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after thousands of years. So far the scan’s revealed the presence of amulets and artificial eyes within the wrappings, and has enabled me to estimate Aamon’s age at between eight and thirteen. But there’s so much more to discover and I can’t think about stopping yet. My grandmother led the team that discovered the tomb; it’s always been my dream to finish her work, and my mother’s research on this too.
    I’m just returning my attention to the scan when a sheaf of papers drifts off my desk and onto the floor. That draught is so annoying. I must get something done about it before my notes get well and truly muddled. It keeps catching the chair and making it spin too, which is very distracting. Making a mental note to speak to maintenance, I get back to work, alternately jotting notes onto my pad and chewing thoughtfully on the end of my pencil. Every now and then the chair squeaks or a biro rolls onto the floor, making me jump. It would be worth getting the promotion just to secure a draught-free office.
    A loud knock on my door makes me start. All the creaks and noises here are putting me off my work.
    “Come in,” I say. I hope it isn’t Simon coming to have a chat. He tried to do this earlier and I had to make a swift excuse about being needed in the Ancient World Gallery. I dread making a fool of myself in front of him; Simon looks at me with such intensity that when he’s near the articulate Dr Cleo vanishes and I’m right back to my gawky teenage alter ego. Until I figure out a way of banishing her, my only tactic is to avoid him. Unfortunately this is proving to be pretty tricky because he’s constantly seeking me out on the strangest pretexts. It’s a nightmare.
    Luckily the head peeking round the door isn’t Simon’s golden one but belongs to Dawn, the department’s assistant and all-round dogsbody, who has the unenviable task of conducting school tours around the department dressed as an Egyptian. Today she’s in full Cleopatra mode, complete with a jet-black wig and white robes that almost conceal the billowing body underneath.
    “Sorry to interrupt, Cleo. I did try calling but your phone isn’t working again.”
    I glance across the office to the black Bakelite phone which, according to rumour, once belonged to our museum’s founder himself, Henry Wellby the renowned Egyptologist. The phone is certainly old, like most of the furniture and fittings in the Wellby, but I don’t believe this story for a second. Henry Wellby, famous for his archaeological work in the 1920s when he discovered the famous lost city of Nephet, surveys us all from the portrait hanging in the museum’s entrance concourse. A portly gentleman with a bushy ginger moustache and shrewd blue eyes, he looks to me like the type who’d have the good sense to bin a phone with a receiver that continually falls off the hook.
    “The phone must be on the blink again.” Leaving my desk I replace the receiver in the cradle. “I don’t know why it always does that.”
    Dawn’s eyes flicker nervously. “It’s the cursed phone, isn’t it? The one Mr Wellby used? Is it true it’s cursed because of Tutankhamun?”
    Oh Lord. Here we go again. What I should mention about Dawn is that she’s utterly credulous, falling hook, line and sinker for all the museum myths about moving exhibits and pharaohs’ curses, which I once overheard her repeating to a group of open-mouthed visitors. I had to have a sharp word with her about that. The Wellby might be smaller than the British Museum or the Ashmolean, but it is a highly respected place of learning and discovery, not the latest setting of Totally Spooked .
    “Dawn,” I say patiently. “Henry Wellby was nothing to do with Tutankhamun. He found a lost city, not a lost tomb.”
    “I knew he’d found something lost,” says Dawn as though two of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the last century are interchangeable. Above the rumbling traffic outside I swear I can hear