Map of the Dead: A mystery thriller that's a page turner

by Murray Bailey

“There are other explanations.”

  “I’m sure. My article wasn’t anything particularly new, but it was about the pharaoh called Akhenaten. He was the one who supposedly believed in the-one-true-god and it’s thought his followers were Ibiru because of his beliefs.”

  “Ark-en-ar-tun…” She shrugged. “Can’t say I’ve heard of him before.”

  “Akhenaten was Tutankhamen’s father. He is often referred to as the heretic pharaoh because of his belief in a single god. Sigmund Freud… of course you’ll know he was Jewish… was the first to suggest that Akhenaten was the pharaoh linked to Moses and…”

  She laughed. “You couldn’t help yourself, could you. I said no mention of Exodus.”

  He held up his hand: guilty as charged.

  They talked for a couple of hours, first about the similarity of Akhenaten’s religion and the Bible and then more generally about gods. The Ten Commandments was like a negative version of the Book of the Dead—a set of spells to prove ones worth for the afterlife. I have not killed became Thou shalt not kill.

  “Your article said the number of gods multiplied over time,” Vanessa said, returning to the piece she had read.

  “Initially nine, headed by Ra, god of the sun. By three thousand BCE there were forty-two gods. As I wrote, the later ones were mostly derivations of the originals. Religion was big business, so you can imagine the shock when Akhenaten said there was only one god. He called him the Aten. Aten was basically the sun disc just before sunset.”

  “So Aten was Ra.”

  “I believe so.”

  “You mentioned Isis earlier. Where does she fit in?”

  “Isis was the goddess of many things, including love and fertility. She was symbolized by either a throne or a vulture—they were revered for the protection of their young.” Alex continued to tell her about other goddesses Nekhbet and Hathor who appeared later for childbirth and motherhood but were both symbolized by vultures in some form. “Just derivations of Isis,” he said.

  After a break for lunch in the café, Vanessa said, “So who was Osiris?”

  “He was Isis’s husband and, according to some versions, he was the son of Ra. He was the first mummified pharaoh and became the god of the afterlife. By the New Kingdom, there was a god called Amun-Min, who had been a soldier. After losing a leg in battle he returned home. On the way he made love to every lonely woman he met and fathered hundreds of children.”

  “And that made him a god?”

  “Of fertility,” Alex said. “He was caught and killed by the husbands but, even in death, the one-legged soldier still had an erection. He is depicted as a mummy with a large penis.’

  “Ridiculous.” She laughed. He liked the way her eyes sparked with interest and crinkled at the edges. “And what’s that got to do with Osiris?”

  “Osiris was murdered by his enemy, who chopped him up. Isis found the parts—including his penis—mummified his body and made love to him. She got pregnant.”

  Vanessa pulled a face. “Only a god!”

  Alex said, “The stories would have been re-enacted for the masses and been great titillation. Anyway, side on, the mummy of Osiris appears to have one leg…”

  “Like the one-legged soldier.”

  “Exactly! It would also not be surprising that Osiris would be shown in profile with a penis. So I’m pretty sure that Amun-Min was a derivation of Osiris.”

  “Reasonable.”

  Alex told her some more of the ancient stories until she checked her watch and jumped up. “Oops! I’ve a lecture in half an hour.”

  “You’d better be going.”

  She started down the stairs. “See you later, but no more stories about sex!”

  Alex picked up Ellen’s phone and opened the email app. He re-read ones that didn’t seem personal. Finding nothing of interest, he tried the Trash folder. There were lots of mailing list offers and what looked like spam, but a few emails attracted his attention. The first was an email sent to Professor Thompson at Oxford University requesting a meeting to discuss Lord Carnarvon’s death and items taken from Tutankhamen’s tomb.

  Alex copied his email address and sent the professor a note asking him to get in touch.

  The second email of interest was confirmation of registration on a website called EgyptConfidential. It provided a link to the login page and Ellen’s username. Her password was in the next deleted email.

