by Nick Drake
‘Where did you find this?’
‘In the mouth of a beheaded Nubian kid, early this morning,’ I said.
He nodded.
‘These beheadings are turning into an epidemic,’ he said.
‘And they’re getting better at it. And now they’re leaving strange signs…’ I added.
He leaned forward, and returned the papyrus to me. And then, thoughtfully, he added: ‘Do you really think this is just the work of one of the gangs in the city?’
‘Probably,’ I replied, carefully.
He glanced at me.
‘I can’t see it.’
‘Why not?’ I said.
He settled his arms on his knees.
‘The Theban gangs are all families. They behave like families: they love each other, they hate each other; they want what the others have got; they kill each other; they make up, they pretend to love each other again; they think they’re kings, building empires and dynasties, so they marry their sons to their rivals’ daughters; and so on and so on. But the truth is, they’re always in cut-throat competition with each other for the same things: manpower, resources, trade routes, political influence, protection, the opium supply. Sometimes the friction becomes too much, so they snap, and there’s some predictably messy bloodshed, and then mourning and grieving and furious cursing and threats of revenge; and then they all try to make up, because in the end none of them have the power to dominate the others,’ he said.
‘So what? Smuggling and trafficking are as old as time. It’s no mystery why they’re flourishing now, that’s just what happens when the legitimate government is as flawed and weak as ours. And, frankly, the powers that be are just letting them get on with it… We’re living in a failed land, and they’re the proof of it,’ I replied.
‘Sure, everyone’s corrupt. Everyone’s afraid of the gangs. But something’s changed. We’re not looking at the usual small-scale stuff. We’re looking at something that’s evolved suddenly onto another level altogether.’ He paused and looked at me meaningfully. ‘A mysterious new gang’s recently started dominating and destroying the competition…’
Khety had always burned more brightly than me in his fascination with conspiracies and secrets, whereas I, the dogged detective, could only look at what was there before me and make my deductions accordingly. But the hairs on the back of my neck were prickling.
‘Is this another of your extended conspiracy theories?’ I said.
He looked around, and edged closer.
‘It’s not a theory. I’ve been investigating this, and I’ve discovered a few things. No one knows anything about the gang behind these killings. The other gangs–they’re like cats fighting in a box because they have no idea who is doing this to them. At first they assumed it was the others, and so there were the usual tit-for-tat exterminations. But they’ve realized everyone’s getting hit. Bit by bit, their organizations are being literally sliced away. It’s some other gang altogether. And that really scares them. Whoever these newcomers are, they appear to be attempting to take over the entire opium trade in Thebes.’
‘What’s your evidence?’ I said cautiously.
‘The price of opium on the street has gone way, way down; and yet the quality is better than ever–everyone’s going crazy for the stuff. And crucially, for the first time ever, there’s as much available as anyone wants to buy. Which means this new gang has accessed a fresh supply route, which could only be the river—’ he replied.
‘And therefore they’re using the ports—’
‘Bubastis, perhaps, near the north-east border. And the shipments must come through Thebes. Not Memphis; it’s too dangerous, with the army all over the place. And so they must be paying people off, and not just border guards, import officials, local police and low-level people. The only way this could work is if they have influence at the highest levels.’
‘This is just supposition,’ I said, deliberately pushing him. ‘Everyone knows the corruption stretches from the gangs to the nobles. They’re both getting rich, while everyone else gets poorer. What’s new about that? There was even a rumour, years ago, that Horemheb’s army was somehow involved in such a secret trade, but there was never any proof. In any case, there’s not a thing any of us–certainly not you or I–can do about it.’
He stared at me, shocked.
‘This could be the biggest case we’ve ever worked on. It could make our careers. It could put you back on top. If we figure this out, if we can connect the gangs to the nobles via a new cartel trading in opium, smuggling it without permissions, then Nebamun will have to go on his knees and beg you to go back to work. You could make a real difference. A real change to what’s happening. To what’s going so badly wrong in this city…’
I felt the old, familiar surge of excitement rising within me. A new case. A new mystery to solve. But I squashed it down.
