The Collector's Daughter Page 29

  The minister said his bit, then lots of people went up to the lectern to speak, including one of her grandsons, bless him. He got an appreciative laugh from the crowd with a story involving a waiter in a restaurant. Eve was numb. None of it felt real, until they sang the hymn “Abide with Me,” with that mournful old tune. A wave of grief crashed over her and she began to sob noisily. Her daughter put an arm around her and offered a handkerchief, but Eve couldn’t stop. She wanted to scream and wail, but through her sobbing she heard her husband’s voice.

  “Pull yourself together, Pipsqueak. Put on a good show, that’s a girl.”

  Eve hadn’t realized he was there, but it seemed he was. She couldn’t see him but suddenly she could feel the warmth and pressure of his arms around her. He was so big he could wrap her up completely in his limbs. She could smell the scent of him: masculine and extraordinarily comforting. She dried her tears and sat up straight, balling the handkerchief in her fist.

  She remembered doubting it as a girl when her father told her he got in touch with his mother at séances. She hadn’t believed that Sherlock Holmes author and the psychic man’s words, and she felt guilty now because it turned out they had been right after all. Spirits did return, and you could talk to them.

  “Good turnout today,” she commented to Brograve, and he agreed: “Jolly good.”

  When it was over, Eve and her daughter stood by the church exit and everyone filed past and shook her hand and stopped for a few words. Her daughter did most of the talking while Eve said, “Lovely to see you,” and “Thank you for coming,” and “How kind!” They all seemed to know her, so she smiled as if she knew them too.

  Afterward they went to her daughter’s house and there was a lovely spread of afternoon tea, with sandwiches, scones and jam, and a Victoria sponge. She’d gone to a lot of trouble. Eve got quite tipsy on the sherry but resisted when they tried to make her go to bed. She was enjoying chatting with all these lovely people and didn’t want the party to end.

  Besides, she hated going to bed at her daughter’s because it meant waking up alone. There was no warm body in the bed. Her husband didn’t bring her breakfast anymore. She lay there with a big ball of tears in her throat, feeling empty and lost and worried, until her daughter came to help her get dressed.

  Her husband wasn’t there, at least not so she could actually see him, and she didn’t want to think about that too much. Maybe when she went back to her own house, he’d be waiting for her. He’d have to be, because she didn’t think she could manage on her own.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  London, January 6, 1980

  Eve had no idea where she was. The room was unfamiliar and it was full of strangers. She mostly sat at the window watching the rain. It was bucketing down, dripping off the eaves, gushing down the drainpipe, and bouncing off the surface of puddles on the path. She was pretty sure it was afternoon but they had the overhead lights on, and a television set was blaring away.

  She shifted in her chair to look around. Some very old-looking people were watching television, hunched silently in their chairs. How dull they must be, not even making conversation. Earlier, a jolly girl had made them sit in a circle and asked them to throw a ball to one another, but Eve couldn’t be bothered. She didn’t even try to catch it, so after a while they stopped throwing to her.

  Her husband came and went and she never knew when he would be there again. It made her sad when she thought about him. Why did he leave her? She knew he loved her, so why did he go?

  “There’s a visitor to see you,” said one of the young ladies who worked there. “Her name is Ana Mansour. She says she’s a friend of yours. Shall I show her in? I could bring tea and biscuits.”

  The name meant absolutely nothing to Eve. Was it her daughter? One of her grandsons’ girlfriends? Perhaps one of her brother’s children . . . They’d gotten married and she could never remember their married names.

  “Alright.” She nodded. “Tea and biscuits would be nice.” Her voice was croaky and she realized it had been a long time since she’d spoken out loud, although there was a constant conversation in her head, going on and on until it tired her so much she dozed off.

  She didn’t recognize the woman who was walking toward her, not even a flicker. Long dark hair, brown eyes, a black trouser suit. She’d never gotten used to women in trousers, showing their bottoms so clearly. This woman’s trousers were tight around plumpish thighs. A flowing skirt would have looked so much nicer.

