Duel In The Sun. Sally Wentworth

most of the others have gone home and won’t be back till October or November.’

      ‘So how come our team is still working?’

      Bryan gave a short laugh. ‘It’s Lucas; he wants to get the job done.’

      ‘And move on to something else?’

      ‘Partly that, but mostly because he’s eager to find all there is to find. He’s obsessed by everything that’s hidden under the sand, and can’t wait to discover its secrets.’

      A strong word to describe a man’s interest, his career, but there had been many men in the past who had shared the obsession, and had found the treasure of King Tutankhamun in the process. The buried treasure syndrome. A bug that, once caught, would, Catriona guessed, be almost impossible to shake off. And Lucas would have caught it early by finding a tomb when still so young.

      ‘I’ll take you back to where we’re working,’ Bryan told her.

      About a dozen workers from the nearby village had arrived, tramping across the desert on foot, and were gathered round Lucas as he told them where to work. He sent two men off with Bryan, then told two others and Catriona to follow him.

      ‘This is the courtyard of one of the houses,’ he explained when they came to a certain part of the ruins. ‘I want you to work along this wall, carefully brushing away the sand and sifting through it. When you’ve filled up one of these baskets, Gamal here will take it and dump it out of the way.’