Egyptian Enigma

by LJM Owen

‘Sure.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Nathan said. ‘Instead, how about we revisit the Golden Tomb investigation?’

  Elizabeth thought for a moment. She felt a touch uneasy at the prospect, but perhaps that was only to do with the fact that they had been working on the investigation in the library where Taid was attacked. ‘Yes, it’s best if we get on with things. Onward, ever onward.’ She grinned tightly.

  ‘Excellent!’ Nathan said. ‘Because Henry told us about the email you sent him the night…it happened.’

  ‘It’s all right, you can say it, the night Taid was attacked. I just don’t want to dwell on it.’

  ‘I’ve been wondering about a motive for the break-in,’ Rhoz said. ‘Do you think it has anything to do with our investigation?’

  Elizabeth took a deep breath and began to flick the cartouche at her throat back and forth. ‘I was worried about that too, but the police think it more likely they were after what they thought were valuable papers in my grandfather’s collection. But nothing was taken, so I guess we’ll probably never know what they wanted.’

  ‘I had thought…’ Llew began, then stopped.

  ‘Had thought what?’ Elizabeth said.

  ‘I thought, after the thief in Cairo and the incident at your home, perhaps there’s something you have that someone wants.’

  Elizabeth didn’t want to go down that path again. ‘If I do, I don’t know what it is. Either way, I just want things to go back to normal, which should include our Egyptology project.’

  ‘Right,’ Nathan said, looking at Llew and Rhoz. ‘We’re glad you said that because, based on your email to Henry, the five of us,’ that meant Alice and Henry as well, ‘decided to go ahead and look for any royal mummies we could print out from the Nineteenth Dynasty.’

  For what felt like the first time in for ever Elizabeth was excited. ‘And?’

  ‘Jackpot!’ Rhoz said. ‘We found some projects other people have completed on six or seven of the Nineteenth Dynasty Pharaohs. With a bit of wrangling, some sweet talk and maybe a few dollars, we should be able to print out the skeletons of Ramesses the First and Second, Seti the First and Second, Merneptah and Siptah.’

  ‘And, possibly, Tausret, the female Pharaoh from that dynasty,’ Nathan added.

  Amazed at the prospect of getting her hands on replica remains of some of the most-studied people from the New Kingdom, Elizabeth almost threw her arms into the air. She remembered at the last second that she was holding a mug of coffee and settled for spilling a tiny bit over the edge onto her cargo pants instead. She rolled her eyes at her clumsiness.

  ‘I can imagine you as a female Pharaoh.’ Llew winked at her.

  Suddenly, everything felt right in the world.

  ‘Is it okay for us to continue working at your house?’ Nathan asked, somewhat gruffly.

  ‘Yes, eventually…but the library’s a mess. No-one’s wanted to go back in there after the police finished their forensics. I want to clean it up before my grandmother tries.’

  ‘How about I come over first thing on Saturday and we put things right?’ Nathan offered.

  ‘Yes, please – that would be a great help.’

  As the conversation turned to what the others had been doing over the past couple of weeks, Elizabeth noticed a twinkle in Rhoz’s eye. She made a mental note to ask what that was about the next time they were alone.

  All right, things were getting back on track. Taid was going to recover, the Golden Tomb investigation was under way again, and Elizabeth had the opportunity to immerse herself in all things Egyptological for a year. Now to tackle her tutorial challenges…

  —

  Finishing her shift on the reference desk that afternoon, Elizabeth felt a need to clear her head before going to the university to tutor. She glanced at the clock on her phone: plenty of time to make it over to Mount Ainslie for a long stroll in the bush. It would be freezing, but that didn’t matter. She’d warm up as she walked.

  Clearing out her locker, she thought about the best way to cross to the other side of the lake during peak hour. A jingling behind her caused her to stop and look around. It was one of the Library’s cleaning crew, her collection of silver bangles jangling against her dark skin, catching the light beautifully. Elizabeth smiled at her and walked toward the staff entrance of the building to find her car, wondering why she didn’t wear more jewellery herself…probably because it caught on things. She always wore her cartouche necklace, of course, and an occasional pair of earrings on special occasions, but not much else.