  “I never wore trousers,” Eve told her after they’d said hello. “We left that to the men. They’re not very flattering, are they?”

  The woman seemed amused. “My generation is doing everything men used to do, and doing it better most of the time.”

  “Not everything,” Eve said. There were things her husband could do that she could never have attempted, but she couldn’t think of an example at that precise moment.

  A lady in a light blue uniform brought the tea trolley and poured cups for both of them. “Careful. It’s hot,” she said as she put one down beside Eve.

  Eve found that rather patronizing. Of course tea was hot! But she didn’t comment. People often said things like that when you were elderly.

  “Lady Beauchamp,” her visitor said. “One of your old neighbors told me you were living here now. Do you remember eight years ago I used to come to your house to ask you questions about your life?”

  “Of course,” she said, although she didn’t. She had learned it didn’t matter what she said because people told her what they wanted her to know.

  “We talked about you visiting Tutankhamun’s tomb. We were recording your memories, do you remember?”

  Eve watched her talking, a look of studied concentration on her face. “Yes, of course.”

  “Do you remember we talked about the missing gold container from the tomb, and I asked if you knew where it was? I think you did know. I wonder if you can remember now. Maybe you hid it somewhere?”

  Had she? Eve was baffled. Why would she hide it?

  “Or maybe you brought it here with you?”

  “I very much doubt that,” Eve replied, looking around. “But I’ll have a think and let you know.” She had a gulp of tea but it burned her mouth so she spat it back into the cup. The scorched feeling on her tongue was unpleasant.

  “I wanted to ask you more questions and see if I can jog your memory about that lovely gold container you took from Tutankhamun’s tomb. It would be nice to know where it went, don’t you think?”

  The visitor seemed keen to ingratiate herself. She had good skin, Eve thought, with no pimples, so she couldn’t understand why it was coated in thick pancake makeup, like actors wore onstage. And those black smudges above and below her eyes made her look half-dead. Maybe it was the new fashion.

  “I’m afraid I won’t be able to,” she replied, when she realized the visitor was waiting for an answer. “I don’t remember anymore.”

  The visitor mulled this over. “Could we at least try? Maybe something will jog your memory.”

  “I won’t be much help,” Eve warned. “I know nothing now.”

  It was true. She could remember that she used to know a lot of things, and that she’d had a busy life, but the details had gone. It didn’t make her sad; it was just a fact, like rain being wet and tea being hot.

  “You don’t remember Tutankhamun?” the woman asked.

  Eve shook her head. “No, dear.”

  She seemed very disappointed at that. “Howard Carter? Do you remember him?”

  Eve pretended to scan her memory. “No, sorry.”

  She sighed. “If I show you some pictures, do you think it would help? Or I could read out to you the memories you told me last time.”

  That sounded nice. Her daughter read to her sometimes. Eve found it impossible to concentrate on the story but she liked listening to her voice.

  “I’m a bit tired today. Come back tomorrow. And could you bring some sherry?” she asked. “They don
’t serve it here. I’ve no idea why not.”

  The woman smiled. “I’ll come back tomorrow and bring some sherry, and read to you. That would be lovely.”

  When she came the next day they sat in Eve’s bedroom—so no one could spy on them, the woman said. She had brought a bottle of sherry and a glass in her leather shoulder bag and Eve sipped it while she listened to the story. It was very relaxing.

  When the woman had finished, she said: “I wonder if you remember anything about that gold container you took from the tomb. It’s very important you try to remember.”

  Eve wanted to help, she really did. She had a trick of sliding her brain sideways; that sometimes worked. She thought about what she was trying to remember and let her mind drift away from it, and sometimes the answer came. “I might know,” she said. “Yes, it’s possible.”

  “Where is it now? Can you tell me?” Her tone was urgent.

  Eve tried sliding her brain, but she got distracted by the smell in the room.

  “What’s that perfume you’re wearing?” she asked. “It reminds me of something.”

