'Aha! So none of this is coincidence then. It seems I am the unwitting
pawn in some deep and nefarious plot.' He pointed to the chair facing
his desk. 'Sit!' he ordered 'Tell!'
He perched above her on the corner of the desk, with the whisky glass in
his right hand and with one long, denim-clad leg swinging lazily as the
tail of a resting leopard. Though he was smiling quizzically, he watched
her face with a penetrating green gaze. She thought that it would be
difficult to lie to this man.
She took a deep breath, 'Have you heard of an ancient Egyptian queen
called Lostris, of the second intermediate period, coexistent with the
first Hyksos invasions?'
He laughed a little derisively and stood up, 'Oh! Now we are talking
about the book River God, are we?' He went to the bookcase and brought
down a copy. Although well thumbed, it was still in its dust-jacket, and
the cover illustration was a dreamy surrealistic view in pastel shades
of green and rose purple of the pyramids seen over water.
He dropped it on the desk in front of her.
'Have you read it?' she asked.
'Yes,' he nodded. 'I read most of Wilbur Smith's stuff.
He amuses me. He has shot here at Quenton Park a couple of times.'
'You like lots of sex and violence in your reading, obviously?' She
pulled a face. 'What did you think of this particular book?'
'I must admit that he had me fooled. Whilst I was reading it, I sort of
wished that it might be based on fact.
That was why I phoned Duraid.' Nicholas picked up the book again and
flipped to the end of it. 'The author's note was convincing, but what I
couldn't get out of my mind was the last sentence.' He read it aloud.
''Sanwwhere in the Abyssinian mountains near the source of the Blue
Nile, the mummy of Tenus still lies in the unviolated tomb of Pharaoh
Mamose.
Almost angrily Nicholas threw the book down on the desk. 'My God! You
will never know how much I wanted it to be true. You will never know how
much I wanted a shot at Pharaoh Mamose's tomb. I had to speak to Duraid.
When he assured me it was all a load of bunkum, I felt cheated. I had
built up my expectations so high that I was bitterly disappointed.'
'It's not bunkum,' she contradicted him, and then corrected herself
quickly, 'well, at least not all of it.'
'I see. Duraid was lying to me, was he?'
'Not lying,' she defended him hotly. 'Just delaying the truth a little.
He wasn't ready to tell you the whole story then. He didn't have the
answers to all the questions that he knew you would ask. He was going to
come to you when he was ready. Your name was at the top of the list of
potential sponsors that he had drawn up.'
'Duraid did not have the answers, but I suppose you do?' He was smiling
sceptically. was caught once. I am not likely to fall for the same cock
and bull a second time.'
'The scrolls exist. Nine of them are still in the, vaults at the Cairo
museum. I was the one who discovered them in the tomb of Queen Lostris.'
Royan opened her leather sling bag and rummaged around in it until she
brought out a thin sheaf of glossy 6 4 colour photographs. She selected