  A little later, she was stopping at the top of the Mount Ainslie Lookout, having braved the crazy Canberra rush-hour drivers. She parked, then changed into more appropriate footwear for a ‘bush bash’ and set out for a long, calming clamber along a well-worn track. Between work and ferrying people back and forth to the hospital, she had been so busy over the last two days that she hadn’t had a chance to ponder Judy’s offer of a year in London.

  The idea was tempting. A whole year immersed in Egyptology collections, all the while earning enough to pay the bills at home. Was there any real downside?

  Unexpectedly, yes. Despite the annoyances of work and the exhaustion of keeping all her endeavours going, between her regular Library clients, enthusiastic students, loving family and gang of sleuths, Elizabeth was enjoying her life – heart-attack grandparent aside. Was she really prepared to leave everyone behind for a year, not knowing how things might change in her absence?

  When she thought about the Golden Tomb investi­gation, though, her mind shied away from the prospect of delving into that particular mystery again. Why? She had felt this way before, after losing her mother. Annie Pimms had been on her way to collect Elizabeth from a chess tournament the day she died. Despite any logic to the contrary, she couldn’t escape the idea that she had somehow killed her mother by playing chess. With the benefit of introspection, Elizabeth now saw this was why she had clung so fiercely to the belief that Sam had caused the accident that took their mother – to stave off her own sense of guilt.

  But that was then and this was now, and she resolved not to take responsibility again for something outside her control. Elizabeth loved Egyptology, and nothing she, Taid or anyone else in the house had done had caused the break-in that had led to his heart attack. That was down to the thief alone.

  Increasing her pace along the track, Elizabeth began to puff. She was doing well. In a bid to maintain some semblance of fitness over the past few months, she had walked the five-kilometre circuit of the two bridges spanning Lake Burley Griffin three times a week in her lunch breaks. Her body was strong, and her fitness was a testament to that consistent effort.

  A sudden insight struck her: the way Oliver had introduced herself in the phrenic library, by means of a ghostly chess match, was probably all tied into Elizabeth’s guilt over her mother’s death. Elizabeth filed the thought away for for further contemplation later.

  Having completed her loop down and back up the mountain to the Lookout, she stared at the dome of the Australian War Memorial, then along the arrow-straight line of ANZAC Parade. Spring was just beginning to peek through Canberra’s chilly winter jacket, and the cherry trees lining the lake were tinged with hints of pink and white beneath their bare branches.

  Canberra could be magnificent. Her gaze continued across the lake to the wide, squat white building of Old Parliament House and, in the distance, the uncertain steel outline of the pyramidal flagpole atop New Parliament House.

  Canberra could also be embarrassingly kitsch, she thought, wincing at the faux-Russian grey concrete blocks clustered around one corner of the Parliamentary Triangle. Glancing to her left as she opened the door to put her walking shoes on the back seat, she caught sight of the top of Bugs Bunny, an alleged eagle monument in front of the defence buildings. She refrained from a face-palm motion and hopped into the
driver’s seat to head to the university.

  —

  As it was the beginning of a new term, Elizabeth explained the items for assessment to her tutoring group. This semester they were to complete a substantial group assignment examining the variation across time and place of body modification in Mesoamerica, including artificial cranial deformation, deliberate crossing of the eyes, teeth filing and tattooing and the social implications thereof. They could choose any two cultures, or even three, as long as they were separated by either time or distance.

  In the main, Elizabeth was satisfied with the assignments handed in by her students so far, though she suspected James and David were receiving some form of inappropriate assistance. All three essays they had each handed in were of a reasonable quality; that wasn’t the issue. The problem was that their work was very similar, and contained answers to a number of questions they had failed to answer during later tutorials.

