Ode to a Banker

VIII

Any career informer learns to be adaptable. Clients change their minds. Witnesses astound you with their revelations and lies. Life, in its most ghastly configurations, appals you like some crazy distortion of the Daily Gazette scandal page, making most published news items seem sedate.

Me, pay them? I knew this went on. I just thought it only happened to sad nonentities, scribbling dull, long-winded epics while still living at home with their mothers. I did not expect some brazen vanity publisher to latch on to me.

One way that informers adapt to their setbacks is by drinking in winebars. My brother-in-law's recent death while seriously drunk had caused me to restrict my intake somewhat. Besides, I did not want to look like some over-sensitive creative type who claimed to find inspiration in the bottom of a winejug and only there. So I was a good boy. I went home.

The respectable woman I went home to could have greeted me with a welcoming smile, the offer of afternoon dalliance, and a simple Roman lunch. Instead, she gave me the traditional greeting of a Roman wife: 'Oh, it's you!'

'Dearest. Do I take it you were expecting some hunk of a lover?'

Helena Justina just smiled at me, with those mysterious dark eyes pretending to make a fool of me. I had no option but to take it as an empty threat. I would start raving with jealousy if I let my heart lurch the way it wanted to. She knew that I loved her, and trusted her – and also that I was so amazed she lived with me, any slight jolt could make me slip into maniacal insecurity.

'You do like to keep me on the hop.' I grinned.

'Do I?' murmured Helena. She had on a flimsy stole and walking sandals; she was a girl with plans – plans that were probably devious even though there was no man involved. My presence was unlikely to delay her long. I had nothingto offer. She had already learned the gossip about Pa. She was not surprised Chrysippus was a dud. She had sent our baby out for a walk with a slave her mother had lent her, but that did not mean I stood any chance of taking her to bed. 'If I go to bed, I'll fall asleep, Marcus.'

'I won't.'

'That's what you think,' she said brutally.

The last thing she wanted was to be lumbered with me. She was going out. To a winebar, she told me. It was distinctly unlike Helena. But I knew better than to comment or to panic, let alone to object. She scowled. 'You had better come with me.'

'This is very exciting. A woman behaving like a male rascal? Let me play too! We can be lunchtime drunks together.'

'I am not intending to get drunk, Marcus.'

'What a spoilsport!'

Yet she was probably wise, for the winebar she had chosen was Flora's Caupona. Ordering a flagon there was the first step towards being sprinkled with oil on your funeral bier.

'Helena, you do love to be adventurous.'

'I wanted to see what was happening here.'

Her curiosity was soon answered: due to the death of its proprietor, Flora's was closed.

We stood for a moment on the street corner. Stringy, the caupona cat, was currently in charge of the splintery bench outside the shuttered counter; we had a long feud and he spat at me. I spat back.

Flora's, a business Pa had purchased for his girlfriend, was an eatery so unpretentious it barely rated attention from the local protection rackets. I had drunk there regularly at one time, in the days when the place sold the worst hot stews in Rome. It had perked up briefly after an extremely brutal murder occurred in a rented room on the premises; then it slumped back into a drab haunt for bankrupts and broken men.

There were points in its favour. It occupied a grand position. Goodwill had attached to the business. Its customers were doggedly loyal – sad idlers who tolerated the unwashed bowls of lukewarm broth in which lumps of animal gristle floated half submerged like supernatural monsters in a mythological tale. These stalwart dully customers could stand wine that would purple your tongue and that, working magic with the glutinous gravy, would laminate the roof of your mouth. They would never abandon their luncheon nook; for one thing, they knew there were not many others on that side of the Aventine.

Opposite stood one rival: a modest, well-scrubbed pavement foodshop called the Valerian. Nobody went there. People were afraid the cleanliness would give them hives. Besides, when nobody goes to a place there is no atmosphere. The surly clientele at Flora's wanted to sit where there were other antisocial types whom they could steadfastly ignore.

'We can still have a pleasant lunch together at the Valerian, my heart.'

'Lunch was not the point, Falco.'

Helena then decided we would visit Maia. Fine. She lived close by and it was my duty as a brother to console her in her trouble. I wanted to tell her the gossip about Flora and Pa before any of my other sisters beat me to it. She might feed us too.

To my disgust as we arrived, I saw Anacrites leave Maia's house. Perhaps he was taking some message from Ma. I skipped around a pillar and ducked down behind an oyster barrel. Helena glowered at me for my cowardice and walked by him with a cool nod, passing him before he managed to speak to her. She had always been polite to the spy, especially when he and I were working as partners on the Census, but he seemed to know he was tiptoeing on tricky ground with her. Assuming she had come alone, he let himself be bypassed and then moved off.

To see Anacrites at my sister's home was irritating. He had no real connection with my family and I wished to keep it that way. There was no reason for him to remain as my mother's lodger; he had property, he was no longer sick (the excuse for persuading Ma to look after him in the past), and he was back working in the Palace now. I did not want the Chief Spy skulking after Maia either.

Once I was sure he had vanished, I followed Helena indoors. Maia greeted me without mentioning another visitor. I kept mum. If she knew I was annoyed, that would only encourage her to encourage Anacrites. I roamed about looking for sustenance and eventually she gave us lunch, as I had hoped she might. There was less to it than there would have been once. Famia had often drunk away his salary, but at least the knowledge that she had a husband in work had allowed Maia to build up credit. Now her finances were desperately tight.

Helena told her the news about Flora and I described the state in which I had found Pa.

'The warehouse is a mess. If Marius wants to earn a few coppers, send him to help Gornia shift the stuff around.'

