Chapter 4
Four
Eve stomped along the pavement and hugged her coat around her. It was bloody cold and in the last-minute rush to get ready for work, she'd forgotten her gloves. She jammed her hands up into her armpits and picked up the pace.
Working Saturday was the worst, especially when Saturday was the day after the night before. She rounded the corner and, as the museum came into sight, the need for caffeine formed in her sluggish brain. A morning hit would help her shake off the fug.
Early morning visitors were already making their way up the steps to the main doors.
What was the matter with these people? Have a lay in, why don’t you?
She scowled at them. There was no way Eve would be dragging her sorry ass to a museum at this time of day at the weekend if she didn't absolutely have to.
A job in the gift shop at the British Museum had never been on the bucket list of ‘ten things to do before she died’. It wasn’t in the next hundred or so either. The job at the museum was just meant to have been for the summer after university, to earn enough to go travelling, but that hadn’t gone quite to plan. Five years later, she was still stacking shelves with replica Tutankhamun masks rather than standing in the shadow of the pyramids. To say she was disappointed with her lot was an understatement.
The need for coffee intensified with the dawning knowledge that Gilbert would never let her wander off to the canteen once she'd turned up late. And she was going to be late.
Salvation awaited in the form of the coffee cart guy, set up at the base of the main steps, a smattering of bistro tables and chairs set out around his kiosk for the caffeine desperadoes and nicotine junkies.
She joined the short queue and flexed her shoulders back. Falling off Hammersmith bridge into the Thames was bound to be painful and her body seemed to remember what it had been through, even if her mind was frustratingly blank.
She chewed at her lip. One thing she knew was that DI Michaels was a weird fish. She couldn't help thinking he'd been holding back on her, like there was more to their encounter than he’d been willing to say.
It hadn't been until after he'd gone and she'd had to rush about to get ready for work, that the full peculiarity of it all had filled itself in. Her clothes from the night before were in her room. They were rumpled and dirty, but also perfectly dry.
Her parents seemed to have zero knowledge of the previous evening's events. This was even more peculiar than the clothes. How had she got home, through the front door and into bed without them being involved?
Her mother wasn't exactly a busy-body and as a twenty-six-year-old woman she didn't need babying, but there were some things that a person still living with their parents just would not get away with. Being brought home by the police in the middle of the night after being rescued from a suspected suicide attempt in the Thames was one of them.
She sighed and noticed that the queue in front of her had gone. The coffee cart guy was looking right at her. He smiled and gave her a knowing nod. They didn't know each other exactly, but this wasn't their first post-nine-am encounter either.
“Skinny latte with an extra shot, please.”
“Rescue caffeine coming up,” he said and turned away to make it.
“Seem to need a lot of rescuing these days,” Eve muttered.
The milk steamer hissed.
She eyed the smokers huddled together around a tiny table, kidding themselves this was a comfortable place to hang out. She might not have been fully in touch with her life at that precise moment, but at least she wasn't trying to shorten it.
Or was she? Nothing made sense.
She paid for the coffee just as the sun emerged in a clear patch of otherwise cloud-filled sky. Its warmth fell upon her back, and it seemed to Eve almost like a little encouraging hug from the universe.
OK Eve, time to get your shit together.
She took a sip from her coffee and turned to face into its rays, closing her eyes.
Let's do this.
She sucked in a deep breath, took her first step, and immediately collided with the man she might have seen, if she'd just opened her damned eyes first.
The man had been carrying an armful of papers that fell from his grip in a shower of fluttering pages to scatter in a wide circle, the closest splattered with her coffee.
“Shit! Shit, I'm sorry!”
She looked at the man and saw that the white shirt he wore now sported a good deal of latte foam and was slicked to his chest. The latte was also all over her hand and scalding hot. She dropped the cup.
“Crap! Sorry! Oh my god!”
It hit the floor and jettisoned its contents over them both, boiling-hot droplets radiating from the ground up over her jeans and his smart suit trousers.
“Oh no! Oh no!” She hopped back and forth on the spot in a ridiculous attempt to avoid it. The man just stood there and stared at her.
“Your shirt, your skin, it’ll burn, pull it.” She mimed a pinching action as if pulling the scalding fabric away from her own chest. She screwed up her face, haltingly made the same motion in front of him and then, very slowly, reached forward to pinch the fabric of his shirt and peel it away. It pulled from his skin with a wet flop.
