Deadly Election

3

The delivery driver had taken his cart and bunked off. That was typical of Felix.

Fortunately the head porter, Gornia, was now so old my father had supplied him with a donkey to travel to and from his home. Though frail, Gornia still insisted on starting work at dawn and not leaving until dark. I knew his rented room was so dismal he preferred being at work. During the day, the others often used the donkey; keeping it busy was their idea of animal welfare. So it was here at the Porticus and I could borrow it. A wizened boy led the creature about; he could come with me, wait outside and make sure nobody stole the beast or spoiled it by offering carrots while I was indoors at the Callistus house.

Prosperous people, they lived on the Caelian Hill. Dominated by the massive Temple of Claudius on its northern side, this was an old aristocratic enclave near the Forum and Circus Maximus, where plebeians were now muscling in. Livening it up, according to the incomers, or, if you were old-style nobility, lowering the tone.

The Callisti had taken over a whole block on the western slope, though they leased shops, laundries and bars on all four sides, leaving only their own entrance actually on a street. Outside the house I vaguely noticed a large advertisement space hired by some election candidate’s supporters, though I had not bothered to take in whose name was painted in. I thought the Senate voted in January, so was it old news? The Callisti might simply have hired out the wall, or they could have supported someone themselves. The Tiber oar-makers like Idiotus … One of them might even have been standing. Our auction might be necessary to pay for an expensive campaign. Only the rich can stand for office.

This had once been a beautiful area, near the Vestal Virgins’ shrine at the spring of Egeria, the Camenae as it is called, and the Temple of Honour and Virtue, although these days the concepts of honour and virtue were much debased. A relay station for watering horses had been built at Egeria’s sacred spring, then the entire shrine and grove had been rented to Jewish entrepreneurs, ex-prisoners, to exploit for grass and wood. On the Caelian, property prices had slumped from exorbitant to almost reasonable.

Even so, most people here had more than a few sesterces. The Callisti were prosperous because they were gritty men of commerce, the kind who would sell you your own cloak if you’d let a footman take it when you visited. As it was July I didn’t have a cloak, and I kept my stole loosely over my head to look modest.

I don’t normally hide behind my father’s name when I am working, but in this case I said firmly that I was Didius Falco’s daughter, here on auction business. When the porter still looked reluctant, I added, ‘I prefer to see one of the family, but if that is inconvenient my complaint is very serious. I can go to the authorities instead.’

It stopped being inconvenient.

They had a row of stone benches outside their front door, where clients hoping for patronage could wait every morning for a handout, letting the world see how important the Callisti were. However, I did not have to sit out in the sun. Once I hinted I might report a misdemeanour, I was hustled indoors.

I knew the occupants were a father, two sons and a nephew. They were the kind of family where you never heard about their womenfolk, though presumably they existed. The Callisti were a masculine, business-oriented bunch. Still, I guessed they had a venerated old mother who made nice soup with her own arthritic hands, and daughters who were married off at twelve to dim sons of colleagues.

I was kept waiting, inevitably. One of the younger Callisti was at home, but he was ‘in a meeting’- having his beard shaved, screwing a kitchen boy, prostrate with a hangover, or even studying a scroll of deep Greek thought, though I doubted the last. All sorts of unlikely people are self-educated, but probably not these. Their family money came from running a fleet of heavy barges on the Tiber; one branch built river-navigable craft. A hobby of racing chariots absorbed much of their cash, but there was plenty to spare; it was easy come, easy go, with them. I had been told all this by Gornia; our auction house did not accept a sale without financial checks. As an informer, my papa specialised in that kind of investigation for clients − and in checking up on his clients themselves, before he accepted them, unless they were attractive widows, in which case he was notoriously trusting. I learned informing from him, though I was more sceptical of widows, being one myself.