  On his laptop Alex signed into the website, which had a forum. Her username was Senemut, and she had exchanged emails with three people from the site: Sinuhe, Khaemhet and Mutnodjemet. The emails discussed various theories, but nothing struck him as relevant. He went into the account settings and changed Ellen’s email address to his own. Then he sent a message via the site to each of the three contacts asking how they were. Nothing to frighten them off. Just to get them to respond. He signed it using Ellen’s Senemut identity. If anyone responded he would get an email as well as a message on the site.

  Alex checked his email to confirm his sent message also appeared, and it did. As he deleted it, another email arrived: a response from The Griffith Institute, St Anthony’s College. Oxford.

  Professor Thompson no longer worked there.

  The Second

  SIXTEEN

  Razor, the man Alex knew as Aviator, sat in The Pie Crust café in the East End district of London. Sitting in the café was where the gang did their best thinking, so that’s where he’d gone—to do some thinking. He’d eaten an unhealthy all-day cooked breakfast, just the way he liked it; none of this fancy American franchise rubbish at American franchise prices. It was late afternoon and it was already dark outside.

  The items from Highclere Castle were stashed in a warehouse. Razor’s job had been to deal with their inside man, but he’d screwed up with the gas explosion. Lemmy’s job had been to trace the missing item but the boss had assigned him to following MacLure. Gazza’s job was to sort the good stuff from the fake and co-ordinate the next phase with the boss. Gazza was the fence. When they were ready he would offload the items—and with his skill he’d pass off some of the fakes as the real thing.

  He tried Lemmy’s mobile but it went straight to voicemail. Gazza wasn’t available and you didn’t ring the boss. He rang you.

  Razor doodled on the back page of The Sun newspaper as he thought. Lemmy had followed MacLure through Hammersmith but hadn’t called in for a couple of days. Had something happened to him or had he simply fallen off the waggon? In Gazza’s view, Lemmy was unreliable.

  So the boss had put him on the case. They had known where MacLure was holed up and he had followed the target to Putney Bridge.

  There hadn’t been much time, but the guy didn’t react like he knew anything. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe there wasn’t anything to know. Jeez! What if their source had been mistaken? What if he’d been lying?

  It didn’t make sense. There was no reason for the source to lie. He had wanted a share of the big payday. He was convinced the Champion girl knew where the treasure was. She had solved something. It was just a matter of following the clues.

  And who the hell had shot him? He thought about the wound on his shoulder—just a graze. He’d had much worse.

  Did MacLure have someone protecting him? Unlikely. The way he ran off, it looked like he was scared for his life.

  Was there another gang after the treasure? Razor wrote Gang on the newspaper and circled it numerous times until the pen tore through the paper. Could the source have another gang involved? Let them do the dirty work and then take the glory?

  They had her notes—he’d found them in her briefcase. The main thing was drawings of the item that looked like a box with marks and Egyptian writing. Gazza had called it an artefact. However, there was no indication of size. He imagined it to be like a shallow music box.

  He finished his meal and looked at the scribble in case he received some divine inspiration. It was just scribble, with the words Gang, Lemmy, the source and MacLure most prominent. He would keep hopin
g Lemmy would get in touch, but the only action he could think of was to contact the source. The whole thing had been his idea so maybe he would know where MacLure had gone. Maybe he would know what to do next. Yes, that was the plan.

  As he turned into Bridge Road, heading for West Ham, a car horn sounded. Some idiot had cut across the traffic. Bloody typical, it’s a BMW, Razor thought as he saw the offending black car. He shook his head and turned back the way he was going. After ten paces, something in the corner of his eye made him swivel with alarm.

  The car drove slowly by. Two men inside, and both seemed to glance his way.

  What the fuck? Razor glared at the driver: an A-rab by the look of his skin. The car continued and, after it disappeared into another street, he wondered whether his imagination was playing tricks, whether he was just being jumpy. It was the police he needed to keep an eye out for.

  “Excuse me, I’m lost.”

  Razor snapped out of his thoughts. The BMW was right there alongside him. The driver had his window down and was leaning out.

