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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2001
Copyright © Michael Pearce 2001
Michael Pearce asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008259334
Ebook Edition © APRIL 2017 ISBN: 9780007401338
Version: 2017-08-30
Over towards the Nile the light shimmered and seemed to fall apart, and then it came together again and presented a beautifully clear picture of the river, with palms shifting gently in the river breeze, a pigeon tower, and children playing around a water buffalo in the shallows; so clear that you could make out every detail.
Only it was not a true picture, at least, not of this part of the river. The Nile bent away at this point and where the mirage was, was just scrub and desert.
The desert was playing tricks here, too, inland a quarter of a mile. Heat spirals danced away across the sand and dust devils chased among the graves, where galabeahed men stood silently, watching him.
âYouâre not a pet man, though, are you?â said McPhee.
âNo.â
âIâm dogs, myself.â
Only it was cats here; dozens and dozens, hundreds and hundreds of them. They lay in open circular pits, uncovered by the archaeologists and then abandoned. Each pit was about eight feet in diameter and five or six feet deep. The cats lay on ledges around the sides, except that when space had run out they had been piled carefully on top of each other in the middle. Each cat had been tenderly mummified, the body treated first and then swathed in yards and yards of linen bandages. The pits stretched out towards the horizon.
âThey werenât really pets, though, were they?â said Owen.
âSomeone must have loved them, to lavish such attention on them.â
âBut didnât you say â?â
âThere are lots of inscriptions to the cat goddess round here, it is true,â McPhee conceded.
âSo perhaps they were just running wild in the temples?â
âI donât know about running wild,â said McPhee severely. âFed, and not ill treated, perhaps.â
âBut hardly pets.â
âPerhaps not.â
âObjects of devotion?â
âSacred, certainly.â
But in the grave at Owenâs feet there was something which was clearly not an object of devotion. It lay across the middle of the pit and cat mummies had been clumsily pulled off the shelves and spread over it in an attempt to hide it. It was rather longer than a cat mummy but bandaged tightly like them.
Except at the head, where the district mamur, alerted by the village omda, had uncovered enough of the modern bandages to reveal that the body was that of a twentieth-century, fair-headed woman.
âIdentification?â said Owen.
âThey all know her. The omda ââ began the mamur.
âSomeone closer.â
âThere is a husband,â said the mamur, almost unwillingly.
âHusband?â
Owen looked at his papers. They made no reference to a husband.
âWhere is he?â
âUp at the factory.â
âHas he seen her?â
âHe knows,â said the mamur evasively.
Owen bent over the body. Already, in the heat, it was changing.
âYouâd better get it moved,â he said.
The mamur nodded, and beckoned to two of the villagers.
âMustapha! Abu!â
They came forward reluctantly.
âWait a minute!â said Owen. âArenât you going to ⦠?â