Death in Luxor

by Graham Warren

  At the mention of a possible trap, Cairo was no longer as excited as he was just a fraction of a second before. In fact, he started to have serious doubts about going into the hill behind at all.

  “It’s this one,” said Alex with great excitement.

  “Are you sure, Mister Alex?”

  “As sure as I can be. Here, look at these cables.” Cairo leant in as Alex pointed. “This very big cable must be the power coming in, these smaller cables head straight along into where we hope to be going.”

  “They go to our hotel?”

  “No, they go into the hill behind.”

  “Then they don’t go where I hope to be going, Mister Alex.”

  “What do I do with you?” Alex said as he ruffled Cairo’s hair. “Look here, right here. There is only one smaller cable which leads up from the floor, and it connects to this fuse.” A fuse that Alex flicked. Within a split-second they were both looking down a dark tunnel. Alex followed an electric cable back from an overhead light before flicking the switch under another fuse. The tunnel immediately lit up, revealing that it travelled a great distance into the hill. “Come on.”

  Cairo watched as Alex stepped beyond where the false wall had been. He knew that he was not ready for this adventure and said so. “I go back to hotel, Mister Alex. If you not come back, I tell my dad.”

  “Okay, that’s fine, Cairo, but when you are picked up as you leave, don’t say anything, however much they torture you.” Alex flicked the switch on the wall beside him. He was alone for slightly less than three seconds, the false wall having only just sealed, when it spun open again and Cairo came running through.

  What had looked to be a straight tunnel which headed a long way into the hill, quickly opened out into a large chamber before continuing. There were many lights which remained unlit, though they could see adequately enough to make out that this was a natural chamber. They deduced this from its shape as well as its uneven surfaces. There were several tunnels leaving this chamber, though only one which was lit. Alex stepped over to inspect a very large pile of rock which turned out to be loose. “They are clearing, and this is where they are dumping the rubbish.”

  “My my, Holmes, we have cracked the case,” came from one of the unlit tunnels, followed quickly by a running figure that threw itself into Alex’s arms, before also giving Cairo the biggest hug.

  “We thought we had lost you, Kate. Are you okay?” asked Alex in a mixture of confusion and concern.

  Cairo was jumping up and down whilst clapping his hands in excitement.

  “I was totally flipping lost down there,” said Kate as she successfully held back tears of relief. “I saw someone come out of the door up there when Cairo and I were standing behind the temple. He lit a cigarette and wandered off, so I darted in, just to have a quick look. I ran down into this chamber, but when I went to leave, only seconds later, I saw him coming back in. He couldn’t have finished his cigarette in that time, so something must have brought him back. I had no option. I had to run down that tunnel.” Kate pointed to where she had come from. “I didn’t go far before it split into two, and then quite quickly it split again. I thought I was quite safe, and once he had gone past, that I would easily find my way out.” Kate spoke rapidly. “It was then that I heard several voices, so I had to stay where I was. Just as I thought it was safe to come out, the flipping lights went out. I couldn’t move, as I had no idea of where I would end up. Hearing your voices, I found my way back and eventually saw the light. You didn’t say much, which held me up, so next time you enter a tomb, jabber away.” Kate playfully punched Alex on the shoulder and was now smiling, as were they all.

  “Do you have any idea what’s going on here?”

  “None whatsoever. I haven’t had time to explore so I have no idea what your dad may be expecting to find here.”

  “It’s not my dad, Kate.”

  “Napoleon?”

  “Yes,” said Cairo, “and he have men with suits and security and everything.”

  “We saw him leave, and anyway, my dad may be many things, but he would never rob tombs, and this has to be illegal.”

  “I know he wouldn’t,” said Kate. “You are absolutely correct though. The entrance alone screams illegal dig. From what you told us,” she looked at Alex, “Napoleon has the money and influence to make anything happen, as well as to pay off the authorities, should anyone start snooping around.”

  “Well, at least we agree that there is no point in reporting this, as whoever we tell, he will pay off and we will be the ones in trouble. We will have to get to the bottom of what is going on by ourselves.”