Eve bit her lip.
He stared down at her, utterly nonplussed, and Eve took a moment to look him over. Tall and broad shouldered, he had a strong jawline swept with manicured stubble. His amber eyes sparkled in the sunlight and his wavy brown hair had that just perfect tousled look. He wore a tailored black suit and a crisp white shirt. Well, it had been crisp. Now it was kind of brown and soggy.
Suddenly, she felt embarrassed by her appearance, which in contrast comprised jeans paired with the gift shop t-shirt, a coffee-soaked coat, hastily tied back hair and not so much as a hint of makeup on her hungover face.
“I, I'm so sorry,” she stuttered out. “I wasn't looking where I was going.”
He raised a single eyebrow. “Clearly.”
She released the fabric of his shirt and looked down to the ground. His papers were scattered about, some of them languishing in a puddle of coffee. She bent to start picking them up, shaking off the coffee with a wince while he did the same. The documents were a combination of text and images featuring a set of recently discovered Egyptian artefacts.
Eve recognized one of the ancient tablets. It was thousands of years old and had been discovered by an archaeologist excavating a necropolis on the outskirts of Saqqara in Egypt. She’d read about it online.
“I've heard of this,” she said, now feeling an overwhelming desire to prove herself to be more than a scruffy shop girl. “One tablet got damaged, but restoration revealed that lines from the summoning of Apophis were etched into it.” She risked a look at him and noticed that he looked surprised.
“You're a fan of Egyptology?” he said.
Eve shrugged. “It was my degree subject.” She swept a hand down her coffee-soaked front. “Believe it or not.”
“He raised his eyes and looked into the demon’s eyes,” he said, and Eve realized he was quoting from the text and joined in. They said together, “I command thee to do my bidding.”
Eve and man stared at each other. Both nodded and looked slightly bewildered.
He thumbed through the papers he now held and pulled one free to show to her. “This one was a recent discovery made beneath the flagstones of an abandoned temple some miles outside Saqqara.”
Eve took the paper and looked it over.
“The only known tablet inscription of the final tale. It was discovered when a farmer heard strange noises and, after clearing away debris, discovered a goat that had got itself trapped, and the tablet wrapped in white linen, tied with twine. And that wasn't all.” He pointed to the column of images that ran down one side of the page. There were jewelry, coins and papyrus scrolls also found on site.
“If that's true, it's incredible,” Eve said.
“Oh, it's true.”
Eve blinked up at him.
It was as if she'd been transported back into a university lecture, the old enthusiasm seeping through the alcohol-fueled exhaustion of her final year.
Who the hell was this guy?
“What are you doing with these?” she asked.
“I'm planning an exhibition.” He nodded towards the museum. “Focusing on how ancient civilizations communed with their gods and the sacrifices that were considered essential to appease them.”
Eve looked back at him, blinking stupidly. She couldn't be sure if it was the hangover or something else, but this man was having a weird effect on her. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to clear the fog in her brain.
“The summoning of Apophis! Good luck getting hold of that. I mean, the last I heard the tablet was in the hands of some fat-cat collector.”
Like you're in the know. Shut up, Eve.
A small smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. There was nothing else for it but to blunder on.
“Don't think they'll be sharing it with the great unwashed of academia anytime soon, do you?” She brushed beads of coffee from the back of her hands. “I mean, no-one's going to let something like that be exposed to clumsy idiots like me.”
He pulled himself up to stand a little straighter, and Eve’s gaze dropped to his mouth.
“Oh, you might be surprised,” he said. There was the hint of an accent she couldn’t quite place. Something faintly Mediterranean, rich and mellow. “Especially as it's in my private collection.”
Eve snorted and said, “Yeah, right,” but wasn't sure whether or not to believe him. She had a good look at his face for signs he was lying. It was a very nice face - and a bit familiar.
“Can I buy you another coffee?” he asked. His eyes were glowing gold in the sunlight, and she was breaking out in a sweat.
“To replace the one I threw over you?” She cringed rather obviously, and he shrugged. Then she noticed the time. She was seriously late.
"I, er, I'm sorry I have to go. Shit! I really have to go."
She thrust the soggy papers she’d picked up into his arms and dashed away.