The Ouroboros Mystery

Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, Turin.

It was a strange scene. Two monumental granite Bastets, like great vigilant lions, faced one another in a vast, dark hall. Dimly lit from below, the two goddesses observed the passage of four elderly British women from Painswick, Gloucester. Clutching their handbags and exchanging reassuring commonplaces, they bustled through the goddess-gate as quickly as their joints allowed. The colossal feline gaze felt unsettling.

The women were indulgently herded by a very tall, very thin postgraduate student in spectacles named Marco Greco. He had been chosen to lead this private tour-for the ladies as his English was the best of the tour-guide stable. He was glad of the money of course, but he genuinely enjoyed his position of authority, the chance to demonstrate his fluency, and the admiring attention of these charming British nonnas.

“Soon we arrive to the pot burials. This the Egyptians start to do in about 3,500 BCE. They place the body curled up into a large ceramic container. The shape is an ellipse, like an amphora.

“Some people says that this is because they are poor burials, they had no wood for the coffin so they just recycled old pots, like putting your granny in a Tupperware container! But no, in that time it was not this way. A pot was a precious item in the household, if you used it many times then it increased the value. It was venerable, like a—how you say—a hairloom?”

“An heirloom,” said Beverly crisply. “The ‘h’ is silent.” Beverly, a retired school principal, was the acknowledged leader of the group. She was the one who’d arranged the special tour.

“That’s how I feel about my favourite cast-iron skillet,” said Norma. “I wouldn’t mind having that buried with me.”

“There is a still more mysterious chance,” Marco said, worried that his authority was slipping. “This is that the people were readying their loved one for rebirth. The hieroglyph, in fact, for ‘pot’ was the same as ‘womb.’ The pots were elliptical and seemed like eggs, and the body was made like a baby in the womb.”

“He means they were curled up like a foetus,” Beverly interjected.

“Sometimes the people crack the pot after the body is inside. In this way, they help them to come out afterwards.”

“Like a chick hatching,” said Norma. “Funny sort of Easter Egg surprise, wouldn’t it be? Open up your Cadbury’s egg to find a mummy,” she chortled.

“The Hindus believe that too, don’t they Joyce?” said Lynley.

“What’s that dear?” said Joyce, who’d been staring in some consternation at a faience baboon.

“Reincarnation. The Hindus. Marco here just said the Egyptians believed in rebirth.”

“Well I never,” said Joyce mildly. “It really does take all sorts, doesn’t it?”

They entered the hall of the pot burials. This was also shrouded in darkness, though each display was lit up. Marco let everyone go ahead so they could get a good eye-full of the skeleton in the glass display box. He’d seen it a hundred times before so didn’t feel the need to approach it. Instead, he hung back, waiting for a dramatic interval before delivering his speech.

There was a collective gasp, one little scream from Lynley and a muttered prayer from Joyce.

Marco smiled indulgently. After all, the old dears were probably unused to such ghoulish sights.

“The sight of a dead body can be upsetting for some people. I believe the disturbance of a burial is justified, however, one because we afford the dead all possible respect and two because it has afforded us priceless insights into the life of people who lived all those millennia ago…”

“But there’s a body!” quavered Lynley, pointing at the case.

“Yes, of course,” said Marco, starting to get annoyed. Perhaps the diseases of the aged mind had afflicted them? Had they never heard of mummies in Painswick?

“It’s fresh,” said Beverly with disapproval.

“Fresh? Non capisco,” Marco was confused. He strode forward and saw the body. They were right. This was no defleshed skeleton from the fourth millennium BCE.

Curled up inside the great pot was the naked body of the distinguished museum director, Enrico Marconi.

*

“Che brutta storia,” murmured Commissaria Fiorella Muti, blowing out a lungful of raspberry-flavoured vape smoke. “And what did she do then?”

“Well, she never recovered. How could you, after something like that?” Claudia, her friend said. “It ruined her. She threw herself off her balcony. She lived on the sixth-floor. A mess! Every bone in her body broken. And two little ones orphaned.”

The two women sighed and gazed with pleasurable melancholy at the autumnal scene around them. The river Po was populated by various waterfowl—cormorants, ducks, coots and gulls shrouded in a light mist rising from the water. Sycamores had released a thick layer of their big crisp brown leaves onto the path below, providing ample rummaging scope for passing dogs. Mothers pushed prams, cyclists breezed past, teen couples wandered by holding hands.

