Chapter Twenty-One

London, January 1973

Eve was awake when the doctor arrived but she felt drowsy. He was a young doctor, one she hadn’t met before, and she would normally have chatted while he did his examination but she couldn’t seem to wake up enough.

After he left, she lay in bed, thinking about the questions Ana had asked. Maybe it was time for her to tell the truth about what happened in November 1922. If it were true, that she was the only one left who was there at the beginning, before the tomb was dismantled, that gave her a responsibility.

She didn’t want the reputations of either Howard or her father to be tarnished by this new investigation. If she confirmed they had taken items from the tomb, would they be labeled thieves? Might she even be arrested as an accomplice to crime?

What would Pups want her to do? He had been shy of publicity so would probably want it kept quiet. But Howard was a scientist first and foremost, so perhaps he would urge her to tell the truth, especially now it couldn’t harm anyone.

If only she could reach out to them in the afterlife and ask their wishes. It felt wrong for her to make the decision all on her own about something that concerned them all.

* * *

After that first torchlit glimpse into the tomb on the twenty-sixth of November, Eve, Pups, and Howard returned to Castle Carter feeling restless.

“I hope you have a decent whisky,” Pups said, and Howard produced a Glenmorangie from a cupboard.

“I don’t suppose you have the ingredients for a gin rickey?” Eve asked.

Howard didn’t have any limes, only lemons, but she said that would be fine. The lemons in Egypt had a delicious sweetness.

Howard was thinking out loud as he poured their drinks. “It could be a cache of objects from the Amarna royal cemetery, where Akhenaten is buried. It certainly looks like some kind of storage facility.”

Eve was crestfallen. “So it might not be Tutankhamun’s tomb, even though it has his seal?”

“I’m not jumping to conclusions.” Howard handed her the drink and she took a gulp. It was strong, making her sneeze, so she topped it up with more soda from his siphon. “I’ve come across his seal elsewhere.”

“Normally tombs were carefully laid out, were they not?” Pups asked. “Perhaps those early robbers rummaged through this one and left it in disarray. That would help our case when arguing for a share.”

“I didn’t see a coffin, but I would expect that to be in a separate chamber, if it’s there at all.” Howard hadn’t touched his whisky, which was balanced precariously on top of a book by his elbow.

Eve looked out the window. It was pitch-black now. Her stomach gurgled. “Are we going back to the hotel for dinner?” she asked Pups.

“I have a collection of tinned supplies,” Howard said. “You’re welcome to raid them if you like.”

Eve wandered into his kitchen and opened the cupboards. She found jars of marmalade and jam, cans of mock turtle soup, tinned fruit, sardines, Brand’s Essence of Chicken, a tin of water biscuits, and a pâté de fois gras. The Egyptian houseboy appeared in the doorway. She used mime to ask him to heat some soup and serve the fois gras on water biscuits. Essence of Chicken held no appeal.

When she returned, the men were talking about the legal procedures they must follow to register the find. She felt horribly frustrated. To know the treasures were there and not be able to explore them was cruel. When the food came, she had no appetite, and she noticed the men weren’t eating either. Howard replenished their glasses instead.

“I definitely won’t sleep tonight,” Eve said. “It seems such a shame not to be able to go further. . . .”

“We don’t want to get on the wrong side of the Egyptians,” Pups cautioned. “Especially not at such a sensitive time, with independence less than a year old.”

“No, of course not,” Howard agreed. “All the same . . .” He paused, thinking out loud, and they both held their breath as they watched him. “How would you feel about slipping back for a quick look now, while no one else is around? We’ll have to be careful, but . . .”

Before he could finish his sentence, they had both agreed.

* * *

Howard lent Eve one of his jackets to wear over her day dress. It was huge, the shoulders sagging to her elbows and the hem almost reaching her knees, but she was grateful for the warmth when they stepped out into the chilly desert air. Howard kept his own donkey tethered in the back garden, but it clearly thought it was off duty for the night and honked in angry protest, bucking and straining as he slipped a bridle over its head. He tied it to an old cart, then invited them to climb in. The Egyptian donkey cart drivers had a set of steps Eve could ascend but there were none here so she had to hitch up her skirts and clamber in any old how.

