The Deceit

by Knox, Tom

  Helen ordered tea for them both in clumsy Arabic, the tea-boy looking almost paralytically fascinated at the idea of a woman ordering for a man. Or maybe it was her hair that astonished him. The boy kept looking at her unveiled blonde hair. Stealing glances at it, rapt with repressed desire.

  Helen was apparently either oblivious, or very accustomed, to the effect she was having on the boy. ‘Let me tell you my story. Yes?’

  Ryan disguised his urgent curiosity. He nodded calmly.

  Between brief and rapid sips of tea, she told him she was a German film-maker, freelance; she lived in London, or sometimes Berlin. Or sometimes she just travelled. She made documentaries by herself, with her own camera. Just her and a camera. Her living was precarious, but exhilarating.

  ‘Sometimes I get lucky, sell a film. To German TV or the BBC or America. That feeds me for a while. I made a documentary two years back about Gilles de Rais. The First Serial Killer. You have heard of it?’

  ‘Sorry. No.’

  ‘A medieval mystery, a Frenchman who was a murderer. I tried to solve it. I did not. But at least I sold it. My movies try to answer historical or modern puzzles.’

  ‘What were you doing in Egypt?’

  ‘I think you can guess. You are beginning to guess? No?’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘I was in Egypt making a film about Tutankhamun. It was not so good. Boring. But then I heard about Victor Sassoon.’ She sipped her tea. ‘I heard about his disappearance, and all the other rumours. This was much more exciting for me. A great possibility, a real modern mystery. What did he find in the desert? The Sokar Hoard? Why did he disappear? Walk off into the wilderness? So for these last weeks I have been tracing his steps across Egypt. Cairo. The Red Sea. Nazlet.’

  Ryan stared into the deep red tea in his glass; then he looked into her clear blue German eyes. ‘But how do you know who I am?’

  ‘I began with lots and lots of research. I did not sleep for days! Learning everything I could. In a lot of Cairo internet cafés.’ Her smile was very brief. ‘I now know many things about Sassoon. Who he taught, who he knew, who he met. You were one of his more famous pupils when he taught at UCL. What happened to you? You used to be famous, then, pfft!’

  The question was so direct it was beyond rudeness. Maybe it was just Teutonic and efficient? Ryan shook his head. ‘Something happened. It doesn’t matter. Tell me more about … Nazlet.’

  Helen Fassbinder paused, and looked past him at the doorway and the street, and Ryan took the opportunity to assess her. She was beautiful, but in a very severe way; indeed it was so severe her beauty bordered on plainness. Her blonde hair was too-tightly tied back, her blue shirt was stainless, despite the rigours of the day. Her black jeans were quite immaculate. But there was also a real nervousness there, a vulnerability, a flaw in the ice-blue of her eyes.

  ‘I came to Nazlet and stayed for three weeks. I rented a house. A hovel. I rented a motorbike. I scoured the desert, I made a friend. But of course it was impossible. The desert is too big.’

  A text pinged on her mobile phone. She broke off the conversation and read it, without apology. A wordless nod. Then she looked back at Ryan. Blue eyes fierce, judging him. ‘Then a Bedu, a camel herder, came into town, from the western desert.’

  Ryan nodded. The old trading routes, from oases like Kharga and Farafra, often made shortcuts straight across the wilderness. Modern Egypt had long since abandoned such three-thousand-year-old thoroughfares but Bedouin would still use them.

  ‘The Bedu man was bubbling. Gossiping. He told everyone in Nazlet that he had found a body, a white man, in a cave. Apparently his dog had wandered off, into the cave. The Bedu followed. Found the body. I knew it had to be Sassoon. A body wearing Western clothes? Of course it was Sassoon.’

  ‘And he had a bag with him?’

  Helen didn’t answer. ‘I made my move immediately. I knew that as soon as the news spread, the police would come. Treasure hunters. Journalists. I paid the Bedu to come with me, two hundred dollars. We got another motorbike. He led me into the desert, and I found Sassoon. Lying there, in the cave. He had already begun to mummify.’

  A tiny ripple of emotion made Ryan bite his words away. Helen’s voice softened, just for a moment. ‘I am sorry. He was your friend?’

