Free Sphinx by T. S. Learner

essential for the ancient ritual of the weighing of the heart. Without a heart, your wife would stand no chance of entering the afterworld. She would be, as you Christians say, condemned to purgatory.’
    ‘But why would someone commit such a disgusting crime? My wife was a Catholic.’ Not entirely relevant, perhaps, but I was still grappling with the enormity of the revelation and the man was clearly distressed by the spiritual implications of the theft.
    ‘And I am a Sunni Muslim with a Greek Orthodox grandfather. In this city, religion is not a simple issue. I hope your wife’s spirit will find peace.’ He bowed, said, ‘Good evening, sir,’ and slipped away through the gravestones.
    I lingered in the shade of the murmuring branches, an overwhelming sense of powerlessness pinning me to the gravelled path. How could any intelligent person believe in the spiritual dimensions of mummification? And why had they chosen Isabella’s body for such desecration?

6

    Our car weaved slowly through the narrow streets towards the Brambilla family villa. I glanced at Francesca, her profile rigid in grief.
    I had to ask. ‘What happened to Isabella’s body after the ambulance collected her at the jetty?’
    ‘She was taken to the city morgue, and then to the funeral directors in the morning. The Brambillas bury their dead swiftly - it is a tradition in our family.’
    ‘You’re positive there was no autopsy?’
    ‘Please, we have just laid my poor granddaughter in the ground. Do we have to talk about such matters now?’
    ‘Francesca, you were in control of the arrangements while I was being held by the police. I just need to know if there was an autopsy,’ I persisted, determined to get a straight answer.
    ‘Of course not,’ she snapped back. ‘Is this something to do with that idiot official who approached you at the cemetery?’
    I thought she hadn’t noticed, but she peered at me sharply, her frail frame dwarfed by the huge crimson leather seat, and again I was struck by how she had aged since the drowning.
    ‘You know him?’ I asked.
    ‘Alexandria is a village. A village of chattering monkeys making mischief. There are many truths here and some of them dangerous. Be careful, Oliver, otherwise you will find yourself fighting for your own truth along with the rest of us.’
     
    A marquee had been erected over the villa’s courtyard and beneath it stood a long table covered in a variety of both Arabic and Italian pastries. Subdued waiters in tails served coffee and everyone spoke in muted whispers. I knew Francesca couldn’t really afford the wake, but when I’d offered her money she had been insulted. Façade was all that many of the European diaspora had left, but it was essential to them to maintain that illusion of wealth.
    For the first time, I took note of who had attended my wife’s funeral. There was Cecilia, Isabella’s errant mother, whose beauty isolated her from the others, the usual elegantly dressed Italian pensioners who formed Francesca’s social circle; also the British consul, Henries, who had recently liberated me from the Alexandrian police, and his wife. On our first encounter, Henries’s reaction to my northern English accent had been supercilious, and when he realised the high status of the Alexandrian family I had married into he had done nothing to conceal his amazement - neither of which responses had endeared him to me.
    I spotted a representative from my company’s client, The Alexandrian Oil Company - Mr Fartime, the man who’d employed me as a consultant. Catching my eye, he nodded in sympathy. Despite the arguments he used to have with Isabella at the occasional cocktail party, usually over benign issues like the environment, I liked the man. Standing near him was a middle-aged European woman in an ill-fitting grey tweed suit, her flushed face betraying the unsuitability of such an outfit in Alexandria’s heat. Amelia Lynhurst. I saw her glance towards me, and then become