The Deceit

by Knox, Tom

  Murder?

  A noise came from the stairs, where a makeshift stretcher was being hauled along by sweating hands. The agitated Zabaleen stretcher-bearers lowered their burden, as they pressed towards the door. And then Victor gazed, quite appalled.

  The man on the stretcher was pale and stiff. His robes had been wrenched open, revealing his white chest, where he had been stabbed brutally in the heart. The pools of blood were lurid. The crossguard of the dagger, still lodged between the ribs, gave the impression the monk had been stabbed with a crucifix.

  Victor recognized the silent face of the victim. It was Brother Wasef Qulta. Maybe the only man who knew the truth about the Sokar Hoard. And now he was dead.

  3

  Zennor, Cornwall

  The year was gone; the party was over. Malcolm Harding wandered, unsteadily, through the detritus of their New Year’s Eve merrymaking. He marvelled at how much booze ten people could manage to drink in seven hours.

  The vodka bottles clinked at his feet; an entire army of empty beer cans stood to attention in the corner of the sitting room. Jojo was fast asleep on the sofa, cradling a wine bottle in her delicate hands.

  He resisted the urge to look up her miniskirt.

  She was so beautiful though. Even now, with her make-up mussed, sprawled dissolutely on the leather sofa, she was just lyrically pretty: perfect and blonde and twenty-one years old. Oh yes, he adored Jojo. Ever since they had arrived here on Christmas Eve in this grand and spooky old house, perched between enormous rocks in the wild west of Celtic Cornwall – which was itself the wild west of England – he had tried to hook up with her, in as subtle a fashion as he could manage.

  And he had failed. Maybe he hadn’t been subtle enough? Maybe he had been too subtle? Maybe he could try again when they were all back at university. The holidays were nearly over. It was January the first, and it was – what? – three a.m.

  Three a.m.!

  Malcolm sat on a table and swigged from his bottle of beer. Amy Winehouse was still lamenting all the drugs that would kill her from the stereo. The music was so boomingly loud it was probably annoying the dead in Zennor churchyard, half a mile away.

  Beer finished, Malcolm wondered vaguely, and groggily, where everyone else had gone. Rufus was presumably in one of the many bedrooms, with their amazing views of the sea, sleeping with Ally, as they had been doing ever since they had shared a bottle of vintage port on Boxing Day. Andrei had crashed with his girlfriend immediately after midnight. Josh and Paul were probably smoking upstairs, or chopping out a line. Or flaked out in their clothes.

  Jojo turned over on the sofa, half-stirring, but still asleep. Her little denim skirt rode up as she did. Manfully, Malcolm resisted the temptation to linger; instead, he stood up, walked across the room, then wandered through the enormous mess that was the kitchen (they would have to hire some kids from the village to clear this up) and opened the kitchen door to the large gardens that surrounded this great old house, Eagle’s Nest.

  The night was cold. The garden seemed empty. Then a dark and sudden figure loomed into view.

  ‘Jesus!’

  Freddy laughed, and casually dropped his glowing cigarette onto the grass, not bothering to crush it underfoot.

  ‘Sorry, old boy. Did I frighten you?’

  Malcolm was half-angry, yet half-relieved.

  ‘Yes you did. What the fuck are you doing, skulking out here?’

  ‘Well I came out to chuck up into the bushes, as is traditional on New Year’s Eve.’ Freddy smirked. ‘That last joint was a bit of a serial killer. But the air revived me.’

  Now the two of them stood together in the cold, looking out to the distant waves. The house, Malcolm recalled, had once been owned by artists. You could see that its position might inspire.

  ‘So? Do tell. Did you manage to ravish Jojo yet?’

  Malcolm sighed.

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Ten days and not even a kiss? This is potentially worse than the Holocaust.’

  ‘Maybe. I’ll survive.’ Malcolm gazed down, once more taking in the magnificent view, the vast granite rocks and the moonlit fields below, which led down to the Atlantic. ‘Anyway, Freddy, mate, why are you still out here? You’ve been gone hours. It’s freezing.’

  Freddy put a finger to his lips.

  ‘I wanted to sober up, as I said … and then …’

  ‘Then what?’

  Even in the semi-darkness he could see the sly frown on Freddy Saunderson’s face.