  Kate and Cairo both nodded though Cairo had become increasingly preoccupied with the pile of rocks. One by one he brought rocks out into the light. He rolled each one around in his hands before returning it to the pile. “They digging, not clearing,” Cairo pronounced to the amazement of Kate and Alex, who now both picked up a piece of rock to examine it.

  “How did you deduce that, Cairo?” asked Kate.

  “What?” was the reply.

  “How do you know that they are digging?” asked Alex.

  “It easy. New cut rock white, old rock not quite white. This white on all sides.”

  “Well done,” said Kate and Alex as one, as they examined the rocks they were holding. They were indeed very white on all sides.

  “So, they are digging. That’s something I really didn’t expect. Shall we see where this tunnel goes?” asked Kate.

  “Let’s not, not today,” said Alex, who had not expected to come across anything like this. All he had wanted was to find out where his father was digging. That was the one thing they had not found out. “Honestly, I don’t think that I have the energy for anymore adventures today. Don’t you think it best if we let Three and the others know about all of this? Oh, and I also promised mum and dad that I would get you back in good time, or there will be no way we will be able to stop you from being grounded.”

  “Oh hell! I totally forgot about Aggie. What time is it?”

  Alex fumbled for his phone. He saw that he had a message, but also that it was earlier than he thought. “Three thirty.”

  “It’s still early. I haven’t come this far to walk away without knowing what is down there.” Kate pointed down the lit tunnel. “Aren’t you the slightest bit curious?” and to her surprise Cairo was the one that said, “Yes, I am, we go.”

  “Hey, Kate, it’s a message from my mum. She says that Aggie is awake and we are all meeting at six in the hotel bar before going for dinner. Oh, and she says that we should not be late.”

  “Text her back to say we will be there. We have time to go exploring now.”

  “The text must have come in earlier. There’s no signal down here,” said Alex as he waved his phone around, “not even one bar.”

  “Well, are you coming or not?” said a more than slightly eager Kate.

  “I’m coming,” the boys said in unison.

  They walked through a short tunnel which opened into a large chamber. They looked on in amazement.

  “Disneyland,” said Kate, “they are creating Disneyland.”

  Each wall was at a different stage of completion. Alex could not believe how much equipment was in there, though it was the industrial-sized food mixers which confused him the most. He could understand the need for moisture testing. Many small sensors were attached to a powerful looking laptop, the screen of which was larger than most televisions. Alex would not have had a clue about what it did, if it was not for the large manufacturer’s banner attached to the back of the screen. There were eight further massive laptops, all with expensive looking equipment attached to them, however, it was the food mixers which continued to confuse him. They looked large enough to make one hundred loaves at one go, possibly more. “What do you think these are for, Kate?”

  “Making bread!”

  “Making mud, Mister Alex.”

  “What!” came quite involuntarily from him.

 
“Making the mud for the walls,” said Cairo as he went to a darker area of wall and pried off a piece with his fingers. “Look, this not dry yet.” Kate and Alex took hold of a little piece each. They could see that within the mud there were very small pieces of what appeared to be straw.

  “Okay, Cairo, do tell us more,” said Kate.

  “When ancients made tombs, the walls were too rough to paint on, so they had to find way to smooth them.” Cairo was so happy that he knew something Kate and Alex did not. For the first time today he had stopped worrying, therefore his English improved. Some of the little words, which so often went missing from his vocabulary, returned. “Each period of Egyptian history had a different way of mixing the mud and making the sealer for walls. I think you call it size. You can date many tombs from the mud mix, the way the straw is cut and the type of sealer used.”

  “That would account for these pieces,” said Kate as she held up one of two identical sections of a tomb wall. They had been on the workbench in front of her. Each piece was full of hieroglyphs and figures, just as anyone would expect to see on any ancient Egyptian tomb wall in Luxor. However, on closer inspection, Kate doubted that any pharaoh ever wore a watch. “Have you seen this?”