She felt nervous as a bank robber as they drove the two miles uphill, Howard’s torch casting a long white beam that sliced through the darkness. Some wild creatures were howling in the desert, making her even more apprehensive.

“What’s that noise?” she whispered.

“Jackals,” Howard replied, and she shivered.

Once they turned into the Valley, the cart bumped erratically over the rough ground. Howard drove them right up to the tomb entrance, then tethered the donkey to a stake. He removed the key from his pocket and opened the metal gate, then they walked down the sloping corridor to the sealed doorway. Howard used a pick to chip a hole low down that was just big enough for a woman to crawl through.

“Ladies first.” He turned to Eve and handed her a torch. “You are the most impatient, as well as the smallest.”

She hesitated. What might she find inside? Snakes? Bats? Angry spirits? “Could there be snakes?” she asked out loud.

“No.” He shook his head. “It’s been sealed for three millennia. Nothing will be alive in there.”

He sounded very definite. It was on the tip of Eve’s tongue to suggest that one of the men should lead the way, but then she steeled herself. It was an honor to be the first person to enter for three thousand years. She couldn’t turn that down, especially not as a budding lady archaeologist.

Holding the torch in her teeth, she got down on her knees and crawled through the aperture, standing upright once she was inside. The temperature was hotter than the hottest Turkish bath, but it was a dry, oppressive heat that irritated her throat. The dusty air smelled faintly of perfume and, outside her torch beam, the darkness was impenetrable. Her heart was pounding so hard she thought she might faint and at first she didn’t dare move. Behind her she heard Howard chipping away to widen the hole. One of the men was coming through, so she shuffled sideways, giving a startled yelp when her foot came into contact with an object.

She shone her torch around the chamber. The animal heads she had spotted through the aperture belonged to some strange elongated creatures; one reminded her of a leopard, another of a crocodile. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. To her left there was a pile of wheels and the body of a carriage; she guessed this was a vehicle designed to take the tomb’s occupant to the afterlife, as was the Egyptian tradition. On the floor there were wooden chests and containers, footstools and jars, all higgledy-piggledy.

Her father appeared by her side, and she slipped her arm through his and clutched tight as they waited for Howard. Neither spoke. They were breathing air that had not been breathed for three millennia. She felt giddy, exhilarated, and nervous, all at the same time. It made her conscious of her physicality—the beating of her heart, the in-and-out movement of her ribs, the muscles of her eyes as they strained to peer through the darkness.

When Howard got inside, he began picking up objects and examining them by torchlight. “I think the animal-headed figures are couches,” he told them, shining his beam along the length of one. He picked up a jar and turned it over to read the name engraved on the base: the first said Amenhophis, another read Akhenaten, and then he came upon three in a row that said Tutankhamun.

“Why so many names?” he wondered out loud.

Eve stepped carefully toward the right side of the chamber and almost dropped her torch in astonishment when her beam alighted on a life-sized statue of a black-skinned boy wearing a gold headdress and holding a staff. The whites of his eyes gleamed. “Who’s this fellow?” she asked, her voice shaky, and Howard came over.

“Good lord!” he exclaimed. “It looks like a guardian statue.” He shone his torch along the wall it stood against and there, behind a low chest, was another statue that looked identical.

“What’s a guardian statue?” Eve asked. The statue’s gaze was uncannily lifelike. Every detail was perfect, from the pupils right down to the toes inside its golden sandals, as if it could spring to life at any minute and step toward her.

“It means the entry to the burial chamber must be here,” he said. He knocked on the wall behind the statues. It was hollow.

Eve felt scared suddenly. “Perhaps we shouldn’t go any farther,” she whispered. She wrapped Howard’s jacket more tightly around her, hoping they could leave soon. There was something that didn’t feel right about this. Perhaps it was the thought that there could be a mummified corpse inside. It was like digging up someone’s grave.

“We can’t stop now,” Howard said, and started chipping away at the lower part of the wall between the statues, as if he were a man possessed.

Eve realized that nothing she or Pups could say would stop him. Instead they stood, arms linked, holding their breath as they waited to find out what—or who—might lie beyond.