  At first, Elizabeth had wondered if they were copying a third student’s work, but no-one else’s matched theirs closely enough to indicate that was occurring. She couldn’t find any evidence of plagiarism either, despite running their essays through anti-plagiarism software. Still, she knew something was awry. In the end she concluded that they might have been paying a third party to write their essays: rumours were rife on campus that wealthy students could pay for their essays to be ghost-written by former undergraduates. Still, Elizabeth had no proof, so there was nothing she could do. For now.

  She finished explaining the group assignment to her class. ‘Now, please organise yourselves into six groups of three for the assignment and write your names here.’ Elizabeth pushed a piece of paper with a pre-ruled grid to the student on her right.

  ‘We’ll work with you, Carol,’ James announced, over the hubbub of negotiation, flicking a finger to include David as well.

  Elizabeth could see Carol’s consternation as the young woman reluctantly nodded her consent. She remembered experiencing this herself a number of times as a student, a sense that someone wanted to work with her simply to coast to a good grade by dint of her effort, not theirs. Elizabeth had never known how to deal with it either as she always strove to avoid conflict. What could she do to help Carol, if anything?

  Oliver made a suggestion: the Miss Marple ap­proach. Let the situation play out, observe all parties closely and, when the time was right, lay down the facts in an even tone until the rotters were nailed to the wall.

  Done.

  Chapter Twelve

  Elizabeth took another sip of water as she sorted through the debris of Taid’s library with Nathan. Her mouth felt like the Simpson Desert, dry with echoes of her dread the night his heart had stopped. Picking bones, books and paperweights off the intricately patterned red Uzbek rug, she was assaulted by flashbacks of the hulking attacker, Taid’s ashen face, and the shock of his sternum giving way beneath her hand as she pumped his heart.

  The doctors at the hospital had told her repeatedly that she’d saved his life, that without her efforts he most certainly would not have survived, but she felt awful for having broken his ribs. Remembering the moment she felt one snap beneath her palm caused a cascade of guilt; she caught her breath in a sob.

  ‘Elizabeth?’ Nathan sat back on his haunches. ‘Do you need a break?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m fine. I just want to get this done.’

  ‘If you need a breather, you only have to say.’

  Elizabeth grunted and continued tidying.

  Nathan looked as if he was going to say more, then thought better of it. He held up someone’s femur instead. ‘Who does this belong to?’

  It was one of the shorter examples. Elizabeth searched for the exact shape and dimensions in her internal catalogue of printed skeletal material from the Golden Tomb mummies. ‘Mummy five, I think.’

  ‘How do you do that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Remember so much. It’s remarkable.’

  Elizabeth shrugged.

  ‘All year I’ve wanted to ask you something…’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Do you have an eidetic memory?’

  ‘Something like that.’ Elizabeth gave Nathan a half-smile, hoping he would let the subject drop.

  Thankfully, he did. ‘So, once we have the mummies sorted, how do we put the books and papers back where they belong? Does your grandfather have a particular system?’

  ‘Absolutely. He calls it his “three-dimensional filing system”. I’d call it the old grab-and-shove-it-anywhere approach!’

  ‘Ha!’

  ‘When he’s finished with something he generally puts it on top of the closest pile, but somehow he always knows how to find things again. Every six months or so Grandmère demands a clean-up, at which point piles of books are shifted onto shelves, and papers are shoved into cupboards.’ Elizabeth pointed at a bookcase with intricately carved wooden doors enclosing its lower half. ‘Still, somehow he can always find what he’s after.’

  ‘Like grandfather, like granddaughter,’ observed Nathan with a grin. ‘So just stack everything in neat piles?’

  ‘Yep.’

  They continued to shuffle and sort items into bone boxes and mountains of paper. Elizabeth’s throat tightened as she cleared away a collection of tannin-stained teacups, along with a teaspoon stuck in a can of sweetened condensed milk.

  ‘Ah, Elizabeth…’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘I only recognise one or two words, maybe the words for “four”, “story” and “Wales”, but is this an old copy of The Mabinogion?’ Nathan enquired.

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘As in, very old?’

  ‘Taid has numerous copies of all the old Welsh stories.’

