from their repellent environment.
Yet some also said the Zabaleen mistrusted modern medicine and refused help, preferring their traditional solace: religion. It was God that made the lives of these people bearable. If the Zabaleen were notorious for their bellicosity, for their sad or drunken desperation, they were also famous for their religious fidelity and devotion. The churches around here were thronged every Saturday, the Coptic Sabbath.
Even now Victor could see two women on a street corner kneeling to kiss the fat gold ring of a lavishly bearded Coptic priest. The black-cloaked priest smiled serenely at the purpling sky, while the women kneeled and kissed his jewellery, like supplicants in front of a Mafia godfather.
A priest? A priest meant a church. He needed to find the Monastery of the Cave.
Ahead, the main road, such as it was, forked left and right. On the left a man was butchering a pig in the gutter. The other lane led to a wall of distant rock. That was surely the route. And yes, through the dust and the bustle of Moqqatam, Victor could make out the arch of a monastic gate: probably the only noble piece of architecture for miles.
Victor Sassoon approached a wooden kiosk erected beside the gate. Inside, a badly shaven man sat scowling on a stool. The interior of the kiosk was decorated with lurid pictures of the Virgin Mary, with farcically huge eyes. Like a seal-pup.
‘Salaam,’ Victor said, as he leaned to the open window of the kiosk. ‘Ah. Salaam aleikum, ah – ah—’
‘I speak English.’ The middle-aged man spat the words. ‘What do you want?’
This was less than friendly.
‘I am a visiting scholar from London. I am keen to meet Brother Wasef Qulta, in the monastery.’
A definite sneer lifted the gatekeeper’s face.
‘Many peoples want to see Brother Qulta. You need permission.’
‘I have emailed and telephoned but I have been unable to get a response from the Coptic episcopate. Please. I only need a few minutes of his time. I have come a very long way.’
The gatekeeper shrugged. No.
Victor had expected this; and he had a plan.
‘Perhaps I can explain better. I am … happy to make a very considerable donation to the monastery. I will entrust it with you?’
This was the entirety of Victor’s plan: bribe his way in, bribe his way through every problem. It was crude but it was effective in a poor country like Egypt – especially in one of the poorest parts of Cairo. And Victor had plenty of money to spare.
Yet the gatekeeper was unmoved. He gazed at the dollar bills that Victor was discreetly flourishing and this time the sneer was angry. ‘La! No! Ila jahaim malik!’
But his anger was interrupted: by shouting. Victor turned. A slender, white-robed adolescent, perhaps a novice monk, was yelling from the steps of the monastery, yelling at no one – and everyone. The shouting was loud and wild. Victor could not translate the words, but the meaning was clear – something terrible had happened. Some kind of crime?
The gatekeeper was already out of the tatty little kiosk, running towards the porch of the monastery; others pursued. Victor took his chance and joined the anxious people. He strained to see over the shoulders and arms. What was going on?
The crowds were too thick. Shameless now, Victor used his stick to lever himself between the onlookers. There! The monastery door was open – and Victor brazenly stepped inside.
It took a second for his eyes to adjust to the darkness within. There was a knot of people in the shadowy hallway: they were pointing at the stone stairs beyond. Victor caught the word ‘police’ – shurta – and then the word qalita.
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.
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!’
