“So the Egyptians thought differently. And besides, what does it prove? I’ve seen films where spaceships battle it out using lasers and death rays. If some other civilisation discover those same films in a hundred thousand years, do they have to assume we actually had that technology?”

Patterson sighed. “So you think this is a work of Egyptian science fiction? That the writer was the Asimov of his time?”

“Maybe!”

“What other examples of ancient science fiction are you aware of?”

“How the hell should I know? It’s not exactly my domain!”

He flipped through the pages until he arrived at a long manuscript. There were no Egyptian symbols or pictures to be seen. “This story tells of a trip to the Moon, and of a battle between the king of the Sun and the king of the Moon, involving many types of creature, including ants thousands of feet long.”

She looked at the text briefly. “So?”

“It was written in the second century AD by Lucian, a Syrian philosopher,” he said dramatically. “You’re right to question the veracity of the Book of Xynutians, in the same way you would be right to assume that Lucian didn’t really sail to the Moon. But the difference is that no one takes Lucian seriously, partly because of his own disclaimer, but also because his story is obviously fake. The hallmark of ancient fiction is exaggeration. It wasn’t a lion, because that’s too easy to defeat: it was a lion with wings. Or a woman who turned you to stone on sight whose hair was actually made of dozens of snakes. It’s not a trip to the Moon, it’s a trip to the Moon in a sailing ship after a two hundred mile journey into the sky on the uplift of a tornado. It’s clearly imagination.

“The Book of Xynutians has no flaws. No over-enthusiasm on the part of the author. It simply displays a believable advanced civilisation before and after a major cataclysm. And it only requires you to make one leap of faith.”

“Which is?”

“That somehow, the ancient Egyptians had an intimate knowledge of something that happened two hundred and fifty thousand years before their time.”

Gail scoffed. “That’s one hell of a leap of faith. How do you make it believable?”

“Word of mouth?”

“Nonsense! If it was word of mouth, two things would have happened: firstly, the same story would have made its way all over the world, as populations migrated for tens of thousands of years before settling down. We’d get a similar legend in Peru, China, Europe, Siberia, India, Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa. Yet I have never before heard of such a civilisation. Secondly, by the time the story was written down, it would contain embellishment, bits added by the story tellers over the years as they add their own twist to make it their own. You would end up with exactly the kind of exaggerated story you’re telling me this isn’t.”

“Maybe the Egyptians copied the text from something they found?”

“So they found something then hid it again? And since then we’ve found nothing? Why?” She couldn’t feel more negative towards the whole concept.

“Then maybe someone told the story to Nefertiti first-hand.”

Gail was about to reply when suddenly something clicked in the back of her mind, like the latch of a door that hadn’t quite been pulled-to properly. A faint but recent memory started to surface. Within seconds, she was back in the Library in Amarna, looking at herself talking to the architect. He was pointing to the plinth. She was back in the dream she had experienced while drugged-up and strapped-down to her hospital bed.

“Dr Turner?” It was the first of Patterson’s suggestions she had not refuted immediately, and he leant forward eagerly.

She remembered the architect, pointing to the symbol of Aniquilus. He had then pointed to something behind her when she had asked who ‘Xynutians’ was. She had turned, and then darkness overcame her. Had she caught a fleeting glimpse of the Xynutian behind her?

If Nefertiti recounted the book of Xynutians to the Egyptian scribes, could a Xynutian have told it to her directly?

She shook her head: she’d already managed to convince herself that she knew the words ‘Xynutian’ and ‘Aniquilus’ from Patterson: somehow he’d probably said the words while she was in a semi-conscious state, and she’d incorporated them into her dream.

So the dream meant nothing. It was simply a dream.

And yet…

She was there against her own free will, but she was not obliged to let them know what she was thinking. She’d keep playing along, waiting for her chance. In the meantime, she needed to have a closer look at the Xynutians.

“Give that here,” she said angrily, picking up the folder and standing up. “I need peace and quiet, access to the original text and whatever translations you’ve already made. And a cup of tea.”

Chapter 55

Ben and George stared at Captain Kamal in stunned silence for what seemed an age, during which time Kamal, oddly, seemed to relax a little into his chair. Ben was masquerading as Ahmed Mohammed Nasser, a role he was pulling off perfectly.

“What do you mean she isn’t dead?” George said, his voice like a whisper.

“You have given me more trouble than I expected, Mr Turner. However, I only have myself to blame. I only hope that in some way the truth does set me free.” His eyes moved left and right, as if checking there was nobody in the room that shouldn’t be, before leaning forward. “I don’t know everything, but I do know enough to have not been able to sleep for the past week,” he started.

“I hope you don’t expect me to feel sorry for you,” George snapped.

“Let me tell you the facts as I know them,” Kamal tried to calm him down. “Firstly, your wife was indeed in Professor al-Misri’s office the night of his murder, but what I did not tell you is that they were not alone. Approximately twenty minutes after your wife arrived, they were joined by at least two men, and a fight broke out.

“The Professor slipped during a struggle and cracked his skull on the corner of his desk. Gail was alive when she was taken away by the men. Half an hour after this incident, I was contacted by an agency I had never heard of and informed that Dr Gail Turner, whom I had also never heard of, had just murdered Professor Mamdouh al-Misri. I was told to build my case as usual but that the conclusion would be the one that I told you. Some evidence, such as the CCTV footage, would be faked to allow me to make that conclusion.

“They left me a contact mailbox which would allow me to get hold of them indirectly if required. I didn’t expect to need to do that, but on meeting you I quickly realised that you would not sit by idly. So I contacted them, and they wrapped the whole thing up. Dr Turner’s body would be delivered to the morgue ready for you to identify. Only instead of her dead body, it was your live wife; she must have been given some sort of drug that made her appear dead.”

“Wait a second,” George interrupted. “They told you all of this? They told you that Gail didn’t murder the Professor, but was kidnapped instead? They told you that the body I identified wasn’t actually a body?”

 “No, not at all. They told me that I had to lead an investigation that would be solved for me, they told me what to say, but they didn’t say anything about your wife being alive, or about what happened in Professor al-Misri’s office.”

George scoffed. “So how do you know all this?”

“Because I have been investigating crime scenes for many years, Mr Turner, and even though I was unable to publicly announce my findings in this case, you don’t just turn off your ability to find evidence, no matter what the price.”

“So you were bought?”

“Not so much bought as persuaded. I really had no choice.”

Ben wondered what kind of leverage it had taken to buy Kamal; family? Promotion? Whatever the price, it had obviously been eating away at his conscience to the extent that he was willing to throw that away for the sake of the truth.