  “Can you help us find the Olympic park?”

  As he bent to give the guy some abuse, Razor realized the passenger seat was empty.

  Too late.

  He heard a sound behind him. As he spun, a cosh connected with the side of his face.

  The next thing he knew, he was waking up with a pain in his shoulders as he dangled from a rope tied around his wrists. He glanced down at his naked body. A rivulet of blood ran down his left leg and ended at the rope around his feet. He smelled oil and judged the room to be an empty garage. The Arab from the BMW stood an arm’s length away, a tyre-iron in his hand.

  Razor looked into the man’s cold eyes and knew then that this wasn’t a matter of how he survived this, but how long he held out.

  When Vanessa returned, she brought a pizza takeaway menu. After they ordered, she asked about his afternoon. “Any closer to finding what Ellen’s research at Highclere was?’

  “I don’t think so. I found a web forum she was on discussing mysteries and theories.”

  She seemed intrigued. “Like?”

  “There’s stuff about where Akhenaten’s body is buried and what happened to his queen—Nefertiti.”

  “I’ve heard of her.”

  “Which is odd—that people have heard of his queen but not Akhenaten.”

  “She was supposed to be beautiful, wasn’t she? What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know about beautiful. She disappeared from the records about two-thirds of the way through his reign. If she’d died she would have been about thirty. There’s an unidentified mummy referred to as the Elder Lady who could be her. Some think she may have become co-regent and changed her name. There’s a stone bust of her in the Berlin Museum and some people think she looks over fifty.”

  “That’s fascinating. So she probably didn’t die young after all. But why would she pretend to have died at thirty?”

  “Maybe someone else wanted to erase her legacy after that?”

  Vanessa nodded thoughtfully. “So did Nefertiti also believe in one god?”

  “She has what’s called a gate at the temple complex at Karnak in Luxor. Pharaohs had them built as statements of their religious worth. They look a bit like triumphal arches. Nefertiti’s is unusual because she wasn’t a pharaoh, and it was destroyed in antiquity. Anyway, the thing is it’s now been rebuilt and there are reference on it to many of the gods. So it’s unlikely she just believed in one—at least when the arch was built.”

  The pizzas arrived and they opened the boxes on the table and shared them.

  Alex felt mischievous. He said, “God has many names. The sun god Ra also had many names. Just like the God of Judaism: Jehovah, Elohim, Yahweh—”

  “You could also list Tzevaot, El, Elyon, Avinu, Adonai and Shaddai, although many of those so-called names are really just titles.”

  Alex continued: “When a pharaoh died, the priests chanted the Litany of Ra. This was calling upon the sun god in all his seventy-five names to look after the pharaoh in the afterlife. As I said, I think Aten was one of these. Akhenaten’s father called Him Ra-Horakhty.”

  “And you said he believed in just one god?”

  “Not necessarily. Even if Aten was an aspect of Ra it doesn’t mean Akhenaten only worshipped one god.” Alex paused while he ate a slice of pizza.

  “There’s evidence that he erased the name of the god Amun—the hidden one—from the temple at Thebes. But I think that was more political, or perhaps even a lack of faith. Maybe he was disillusioned. You see, Akhenaten was raised to be a priest of Amun. He was the second son and never expected to become pharaoh. Anyway, Akhenaten didn’t erase the names of the other gods, and their temples continued to be supported during his reign. At Amarna, where he had his palace and Aten temple, archaeologists have found evidence of multiple gods. They also found plans for a cemetery for bulls. The bull and a rock called the Benben stone were representative of belief in the god Ptah. The stone was in the temple of the Aten. That seems like a contradiction, and it’s certainly inconsistent for someone who allegedly only worshipped one god.”

  “So you don’t think this pharaoh was the founder of monotheism and hence Judeo-Christianity.”

  “That was Sigmund Freud’s theory. Effectively, that god was the sun god. But, as I said, there’s lots of evidence that Akhenaten didn’t believe in just one god.”

  “OK.” She looked uncertain.