‘Listen carefully, Khety. Here’s my advice, for what it’s worth. Forget the new opium gang. Forget it all. Go home. Work on something else, where you’re less likely to get your head chopped off. There’s nothing you or I can do that will make any difference to this. It’s all been agreed at levels of power you and I will never reach. Anyway, don’t people still murder each other in this city in the old-fashioned ways?’ I said.
His face was dark with disappointment.
‘I’m not walking away from this…’ he muttered.
I raised my hand.
‘Do you really think we could handle it on our own? We wouldn’t stand a chance. We can’t trust anyone. The city’s corrupt, the Medjay’s corrupt–look at Nebamun, rolling in gold, he’s no fool–no doubt he’s taking big fat bribes wherever he can, as well. Don’t risk your life for something you can’t change.’
He was angry now.
‘What’s happened to you? I mean, once upon a time you would have jumped at a case like this. It would have excited you,’ he said.
‘Maybe I’ve finally learned the bitter truth that I can’t beat them, even if I’ll never join them. But I’m not going to lose the one thing I can still call my own: my life. And you should wise up and do the same, especially with a new child on the way…’ I replied.
I threw the dregs of my wine on to the dirt floor and, taking Thoth by his leash, walked to the door. Khety followed me out into the dark alleyway.
‘I’m going to do this, because I have to,’ he said, simply. ‘And I want to do it with you. It’ll be like the old days. You and me, working on a case that matters. I know you’ve missed it. You’re a great Seeker of Mysteries. The best.’
My heart was a knot of pride and doubt. Somehow his kindness wounded me more than all the insults of Nebamun. I could deal with those; they were just life.
‘Go home. Embrace your wife. Think about the new child. Forget all this. Tell yourself it was all just a bad dream,’ I said.
He shook his head.
‘What sort of man would I be if I just rolled over now? What sort of a father would I be to my kids? I owe it to them. I don’t want them growing up in a world where teenagers are kidnapped off the streets or slaughtered every night. And I don’t believe for a moment that you do, either. I know you still care. I can see it.’
He knew he’d get me with that.
‘Good night, Khety. My congratulations to you and your wife. Thanks for the wine…’
I turned away quickly, and kept walking, knowing he was watching me go.
4
I slept badly. Perhaps it was the rotten wine. Perhaps it was the look on Khety’s face as I left him in that dark backstreet. It haunted me. But I had other, more pressing concerns. Usually I was the first to awaken in the household, but the light and the noises from the street beyond the walls told me I was late. The space next to me was empty but still warm. I laid my hand briefly on it, wishing Tanefert was still lying there. Some days it seemed we hardly saw each other. Suddenly I felt a deep sadness well up inside me from nowhere. I threw myself out of bed quickly to evade it. I rubbed my fa
ce with my hands, to persuade it back into life, and prepared myself to confront another day.
My three daughters–Sekhmet, Thuyu and Nedjmet–glanced at each other quickly, knowingly, as I entered the room.
‘Good morning, Father!’ they called out, obviously amused by my lateness. I swung my son, Amenmose, five years old, up on to my lap, where he sat, happy in the crook of my arm. The girls were enjoying the luxuries from Nakht’s food parcel.
‘Good morning, fair ladies.’
They giggled at my clumsy paternal attempt at breakfast banter. Tanefert kissed me lightly on the forehead. Her black hair, threaded with silver, was tied back, and as always she was cheerful; but I could see the weariness and worry in her face.
‘Be gentle with your father, girls.’ She placed a bowl of milk down beside me. I offered some to Amenmose, who shook his head, so I drank it myself.
The girls gazed at me as they ate their breakfast sweet rolls.
‘You look like Thoth in a bad temper,’ Thuyu laughed suddenly, unable to bear the silence any longer.
