Michael Pearce - The Face in the Cemetery

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2001

Copyright © Michael Pearce 2001

Michael Pearce asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780008259334

Ebook Edition © APRIL 2017 ISBN: 9780007401338

Version: 2017-08-30

Praise for Michael Pearce Praise Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Keep Reading About the Author Also by Michael Pearce About the Publisher

‘Pearce writes with a delicious wit and a firm sense of background’

The Times

‘Pearce … takes apart ancient history and reassembles it with beguiling wit and colour’

Sunday Times

‘Irresistible fun’

Time Out

‘The Mamur Zapt’s sly, irreverent humour continues to refresh the parts others seldom reach’

Observer

Cover

Title Page

Copyright HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2001 Copyright © Michael Pearce 2001 Michael Pearce asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication Source ISBN: 9780008259334 Ebook Edition © APRIL 2017 ISBN: 9780007401338 Version: 2017-08-30

Praise Praise for Michael Pearce Praise Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Keep Reading About the Author Also by Michael Pearce About the Publisher ‘Pearce writes with a delicious wit and a firm sense of background’ The Times ‘Pearce … takes apart ancient history and reassembles it with beguiling wit and colour’ Sunday Times ‘Irresistible fun’ Time Out ‘The Mamur Zapt’s sly, irreverent humour continues to refresh the parts others seldom reach’ Observer

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by Michael Pearce

About the Publisher

Over towards the Nile the light shimmered and seemed to fall apart, and then it came together again and presented a beautifully clear picture of the river, with palms shifting gently in the river breeze, a pigeon tower, and children playing around a water buffalo in the shallows; so clear that you could make out every detail.

Only it was not a true picture, at least, not of this part of the river. The Nile bent away at this point and where the mirage was, was just scrub and desert.

The desert was playing tricks here, too, inland a quarter of a mile. Heat spirals danced away across the sand and dust devils chased among the graves, where galabeahed men stood silently, watching him.

‘You’re not a pet man, though, are you?’ said McPhee.

‘No.’

‘I’m dogs, myself.’

Only it was cats here; dozens and dozens, hundreds and hundreds of them. They lay in open circular pits, uncovered by the archaeologists and then abandoned. Each pit was about eight feet in diameter and five or six feet deep. The cats lay on ledges around the sides, except that when space had run out they had been piled carefully on top of each other in the middle. Each cat had been tenderly mummified, the body treated first and then swathed in yards and yards of linen bandages. The pits stretched out towards the horizon.

‘They weren’t really pets, though, were they?’ said Owen.

‘Someone must have loved them, to lavish such attention on them.’

‘But didn’t you say –?’

‘There are lots of inscriptions to the cat goddess round here, it is true,’ McPhee conceded.

‘So perhaps they were just running wild in the temples?’

‘I don’t know about running wild,’ said McPhee severely. ‘Fed, and not ill treated, perhaps.’

‘But hardly pets.’

‘Perhaps not.’

‘Objects of devotion?’

‘Sacred, certainly.’

But in the grave at Owen’s feet there was something which was clearly not an object of devotion. It lay across the middle of the pit and cat mummies had been clumsily pulled off the shelves and spread over it in an attempt to hide it. It was rather longer than a cat mummy but bandaged tightly like them.

Except at the head, where the district mamur, alerted by the village omda, had uncovered enough of the modern bandages to reveal that the body was that of a twentieth-century, fair-headed woman.

‘Identification?’ said Owen.

‘They all know her. The omda –’ began the mamur.

‘Someone closer.’

‘There is a husband,’ said the mamur, almost unwillingly.

‘Husband?’

Owen looked at his papers. They made no reference to a husband.

‘Where is he?’

‘Up at the factory.’

‘Has he seen her?’

‘He knows,’ said the mamur evasively.

Owen bent over the body. Already, in the heat, it was changing.

‘You’d better get it moved,’ he said.