But this discovery? This changed everything.
He leaned forward, and tapped a few keys. The image enlarged, until the stained, purple, dried-out larva of the cyclophilid cestoid Taenia solium was several inches wide, like a lurid bruise.
It was unmistakable: Graham Moffat knew his parasites, he knew his chagas from his giardiasis, his loa loa from his pinworm. And this was Taenia solium. In some strange, new, aerosolized or even weaponized form.
Of course, Graham mused, sipping his cooling tea, they’d have to get this startling result confirmed. Perhaps they could take blood samples from anyone who was in the laboratory on the day of the murder, look for antigens or antibodies that signified brief exposure to this parasite. But he reckoned these would simply confirm what he was seeing.
Someone had introduced this mind-altering parasite into the air-conditioning unit, probably just before the laboratory had exploded. Someone with access to these parasites in weaponized form. That probably meant Rothley. And the presence of these parasites meant that all eye-witness reports from inside the laboratory were unreliable. They could all have been hallucinating. A brief but intense mass delusion. Anything could have happened. Anyone could have escaped.
Graham picked up his mobile phone. He could get a better signal outside. It was time to call his boss, and then they would have to call the police.
The door slammed angrily shut as he exited the lab, making the table shake. And the purple larva on the laptop screen seemed to shiver, as if it were alive.
Acknowledgements
I have read many books for the purposes of researching this novel. My thanks therefore go out to all the authors: Robert Sattin, Jan Assmann, Nicholas Reeves, Georg Dehn, Andrew Smith, Erik Hornung, D M Murdock, Burton J Bogitsh, Thomas Cheng, Paul Newman, Lawrence Suttin, Claude Combes, Richard Wilkinson and Carl Zimmer. I must thank Glenys Roberts for allowing me to use her excellent essay on Crowley, and the estate of John Heath-Stubbs for allowing me to quote his verse about West Penwith; a particular debt of gratitude is owed to Marvin Meyer and Richard Smith for their marvellous and mind-blowing Ancient Christian Magic, Coptic Texts of Ritual Power.
Thanks are also due to my tireless agent Eugenie Furniss, and my erudite and indispensable editor Jane Johnson.
Mostly, I want to thank the many people of Egypt — Muslim and Christian, Arabs and Nubians — who have shown me so many corners of that fascinating country, and for being so hospitable every time I came visiting — even when Egypt was in violent political turmoil.
I am grateful to Al-Tayyeb Hassan, who drove me to the remotest parts of Middle Egypt. I am also grateful to Ethar Shalaby, who showed me around the home of the Zabaleen in Moqqatam, Cairo. Finally, I am enormously indebted to the Zabaleen themselves for allowing me a glimpse of their lives.
This book is dedicated to the nuns of the fourth-century Coptic monastery of St Tawdros, near the Valley of the Queens, Luxor.
About the Author
Tom Knox is the pseudonym of the author Sean Thomas. Born in England, he has travelled the world writing for many different newspapers and magazines, including The Times, the Guardian and the Daily Mail. His first thriller was translated into twenty-two languages; he also writes on art, politics and ancient history. He lives in London.