Chapter Fifty-Four

London, July 1, 1935

Eve visited Howard Carter, in a flat he had bought around the corner from the Albert Hall. Howard still dressed just as her father used to, in a three-piece suit and bow tie, but he was stooped and needed a walking stick to get around now. He looked ghastly, she thought, as they sat chatting; his skin was gray, the whites of his eyes pale yellow, and his cheeks hollow.

“I’ve been having X-ray treatments for a problem with my glands,” he said. “Jolly unpleasant. Can’t say I recommend it.” He touched his stomach lightly and kept his hand there, as if to hold back queasiness.

“It will be worth it in the end, I dare say,” Eve replied, wondering if he had cancer. Since childhood she’d always spoken her mind with Howard, and he with her, but it seemed rude to mention the word cancer if he didn’t volunteer it. “Are you happy with your doctors? More to the point, is Mama happy?”

Although Almina never had formal training in medicine, she considered herself more expert than the vast majority of doctors.

“She’s arranged the best of care and given me a strict diet,” he said. “I am, of course, following it to the letter.” They exchanged complicit smiles.

“How are the Egyptians? Still giving you grief?” Eve asked. There had been a long history of grievances on Howard’s side and on theirs, but on the whole she hoped the authorities appreciated what an astounding job he had done in preserving the tomb. He’d got the world’s top experts involved, and had left a record that was the most thorough of any archaeological dig in history.

“They’ll always find something to complain about.” He sniffed. “Do you remember that funny smell when we broke into the burial chamber?”

“I certainly do,” she said. “It was horrid.”

“They tell me that staff working with the objects from the burial chamber complain of headaches and giddiness. One man has an asthma attack if he goes near them. And it reminded me that I used to feel very odd if I worked in there for long . . .”

“I did too,” Eve interrupted. “I remember feeling dizzy the night we first broke in.”

Howard closed his eyes for a second, as if waiting for a spasm of pain to pass. “I couldn’t work out what was causing the smell,” he said, “But then I wondered if it might have been the unguent in that container you took?”

Straightaway, Eve knew he was right. She shuddered. “I never liked that smell. I keep the container hidden away in the attic because otherwise the scent seeps out and impregnates my clothes.”

“I’m glad you keep it in the attic, my dear. I’ve come to suspect it may be some kind of poison that Maya left as a trap for tomb robbers.”

“Poison!” She was shocked. That unguent had been on Patricia’s skin, in her hair!

“If the robbers had managed to access the burial chamber, that’s the first item they would have stolen, because unguents were so valuable,” Howard explained. “That’s why Maya designed one that would make them ill. Perhaps it could even have proved fatal three thousand years ago. He might have called it ‘magic’ but the toxins they used then were very real.”

Eve clutched her throat. “Do you think it could still be dangerous?”

“Probably not.” He smiled. “But I certainly wouldn’t want to breathe it in, day in, day out. You are wise to keep it in the attic.”

Eve was shaken, but tried to make light of it. “There was me thinking I’d taken the most valuable object that night, and instead I took the most lethal!”

“It would be interesting to have scientists analyze it and find out what the poison is, but I’m torn because that would mean confessing our little secret.” He gave her a rueful smile. “I’ve never regretted what we did, have you?”

“Absolutely not. It was thrilling! I’m glad it was just us three. Well, four: you, me, Pups, and Tutankhamun.” She glanced at the clock and realized she was running late.

He had a fond smile as he regarded her. “Where are you hurtling off to this afternoon?”

Eve bit her lip, glancing at the clock again. “I’m hoping to get to Newmarket, where Hot Flash is running in the three-fifteen.” Howard looked blank so she reminded him. “You know, our filly. She took the St. Leger last year, and has a feel for speed.”

“Like her owner,” Howard said. “I’ve never known you to sit still for long, not since you were a nipper of—what were you, seven when I met you?”

“Six. You came to Highclere with some bits and pieces for Pups’s collection and I bored you to death with the entire extent of my knowledge of Ancient Egypt. I’m cringing at the memory.”

“You have never bored me, Eve. You never will. Now go—go and see your horse and come back to visit me soon.”

His niece, Phyllis, came into the hall to bid Eve goodbye.

“Is he going to be alright?” Eve asked. “Is there anything I can do?” It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if they needed money, but she stopped herself. Howard had done well over the years from buying and selling Egyptian artifacts, and from his lecture tours and books. He must be comfortable.

“Don’t worry,” Phyllis said. “We’re fine. I’d tell you if we weren’t.”

Not fine at all, Eve thought, as she left the London suburbs behind and headed into the countryside. He was only sixty-one and should have been in better health. Poor Howard!

She hoped the press didn’t get wind of his illness or they’d claim it was the curse of Tutankhamun. Every chance they got, they wheeled out the old trope. Howard had calculated that ten years after the official opening of the tomb, only six of the twenty-six present had died, which wasn’t bad odds considering the average age of the guests was probably around sixty.

She took the Great Cambridge Road. As it crossed the River Lea, sun glinted off the water and the sky was a bright cloudless blue, making it feel like the South of France rather than England. She tried to shake off her gloom and focus on their trip to Montpellier in three weeks’ time. She couldn’t wait. Still, a kernel of worry nagged at her.

It was horrid to think of an Ancient Egyptian poison rotting away in her attic. Sometimes she wished Tutankhamun’s tomb had never been found, but had been left undisturbed beneath the rock and sand of the Egyptian desert.

* * *

The clock on the dashboard read twenty to three. Time was tight but Eve could still make it to the starting gate if she kept up her present speed. Just as that thought crossed her mind, a tractor turned out of a field into the road in front. No, she groaned. She beeped her horn, but there was nowhere for the driver to pull over because there were dry-stone walls lining the fields on either side. As luck would have it, this was the only twisty stretch in an otherwise ruler-straight road that dated back to the Romans. Eve pulled the car’s nose out in an attempt to pass, but another car was hurtling toward her so she drew back again.

She tried several times to pass the tractor but each time had to abandon the attempt. It was too risky. A queue of cars built up behind her and she hoped the tractor driver felt guilty at least. Some of the other drivers beeped their horns, but it did nothing but raise their blood pressure, Eve thought. It looked as though she was going to miss the race after all. Too bad.

Straight after a tight bend, a clear stretch beckoned: her chance at last. She accelerated into the other side of the road. The car directly behind her also pulled out. And then, like a mirage, a country bus turned out of a lane up ahead that had been hidden among trees. It was heading straight for her.

Adrenaline kicked in. Eve pressed her accelerator to the floor, taking the Austin up to its top speed, but quickly realized she wouldn’t get past the tractor in time to avoid crashing headlong into the bus. She couldn’t brake and pull back because the car behind was hemming her in. There was a field to the right but a dry-stone wall stood in the way. A million thoughts flooded her brain in split seconds as she tried to think how to save herself. Patricia! she screamed silently. Brograve!

Just before the bus hit, she spun the steering wheel hard right toward the wall and braced herself. Metal exploded on metal and glass shattered on her passenger side, the impact throwing her hard against the driver’s door. She was still conscious when the car filled with a musky fragrance that caught the back of her throat. It was a scent she knew from long ago, the scent of Tutankhamun’s tomb. An image flashed into her mind of the boy king’s striped funeral mask, with the uraeus on top, its cobra head poised to strike.

It got me, she thought with surprise, just before there was a second explosion as the car behind smashed into her, followed by silence.