly beard. A corncob pipe jutted from the corner of his mouth, emitting clouds of noxious smoke, and when he hefted the pot onto the table, Alec could see a crude tattoo etched into the sunburned skin of his forearm. It read: SCOTLAND FOREVER.

‘So, what delights have you got for us this evening, Archie?' asked Ethan, and Alec noted the tone of desperate hopefulness in his voice.

‘It's ma very own Highland stew,' announced Archie, ladling out bowls of glutinous brown sludge. He passed the first bowl to Madeleine and gave her a little bow. ‘Ladies fust,' he said.

‘
Merci beaucoup
.' Madeleine gazed at the contents of the bowl in trepidation. ‘What kind of meat is this?' she asked suspiciously.

‘The finest that the local suppliers can provide,'
said Archie, leaving the diners to speculate on the awful possibilities.

Probably donkey
, thought Alec glumly, but he was too hungry to be fussy and he set to, chewing hard to consume chunks of the gristly meat. Madeleine was clearly not enjoying the experience either, but was gamely chomping away. Coates, on the other hand, was having none of it. As a former chef himself, he had strong views about the preparation of food and was never slow to voice his opinion.

‘Mr McCloud, may I enquire where you worked before you joined this expedition?'

‘You may, Mr Coates.' Archie stood up ramrod straight, as though standing to attention. ‘I'm proud to tell ye that I was a cook in the army for many years. I served with the Royal Highland Fusiliers.'

‘Is that right? And is that where you learned to prepare food?'

‘That is correct, sir.'

‘And this . . . stew. It's been made to your own recipe, has it?'

‘Aye, it has. One that's been handed down through the McCloud family for generations.'

‘Well, if I may be so bold as to make a suggestion . . .'

‘Suggest away, Mr Coates,' said Archie, his expression grim.

‘There are, I believe, several hotels in Luxor that for a small extra fee will plate up food and ferry it to the destination of your choice. Perhaps once in a while you should allow yourself a well-earned rest and we could see what the hotel kitchens could provide us with.'

He glanced around the table and was met with enthusiastic nods and hopeful looks. But Archie shook his head.

‘Now, Mr Coates, would I let you lot suffer through something like that when it is ma pleasure . . . nay, ma joy to prepare fresh food for ye every morning and evening? The looks of delight on yer faces is all the reward I need.'

‘I see. And if perhaps I were to offer my services as your . . . assistant?'

‘I wouldn't hear of it, Mr Coates. I have ma own way of working.' Archie looked challengingly around the table. ‘Of course, if anybody has any complaints . . .'

Ethan was chewing on a particularly tough piece of meat. He shook his head. ‘Oh no, Archie, I don't think anybody is saying that they don't
like
your food. You take this stew now . . .'

‘
Please
take it,' Alec heard Coates mutter. ‘Take it and give it a decent burial.'

Ethan pretended not to hear. ‘It has a . . . really unusual flavour. There's a spice in there . . . I'm not quite sure what it is, but it's got a really distinctive taste.'

‘That'll be the cinnamon,' said Archie.

‘Yeah, cinnamon, that's it! Very unusual in a meat stew.'

‘Well, that was a mistake, Mr Wade. I thought I was adding pepper but ma eyes aren't what they used to be.'

‘A happy accident, then.' Ethan gave up trying to chew on a lump of gristle and spat it out, an action that caused Madeleine to push her bowl away with an expression of disgust. ‘Why, when I think of poor Mr Llewellyn, forced to suffer through one of those dinners at the Winter Palace . . . He doesn't know what he's missing.' He looked around the table but was greeted by a circle of wistful looks. He made an effort to change the subject. ‘So . . . how did it go today? With Mr Llewellyn, I mean? I sure hope his questions weren't too disruptive.'

‘He was a pain in the backside,' said Doc Hopper, the team's physician, a plain-speaking
Lancastrian with silver hair and an enormous drooping moustache. ‘He spent the best part of an hour grilling me, though I made it plain I didn't know anything about what had happened to Tom. I wouldn't mind, but we already went through all this with the local police.'

‘Aye, he had a go at me too,' muttered Archie. ‘I told him I was busy making a goat curry the night Tom disappeared. I didn't notice a thing. But I helped him talk to the Arab workers. One of the men who opened the gates of the tomb said that Tom was acting right strange when he and Sir William came out of the antechamber. Looked like he'd taken a fever or somethin'. Sir William helped him back to his tent for a rest and nobody remembers seeing him after that.'

‘Will was found in the same tent,' Ethan told Alec. ‘Just lying there unconscious. No sign of Tom whatsoever. And when Will came round . . .' He spread his hands. ‘Well, you've seen how he is.'

Alec nodded. ‘I keep thinking about what he said when we were at the hospital. Apophis. He said something about the great Devil,
the serpent that is Apophis
.'

Madeleine looked at him. ‘That
is
strange,' she
said. ‘Images of the serpent god are on the doors of the tomb. And, if you look closely, they seem to 'ave been added to the doors, as though it was some kind of afterthought.'

Ethan shrugged. He pushed his bowl of stew away. ‘What's so strange about that?' he asked.

‘Well, it's supposed to be Akhenaten's tomb,' said Alec. ‘The thing about him is that he was a monotheist—'

‘There's that word again!' said Ethan. ‘I told you, when you speak to me, keep it simple.'

Alec smiled. ‘It means he outlawed the worship of other gods and allowed only Aten, the sun disc. He even changed his name from Amenhotep to Akhenaten, to show his devotion to Aten. But Apophis is the enemy of Aten – the great serpent that was supposed to try and swallow the sun every night, putting it out for ever.'

‘Alec is right,' said Madeleine. ‘Apophis was supposed to 'ave existed since the beginning of time. 'E rose up out of the primeval chaos before creation. It doesn't make sense that Akhenaten would decorate 'is tomb with the symbol of 'is greatest enemy. That would be like . . . Monsieur Coates 'ere, decorating 'is clothes with
Monsieur McCloud's cooking. The thing 'e hates most in the world.'

‘Don't spare ma feelings,' growled Archie, and everyone around the table, including Coates, laughed.

‘So what are you saying?' asked Ethan. ‘That it's
not
Akhenaten's tomb? His name's right there on the door seals.'

‘Yes, I 'ave looked at the photographic plates you made,' said Madeleine. ‘The name
is
there, but it is saying something like “by order of Akhenaten”. As though 'e was still alive when this tomb was sealed.'

‘Well, whose is it then? One of his wives'? His children's?'

Madeleine shrugged and took out her cigarettes. ‘Pointless to speculate,' she said. ‘Maybe we'll know more when we 'ave entered the burial chamber.'

‘Tomb it may concern . . .' said Doc Hopper and everybody groaned. It had been funny enough the first time he'd said it, but he repeated it just about every day. Only Madeleine laughed.

‘Tomb!' she repeated. ‘That is like “to whom”, yes? That's very clever!' She looked around
the table, perhaps seeking an ally, but everyone else maintained a diplomatic silence.

By now everybody had finished eating. Archie surveyed the bowls of barely touched stew in disgust.

‘I don't know why ah bother,' he said.

‘It's just that it was so filling,' said Ethan, patting his stomach. ‘Really, I couldn't eat another thing.'

‘Oh aye. At least Alec has made an effort. Here, perhaps I could offer you a wee bit m—' Archie broke off as something whizzed past his head, striking him across the cheek. He spun aside with an oath, dropping the ladle, and lifted a hand to his face. The fingers came away coated with blood. ‘What the bl—?'A second shape sped past him with a flapping of leathery wings and he flung up his arms to beat it away.