  Alex and Cairo immediately joined her. The two pieces were, to their inexperienced eyes, identical, even down to the depiction of a watch on the pharaoh’s wrist and a camera within the hieroglyphs. Alex looked under the workbench. He was quickly joined by Kate and Cairo. There, stacked in a higgledy-piggledy fashion, were many more of the same piece, though these had obviously been discarded. Not one was totally perfect. On some the colours were a little off, on others the colours had bled as the size was obviously wrong, though every single one had the watch and camera.

  “Why watch and camera?” asked Cairo.

  There was total silence, and then from nowhere Kate knew why. “I have it,” she exclaimed. “The watch and camera are there, so that when they perfected their craft by replicating the original piece in both texture and colour, when their copy was perfect, they could tell the original from the copy. I bet that somewhere around here is the original of this.”

  “Like this one!” Alex held up a piece that was on another bench, a piece without the watch or camera.

  “Exactly!” said Kate, feeling quite smug. She focused her attention on the walls for the first time. “They are obviously happy that they have reached perfection. Now they can write whatever they want. It will be indistinguishable from an ancient tomb. That wall there is nearly finished.”

  Looking up at the large wall which was behind them as they came in, they could see that Kate was correct. It was filled with scenes that were typical of a pharaoh’s tomb. Looking around in a clockwise direction, the next wall was light in colour. It had been outlined in red ochre, ready for painting. The following wall was slightly darker, and on closer inspection it was agreed that it had probably just been sized. This was why a row of fan heaters, set on their lowest setting, were pointing up at it. The last wall was only half plastered with the mud mix. It was very dark in colour, so therefore still very wet. This they had confirmed by the small piece Cairo had previously removed.

  “These heaters, ovens, mixers and paint blending machines, in fact all this equipment,” said Kate as she turned in a circle taking everything in, “are here to make a tomb, which, once finished, they will have to distress if it is to look truly ancient.”

  Alex looked even closer at a small section of the finished wall. “It’s a deliberate attempt to fool the experts.”

  “You missed the main point,” said Kate. “It doesn’t have to fool any experts, because when the world’s leading archaeologist announces that he has discovered a new tomb, well, an old tomb, but a new discovery, oh you know what I mean.” Kate searched for the sentence she needed, and then it came to her. “Would your father challenge Napoleon on this tomb’s authenticity, even if he thought that it was fake?”

  “No way! He couldn’t afford to. Napoleon would immediately sue dad for defamation of character and anything else he could think of.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “What about the contents of the tomb, where will they be coming from? Who will they say was buried in here?” asked Alex. “Look, every cartouche has been left blank”.

  They searched everywhere, but could find nothing that even suggested a name of a pharaoh. Feeling both satisfied and dissatisfied in equal measure, they all agreed that they were not going to find out any more here today. Alex took a few photos of the walls as well as the equipment.

  As he did, Kate just had to ask Cairo why he had been so eager to come down here, when he was usually the one who wanted to go back to the hotel. He replied that once he had found out that this was all new, he did not have to worry about any ancient attacking him. Kate also had to ask Alex what this anise was that his father drank. She knew it was not important, but it just kept niggling at her.

  “What does that have to do with this tomb?” asked Alex as he put his camera away.

  “Absolutely nothing, but since Rose … oh flip … I totally forgot, I was supposed to meet her at Africa.”

  “Don’t worry, you can call Rose on my mobile when we are out of here. She will understand.”

  “I know she will.”

  “Well, Kate, what was this about anise, as I have never heard of a drink called anise?”

  Cairo was ready to burst as this was the second time today that he knew an answer to a question that neither Kate nor Alex did. “It is a tea,” he said, feeling really proud.

  “What type of tea?” asked Kate.

  “It is a tea made from liquorice-flavoured seeds that we serve to people who have nervous stomachs. People who worry.”

  “Well, that explains why dad would be drinking it. He is really worried about getting his dig.”

  “He might, but I will not need to drink any now, as I will not have to worry what anise is,” said Kate to general amusement.