I had been popped into a small waiting room with the doors closed, but once the porter left I sneaked back into the corridor and looked around. I listened, too. The house had a well-occupied ambience. Thick walls were absorbing noises from the busy streets outside. Any staff indoors were behaving discreetly. The entry mosaic had a clichéd beware-of-the-dog message but it was a standard floor package, just for show. Tesserae don’t bark.

I went back and waited. Nobody brought me refreshments. I was trade. I wanted something from them; they had no need of me. I would have to ask for even a cup of water. They would let me have one, but asking would mark me as a chancer.

When he was ready, Callistus Primus, one of the sons, appeared. He was in his late thirties, wide-built, confident. A well-swathed tunic and heavy gold rings. Nothing too bad. If he had married my best friend, I wouldn’t have stopped going to see her. But I might have visited when I thought he would be out.

Polite enough, he summed me up in turn; I guessed he thought sending a woman along meant our auction house was cheapskate. I was dressed to look businesslike, but with a gold necklace to show I represented management.

Once I’d told him about the corpse, Callistus sharpened up. He denied all knowledge; no surprise there. Although he raised eyebrows at my news, his immediate reaction was to remove himself and his family from being linked to the death in any way.

Nevertheless he told me about the armoured chest. After the Mount Vesuvius eruption it had been dug up from their buried villa on the slopes. They safely rescued its contents − money and treasures – after which they put the damaged container in a warehouse in Rome. It had stood there untouched for the past ten years. Now they were disposing of unwanted items. An agent had visited the storeroom recently to make a sale inventory, although the man would have had no need to open the box because it was known to be empty. I was not invited to interview this agent and I judged it premature to make a fuss.

Callistus reiterated that he had no idea who the dead man could be, or who might have put him in the chest. We agreed it was someone who had known the chest existed, but that told us little because it could be a number of people. Callistus stressed the likely involvement of warehouse staff, rather than anyone connected with his family; I made no comment.

Either way, the perpetrator must have thought the chest would continue to be stored there while the body rotted until identification became impossible. Callistus insisted the killer could not be close to his family; otherwise whoever it was would have heard the auction being discussed. In the way of families, they had had argy-bargy about the sale over breakfast every day.

I asked if Callistus Primus would take a look at the corpse while we had it, but he refused.

I didn’t blame him. I smiled and said so.

Looking curious, he asked why I was bothering with this. I explained how my father and I took responsibility for the mysterious dead. Somebody had to. ‘You may like to think that if your wife poisons your mushrooms, someone will expose her crime before she grabs the inheritance.’ Callistus Primus’s expression changed. So he had a wife. I did not necessarily assume she wanted to kill him off. ‘The work suits us,’ I went on drily, still thinking about his faint facial twitch. ‘We meet a lively cross section of society and we solve puzzles. We hope to console people. Perhaps the strongbox man had a worried old mother or little children who are now crying for their missing breadwinner.’

‘You must be crazy,’ Callistus disagreed. ‘Why don’t you just shove the remains on a rubbish heap like anybody sensible?’

I smiled again. ‘We may yet do so.’

His question was a good one, of course: why hadn’t whoever hid away this corpse simply secreted him under a pile of dung on the streets or weighed him down with rocks in the river?

An answer might be that the dead man was somebody who would be searched for, his disappearance perhaps reported to the authorities, notices asking for help put up in public places. If such a corpse happened to be found, it might be recognised. Perhaps that would make his killer or killers obvious. Maybe there had been bad blood with someone. A clear motive. So leaving him to rot in a box might have seemed safer.

This was good news. If the corpse was identifiable, the incident was worth looking into. I stood some chance of solving the mystery – and if I did, a grateful associate of the dead man might even pay for news of his fate.

Don’t start going all self-righteous. I have to think about fees. Being an informer is not an act of public benevolence. Nobody does it to win approval from their gods. It’s a job. It’s supposed to pay your rent. It puts bread on the table. If you are good enough, it even buys all the wine you have to drink to make you forget what a horrible job informing is.

The sight of that body in the chest was a disturbing memory.