  ‘Then I heard something.’

  ‘Duh?’

  ‘Something weird. And I keep hearing it.’

  ‘That’s Amy Winehouse. She’s dead.’

  ‘No. Not the music. Something else.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘There it is again! Listen.’

  Freddy Saunderson was, for once, not joking. From way up on the moors there came a wild and very loud scream. No, not a scream – a feral chorus of screams; yet distorted and shrieking, mingling with the howl of the wind.

  Malcolm felt an urge to step back: to physically retreat.

  ‘Jesus Christ. What is that?’

  For a moment the noise abated, but then it returned. A distant choir, infantile and hideous. What the hell would make a sound like that?

  At last, the noise ceased. The relative silence that followed seemed all the more oppressive. The thudding music in the house; the waves on the rocks below. Silence otherwise. Malcolm felt himself sobering up very fast.

  Freddy pointed.

  ‘Up there.’

  He was surely right. The noise appeared to be coming from the moors above them: from Zennor Hill, with its great granite carns and its brace of ruined cottages.

  They’d walked around that forbidding landscape the day before, in the driving rain and blustering wind. The hilltop was druidic and malignant, even by day.

  Freddy’s eyes flashed in the dark.

  ‘Shall we go and have a look?’

  ‘What? Are you nuts?’

  ‘No. Are you gay?’ Freddy laughed. ‘Oh come on. Let’s investigate. It’ll be fun.’

  Malcolm hesitated: quite paralysed. He was seriously unkeen on investigating that noise, but he also didn’t want to appear a wuss in front of Freddy; he was wary of Freddy’s cruel sense of humour, his lacerating jokes. If he didn’t show he was up for this, Freddy might just humiliate him the next time he was feeling a little bored at the union bar.

  Malcolm tried to smile.

  ‘All right then. Let’s see who’s the real gaylord.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Freddy rubbed his hands together. ‘We’d better get coats and stuff. This is like Enid Blyton, only with ritual murder.’

  When they went back into the house, they found that Jojo had disappeared. Probably gone to bed? Malcolm was glad, in a protective sort of way. They turned off the music, grabbed their coats, boots and a pair of torches.

  The path up to Zennor Hill began just outside the grounds. It had been treacherous the previous day; in the moonlight it was even trickier. Ferns and brambles dragged at them, tussocks of grass tripped every step. Above them, the imponderable carn glowered, framed by myriad stars.

  But the horrible noise had stopped.

  For five, ten minutes they ascended the silent, narrow path up the hill. The view of Zennor village below, its Christmas lights twinkling in the wind, was beautiful and sad. Malcolm began to wonder if they had imagined it. Maybe it had been some curious sound effect, perhaps the fierce January wind whistling through the rocks: there were many strange rock formations up here.

  But then it came again, and this time it was even worse. The sound curdled the thoughts in his mind. This scathing and animalistic wailing was surely the sound of somebody – or something – in terrible and angry pain?

  Freddy turned, just ahead, his face a blur in the gloom.

  ‘Pretty sure it’s coming from the ruined cottage, the big one, Carn Cottage. Is that a fire inside?’

  Mal
colm desperately wanted to go back now. This had been a daft idea; and yet he was still scared of Freddy’s put-downs. He was stuck.

  The noise came, and went. This time it was so close it was like an exhalation – you could feel the scream on your face.

  ‘There, look!’ Freddy pointed his torch beam excitedly. ‘Scoundrels!’

  Figures. There were people walking away – no, running away – down a lane across the top of the hill, dark shapes. How many? It was too difficult to see. Who were they? What were they?

  Freddy was laughing.

  ‘Do you think it’s devil-worshippers? We might be turned into newts!’

  The figures were already out of sight, swallowed by the darkness. Had they been spooked by the noise? Or by the fire? Or by Malcolm and Freddy?

  Malcolm waved a desperate hand. ‘Look. Please. Can’t we just go? This is dangerous. Let’s just go, please. Call the cops.’

  His protestations were futile; Freddy simply vaulted the low garden wall of the half-ruined cottage, and ran across the garden; he was followed by Malcolm, much less briskly.

  As they neared the cottage, Malcolm could see there was indeed a fire burning inside the building. And it was a large fire, too, casting eerie orange shadows on the windows. The heat from within was palpable in the cold winter air.