  As they walked back Kate held onto Alex’s arm. “I know your father can be a pain, but I also know that he digs for the glory. There is no glory in cheating or stealing. I am absolutely sure that nothing here has anything to do with him.”

  Alex thanked Kate, as he considered her confidence in his father reflected favourably upon him. He extricated her arm from his, as there was just about enough width for him to put his arms around them both, as he announced, “Winter Palace, here we come.”

  Chapter 8

  -

  A Cat, a Snake

  and a Warlock

  Heading past the remains of the workers houses, there was the general feeling, much to their amazement, that today had after all been a great success. They shared a laugh at just how close they had been whilst missing each other completely. Putting the picture together, it became clear that Kate must have slipped into the ‘broom cupboard’ whilst Alex had been walking around the outside wall to the wooden gate. On finding Kate missing, Cairo had gone back into the temple looking for her, just as Alex had gained entry and walked to the ‘broom cupboard’. It was only when Cairo had realised that Kate was nowhere to be found that he came out screaming, as he was frightened, or as he put it, “I go for help.”

  “What I don’t understand,” said Alex, bringing a more serious note to their conversation, “is why Bast refused to come with me.”

  “Well, she didn’t know that I was missing, and anyway, I wasn’t at that time.”

  “No, I didn’t mean it like that. We both suspected that you were likely to be in danger, yet she flatly refused to come with me.”

  “Anyway, we didn’t need her help, we did great all on our own. And let’s face it, we now know what’s going on. Well, some of what is going on. At the very least we know what that Napoleon is up to.”

  “No, Kate, there is more to it than that. When we all got together last week, you know, when we were new to this–”

  “Oh yes, my boy, we are all seasoned explorers now,” said Kate interrupting
Alex, in a voice that she thought would be a pretty good example of a gruff old explorer, though it came out sounding more like that of a general of the British Empire. They laughed as spirits were high. Not even the thought of meeting up with Aggie, Babs and Quentin later could dampen their excitement.

  Alex quickly returned to his more serious frame of mind. “Bast said last week that she was doing everything she could to protect us. She must have been close by today, even though I didn’t see her.” Kate and Cairo gestured to say that they had not seen her either. “Yet when she knew that you were most likely heading into trouble, she just said that she could not come and help. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Well, she did say that being a cat she had more independence than other ancient gods.” Kate paused, then without any real thought added, “Do you think she could be secretly be working for the warlock?”

  Alex looked at Kate with shock on his face, for having even considered such a thing. He then realised that the reason why they had experienced so many dangers was due in no little part to him not questioning everyone and everything. His face relaxed as he said, “You could have a point.”

  Cairo kicked him on the ankle, and kicked him hard. “Not you as well, Mister Alex. I thought you defend Bast,” and with that he changed direction. No longer heading towards the workers village car park, he chose to walk along by the remains of Sennedjem’s ancient home and up the few steps to the entrance of his tomb.

  “What do we do?” asked Alex.

  “Well, we either follow him or go and see Aggie.”

  Kate and Alex soon caught up with Cairo, though to their surprise, as he reached the entrance to the tomb of Sennedjem – Theban tomb number one and the most famous tomb of Deir el Medina – he turned left. He disappeared down the steps of the lesser known tomb of Inherkhau. Nobody stopped Cairo, not the gaffirs, not the police, and there were plenty of them around.

  Nobody, for that matter, asked Kate or Alex for an entrance ticket, as they started their descent into the tomb. It was the end of the working day, with gaffirs getting ready to lock up the tombs for the night and go home, which made it all the more peculiar that none of them were stopped from entering. Cairo had disappeared down the steps amazingly quickly. Kate found the steps to be too deep, as well too steep, to make it down safely. She had to turn around and walk down on all fours. Alex did the same. They both wondered what Cairo was up to and why he had chosen this tomb, number three hundred and fifty-nine, when number one was next door. These of course were modern designations, representing nothing more than the sequence in which the tombs were located, rather than their age or historical importance. That said, Sennedjem’s was easily the most famous workers tomb and he the most famous ‘resident’.