Pharaoh by Valerio Massimo Manfredi Read Free Book Online Page A

of what I was hoping for. If there were other powerful people or institutions interested in those finds, it meant that there had to be something tremendously important there, like – for example – the Breasted papyrus.’
    ‘Right,’ agreed Husseini. ‘So how did you imagine you could slip it out from under their noses?’
    ‘Well, I may have been presumptuous, but I was also well organized. If the game had been fair I would have won.’
    ‘Sure, tell me about it. They alerted the Egyptian police to you, and you were found with compromising material on you, or in your room or your car.’
    ‘Yeah, more or less. But it went well to start with. The dealer knew his stuff. He showed me the pieces one by one, and described them in the correct historical terms, but he was really interested in getting rid of the jewellery, especially the bracelet, a necklace and a ring, all from the Nineteenth Dynasty. He had also brought objects which were less important but from the same time period: two more bracelets and a pendant, along with scarabs, ankhs and ushtabi figures.
    ‘When I brought up the papyri he started asking questions. He must have been aware of the interest this find had stirred up. When I managed to convince him that there wasn’t anyone behind me, he softened a little and showed me the photograph. I swear that I nearly had a heart attack. It was my papyrus, no question about it. I knew the sequence and the style of the ideograms in the first line by heart and I’d read the description in Breasted’s papers time after time. I had no doubts.
    ‘I tried as hard as I could to disguise my excitement and I asked him if he could give me the photograph. That would have been a victory in itself. I would have been able to read the whole text.’
    ‘Did he agree?’
    ‘No. He hesitated and then put it back in the inside pocket of his jacket. He said something like, “I’d better not. If it were found on you or in your house it might cause trouble.” He said that he’d have to discuss my offer with the person he was working for, and that he would call me. That was the last I saw of him. Because that was when the police rushed in. He disappeared in the confusion and I was trapped there with all that stuff on the table in front of me. The rest is history.’
    Husseini seemed to be reflecting on the story in silence. He turned to look at Blake: ‘Was it dark when the police burst in?’ he asked.
    ‘Well, the place was a big underground warehouse at Khan el Khalili, packed with all kinds of goods and poorly lit by a couple of light bulbs. Anyone who knew his way around would have been able to get away, but I didn’t know where to turn and, anyway, I had no intention of running.’
    ‘Who do you think informed the Egyptian police?’
    Blake shrugged. ‘My mysterious competitors?’
    ‘Yes, that’s likely. Especially if they thought they’d find that papyrus. Most likely they’d bribed the police commander and he was acting on their instructions.’
    ‘I was arrested, listed as persona non grata and expelled from the country.’
    ‘And you were lucky. Any idea what an Egyptian prison is like?’
    ‘Yeah, I got a good idea in the four, five days I spent there. And yet, if I could, I’d head straight back there, even now.’
    Husseini looked at him with a mixture of admiration and pity. ‘You didn’t get enough, did you? Listen to me. You’d better forget all about it because next time you won’t get a second chance. It’s just too dangerous: fences, thieves, drug barons, people who don’t forgive and forget. You wouldn’t come out alive.’
    ‘Not that the idea frightens me much any more.’
    ‘You’ll change your mind. Mark my words, one day you’ll wake up and you’ll want to start all over again . . .’
    Blake shook his head. ‘Start what?’
    ‘Anything. As long as we’re alive, we’re alive. What about the papyrus?’
    ‘Haven’t heard anything more about it. When I got back here I was