‘And do you know what baboons do when they’re in a bad mood?’ I asked.
‘They sulk,’ said Nedjmet, the youngest, and herself once prone to such moods.
‘They fight. It’s vicious,’ offered Sekhmet, at twenty-one, the oldest, and by general agreement wisest.
I shook my head.
‘They cry,’ I replied.
The girls looked surprised by this.
‘What’s the matter? Haven’t you ever seen a baboon cry?’ I asked.
‘No, show us,’ challenged Thuyu.
I pulled my face down in as pronounced a parody as I could accomplish of a depressed baboon.
‘There’s no difference. You always look like that,’ said Nedjmet.
‘It’ll stay like that if you’re not careful,’ warned Sekhmet.
‘It’s true, it doesn’t look all that different,’ added Tanefert, as she passed by. ‘Now leave your father in peace, and get on.’
The girls noisily kissed me farewell, and left to go about their day, while Amenmose and I remained sitting together contentedly in the quietness that had descended on the house.
‘Father,’ he said, seriously.
‘Yes,’ I answered, wondering what profound discussion of mortality or life was about to begin.
‘You know Grandfather’s dead?’
My father had died almost a year ago, peacefully, at home. It was what we call a good death. The children had become obsessed with his passing to the Otherworld, and the events that followed, worrying about his resurrection in the afterlife, observing all the rites with exact custom, learning about his ka, ba and akh spirits, and drawing the hieroglyphics for each of them: the two upstretched human arms for the ka, the life force; the human-headed bird of the ba, that part of us which is individual to ourselves, which could take any form it desired, and travel between the worlds of the living and the dead; and the ibis of the akh, the immortal part of us which returns to the stars after we die. I had of course not told them that the embalmer’s high charges, together with those of the priests, who would conduct regular rites, and the burial itself, had taken up all our meagre savings, and that we had had to borrow at an alarming rate of interest to complete and furnish the frankly very ordinary tomb in which my father’s body now lay, next to my mother’s, as he had wished. If my career had not lapsed into the doldrums, we could have afforded a far finer tomb for him, and I wished it could have been so.
‘So what is he doing now?’
‘Well, he’s finishing his breakfast, and thinking about what to do with the day. He’ll probably go fishing. There’s plenty of time to fish in the afterlife…’
My father had taken me fishing on his reed boat all through my youth, and had delighted in doing the same with my son; they would both sit for hours in a pleasure of patience. Patience was not one of my son’s virtues, but he had never been happier, it seemed, than when he was in a boat with his grandfather. Together, they would watch the busy life of the river, with its population of boats and fishermen, lines of poor women in bright robes washing clothes by the shore, animals grazing and lowering their heads to drink, and great flocks of birds flying overhead to their retreats in the reed marshes, diving down to catch fish. He missed the trips, and he missed my father.
‘Can we go fishing?’
His face was earnest and hopeful.
‘Not today. Soon.’
He wrestled himself out of my lap.
‘Why not?’ he demanded, his little fists and face suddenly clenched with anger.
‘Because I have to work today. We’ll go soon, I promise,’ I said.
‘You always say that, and we never do go!’ he shouted.
And then he ran out into the yard.
I rubbed my face. Tanefert just shook her head.
‘Go and tell him you’ll take him later.’
‘I can’t. I promised Nakht I would help him with something.’
She gazed at me.
‘He needs you…’
‘I know. And we need the payments I earn from Nakht. How else will we eat? What do you want me to do?’
We stared at each other for a tense moment.
‘You and that baboon deserve each other. You’re both turning into angry old men,’ she said, and disappeared with the basket of clean clothes she had been folding.
