The Seventh Scroll

difficult to lie to this man.

She took a deep breath, "Have you heard of an ancient Egyptian queen

called Lostris, of the second intermediate period, coexistent with the

first Hyksos invasions?"

He laughed a little derisively and stood up, "Oh! Now we are talking

about the book River God, are we?" He went to the bookcase and brought

down a copy. Although well thumbed, it was still in its dust-jacket, and

the cover illustration was a dreamy surrealistic view in pastel shades

of green and rose purple of the pyramids seen over water.

He dropped it on the desk in front of her.

"Have you read it?" she asked.

"Yes," he nodded. "I read most of Wilbur Smith's stuff.

He amuses me. He has shot here at Quenton Park a couple of times."

"You like lots of sex and violence in your reading, obviously?" She

pulled a face. "What did you think of this particular book?"

"I must admit that he had me fooled. Whilst I was reading it, I sort of

wished that it might be based on fact.

That was why I phoned Duraid." Nicholas picked up the book again and

flipped to the end of it. "The author's note was convincing, but what I

couldn't get out of my mind was the last sentence." He read it aloud.

"'Sanwwhere in the Abyssinian mountains near the source of the Blue

Nile, the mummy of Tenus still lies in the unviolated tomb of Pharaoh

Mamose.

Almost angrily Nicholas threw the book down on the desk. "My God! You

will never know how much I wanted it to be true. You will never know how

much I wanted a shot at Pharaoh Mamose's tomb. I had to speak to Duraid.

When he assured me it was all a load of bunkum, I felt cheated. I had

built up my expectations so high that I was bitterly disappointed."

"It's not bunkum," she contradicted him, and then corrected herself

quickly, "well, at least not all of it."

"I see. Duraid was lying to me, was he?"

"Not lying," she defended him hotly. "Just delaying the truth a little.

He wasn't ready to tell you the whole story then. He didn't have the

answers to all the questions that he knew you would ask. He was going to

come to you when he was ready. Your name was at the top of the list of

potential sponsors that he had drawn up."

"Duraid did not have the answers, but I suppose you do?" He was smiling

sceptically.  was caught once. I am not likely to fall for the same cock

and bull a second time."

"The scrolls exist. Nine of them are still in the, vaults at the Cairo

museum. I was the one who discovered them in the tomb of Queen Lostris."

Royan opened her leather sling bag and rummaged around in it until she

brought out a thin sheaf of glossy 6  4 colour photographs. She selected

one and passed it to him. That is a shot of the rear wall of the tomb.

You can just make out the alabaster jars in the niche. That was taken

before we removed them."

"Nice picture, but it could have been taken anywhere." She ignored the

remark and passed him another photograph. The ten scrolls in Duraid's

workroom at the museum. You recognize the two men standing behind the

bench?"

He nodded. "Duraid and Wilbur Smith." His sceptical expression had

turned to one of doubt and bemusement.

"What the hell are you trying to tell me?"

"What the hell I am trying to tell you is that, apart from a wide poetic

licence that the author took unto himself, all that he- wrote in the

book has at least some foundation in the truth. However, the scroll that

most concerns us is the seventh, the one that was stolen by the men who

murdered my husband."

Nicholas stood up and went to the fireplace. He threw on another log and

bashed it viciously with the poker, as if to give release to his

emotions. He spoke without "turning "What was the significance of that

particular scroll around, as opposed to the other nine?"

"It was the one that contained the account of Pharaoh Mamose's burial

and, we believe, directions that might enable us to find the site of the

tomb."

"You believe, but you aren't certain?" He swung around to face her with

the poker gripped like a weapon. In this mood he was frightening. His

mouth was set in a tight hard line and his eyes glittered.

"Large parts of the seventh scroll are written in some sort of code, a

series of cryptic verses. Duraid and I were in the process of

deciphering these when-' she broke off and drew a long breath, "when he

was murdered."

"You must have a copy of something so valuable?" He glared at her, so

that she felt intimidated. She shook her head.

"All the microfilm, all our notes, all of it was stolen along with the

original scroll. Then whoever killed Duraid went back to our flat in

Cairo and destroyed my PC on to which I had transposed all our

research."

He threw the poker into the coal scuttle with a clatter, and came back

to the desk. "So you have no evidence at all? Nothing to prove that any

of this is true?"

"Nothing," she agreed, "except what I have here." With a long slim

forefinger she tapped her forehead. "I have a good memory."

He frowned and ran his fingers through his thick curling hair. "And so

why did you come to me?"

"I have come to give you a shot at the tomb of Pharaoh Mamose, she told

him simply. "Do you want it?"

Suddenly his mood changed. He grinned like a naughty schoolboy. "At this

moment I cannot think of anything I want more."

Then you and I will have to draw up some sort of working agreement," she

told him, and she leaned forward in a businesslike manner. "First, let

me tell you what I want, and then you can do the same."

It was hard bargaining, and it was one in the morning when Royan

admitted her exhaustion. "I can't think straight any more. Can we start

again tomorrow morning?" They still had not reached an agreement.

"It's tomorrow morning already," he told her. "But you are right.

Thoughtless of me. You can sleep here. After all, we do have

twenty-seven bedrooms here."

"No, thanks." She stood up. "I'll go on home."

"The road will be icy," he warned her. Then he saw her determined

expression and held up his hands in capitulation. "All right, I won't

insist. What time tomorrow? I have a meeting with my lawyers at ten, but

we should be finished by noon. Why don't you and I have a working lunch

here? I was supposed to be shooting at Ganton in the afternoon, but I

will cancel that. That way I will have the afternoon and evening clear

for you."

Nicholas's meeting with the lawyers took place the next morning in the

library of Quenton Park. It was not an easy nor a pleasant session, but

then he never expected it to be. This had been the year in which his

world began to fall to pieces around his head. He gritted his teeth as

he remembered how the year had opened with that fatal moment of fatigue

and inattention at midnight on the icy motorway, and the blinding

headlights of the truck bearing down on them.

He had not recovered from that before the next brutal blow had fallen.

This was the financial report of the Lloyd's insurance syndicate on

which Nicholas, like his father and grandfather before him, was a

"Name'. For half a century the family had enjoyed a regular and