  “Patchouli,” the woman replied and held out her wrist so Eve could smell it up close.

  “It smells like my old rose garden in the rain,” Eve said. Another waft of perfume reached her nostrils. Then she remembered the thing that she’d been trying so hard to remember. She remembered where the gold container was. There was a picture in her head, clear as anything.

  In the memory, she was climbing up to the attic and searching frantically through boxes until she found it. The scent was overwhelming, making her giddy as she paused at the top of the attic ladder, one of those extending metal ones that slid down with a thud. She probably shouldn’t have been climbing ladders but she knew she had to get rid of the gold box because it was cursed.

  She climbed back down the ladder, clinging on for dear life, and took the container out to the garden, where she dug a hole right in the middle of the rose bed and threw it in. That way, her family would be safe. Everyone would be safe. She covered it with soil and patted it down firmly.

  Suddenly Eve became aware that her husband was in the room with them. “Don’t tell her where it is,” he said. “She’s trying to trick you.”

  The visitor was giving her an odd look and she wondered if she was muttering to herself. She did that sometimes.

  “She brought me sherry,” Eve told him. “She seems nice.”

  “She lied to us,” he said. “She’s not who she says she is.”

  “It’s in the rose garden. Don’t forget,” Eve said out loud.

  The woman blinked. “What about the rose garden?”

  “You know . . . the thing we were talking about.” Damn! What was the name of it?

  Light dawned in the woman’s eyes. “The gold container is in the rose garden. Which rose garden?”

  “I buried it.” She could hear her husband sighing. He was exasperated with her.

  The woman cleared her throat. “You didn’t have a garden in London. Do you mean at your house in Framfield?”

  Eve didn’t recognize the name, but she said yes all the same.

  “Why did you bury it?”

  “To make us safe.” She was surprised the woman didn’t understand.

  Her face lit up. She was clearly very pleased. “You mean because of the curse?”

  Eve smiled back. “Of course. Why else?”

  “But that’s wonderful! Thank you for telling me.” She stood up as if she couldn’t wait to leave. “Would you like me to leave the rest of the sherry with you? You can hide it and have a drink whenever you like.”

  Eve thought that was a splendid idea. “Thank you. Perhaps you could put it in there.” She pointed to a cupboard by the bed.

  The woman put the bottle inside. “Thank you, Lady Beauchamp,” she said, shaking her hand. “It’s been a great pleasure talking to you.”

  “Silly old Pipsqueak,” her husband said, as the visitor walked off into the corridor and turned toward the swinging doors that led to the outside world.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  London, January 29, 1980

  Her daughter came to visit Eve one afternoon. As she walked over from the entrance, Eve noticed her umbrella was leaving a trail of drips across the gray-blue linoleum. She hugged her tight, almost too tight, and held on for ages, but Eve liked it. She didn’t get enough hugs these days.

  “Are you OK, Mum?” she asked. “Are they treating you well?”

  “It’s very nice,” Eve said. “They’re all very kind.”

  Her daughter glanced around. “I still feel awful about putting you in here, but you needed more care than I could give you. Nursing care.”

  “It’s fine. I don’t mind at all.” That seemed to be what she wanted to hear.

  Patricia took her coat off and folded it over the back of a chair, tossing her umbrella underneath, then she sat down by Eve.

  “There’s something I need to ask you,” her daughter said, pulling a newspaper cutting from her handbag. It had a black-and-white picture at the top. There were four people in the picture: a man, a woman, and two children, all of them dark-haired and foreign-looking, smiling at the camera. “Do you remember that woman?” she asked, pointing.

  Eve took it and held it close to her face so she could see better. “Oh, yes,” she said, although she didn’t.

  “Her name was Ana Mansour,” her daughter told her. “It says in the story that you gave her something. Is that right?”

  Eve shook her head. “No, dear. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “A gold container from Tutankhamun’s tomb, it says. I wondered if it was the one I was playing with one day and you dragged me off to wash my hair. Do you remember? I was only four.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.” Eve was very sure of herself.