  ‘I mean really old. Take a look.’

  Elizabeth stared at the tattered, leather-bound tome Nathan was holding aloft with something akin to…reverence? ‘How old do you think it is?’ she asked him.

  ‘I’ve only ever seen one other example like this, but from the quill marks and the quality of the parchment it could be…five, six, seven hundred years old?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, how could Taid have…’ Elizabeth looked directly into Nathan’s wide brown eyes. ‘How much would something like that be worth?’

  ‘I can’t imagine. Priceless.’

  An incredibly valuable object in Taid’s library. Could this be what the intruder had been after?

  Nathan reached for another book lying close to his feet. ‘Look, here’s another. Holy…how the…how did your grandfather get these? They should be in atmospherically controlled cases!’ Nathan sounded both ecstatic and outraged.

  Did this mean Elizabeth wasn’t responsible for drawing the burglar to the house with her investigation of the Golden Tomb? Had they been here to steal from Taid? More importantly, would they try again?

  Nathan broke her reverie. ‘At the very least you should consider installing a security system. We should also look at getting these pieces to a preservation expert, and call your insurance company to make certain they’re covered.’

  ‘I’m not sure how Taid would feel about the preser­vation expert, but it doesn’t matter how he feels about surveillance, we’re getting it. What do we need to do?’

  ‘One trip to an electronics store and I’ll have you set up with security cameras before the end of the day. If you want on-call security there are plenty of companies around.’

  Elizabeth stood up. ‘Can we go get those cameras now?’

  ‘Absolutely. Let me grab my keys.’

  —

  After installing window locks and cameras around the perimeter of the house, Elizabeth had called an insurer to appraise some of the older items in Taid’s library. The entire family, including Grandmère, had been shocked to learn how much they were worth or, in the case of one piece, its ‘incalculable value on th
e open market’. Given that Taid’s library was filled with who knew how many bookish treasures, it was highly likely that the thief had been searching for pieces to sell on the antiquities black market, which begged the question: was Taid honestly unaware of the value of his collection? Had he truly never known that he could have sold just one or two pieces and solved the family’s financial issues, potentially changing the course of Elizabeth’s career? Or did he honestly regard them only as ‘family papers’? And how could Elizabeth herself never have questioned Taid on the contents of his library? What was that old adage about being blinded by familiarity? Regardless, Taid’s continued fragility meant that Elizabeth couldn’t risk pushing him for answers now.

  There was still a slight chance the break-in was related to the printed skeletal remains and copies of scrolls from her investigation. Whatever the motivation of the burglar, he had certainly changed the atmosphere of the house. It wasn’t obvious, but the increased security measures perversely made the house feel somehow less safe. Her family was jittery, snapping at each other more often, and worked their way through more than twice their usual winter quota of hot chocolate.

  —

  Taid sat propped up in the bed he shared with Grandmère Maddie in their glorious sun-soaked suite above his library, utterly dwarfed by the enormous white European pillows at his back. Sitting on a chair next to him, toying with the ram-horn handle of his new Welsh hazel walking stick, Elizabeth told her grandparents about Judy’s offer.

  ‘It’s a very attractive proposition,’ Taid said, accepting a cup of tea from Grandmère.

  ‘Lizbet?’ Grandmère Maddie raised a pot of her Maxim’s Rue Royale.

  ‘Oui, yes, please.’

  ‘When’s the interview?’ Taid asked.

  ‘I haven’t contacted them to set a date yet. I wanted to talk to you about it before doing anything.’

  ‘You must apply!’ Taid said. ‘And possibly put my walking stick down before you twist the handle off.’

  Although the stick wasn’t strictly necessary, Taid said it made him feel more confident when ambling about the house. He had insisted on an old fashioned hand-crafted cane, similar to the highly polished one his own grandfather had used. Elizabeth was fiddling with it as a means of avoiding eye contact. It hurt to see Taid so afflicted and shrunken. She placed it within his reach. ‘I’m just not sure. It was only three years ago that you said you wanted me to stay here.’