  “Well, why is there so much about him believing in one god? It’s almost as though there’s a move to convince people that the idea of God originated from an Egyptian pharaoh.”

  Before she left him for the night she said, “Tomorrow I think we do two things: one, we get you outside. It’s about time you saw the sky again. There’s been no sign of the aviator-guy. It’s just a matter of how you’re feeling. Will you do it?”

  “OK. What’s the second thing?”

  “You mentioned your friend’s research linking Moses to numbers.”

  “Yes.”

  “Numbers are very important to Judaism. Maybe understanding them will help understand her research.”

  “Not a bad idea.”

  “Great,” she said. “In that case I’ll introduce you to my uncle.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Jackson and Belmarsh showed their ID and a constable lifted the cordon for them. They were outside a warehouse in the East End of London. Everywhere looked grey in the early morning light.

  “I don’t get it,” Belmarsh said with a yawn. “Who called this in?”

  “Anonymous tipoff during the night,” Jackson said. He spotted the Met’s OIC and raised a hand.

  The detective came over, a sour look on his face. “What the hell is this?”

  Jackson introduced himself and his sergeant. “You’ve found the Highclere Castle stolen goods, I understand.”

  The OIC introduced himself as DI Spears. “This is much more than your stolen goods I’m afraid. We’ve got a triple murder investigation going on here.” He paused for a moment and then said, “OK, we’ll keep our distance and I’ll show you.”

  The building had crates and forklift equipment, all clearly disused. Huge lights hung from the rafters along with chains and pulleys. Judging from the dust and rust, the place had been abandoned years ago. There was a partition midway, and beyond that the rear of the warehouse was in deep shade, although there was a glow from the far right. “No power,” Spears explained as he led them towards the darkness. There was a series of offices at the very back. The end one on the right was lit by portable lights, with SOCO officers visible in their blue plastic suits.

  “The three bodies are in the office,” Spears said. “The goods are over here.” On the left, an officer stood by three piles of boxes.

  She nodded to the OIC. “The items seem to be separated into what looks fake and what looks genuine.” She shone a torch over the closest box and used a pen to lift the flaps. Inside was a six-inch stone figure. “Genuine,�
� she said.

  Belmarsh said, “Are you an expert?”

  The officer grinned.

  Spears said, “We have a list. The thieves typed up a list of the contents and split it into ‘genuine’, ‘fake’ and ‘appears genuine’. We reckon this was to determine the potential market.”

  Jackson nodded. “We have our own list.” He turned to Belmarsh. “Check this list off against ours.” To Spears he said, “Tell me about the bodies.”

  They left Belmarsh with the Met officer and Spears led the way to the end office. They stood at the grimy window. The spotlights showed three bodies. One had been shot execution-style, and blood pooled dark around his head. The other two were lying alongside. One had no marks and the other was naked with cuts and burns all over his skin.

  “They were under the tarpaulin,” Spears said. “Initial assessment is that we have one killed in situ. The naked one appears to have been tortured and dumped here. The middle one was shot once in the head, once in the torso. Classic double tap. No blood on site, so, again, killed elsewhere and dumped with the others.”

  He looked at Jackson. “What can you tell me?”

  “Nothing,” Jackson said. “If these are the Highclere burglars—and everything points to it—then why are they all dead?”

  “Unless there was a fourth and he killed the others.”

  “Possible, I suppose.” Jackson looked at the bodies. “No. Someone wanted information. They caught the naked guy and tortured him to find the others and this warehouse. Maybe the executed one led them here. Whoever did this didn’t want the stolen goods but they wanted us to find them.” Jackson shook his head. This was a weird case.

  “Sir…” Belmarsh came over with a sheaf of papers. She hesitated a heartbeat as she glanced at the grim sight inside the end office. “Jesus! Do you think they’re the burglars?”

  Jackson nodded.

  “And responsible for Ellen Champion’s death?”

  “Possible. I’d even say highly probable.” To Spears he said, “We should get the investigators linked up—could be some connection to the girl killed by a gas explosion near where the goods were stolen.”