Griffin and his crew were storing everything in the catacombs, so he headed the other way instead, down the right-hand passage. He soon reached another chamber, a huge mosaic on its floor, tesserae bright from a recent clean, though rutted from ancient footfall. A grotesque figure sat naked in the lotus position inside a seven-pointed star surrounded by clusters of Greek letters. He took a photograph, then a second, before hearing a grunt from back along the corridor, someone struggling with a box – and coming his way. He hurried deeper into the site, a confusion of passages and small chambers, the walls decorated with colourful ancient murals: a naked man and woman reaching up in supplication to the sun; Priapus leering from behind a tree; a crocodile, dog and vulture sitting in judgement; Dionysus stretching out on a divan, framed by vines and ivy leaves and pine cones. He was photographing this last one when he heard footsteps and turned to see Griffin approaching down the passage, squinting through the dappled gloom as though he needed glasses.
‘Reverend?’ he asked. ‘Is that you?’
III
Inspector Naguib Hussein was writing out his report at the station when his boss Gamal came over. ‘Don’t you have a wife and daughter to get home to?’ he grunted.
‘I thought you wanted our paperwork up to date.’
‘I do,’ nodded Gamal. He perched on the corner of the desk. ‘Word is, you found a body out in the Eastern Desert.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Naguib.
‘Murder?’
‘Her head was bashed in. She was wrapped in tarpaulin and buried beneath sand. I’d say murder was a possibility.’
‘A Copt, yes?’
‘A girl.’
‘Investigate, fine,’ scowled Gamal. ‘But no waves. This isn’t the time.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You know how I mean.’
‘I assure you I—’
‘Haven’t you learned yet when to speak and when to shut up?’ asked Gamal in exasperation. ‘Don’t you realize how much trouble you caused your colleagues up in Minya?’
‘They were selling arms on the black market.’
‘I don’t care. There are crimes we can solve and crimes we can’t. Let’s deal with the ones we can, eh?’ He gave a companionable sigh, as though he didn’t like the way things worked any more than Naguib did, he was just more realistic. ‘Haven’t you been following what’s going on down in Assiut?’ he asked. ‘People out on the streets. Fights. Anger. Confrontation. Just for a couple of dead Coptic girls. I won’t risk that spreading here.’
‘She may have been murdered,’ observed Naguib.
Gamal’s complexion was naturally dark. It grew darker. ‘From what I understand, no one has reported her missing. From what I understand, she could have been there years, maybe even decades. You really want to provoke trouble at a time like this over a girl who may have been dead for decades?’
‘Since when has investigating murder been a provocative act?’
‘Don’t play with me,’ scowled Gamal. ‘You’re always complaining about your workload. Concentrate on some of your other cases for the moment: don’t go chasing off into the desert after djinn.’
‘Is that an order?’
‘If it needs to be,’ nodded Gamal. ‘If it needs to be.’
I
‘Reverend!’ said Griffin again. ‘A word please.’
Knox turned sharply and hurried away along the corridor, glad that the gloom evidently made his white shirt look sufficiently like a dog collar against his dark polo neck to fool Griffin.
‘Reverend!’ cried Griffin in exasperation. ‘Come back. We need to talk.’
Knox continued walking as fast as he dared. The passage straightened out, hit a dead end some twenty paces ahead. Just before that, there was a high heap of ancient bricks and plaster fragments and a gaping hole in the wall, through which he could hear Peterson reading from the Bible; though, from the accompanying hiss, it sounded more like an old recording than the real thing.
‘“And there came two angels to Sodom; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them.”’
Knox reached the hole, glanced through. There was a large chamber on the other side, young men and women kneeling on dustsheets cleaning the walls with sponges moistened with distilled water and soft-bristled brushes. The men had the standard crew-cuts, the women short-bobbed hair, and they were all wearing the same cornflower-blue and khaki livery. They were too intent on their work to notice him step through into the chamber. Only once inside did he see Peterson to his left, deep in earnest discussion with a young woman, while his voice incongruously continued to declaim scripture on the portable CD-player in the centre of the chamber.
‘“Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes.”’
Griffin was still approaching down the corridor. Knox had only one possible hiding place, the baptismal bath. His foot slipped as he hurried down the wide flight of stone steps so that he had to fight for balance, but he found the shadows even as Griffin poked his head in. ‘Reverend!’ he said. Peterson gave no sign of having heard him, however, so he said it again, louder this time, until one of the young women turned the volume down on the CD-player. ‘Why on earth did you walk away from me?’
Peterson frowned. ‘What are you talking about, Brother Griffin?’
Griffin scowled but let it go. ‘We’ve emptied the magazine,’ he said. ‘It’s time to close up.’
‘Not yet,’ said Peterson.
‘It’s going to take hours to fill in the shaft,’ said Griffin. ‘If we don’t start now we’ll never finish before—’
‘I said not yet.’
‘But—’
‘Have you forgotten why we’re here, Brother Griffin?’ blazed Peterson. ‘Have you forgotten whose work we’re doing?’
‘No, Reverend.’
‘Then go back outside and wait. I’ll tell you when to start.’
‘Yes, Reverend.’
Footsteps faded as he walked away. The young woman turned the volume back up.
‘“For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.”’
Knox waited a few moments before risking a glance over the rim of the baptismal bath. Everyone was once more concentrating on cleaning their section of wall, bringing an array of scenes back to life: portraits, landscapes, angels, demons, texts in Greek and Aramaic, mathematical calculations, signs of the Zodiac and other symbols. Like a madman’s nightmare. He photographed the ceiling, two sections of wall, then Peterson and the woman examining a mural.
‘“The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.”’
‘Reverend,