‘I believe this is your first visit to Egypt?’ he went on, looking down at me and offering me his hand.

I let him pull me to my feet. He was still looking down at me; not many people can do that. A part of my mind I try to ignore assessed the breadth of his shoulders and his flat stomach and decided he wasn’t at all bad for a man of fifty-odd. And he was a multi-millionaire. Or a billionaire? What’s a few million more or less? I thought tolerantly.

‘Does everyone on the boat know I’m a fraud?’ I asked.

‘Now, Vicky, don’t call yourself names. You have quite a reputation. I read your article on the Riemenschneider reliquary with great interest.’

‘I’m flattered. But I don’t know a damn thing about Egyptology,’ I admitted, with one of my most winning smiles.

‘Would you like me to show you around? I’m only an amateur, but I know Sakkara fairly well.’

It was one of the most fascinating mornings I have ever spent. Sakkara is a very complicated site; there are several smaller, ruined pyramids in addition to the Step Pyramid, which is surrounded by a maze of subsidiary buildings, temples and courtyards, corridors and chapels. There are underground structures whose function is still unclear, and a lot of private tombs built for high officials. The larger of these mastabas, as they are called, are mazes in themselves. One has thirty-four separate rooms in the superstructure and a tomb shaft below. I had given the guidebook a hasty perusal the night before and ended up with my head stuffed full of miscellaneous, unrelated facts. Larry made sense of it all.

‘You’ve missed your calling,’ I said, as we left the temple complex. ‘You ought to be a guide.’

He looked absurdly pleased at the silly compliment. We were getting on like a house on fire, I thought complacently. No wonder the poor man fled from women like Suzi; he must be sick of being relentlessly pursued. All he wanted was to be treated as an intellectual equal, to be admired for his brains instead of his money. I could sympathize with that, though in my case it wasn’t money that distracted admirers from my intellectual achievements.

‘It’s easier to simplify a complex subject when one is an amateur,’ he said modestly. ‘Shall we have a look at one of the mastabas before lunch? As an art historian you are probably familiar with the reliefs.’

‘I remember some Old Kingdom reliefs – they were wonderful, very delicate and detailed – but at this moment I couldn’t tell you which tomb they were from There was one of a baby hippopotamus . . .’

‘You’re probably thinkihg of Mereruka.’ Larry took my arm. ‘But some of the other tombs are equally remarkable. We’ll see which is least crowded.’

They were all crowded, at least to the eyes of someone like me, whose definition of too many people is three, but Larry said, ‘Never seen so few people here at this time of year. Tourism is down, people are afraid of terrorists. Nice for us, but unfortunate for the Egyptian economy.’