  ‘Freddy – wait – don’t—’

  It was too late. His friend was kicking at the old door; even as the infernal shrieking went on, and on.

  ‘C’mon – open up!’ Freddy laughed, ‘Open up, in the name of all that’s holy!’ Now Freddy stepped back and kicked even harder at the splintering door, and at last it succumbed. The lock snapped and the old door swung open, revealing a roar of heat and howls and things, strange black burning shapes, racing out at them, fleeing and burning—

  A flaming creature leapt at Malcolm’s face, and its claws sank deep. Malcolm’s scream echoed down from the lonely carn, carried on the freezing wind.

  4

  La Bodega bistro, Zamalek, Cairo

  Victor Sassoon sat in a darkened corner of the darkened bar, cradling a glass of Scotch and water, his fourth of the afternoon, and maybe his fortieth of the last four days. It was his last afternoon in Cairo. The whisky tasted like the bitter herbs of Seder: the taste of defeat.

  The monk was dead. The Sokar Hoard, if it had ever existed, would probably never be found. His one last hope, that he might meet Albert Hanna, was about to come to nothing.

  Hanna was a Coptic antiquities dealer. He was also notorious for his serpentine skills in fulfilling the desires of museum curators and billionaire collectors across the globe. The mummy of a concubine of a Rammeside Pharaoh? But of course. An intact and entire Fayum portrait rescued from the black mud of Antinopolis? Please allow me.

  His methods were obscure, and probably illegal, but he got results. Albert Hanna knew every rumour of every new find from every sandy corner of Egypt. If anyone knew anything about the truth of the latest gossip – the whispers of the Sokar Hoard that had brought Sassoon to the polluted streets of the Egyptian capital – it would be Hanna.

  But Hanna was an elusive quarry. He didn’t answer his phone; he didn’t answer emails; like many Christian businesses, his office in central Cairo was closed because of the recent and ongoing riots.

  So, La Bodega bistro was Sassoon’s rather desperate and concluding bid. Many of Cairo’s antiquities dealers were middle-class Copts like Hanna, and nearly all of them liked to drink discreetly – and many of them were regulars at the Bodega, not least because it was increasingly dangerous to drink everywhere else. Some of the bars near the Coptic quarter were getting trashed and gutted by Islamists. Christian grocers who still dared to sell beer were being forcibly closed.

  Pensively, Sassoon inhaled the aroma of his Scotch, and remembered a time when it had been much easier to drink in this city. He remembered drinking good German beer in Shepheard’s Hotel, with that keen young American Egyptologist, Ryan Harper.

  Victor wondered what had happened to Harper. But then, he wondered that about many people these days. Friends died like flies when you reached your seventies, as if there was an Old Testament plague, the Great Pestilence of Egypt. Now, which book of the Bible was that?

  His aged thoughts were wandering, again. Sassoon sipped the solacing bitterness of his Johnnie Walker, walked to the heavy velvet curtains, and gazed down at Zamalek.

  The street outside was a parodic vision of its own history: this part of Cairo, situated on an island in the Nile, had been built in the early twentieth century as a place of European elegance, with boulevards and plane trees, and chic apartment blocks – even a palace for Princess Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III. But now all the trees had been chopped down, the apartment blocks had been turned into tatty shops and crowded flats, and the traffic was, of course, endless and polluting.

  Yes, the smoke and scuzz of Cairo disgusted Sassoon. It was time to go home, and to give up. It was never going to happen; it had all been a foolish dream.

  ‘You can positively smell the smoke from the TV centre. N’est ce pas?’

  Sassoon swivelled, letting the velvet curtains fall.

  Standing behind him was a slightly paunchy man in his mid-forties, wearing a perfect yet worn Savile Row suit, with a beautiful faded Milanese silk tie, and a moustache that curved down to a goatee.

  It was Albert Hanna.

  The man was unmistakeable. Sassoon had seen this face in Egyptological websites. It was his first stroke of luck: five tedious days of patient waiting had paid off. At the very last moment.

  ‘The Islamic students, in their vulgar fury, are burning everything. One can only pray that the Sphinx is inflammable.’ The man sighed, and pulled himself a seat. ‘You know the Arabic name for the Sphinx, Mister Sassoon? It is Abu al-Hol, the Father of Terror.’ The dealer smiled, politely. ‘And yes, of course I know who you are. You are quite famous.’

