We were a select group, as it turned out. Ed Whitbread was present, of course; he trailed Larry and me at a discreet distance. Sweet and Bright had also joined us.
‘Where’s Schmidt?’ I asked, turning to look back as we started off across the sandy wasteland.
‘Feeding cats, I expect,’ Larry said. ‘Shall we go back for him? He may have changed his mind.’
‘He’s easily distracted,’ I admitted. ‘Wait a minute, here comes . . . No, it’s Feisal.’
The sun was in my eyes or I wouldn’t have made that mistake. Feisal soon caught up with us. He was frowning.
‘Sir, the bus will be leaving in an hour. Where . . .’
Larry explained. ‘I’d have asked you to join us, Feisal, but I thought you had to stay with the group.’
Feisal’s scowl changed to a look of bright-eyed interest. It wasn’t directed at me. I kept forgetting he was a trained Egyptologist. ‘They are now buying souvenirs and cold drinks. I haven’t had a chance to see the excavations, so I will join you if you don’t mind.’
He fell tactfully behind, leaving me to Larry, who proceeded to tell me all about the Old Kingdom tombs. I must say it made a pleasant change to have a man flex his mind instead of his muscles to impress me.
It was also a pleasant change to leave the crowds behind. An ambitious ‘guide’ trotted along with us until Larry dismissed him with a curt Arabic phrase. We had been walking for ten minutes when he gestured. ‘There it is.’
I looked around for walls and cut stone. All I could see was a low mound up ahead. A sinking feeling came over me as I realized I had made a slight error. Anything that had been above ground in two thousand-plus B.C. would be under it now, buried by encroaching sand. I followed Larry up the slope of the mound, and cheered up when I saw below me, not a dark sinister hole in the ground, but a large pit open to the sky. It was paved with stone and there were a few stretches of wall, none of them over a metre high. In front of one such stretch squatted a tan bundle, which unfolded into a man.
‘Sorry, folks, nobody is allowed . . .’ he began. Then his narrow face relaxed. ‘Mr Blenkiron! I heard you were in Egypt, but I didn’t expect you’d honour us with a visit.’
‘Hope we’re not interrupting anything.’ Larry offered me his hand and we scrambled down into the excavation.
Having lots of money makes one welcome in all social circles. The excavator would have kicked Cleopatra out of his bed to welcome the rich patron of archaeological excavations. He greeted Feisal by name, invited the rest of us to call him Ralph, and apologized feverishly for the fact that nothing particularly interesting was going on.
‘The men are off today,’ he explained. ‘It’s Friday. Pat will be sorry to have missed you; he’s gone to Luxor to work at the library at Chicago House.’
He showed us some of the reliefs. They were fragmentary but very beautiful, delicate low reliefs like the ones at Sakkara. He and Larry went off into a spate of technical discussion, and before long Sweet said he thought he and Bright would go back. Larry looked at his watch. ‘Yes, go ahead. Tell them we’ll be along shortly. I’d like to have a quick look at the burial chamber.’
He produced a huge flashlight from his pocket. ‘No need for that, sir,’ Ralph said proudly. ‘We’ve run a wire and stuck up a few lightbulbs. I’ll turn them on, shall I?’
From the northwest corner of the pit, a gently sloping ramp led down. It was low-ceilinged but fairly well lit by a series of bare bulbs. I followed Larry and Ralph until we got to the dreaded, anticipated hole in the ground. The top of a rough wooden ladder showed at the edge of the shaft.
Somebody called from up above, and Ralph said, ‘Damn. I’d better go see – ’ He scrambled back up the ramp. Larry, already on the ladder, looked up at me and for once in my life I decided to be sensible instead of foolhardy.
‘Sorry. I can’t . . .’
I tried to keep my voice steady, but I didn’t succeed. Larry looked startled. ‘Why, Vicky, I had no idea. Is that what was bothering you when we were in the royal tomb at Amarna? I thought you looked . . . We’ll go back. I don’t have to do this.’
‘No, you go ahead. I’ll wait for you here.’
‘If you’re sure . . .’ His head sank down out of sight.
I thought the scream, high and piercing as a bird’s call, had come from Larry until he echoed it. His startled cry was followed by a rattle and a crash. The lights went out.
There was daylight behind me, only thirty feet away – a bright, heavenly square of brightness. I could crawl up the ramp . . . and leave Larry down below in the dark. The ladder must have broken. He had fallen from it – how far? I heard a faint groan. It died into silence.
Did I mention that I shared that tunnel under the Schloss in Rothenburg with two other people, both of them injured? One of them was Tony, once my Significant Other, still my cherished friend. The groan from the darkness shot me back into the past, and for a few horrible moments I lost track of where I was and
I didn’t. I couldn’t. I rolled myself into a ball like a reluctant foetus and when the daylight behind me was blotted out I started to whimper.
I
HANDS TOOK HOLD of me and tried to unwind me. I fought them frantically until it dawned on me that there was something familiar about that grip. ‘Tony,’ I croaked. ‘Oh, Tony, damn it, I thought you were – ’
He slapped me, hard. After my head had settled back onto my neck I squinted up at him. It wasn’t Tony. Of course it wasn’t. Tony was in Chicago, not in that filthy tunnel under the Schloss. Neither was I. I was in Egypt in a filthy tunnel in a tomb,with . . .
‘You bastard,’ I said feebly.
‘How pitifully inadequate.’ John hauled me to my feet and propped me against the wall, out of his way. Leaning over the shaft he called, ‘Blenkiron! Speak up, don’t be shy.’
The voice echoed hollowly. ‘I’m okay. You’ll have to get a rope. The ladder . . .’
‘Hang on.’
‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded.
John turned to me. I couldn’t make out his features; the only light came from the top of the ramp and even that distant illumination dimmed as people crowded around the opening, spouting agitated questions and exclamations. I sensed, rather than saw, the movement when his raised arm fell to his side. I had hit him a lot harder than he had hit me. Apparently he had decided not to even things up with a second slap. Too many people watching.
‘You have a positive genius for irrelevance,’ he remarked. ‘Come on, up you go; can you walk or shall I drag you?’
I couldn’t walk. The roof was too low. So I crawled, as fast as I could, leaving John calmly discussing the situation with Larry.
I emerged from the opening to find myself in the middle of a fight, if one can use that word to describe an altercation between a fat elderly midget and a tall muscular man. Ed had Schmidt in a close embrace and Schmidt was pounding on his back and yelling in Mittelhochdeutsch, his favourite language for swearing.
‘Cut it out, you little lunatic,’ Ed said. His breathing wasn’t even fast. ‘Here she comes. Safe and sound.’
He released Schmidt. Schmidt darted at me. ‘Vicky! Are you all right? I was trying to get to you – ’
‘Stop squeezing me, Schmidt. I’m fine.’ But I didn’t try to free myself; it felt good to be held by someone who loved me. Over the top of Schmidt’s head I saw other members of our group, in various poses of curiosity and concern. Feisal clutched Suzi’s voluptuous form. Her eyes were closed, but I doubted she was unconscious; one of her arms was draped around Feisal’s neck. Pale and shaken, Mary leaned against a wall. She wasn’t as pale as the young archaeologist, who had just seen his hopes of a generous contribution go up in smoke. It is difficult to win