Claudia worked at the Scuola Media D’Annunzio, just across the street from the police station. Every now and then she and Fiorella, who’d been friends since kindergarten, met to have lunch and to discuss the fate of mutual acquaintances. Today they’d both skipped lunch for a smoke break.

Although the air was completely still the temperature suddenly seemed to drop a few degrees. Fiorella shivered and looked at her watch.

“Cavolo, I have to get back. Interviews all afternoon.”

“Oh, poor you,” said Claudia. “Must be interesting though. I suppose it’s the murder that was in the paper today? The Egyptian museum?”

Fiorella smiled. She was not so easily drawn as that! Despite (or perhaps because of) her love of gossip in most circumstances, she was the soul of discretion whenever her work was concerned. Claudia knew this perfectly well but never stopped trying to glean some sordid crime exclusives.

“Nice try,” said Fiorella, stowing her vaper in her handbag. “A dopo cara,” they exchanged kisses and walked slowly back to their respective labors: Claudia teaching algebra to sixteen-year-olds, Fiorella conducting an interview with Marco Greco.

 *

“Allora, cominciamo. Please state your name, age and occupation for the record.”

The young man pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and cleared his throat as if about to perform an oral examination for which he had studied diligently.

“My name is Marco Greco, I’m 24, I work part-time as a tour guide but I’m actually completing my Ph.D in Archeological, Historical and Historical-Artistic Sciences.”

“And can you describe what happened last night at the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities?”

“Yes, I was conducting a private tour for a group of ladies from England. When we passed into the hall of pot burials I hung back to let them have a look at the skeleton which is usually there. One of the oldest extant examples of pot burials, quite a thrilling sight. So at first I didn’t see the, er, body, and I wasn’t surprised when I heard the ladies gasp and scream a little, you know. But then one of the ladies said it was a new body, a fresh body. I didn’t understand so I stepped forward to take a look.”

“Did you recognize the victim?”

“Yes I did. It was the Museum Director, Professor Enrico Marconi.”

“Can you describe where he was, what he looked like, his position and so on?”

“Yes, of course. Well the first thing I noticed was probably that he was naked. And then there was the fact that he was inside one of the ancient ceramic pots. He was in the position of a foetus, that is curled up to fit inside the pot, just as they used to be in ancient Egyptian pot burials. And then I noticed a tattoo of the ouroboros right there on his arm.”

“What’s that?”

“The ouroboros is a symbol of eternal cyclic renewal. It’s the image of a snake forming a circle by biting its own tail. In Egyptian contexts it nearly always refers to the snake-god Mehen, which means ‘coiled one.’ He curls around Ra, protecting him, during his journey through the night.”

“I see. Did you touch the body?”

“No. Er, actually that was a very strange thing because the pot was inside the glass display. Enrico’s body was on top of the skeleton. Which is highly…” he seemed to think better of his planned outraged rant. “Which is unfortunate because the skeleton is an extremely rare item and must have been badly damaged by the weight of the, er, new corpse.”

“I see. Was the glass display case locked?”

“Yes, of course!” He said, amazed. “As I said, it is an extremely rare item. In archeological terms it is more valuable than a lot of the showier pieces—sarcophagi and so on. This completely changed how we studied the early Egyptians.”

“Did you yourself have a key to the glass display case?”

“No!” He looked aghast. “Only the museum’s most senior staff would have known where the key was kept.”

“And when you discovered the body what did you do?”

“Well, I called the police, obviously. And I called my boss. Dr. Hertz. Greta Hertz. She coordinates guides for the private tours.”

“She is a senior member of the museum staff?”

“Yes. But—” his eyes widened as he realized he was possibly implicating her.

Fiorella raised an eyebrow and waited expectantly. He said nothing.

“Okay. Thank you Mr. Greco. That will be all.”

He looked surprised.

“That’s all?”

“Certainly. You’re free to go.”

“Right. OK. Thank you.” He left, seeming a bit lost.

Fiorella looked over at her colleague Giorgia, who’d remained characteristically silent throughout the interview. She was young, very sleek with dark hair that she straightened every morning (it must take her an hour at least!) and long mahogany nails.

“Got the list of the museum staff?” she asked.

Giorgia nodded and handed over a manila folder.

“Five senior members. Director was Enrico Marconi, 60-year-old male, a Turin native. Head curator was Dr. Greta Hertz, Austrian born, 53 years old. Then 46-year-old Dr. Ahmed Ali who was born in Alexandria. And a married couple: Lucia Leonardi and her husband Associate Professor Valentino Brano. They were the only ones who officially had access to the key to the glass case.”

“Right,” said Fiorella. “Well, let the games begin!”