  Sassoon slumped into his own chair, and set down his Scotch. He realized his demeanour probably seemed defeated, yet inside he was secretly delighted.

  ‘I also know, Mr Sassoon, that you have been searching for me. My apologies if my delay in contacting you seems rude: I have been distracted by the troubles. Soon the fundamentalists may make it impossible for us Copts to live, let alone drink.’ Hanna swirled his glass of cognac. ‘You know Egypt was once renowned for its wines? Tutankhamun was buried with several jars of a fine dry white. But now, ahhh, où sont les vins d’antan?’

  He stroked his dyed goatee, which had indubitably been dyed pitch-black, and added, ‘There is no hope for us, there is no hope for the drinkers, for the Copts. But we will stay here anyway! We are the true descendants of ancient Egypt, after all. Now tell me. Why are you in Egypt? A famous Anglo-Jewish scholar like you, visiting Egypt amidst this turmoil, when Tahrir is engulfed in flames? Why do you want to talk to me?’

  This was Victor’s chance. ‘The Sokar Hoard.’

  Hanna looked at Victor, darkly, and his eyes flashed with thought. ‘Why did you not mention this in your emails? I might have responded sooner.’

  ‘Because …’ Victor paused. ‘Because this is a delicate issue. I know there are severe laws regarding antiquities. If the Sokar Hoard exists it belongs to the Egyptian state and people.’

  ‘You were being discreet? That is well advised.’ Hanna picked up his balloon glass of cognac and swirled it again. ‘So. The Sokar Hoard. Hmm. The rumours are ripe, are they not? Exuding a heady perfume of promise? Just imagine: a cache of ancient documents that make Nag Hammadi look like …’ Hanna closed his small and sparkling brown eyes while he summoned the words ‘… like a cheap photocopy of Harold Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Yes, the Sokar Hoard, if it exists, would be an unexampled prize. If you could decipher such a thing, this would eclipse your spectacular work on the Dead Sea Scrolls. You would finally have your statue in the sunlit plaza of greatness, for pigeons to soil.’

  Was he trying to insult? Or merely provoke? Sassoon didn’t c
are. ‘I’m not hunting for academic glory, Mr Hanna. As I understand it, the Sokar Hoard contains evidence that alters our perception of Jewish history. The exploration of Jewish history and theology has been my life’s calling. As such, if there is a deeper truth, I want to know it – before …’

  ‘It is too late?’

  ‘What do you know, Mr Hanna?’

  ‘Call me Albert. Like the German–English prince. You know he used to couple with Queen Victoria three or four times a day? It is a surprise she looks so grumpy in her photos.’

  ‘Please. What do you know of the Sokar Hoard?’

  Hanna smiled his moist and thoughtful smile. ‘First tell me what you know of the Hoard.’

  Victor Sassoon finished his whisky, and impatiently recounted his own story. ‘It all derives from Wasef Qulta. Brother Wasef Qulta was something of a fixture in circles of Egyptology and biblical history. For instance he corresponded, occasionally, with a colleague of mine in London, a professor at the Flinders Petrie collection.’

  ‘Ah yes, one of the finest, the Flinders Petrie, a very excellent museum – I always loved that adorable faience cat from Amarna. I have sold similar.’

  ‘Last month my London friend got a rather emotional email from Qulta. Telling him that the Coptic church was in possession of an astonishing discovery of crucial early Christian texts which had been unearthed in Middle Egypt. Qulta claimed the texts were comparable to the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Oxyrhynchus papyri: maybe even more important, more exciting. My friend told others, and the rumours and speculations spread.’

  ‘Indeed. I have also heard these rumours. The late Wasef Qulta started quite a fracas.’

  ‘A week later Qulta emailed again. He told my friend the Coptic church was keeping the Hoard close and hidden, and that he was being told to say no more, and stay silent. And then the emails stopped.’

  Hanna was quiet.

  Victor concluded, ‘I felt I had no choice but to come to Cairo and seek out Qulta for myself. Last week I went to the Monastery of the Cave in Moqqatam.’

  ‘You went alone to Moqqatam?’