  “Shall I read the story to you anyway?”

  Eve looked around for the sherry. She liked a sherry while someone was reading to her but the bottle wasn’t in her cupboard anymore. They must have moved it. Or maybe she had finished it. “Alright,” she said.

  “The headline is: ‘The Curse of Tutankhamun Strikes Again.’” Her daughter made a funny face, rolling her eyes, and Eve laughed. She carried on reading:

  A woman found dead in a London hotel room last week is being claimed as the latest victim of the curse of Tutankhamun. Forensic scientists have been unable to find a cause for the death of the forty-eight-year-old Egyptian national, who has been named as Ana Mansour, an archaeologist from Cairo. Some believe she could be the latest in the dozens of people associated with the Ancient Egyptian king’s tomb who died unusual or unexplained deaths.

  Mrs. Mansour was in London to collect a rare and priceless solid gold ointment container that came from the burial chamber of Tutankhamun. It was given to her by Lady Evelyn Beauchamp, née Herbert, the daughter of Lord Carnarvon, who funded the exploration that led to the discovery of the tomb in November 1922.

  Her daughter smiled at her and said, “That’s you, Mum,” before she carried on.

  The ointment container was in the hotel room when Mrs. Mansour’s body was found by a chambermaid. Authorities at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo say that a pungent scent in artifacts that came from the burial chamber has caused breathing difficulties when staff are exposed to it, but the director said it was ridiculous to claim it could have any supernatural qualities. Is he right, or could it be that the ancient king’s curse is still effective after more than three millennia?

  Her daughter looked up. “She was the woman who used to come and ask you questions about the tomb, wasn’t she?”

  Eve looked at the photo again. They were on a beach and the man had his arm around the woman’s shoulders. “Who is the man?” she asked.

  “The caption says: ‘Mrs. Ana Mansour with her husband, Muhammad, and their two children on holiday at the Red Sea resort of Hurghada last month.’”

  Eve didn’t know the man or the children but she remembered the woman. They used to t
alk about important things from the past, back in the days when she could still remember it.

  “I liked her,” she said. “She was my friend.”

  Acknowledgments

  This novel is dedicated to Karen Sullivan, publisher of Orenda Books and one of my closest friends. She suggested I write about Tutankhamun, read and commented on an early draft, gave me advice on the structure when it wasn’t working, then read and commented on a final draft, all the while dispensing encouragement as needed. She’s been an indispensable beta reader for every one of my novels, but this time she totally went beyond the call!

  Lucia Macro, my New York editor (I love saying that), has also been a big influence on the direction the novel took, with her witty emails and wise edits. The entire crew at William Morrow are totally professional yet warm and approachable. Huge thanks to Liate Stehlik, Asanté Simons, Amelia Wood, Danielle Bartlett, Sophie Normil, Jennifer Hart, Jean Marie Kelly, and Jessica Rozler. My copy editor, Kim Lewis, caught some howlers in the manuscript, for which I am incredibly grateful. And Diahann Sturge did a wonderful job with the design.

  I love knowing that Vivien Green, Gaia Banks, and Alba Arnau at Sheil Land Associates have my back. Vivien has represented me for the last twenty-one years, and I hope there are many more to come. I love the enthusiasm and flair of the Avon UK team: Molly Walker-Sharp, Ellie Pilcher, Oli Malcolm, Helen Huthwaite, and Phoebe Morgan are sparky “ideas people” and a sheer joy to work with.

  I need different types of experts to check facts in each novel. This time I particularly want to thank Linda Jones, who worked as a physio with stroke patients in the 1970s, and who made lots of valuable contributions to the way I dealt with those sections. Tara Draper-Stumm checked the Egyptology content and made some useful additions. Ralph Atkins checked the bits on vintage cars; Rosie de Guzman clarified a couple of points about horse racing; and David Boyle, one of the most knowledgeable people I know, read the whole novel for historical accuracy. However, if any errors have crept in, I should stress they are entirely mine.