  Ryan Harper fought the sadness.

  ‘Victor Sassoon wasn’t just my friend, he was an exemplar. The amazing work he did on the Dead Sea Scrolls, they were an inspiration to me, one of the reasons I took up Egyptology. He was maybe the greatest scholar of ancient Semitic and Egyptian languages. And he was … generous with his time, a great man – it’s difficult to explain …’

  The softening in her voice disappeared. ‘So your friend Sassoon could understand the Sokar documents? And maybe you can too.’

  Ryan’s excitement returned. He leaned forward, urgent. ‘What did you find in the cave?’

  She paused. Then she hauled her rucksack onto her lap. And answered plainly, ‘The Sokar Hoard.’

  15

  Tahta, Egypt

  Ryan stared at her. ‘You have the Sokar Hoard?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. Or rather, I have part of it. I found some of the documents. They had been scattered. The bag was ripped open. A jackal maybe. Or just wind, I do not know. They were everywhere, in chaos. I picked up a few pages, and then …’

  ‘Then what?’

  Helen glanced over her shoulder, and nodded in greeting. Then she looked back at Ryan. ‘Ryan, meet Albert Hanna.’

  The name chimed a bell in Ryan’s mind, but he was so full of questions and puzzles that he couldn’t recall it. Helen hurried on, as the dapperly dressed man pulled up a chair and sat down.

  ‘Albert has been helping me. I met him during my weeks in Cairo, when I was researching Sassoon. I have promised him a share in the profits, of the film, if we solve the puzzle.’

  This was enough. Ryan chopped the air with a hand. ‘So tell me, show me the texts.’

  Helen Fassbinder shook her head. ‘There is one more chapter to the story. Then I will show you.’ She blinked, and hurried on. ‘You see, I picked up some pages, when I was in the cave. But then, as I was gathering these pages, I heard noises outside. I realized the Bedouin had gone, so it was not him. And the noise was … loud, deafening. It was whump whump whump.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘A helicopter. Landing outside. That distinctive noise. Whump whump whump, just landing in the desert.’ She shrugged. ‘Soon as I heard the helicopter, I knew it was serious. Dangerous. I found a place to hide, in the cave. Right at the back, it was … not nice. Frightening. I had to just lie there in the dark. Then the men came in. The soldiers.’

  ‘Egyptian soldiers?’

  She shook her head. ‘Israelis.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They spoke Hebrew. They must have been Israeli soldiers. Or police. Mossad. I do not know.’

  The tea-house seemed to have darkened; everything seemed to have darkened. He leaned closer, as she continued.

  ‘They gathered all the other pages of course, everything I had not got. They took the bulk of the Sokar Hoard. But they left the body. And then they ran out. Just like that, to their helicopter. Whump whump whump!’

  ‘They didn’t find you?’

  ‘I was well hidden. And maybe they saw the Bedouin running away, on his bike, so they thought everyone had gone. They were in a hurry, too.’

  ‘But how did they know where to go? How did they find the cave?’

  ‘Following our bike trails? A satellite? Probably. We did try to hide our tracks at the end. My motorbike was concealed, five hundred metres away. In case.’

  ‘Smart, very smart.’

  She ignored his remark. ‘I waited for a while, to make sure they were gone, but then the Egyptian police came. Suddenly it was like a rush hour. And still I hid. I had to stay there. For hours. I thought I was going to die. I had one bottle of water. Then at last they left with the body. And I got on my bike and drove
back to Nazlet in the dark.’

  Ryan gazed at her with admiration. She had real courage; it was quite a story.

  She didn’t seem to notice, or care. ‘But the next morning the police did a sweep. Arresting anyone foreign or suspicious in Nazlet. Like you. Of course the Israelis were long gone. But they did it anyway. They took me too. I was getting ready to leave town. I told them I was a tourist, an academic on holiday.’

  ‘In Nazlet?’

  ‘A decade ago they found some ancient bones here, thirty thousand years old. In the caves. So I pretended I had an interest in palaeontology.’

  ‘OK …’

  ‘My story made sense. To them. They do get the occasional scientist. So they questioned me for a while, then held me. In that room where we met.’

