He was staring at me too. Over Mary’s head his eyes, narrowed and unblinking, met mine. I looked away.

The others started down the stairs and Schmidt edged closer to me. ‘Vicky, perhaps you should not do this.’

He was under the impression that he was whispering. Several heads turned, and Feisal came back to me. ‘Is there a problem, Vicky?’

‘No problem,’ I said curtly.

Nor was there, not really. What bothered me was not claustrophobia in the classic sense: abnormal fear of narrow, confined spaces. As long as there was light and there were other people around, I was okay.

At least that’s what I told myself.

It wasn’t as bad as I had feared. There were lights at frequent intervals and modern stairs or ramps over the rougher parts of the ancient passageways. And people. Schmidt stuck close, bless his thoughtful little heart.

Egyptian tomb architecture has never been one of my passions in life. Sweet set out to prove it was one of his; he latched on to Perry, despite the latter’s attempts to get away so he could come and tell me all about everything, and began babbling about changes in axis and angles of descent and comparisons with earlier and later types. He’d certainly done his homework. Alice and Schmidt were arguing about Minoan influences on Amarna art. Feisal’s voice echoed weirdly as he mentioned points of interest.

There weren’t many. The walls of the sloping passage were rough and unadorned. It had an eerie impressiveness, though, and by the time we reached the burial chamber everyone except Feisal had fallen silent.

There wasn’t much to see there either, only a few scratches on the rough walls; but when Feisal pointed them out and described the scenes of which they were the scanty remainder, he managed to suggest something of the beauty that had once been there: depictions of the king and queen offering to the sole god they had worshipped, the sun disk with rays ending in small, caressing human hands; mourners, their garments rent and their hands raised in ceremonial grieving. Even with his eloquence I couldn’t make out the details of the figure on the funeral bier. Feisal claimed these details proved it was a female figure.

‘But I thought this was the king’s tomb,’ the Frau from Hamburg said.

‘We don’t know the identity of the woman on the bier,’ Feisal answered. ‘It has been suggested she was – ’

‘Nefertiti!’ Louisa swooped down on him, waving her arms. Her veils billowed like bat wings. ‘Yes, I feel it. I feel her presence.’

She flopped down onto the floor and sat cross-legged, crooning to herself.

The others studied her in mingled disgust and embarrassment. Sweet muttered something derogatory about New Age mystics and Blenkiron’s face was rigid with distaste.

‘Odd how so many people go soggy over Nefertiti,’ murmured a satirical voice. Hands in his pockets, hair shining in the light of the bulb overhead, John glanced at me and smiled.