I made my presence known at Medjay headquarters, as I made sure I did every day. Accompanied by Thoth, I strode under the carved stone image of the Wolf, Opener of the Ways, our standard. The inner courtyard was quiet; just a few people–representatives and petitioners, and women waiting with food for their imprisoned sons or husbands, or bribes for the guards–stood or squatted in the shrinking shadows of the morning. The heat was already scorching. Nebamun’s office door was shut. A few Medjay colleagues nodded at me in passing, and Panehesy, the Nubian sergeant, raised his hand to invite me to join him in the morning conference of other officers. I respected Panehesy for his ability to protect his officers from the worst of the politics of the bureaucracy above us all, but these days he had to adhere strictly to the protocols, the deference and the grim compromises required in dealing with Nebamun.
‘Another day of fun and games,’ he said blithely, as he passed out the day’s duties. He handed me down what he could: usually street patrols. Today was the same. It was a long time since I had been given a good, solid murder to get my teeth into. I knew it wasn’t Panehesy’s fault. But I felt like a stranger to myself.
‘What about last night?’ I asked.
‘Five down, fifty-five thousand to go,’ joked a young officer, earning a brief laugh from the others. ‘No disrespect intended,’ he added, nodding at Panehesy.
‘I should hope not,’ he replied coolly.
‘Let the gangs kill each other off, it saves us the trouble of dealing with them,’ said another. The men nodded in agreement.
‘Do you have other ideas about last night?’ Panehesy asked me. The others waited for my reply.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘Except that one day the gangs are going to be running this city, if we keep ignoring what’s happening out there.’
‘And just what do you think we can do about that?’ asked the first officer.
I shrugged.
‘Our job?’ I said.
The other men looked annoyed by that.
‘Our job is to keep order on the streets of the city. Not to intervene in gang wars we can’t win,’ said Panehesy quickly. ‘And anyway, the culprits have been arrested. They confessed this morning.’
‘I bet they did,’ I said. ‘And presumably they’ve been executed, too?’
I gazed at Panehesy, and he had the decency to look away first.
5
As I sat waiting for Nakht in the cool courtyard of his city house, I turned the papyrus with the black star over in my hands. I love evidence, above all things. It is the first of the sacred trinity that presides over the success of any investi
gation–the others being the witnesses, and, finally, the confessors. But I place less value on the second, and almost none on the last. Not for me the grim drama of the interrogation. For me, the crime scene is the truth. So my habit is to read each one obsessively for what is there, for what seems to be there, and most importantly for what should be there but is missing. Most are not so mysterious. But a very few have a special atmosphere, a peculiar feeling of meaningful mystery, which I can only call elusive. These, I love.
The scene of the decapitated boys was one of those. Death exacted by decapitation. Time of death: the small hours of the night. Killed elsewhere. Witnesses: none. But step beyond that, and all was mystery. Why were these little Nubian street dealers killed in this supremely efficient, audacious and expert way? Why were they left in a place where they would quickly be found? Why had the street been so carefully swept of sandal prints, wheel tracks, and all signs of struggle? That did not speak of the gangs in the city, whose violence was notoriously incompetent, as casually full of error and emotion as the actions of angry children. But if not them, then who? And why, above all, the mysterious sign of the black star? Why had it been left in the mouth of the boy? Who was supposed to find it? Other gangs? The Medjay? Me? I tried to imagine the scene; I tried to see the men who enacted these murders. They didn’t seem like gang men, but they remained shadows.
Nakht suddenly appeared on the mud-brick stairs. How long had he been watching me?
‘What were you thinking about?’ he asked.
‘Only about how your house always feels like another world; so close to the chaos of the city just beyond these high walls, and yet so entirely apart,’ I replied. ‘Two different worlds … as different as light and dark … order and chaos…’
And it was true. Here was order and tranquillity: birds in their cages sang with pleasure; the plants in their clay pots and shallow pools thrived. Servants went about their tasks in a deferential silence, each obviously knowing and respecting his or her place in the great orderly scheme of Nakht’s life. Today I noticed he had taken considerable trouble with his appearance. He was dressed in a superb pleated white gown, and the gold shebyu collar he had worn at the party. He cast a cool eye over me, taking in my shabby, dusty, street-worn state.