  The last corner of the puzzle was revealed.

  ‘They never searched you. Wow.’

  ‘They did not search me. They had no suspicions. So, I still have them in here, the pages I collected. The Sokar Hoard, or part of it. Here. Let us go outside. And now you can see. I think I need your help to decipher the texts.’

  The hitherto silent Mr Hanna waved over the tea-boy, and paid the minuscule bill. As he did so, Ryan clocked his accent: middle-class, Cairo, probably Coptic. What was he doing here? But that question was swamped by the bigger desire, the impending revelation. The Sokar Hoard.

  Together and in silence they walked to a discreet street corner, deserted apart from a water-seller sleeping in the dusk, his back to a bare unplastered wall. The nocturnal traffic of Tahta buzzed in the background.

  Reaching into her rucksack, Helen Fassbinder pulled out a file. She opened it in the mosquito-ridden streetlight, and showed the first precious page to Ryan.

  He took it, his fingers slightly trembling.

  It was unquestionably old. It was written on papyrus, fragmented at the edges but still essentially intact. The calligraphy was faded yet legible; the script looked like ancient Coptic demotic, Akhmimic, certainly extremely archaic. Dating from maybe the sixth or seventh centuries.

  With a juddering sense of bitter defeat, Ryan Harper realized that he couldn’t understand a single word.

  16

  Carnkie, Cornwall, England

  ‘Look, Mummy, I can do the giraffe dance!’

  Karen stared at the laptop screen, and the image of her six-year-old daughter twirling. ‘That’s brilliant, sweetheart.’

  ‘And the llama dance. Like a llama. We’re doing llamas at school, Miss Everest says.’

  ‘I love it. So how was your first day at school? … Ellie?’

  No answer.

  Her daughter had disappeared. All Karen could see was the wall of her cousin’s spare bedroom back in London. She waited for her daughter to realize that her mother was still here, at the other end of this video call, at the other end of the internet, at the other end of the country. But nothing.

  ‘Ellie … darling. Eleanor? Sweetheart? Hello?’

  Suddenly her cousin Alan appeared on the screen. ‘Sorry, Karen, she’s run off with the twins. They’re counting how many cracks we have in the ceiling. I think we may have to decorate. But at least they’re having fun. Lots and lots of fun.’

  Karen smiled even as she felt the fierce pang of separation from her daughter. She was pleased that, as an only child, Eleanor had somewhere close to go, with cousins the same age; but selfishly, ludicrously, she didn’t want Eleanor to have too much fun, not without her.

  ‘How did her first day at school go?

  Alan shrugged. ‘Oh fine, fine. She’s got some party invitation, and a gold star for reading about the Fire of London. She’s absolutely fine, Kaz.’

  Karen shook her head. ‘God I feel guilty. Her first day back at school and I wasn’t there. I’m a terrible mother.’

  The kind eyes of her cousin stared at her, unblinking. ‘No, you’re a single mother, Kaz. And it’s tough. And you have an important job and you just lost your mother; don’t beat yourself up.’

  ‘I should be back in a few days, it’s just that I’ve been assigned to this case – they reckon I have some expertise, after the Muti killing in London. But if we—’

  ‘Karen! Shush. Ellie can stay here as long as she likes, the twins love her, they go to the same damn school, it’s not an issue, please don’t stress. But look, I have to go.’ He was gazing away from the camera, but laughing. ‘Ah. I think they’re trying to climb in the tumble dryer. That’s not good. Skype you soon!’

  ‘But—’

  The screen went dead.

  Karen stared at the blackness, then shut the laptop and shivered. A window was open across the room: she was airing out her mother’s old house, getting ready to sell it. She had spent the last two days packing away her mother’s things: binning most of them, with pangs of guilt. The paraphernalia of an entire life. Tipped into a black plastic bag.

  The job had been painful and troubling, and Karen had distracted herself by working the case in her mind. But she hadn’t got far.

  As Karen made one last sweep of the house, closing the windows, picking up the last knick-knacks, throwing away the final detritus, she did the sums again. Maybe this time an answer would miraculously evolve.

