The wide door of the stall, which the sackers would open outwards when the time came to make use of the grain within, was bolted shut. As Huy came closer, he noticed something glinting in the half light, not quite halfway up the door and towards its centre. Suddenly his heart beat faster and he quickened his pace, in the grip of dreadful panic. The dull reflection came from a gold finger ring. Four fingers were thrust, gripping, through a gap between the planks of the door. Huy touched them. They might have been made of stone. He recognised the ring.
He turned round in an instant, but the silence of the granary mocked him: he was alone. Pulling the heavy bolt of the door, he stood back to allow the weight of the grain to open it, then, working with frantic haste, swung it wider, and, grabbing one of the shovels, began to dig. He seemed to be moving through mud, his actions hampered as if in a dream. He slipped and stumbled on the grain, sinking into it. As fast as he dug, more tiny oval ears tumbled into the hole he had made, in their thousands. But at last he reached the body.
Merymose lay on his back. Barley filled his eyes, his nostrils and his mouth. His fingernails were broken and bloody from when he had thrown himself at the door and torn at it, in the moment when he realised that he had been shut into the stall, and what was going to happen next.
NINE
‘Why? Because Kenamun has lost his best man, and I have no faith in his ability to solve this on his own. Nor, to judge from their efforts, do I see that I have much more to expect from my own people. You will get all the help you want, though I suspect you will be better off working alone. I will pay you in whatever goods you request, at the rate of half a deben of silver a day. I will allow you twenty days. If you have not solved this by then, you will be dismissed. If you have, I will buy the house you live in and give it to you.’
Huy looked round the bleak room, unable to believe he was in it again. He had spoken to no one about his discovery of Merymose’s body, not even to Taheb, who was distracted by the preparations for her reluctant departure, and had not questioned him when he told her that Merymose had not appeared at their meeting place.
The news of the policeman’s death came soon afterwards – the sleeping watchman had found the body when he made his evening rounds. But by that time Taheb had already embarked.
Huy had returned to his house in order to work out a way of getting into the brothel known by the impious name of the Glory of Set – Nebamun had been right, he found that he simply could not let the whole thing drop, and now there was a friend’s death to be avenged – when the message had come for him from the palace compound.
‘I am waiting,’ came sternly from the other side of the table. But was there an unsteadiness in the voice? Was Ipuky as sure of himself as he seemed?
Huy looked across at the Controller of the Silver Mines.
They were both sitting, this time, though the man’s austerity had relaxed very little further than that. What he was offering was something which Huy had hoped for, though the source was surprising. He looked into the severe face again, noting details. Lines at the corners of the mouth indicated that it might have smiled once, but there was no doubt that the eyes were anxious. There was no sign of grief for his daughter, but then, the house was in a state of permanent mourning.
‘What made you approach me?’ Huy asked him. ‘Merymose was not a fool; and you made a good impression when we first met. Now; your answer.’
‘I accept.’
‘Good. Not that you could have refused.’
‘Oh?’
‘You need the work. More importantly, you need Merymose’s killer. Thirdly, if you had refused, I would have told you I intended to point out to Kenamun that the door of the stall in which Merymose was found had been opened. The significance of that doesn’t seem to have occurred to him.’
Huy said nothing.
‘He’s a clever man,’ continued Ipuky; ‘and as devious as a politician needs to be. But he isn’t a detective.’
‘There is something I must ask,’ said Huy.
‘Yes?’
‘I do not know if you will like it.’
Ipuky sat back, folded his hands, and looked at Huy questioningly.
‘I need to know more about you.’
Ipuky’s face tightened. ‘How is that necessary?’
‘You want me to find Iritnefert’s killer.’
‘You find that unnatural in her father?’
‘No. But I imagine you know what is said about you.’
‘What is said about me,’ repeated Ipuky drily. Huy could not tell the thoughts behind the words. There was a long silence before Ipuky continued, ‘What is said about me should not concern you. I am content to let you form your own judgment of my character. Not that my motives should bother you.’ He made to rise, in order to conclude the interview. Huy knew at once that he was entering territory that was dangerous and interesting. He kept his own voice even.
‘That isn’t enough.’
His interlocutor raised his eyebrows a fraction, but remained seated.
‘I cannot proceed at all without your cooperation, and without your trust I will have no light in this darkness.’ Huy did not say that he was not prepared to exchange trust for trust with Ipuky. Hiring Huy would be a very effective way of keeping him under observation, and neutralising the effectiveness of his investigation. But why would a man like Ipuky go to such lengths, when, if he felt that Huy was a threat, he could so easily have him killed?
‘You’d better ask your questions,’ said Ipuky sourly, after a pause.
‘I want to talk to you about your children.’
‘I have already told you, they are too young.’ But one runnel of sweat began to trickle down his forehead from under his headdress.
‘I mean Iritnefert’s brothers.’
Ipuky sighed, flexing his hands as they lay at the edge of the table, and was silent for a long time.
‘They are dead.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why are you so worried?’
At last Ipuky met his eye. Now he made no attempt to banish his feelings from his face. ‘Because I am not sure,’ he said at last. ‘You obviously know about my sons. I do not know how I can have fathered such children. No one will believe this, and I know exactly what the town says about me, but I loved Iritnefert. I am a man who destroys the women he lives with. My first wife left me, and she was right to do so, but I kept the child I cared about from her. Since I married again, I have had more children, but my second wife has turned into a shadow.’ He fell silent, looking into himself. Huy waited.
‘To my little children I am a shadow also. Even to myself I have become hollow.’ He spread his arms. ‘The blows life deals you make you stronger; but there comes a time when, if the blows do not stop, they begin to weaken even the strongest.’
‘Your sons?’
‘They are my punishment; but I do not know what I am being punished for. Why did Osiris have Set for a brother? Is it possible to carry evil within us, like a disease we transmit but like to think we do not suffer from ourselves?’ Again he paused, wearily, but now that he had started to talk something like relief entered his eyes and his voice. He wet his lips and swallowed before continuing.