The drive took about fifteen minutes, through the cultivated fields and across the barren desert. We were headed straight for the cliffs. Then a cleft opened up; the road curved and passed through, into the desolate valley where for centuries the kings of the empire had been buried. Schmidt rumbled on, spouting statistics and historical data.

Louisa, brooding among her veils, was sitting across the aisle. She interrupted Schmidt’s lecture to say, ‘What of the tomb of the great queen Nefertari?’

‘No, no, that is not on today’s tour,’ Schmidt explained tolerantly. ‘It is in the Valley of the Queens, so called. Now this,’ he went on, without drawing breath, ‘this has changed since my last visit. The new parking place is some distance from the tombs, which is a very good thing since the buses caused much damage. This tram on which we will ride the rest of the way is electric . . .’

I wondered what the place looked like when tourism was at its height. It was bad enough now – a dozen buses, hundreds of people. As we got off the tram and trudged along a dusty path following Feisal, Schmidt said, in the loud mumble he thinks is a whisper, ‘How is with you, Vicky? Will it be too difficult, descending into the depths of – ’

‘That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? I wouldn’t have come if I couldn’t handle it.’

My sharp tone didn’t offend him. Nodding sympathetically, he took my arm. ‘I will be next to you at all times. There will be bright lights, many people.’

The first tomb was the easiest; it was also the one I didn’t want to miss. Tutankhamon’s tomb had been closed to tourists in the past. Like most of the others in the Valley, its wall paintings were deteriorating.

In itself the small tomb was relatively unimpressive. Unlike the long complex structures designed for royal burials, this one had only a flight of stairs and a single corridor, with a few rooms at its end. The accepted theory was that Tutankhamon had died suddenly at the age of eighteen, before he had had time to prepare his tomb, so it had been necessary to take over a tomb previously constructed for a non-royal person.

‘Murder,’ said Feisal in a sepulchral voice, as we gathered around him. ‘Was that how the young king died? The fracture of his skull might have been the result of a fatal accident, but he had many enemies and no heirs.’