To mitigate his appearance, he had grown a beard – though it was so fine, to conform with custom, that it might have been painted on with a kohl-brush, an impression reinforced by the methodical severity with which the rest of the face had been shaved. He wore a red-and-gold headdress, and a white tunic trimmed with the same colours. He stood at an unusually high desk in the room into which Merymose ushered Huy, and there was no sign of any other furniture, beyond an open chest containing scrolls. Huy concluded that the man worked standing up.
He looked at Huy – as far as Huy could telclass="underline" it was more an impression of being looked at, and there was no reading the expression in the eyes – but spoke to Merymose without preamble.
‘So this is the man you say is indispensable to us.’
‘He would be of help,’ said Merymose. ‘We want this solved soon.’
‘Indeed. But what methods has he that we do not have at our disposal already?’
‘An instinct for asking the right questions.’
‘Of whom? You know the families we are dealing with.’
‘Frequently, just of himself.’
Kenamun had not removed his gaze from Huy, who began to feel like a specimen, or, worse, a snake stared down by a mongoose.
‘You have recanted your allegiance to the Great Criminal?’ Huy sighed. ‘I was not offered that possibility. I was merely forbidden to practise my profession.’
‘And you were a scribe. After all those years of training, that must have been like having your hand cut off.’ Kenamun considered. ‘But you were not sent into exile, or to work in the mines?’
‘No.’
‘And you are a friend of the family of Amotju?’
‘Yes,’ said Huy, recalling Taheb. Could that have only been yesterday – and at about this time?
The official dropped his gaze abruptly and turned his attention to some papers on his desk. ‘You are a good officer, Merymose,’ he said at last, ‘and although I disagree with you about the capability of our Medjays, I respect your judgment. You may consult this man, but he is to have no direct or unsupervised contact with the families of the girls, and he is to work only under your orders, not independently. You will make a report to me daily at the first hour of night. Finally, he is your responsibility. If this becomes widely known, I will say that you acted on your own initiative, and you will take the consequences.’
He did not look up, or say anything more. Huy and Merymose glanced at each other, and withdrew.
‘What is he like?’ asked Huy as soon as they were clear of the building and out in the broad street that ran close to the walls of the palace complex. After Kenamun’s office, the light of day seemed even brighter, the sun warmer.
‘He is an official. He is on his dignity. He doesn’t know how to go about the work he has been put in charge of, and yet the successful solution of this case will be a great coup for him, politically. On the other hand, the risk is high, because failure will set him back. He has few friends, and already the pressure Ipuky and Reni are putting on him through their friends is filtering down to me. But he made no objection to engaging you. That is a degree of how desperate he is to get this thing settled.’
They walked down to the river, as a motley crowd milled about the jetties where the ferry boats left for the West Bank. Over there, generations of pharaohs slept in the tombs, cut deep into the red cliffs of the valley. The thought of the neglected tomb of Nefertiti passed briefly through Huy’s mind.
‘What do the families say?’
‘They are too broken in spirit to know. There is suspicion of the work of demons; but it is rare for demons to attack the rich, and above all to leave no trace of violence on the bodies. That there is a clear similarity has escaped no one, and there is fear that other daughters of similar families are at risk. We have been pestered for men to protect several houses, and as these people have such influence, we cannot refuse.’
‘The girls must have had friends. Have you spoken to them?’ Huy decided to keep what he had learnt about Iritnefert to himself for the moment. There was no point in telling Merymose what could not be proved. There was little likelihood that he would believe it, and, anyway Huy himself was not about to trust the Medjay completely.
‘Yes, some. Of course the two girls knew each other, too – all part of the same set. It seems that Ipuky’s daughter was rebellious; but they either don’t know what she got up to, or won’t say. The other girl – ‘ Merymose hesitated.
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing. Just an ordinary girl.’
Huy nodded, but the hesitation had not escaped him.
‘Her brothers are angry,’ continued Merymose more confidently.
‘At least, one is angry; the other is inclined to be more…’ he searched for the word, ‘philosophical about it – like his father.’
‘Philosophical?’ Huy imagined the rage he would feel if his son were killed.
‘They accept what has happened; but they do not see anger as the fuel for vengeance. I know that Ipuky is putting his own men on to this.’
‘That will muddy the water.’
‘What do you want them to do? Med jays are not trained to investigate such things as these,’ repeated Merymose.
‘And if it is a demon?’
‘The household priests are looking to Osiris for guidance. So far he has given none. The household priests take that to mean that the gods are not responsible for these deaths.’
Huy wondered how deep Merymose’s belief in the gods ran. Also, being human, Huy regretted that he was now committed to working with the policeman. If he had been able to, how gladly he would have hired himself out to either of the wealthy men whose daughters had died. He doubted if the authorities represented by Merymose and Kenamun would pay him as much as Reni or Ipuky would have; and he doubted if he would receive any reward at all if he were unsuccessful.
He looked up to see Merymose grinning at him. ‘I know what you are thinking,’ he said. ‘Neither of them would have engaged you. Now that we have an escaped political prisoner on the loose, everybody is fighting shy of having anything to do with people like you. Of course it doesn’t affect the really big fish, but even important officials who recanted formally are looking over their shoulders at the moment. That these killings have happened at the same time doesn’t help.’
‘Then thank you for getting me any work at all.’ Huy countered affability with affability; but he could not help wondering what strings Merymose had had to pull – or how – to get Kenamun to accept him. He wondered if he should not give his Ka a name, and call it Taheb.
‘What did you tell them at the paperworks?’
‘They didn’t ask questions. I’d given them time to look for someone to replace me permanently. And they told me that I can have a job back there any time I want.’ Huy grinned. Nothing would drag him back to that grind.
They had reached the end of the ferry jetties and ahead of them lay the tightly-knit bulk of the town, its few colours – beige, dun, ochre, brown and white – flattened by the sunlight. The shadows provided some relief, and here and there a man or a donkey dozed in one. A thin dog sidled up to them, stopping just out of range of a kick, and looked at them with what it hoped was an appealing expression. It only succeeded in looking craven.
‘We’ve nothing for you,’ Merymose told the dog, adding to Huy: ‘If you’re poor and ugly, you can forget about love, eh?’
‘What do you want to do?’ asked Huy.
‘I want to tell you everything I know about all this so far, and in detail. What do you want to do?’
‘I want to look at the bodies.’
Merymose hesitated again. ‘We’ll have to get permission from the families. They will both be with the embalmers.’
‘Then let’s do that. Fast.’
‘But what can you possibly tell from the bodies, especially now?’
‘They must have died somehow. It may be that looking at the bodies will tell me. I might see something that has been missed.’