These dead are my responsibility,’ replied the policeman. ‘It might have been possible to prevent this.’
‘You did what you could. The dead know us; they know what is within our power to achieve and to prevent.’
Huy bent over the body silently. The damaged young face had been beautiful. A high forehead curved back gently into a rich tangle of dark, curled hair; she had an aquiline nose, full, sensual lips and a proud chin. The teeth were unusually white; strong and regular.
The assistant lit torches at her head and feet, and the light from these outlined the contours of her dark skin.
‘Would you say that this is her natural colour?’ he asked.
The doctor came over and looked. ‘It is sunburn,’ he said finally, ‘I had not noticed.’
Huy had taken one of her hands in his, running his thumb across it.
‘Feel this,’ he said to Merymose, who had come up in turn. The policemen could see that the skin was rough, and the nails, though diligently polished, were chipped and broken.
‘Perhaps, in the struggle,’ suggested the doctor. He held a slender knife aloft. ‘Now, if you would just give me room.’
What struggle, thought Huy and Merymose simultaneously. There should have been no struggle.
‘Just a moment,’ said Huy. Then he looked at Merymose. ‘Her feet.’
There was no need to touch them. The soles were hard, and the edges of the big and little toes carried a rind.
‘Look at the anklet,’ said Merymose, suddenly. Huy did so. It was made of copper.
Huy grabbed one of the torches and brought it closer, careless of the wax dripping on to the dead skin. The girl wore no other jewellery – now, at least; but he noticed that the long lobes of her ears were pierced, and that there was a slight graze on the side of her neck. There were other, dark marks on her shoulders and sides. He turned to the doctor questioningly.
‘Bruises, of course,’ said the healer. ‘I told you there had been a struggle. She’d been badly beaten up, poor kid. Three ribs are broken. Now, if you’ll let me get to work while there’s still light, I ought to be able to confirm what I suspected when I first saw her – ‘ He paused, bending over the body, a long hardwood implement in his hand. Breathing through his mouth, he manipulated his probe between her legs. After a minute, he straightened up.
‘What is it?’ asked Merymose.
‘She was raped. In both the nether gates. But she was no virgin before it happened, if that’s of any interest to you.’
Huy produced the little amulet of Ishtar from the linen pouch at his belt. He looked at Merymose. ‘This should have told me more, earlier.’
Merymose returned the scribe’s gaze, telling himself once again that there was no reason, surely, to distrust him.
An hour later, standing in the darkness, so far from having the fourth murder in a series, they had a new killing: one which was superficially like the others, but whose only real resemblance lay in the infliction of one particular wound, and the manner and location in which the body was laid out after death. The girl, whoever she was, despite the aristocratic looks and fine body which had at first misled them, would only have found houseroom within the palace compound as an under-servant.
‘It’s much more likely that she was a whore,’ said the doctor, having washed his hands and arms, and rewrapped the body. ‘She wasn’t clean enough to have been a harem girl. But it’s hard to imagine what she did to deserve a fate like this.’
Her sunburnt skin and her rough hands and feet made her poor. The copper anklet was probably the only thing of value she had possessed, and it was curious that it had not been stolen, for all metal was valuable in the Black Land. It was the little amulet which told them most about the girl. The cult of the goddess Ishtar had come into the Black Land with settlers from the far north-east where the Twin Rivers flowed. But the settlers had been courtiers, the sons and daughters of kings and dukes exchanged in marriages which formed part of peace treaties between the Black Land and the Nation of the North-East. The cult had remained after those who had brought it had embraced the gods of the Black Land, the true gods, the gods of the land in which they now lived, but it remained as no more than a fashion among the rich. It was a fashion now past. Only among the poor, the retainers who had accompanied their masters and later fallen from favour, or among the half-caste children brought up by superstitious mothers true to their old faith, did the little goddess of love and war retain a true following. There would be few such people in the Black Land now. Huy hoped that the discovery would ease the task of finding out who the girl had been.
‘Why do you think she was killed?’ asked Merymose as they made their way from the Place of Healing to Kenamun’s office.
‘I don’t know. If we knew why she was killed in that way we would be closer to the truth.’
‘It’s simple. He’s becoming violent.’
‘Did this girl struggle; make him lose his temper?’ Huy said, and then had another question. ‘But why change the kind of victim? This girl was poor and sullied.’
‘Do you look for reason in madness?’ asked Merymose.
‘I thought we were dealing with an obsession.’
‘But why copy the method, if this time the killer is someone else?’
‘Who knows that there is a method to copy?’ said Huy quietly. ‘Only a very few people.’
‘Only a few that we know of,’ said Merymose. They fell silent. Then the policeman continued, if the method was copied in order to make us believe that the crime was committed by the killer of the other girls, then our new killer is either clumsy, or stupid.’
‘Or clever.’
‘What?’
if the method was copied, whoever did it intended us to think that it had been copied clumsily and stupidly. Perhaps there are not two killers, and this has been done by our man to confuse us. In which case we may be closer to him than we think.’
Merymose shook his head. ‘You are burying yourself in too many thoughts.’
‘Yes,’ said Huy. ‘We must stay on one path, while being aware in our hearts where others may lead. But I am not sure now that we seek Surere for this.’
Merymose’s eyes became veiled. ‘How can you say that?’
‘You still think I am protecting him. If I knew where he was, perhaps I would still try to. I tell you this because I know that I cannot expect trust if I do not give it. But Surere could never make love to a woman. He could never penetrate, not even if his life depended on it, for he is sure that their nether mouths contain teeth, and that once his limb was inside them, they would bite it off.’
‘And that is why he prefers the company of men?’
‘Can you think of a more compelling reason?’
There was a speck of yellow phlegm on Kenamun’s lower lip. As he spoke, and this lip joined the upper, so the wet dot transferred allegiance, and then back again. Huy found himself looking at the man’s lips alone, and the spittle switching from one to the other, in horrified fascination and to the exclusion of everything else.
Kenamun was in a white rage. Although he fought to control it, his voice trembled, and the knuckles of the hands which clutched the chair at whose back he stood were huge, the skin stretched tautly across them. His dark eyes were glassy with fury, the pupils dilated, the whites bulging in their sockets. A lock of hair had worked itself loose in his wig and now hung over his forehead. He could not have been aware of it, for it was the only untidy thing in the room, a banner of disorder in the midst of the most rigid ranking. His simple, expensive tunic hung straight, without the least sign of a crease or a sweat stain, despite the heat of the day and the advanced hour of morning. The jewellery at wrist and neck shone as if it were still on display in the shop from which it came, and the odour from the man was simply – nothing. A sense of freshness, perhaps, but no smell either personal nor scented.