  As she locked the kitchen window, she thought about a story her dad once told her, of miners in their thirties, even twenties, dying of silicosis: they would stand at these same windows in Carnkie and suck at the fresh air, desperately trying to fill their dying lungs. Killed by just a decade of drilling hard rock.

  Mining was so tragic.

  Mining. Yes. Mining. She focussed on Botallack mine, once again.

  The boy in the main Botallack shaft had yet to be identified. He’d had nothing on his person that could name him. He matched no missing person on the Scotland Yard files.

  They also believed, now, that the cat-burning on Zennor Hill had probably been some Satanic rite, Taghairm, but this guess was just about all they had to go on.

  So who were the people glimpsed running away from the scene? Maybe a group of in-comers: people who had rented a house, or stayed in Cornwall for Christmas, or longer – blow-ins, as the locals called them. The Truro police were right now asking every owner of every hotel and apartment and holiday cottage in western Cornwall for the identities of every tourist and visitor on the books for the last two weeks.

  But this was a long shot, and an arduous task. There were thousands of hotel beds and thousands of holiday lets in West Cornwall: the region lived off tourism. And the cat-burners could have stayed in various different addresses, to hide their traces, or they could have used a base just over the River Tamar. Or maybe they had driven in from Dorset, or London, or France, or China.

  No, they needed more than this dragnet to find these cat-burners, and to unravel the reason for the boy’s suicide in Botallack. That’s if it was suicide. Maybe something he’d seen had driven him to kill himself? They appeared, after all, to have been trying to summon the Devil. By burning cats.

  Of course the Devil had not appeared on windy Zennor Hill, on New Year’s Eve, but to go to those lengths meant these people believed they could do it, which meant they could believe anything. So maybe the victim in Botallack jumped because of some terror, of something he had seen – or imagined he’d seen? Alternatively, the horror of that night might have tipped an already unbalanced mind to suicide.

  Karen shuddered, feeling the absence of something, like a faint ache. Something hidden from view, like her daughter hiding behind the sofa, laughing.

  She went into her mother’s old bedroom. The wardrobes were empty, the bed was stripped, the life had gone. She bit her lip to scare the tears away, and checked the chest of drawers for anything left behind. Nothing there. It was all gone. Just one framed photo, of her mother and father, on their honeymoon, stared back at her. She’d saved this for last: it was so symbolic of the past. The past now gone.

  Picking up the photo, Karen stared at her mother. She could see the obvious resemblance with herself: sligh
tly pretty, perhaps, but certainly no beauty. Someone had once said Karen’s mum was ‘sturdy and determined’, and it was true – and true of Karen, too. They were, after all, descended from those bal maidens who worked the deads at South Crofty. All those generations of tough women.

  Slipping the photo in a bag, Karen turned away.

  Focus on the case. Sort the deads.

  She walked back into the living room and sat at the table. Next to the laptop was the book Donald Ryman had sold her. The Tregerthen Horror. She picked it up and squinted at the pages as the winter daylight faded outside.

  She’d spent the last two days reading the book between bouts of house-cleaning; reading it with increasing frustration. It told a complex story of links between the Satanist Aleister Crowley and Cornwall, but the links, however interesting, were tenuous.

  The title itself referred to a mildly notorious death that had occurred at Carn Cottage, in the 1930s.

  The victim – a local artist, Ka Cox – had previously been linked with bohemian circles, including Crowley, before the Great War. In her middle age she seemed to have renewed some of those links – she got to know a couple performing Crowleyan magic. This couple had then come to stay at Carn Cottage, near Cox’s own house, Eagle’s Nest. And it was at Carn Cottage, one dark winter’s night, that Ka Cox suffered a fatal and unexplained seizure.

  But what did all this add up to? The story was tantalising enough. But there was no real proof of anything. It was all gossip, and supposition.

  Karen flicked through the pages of the book, one more time. Since Cox’s death the cottage had housed artists and writers. In the sixties a man had gone mad there after taking mescaline, ending up in Bodmin asylum. Ghosts had supposedly been seen in the vicinity. The local consensus was, unsurprisingly, that the cottage was haunted, or hexed in some way. Hence its ruinous state. You could therefore see why someone might select it as a venue for summoning the Devil, with all its morbid history, and that spectacularly brooding location.