'My son is too studious to be humping furniture,' Maia retorted frigidly. 'He's not strong enough; he's delicate.'

'Time we built up his muscles then.'

'We don't need father's money.' That was untrue. Famia's pension from the Greens, who were a useless chariot faction, barely paid the rent. That left Maia with five mouths to feed. Marius, her eldest, deserved an education, and I would somehow find his school fees myself, but he had to become more worldly if he was to survive on the Aventine. Anyway, I wanted that shrewd little soul placed with Pa in the Saepta. He would tell me what was going on.

'You do need an income,' Helena said gently. Maia would take it from her. 'Are you definitely set against the tailoring plan?' This was a scheme Pa and I had concocted. We would have bought out the tailor for whom Maia had worked as a young girl, and let her manage the looms and saleroom. She would have shone at it. However, the good sense of the plan did not appeal to her.

'I can't bear it. I have moved on, Helena. It's not that I have grandiose ideas. I'll work. But I don't want to go back to what I did before – years ago, when I was unhappy, if that counts for anything.' Maia glared at me. 'Nor do I want any madcap enterprise dreamed up by someone else.'

'Choose your own then,' I groused. I had my head in a bowl of lettuce and eggs.

'I shall do that.'

'Will you let me pass on an idea?' Helena ventured as Maia screwed up her face suspiciously.

'Go ahead. I'm short of laughs.'

'Don't laugh at this. Tell Geminus that you will run Flora's.'

'You really are joking!'

'He won't want the caupona,' I agreed. 'It was the redhead's plaything.'

My sister flared up as usual. 'Marcus, you seem determined to dump some dreadful business on me!'

'Not dreadful. You would turn it around,' Helena declared.

'Maia, Pa owns the building; he has to sell up or find a new manager. If it stands there with the paint peeling and the frontage filthy, the aediles will stamp on him for urban neglect. Offer. He'll be glad to see it sorted.'

'For heaven's sake. Don't both of you gang up on me.'

'We're not doing that.' Helena shot me a reproachful look. By herself, she was implying, she could have put this plan to Maia and it might have worked.

Maia was now well het up: 'The woman has only been dead for a week. I'm not rushing in -'

'Pa needs you to do that,' I said quietly. 'He won't touch anything that reminds him of Flora – he won't even go home.'

Maia looked shocked. 'What do you mean?'

'He has not been to his house on the riverbank since Flora's funeral. The slaves are scared. They don't know where he is, or what their instructions are.'

Maia said nothing. Her mouth was pinched with disapproval. Newly widowed herself, she was the best person to tell our father that life goes on and you cannot opt out. If I knew her, she would tackle this.

Helena gathered up used dishes and carried them out to be washed later. She was lifting the pressure off Maia at least temporarily. Even I let the subject drop.

Heading for home, we passed once again by Flora's Caupona, and had another look. There ought to be a waiter somewhere, Apollonius. Officially he lived in a nook at the back. The previous waiter had hung himself, right by the cubbyhole where Apollonius was supposed to lurk as a watchman when the place was closed. While Helena waited in the street, I went round and shouted but failed to rouse an answer. His predecessor's suicide and the notorious murder that had happened upstairs must have made Apollonius reluctant to stay alone on the premises. People can be so sensitive.

Returning to the street, I saw a familiar figure kicking at the main door.

'Petro!'

'They're shut -' He despised Flora's, but quite often drank there; he was outraged to be thwarted by the closed door. We met a little apart from Helena and spoke in low voices.

'Flora's dead.'

'Hades!'

'Pa's a mess, and this place is out of action. We're trying to get Maia interested.'

'Surely she has enough to do?'

'Take her mind off it.'

'You're a bastard.'

'You taught me!'

We looked at each other. The jibes had been bland. Routine. Had we met earlier we could have found somewhere else to share a bench; knowing us, we could have stretched out our lunch all afternoon. Well, maybe. There was a taut look to Petronius, as if he had something on his mind.

We walked back to Helena. 'You're late on your break,' I remarked to Petro.

'Held up. Unnatural death.' He breathed in slowly. Then he exhaled, shoving his lower lip forward. He sucked his teeth. Helena was watching us, expressionless. Petro stared at me.

'Didius Falco.'

'That's me.'

'What have your movements been today?'

'Hey! What's your interest?'

'Just tell me about your day, sunshine.'

'That sounds as if I may have done something.'

'I doubt it – but I'm checking up for both our sakes.' Petronius Longus was using his official voice. It was tinged with the joky style we used together, but it would not have surprised me if he had brought out his battered set of noteboards to record my replies.

'Oh muleshit. What's this about?' I murmured. 'I've been a pious brat looking after my family all morning. Bereaved father; bereaved sister. Why?'

'I hope you can assure me this felon has been with you since noon?' Petronius demanded of Helena.

'Yes, officer.' She had a slightly sarcastic tone. She had wrapped her light-coloured stole around her darker, damson-tinted gown, and stood very still with her head up, looking down her nose like some republican statue of a painfully chaste matron. When Helena was being superior, even I felt a tremor of unease. But then one of her Indian pearl earrings trembled, and I just wanted to gnaw the translucent lobe from which it hung until she squealed. She looked at me suddenly as if she knew what I was thinking. 'And with Maia Favonia,' she added coolly for Petronius.

'Then that's all right.' Petro's remote attitude softened.

Mine toughened up. 'I have an alibi, apparently. That's nice. Will anybody tell me what it's for?'

'Murder,' Petro said tersely. 'And by the way, Falco. You just lied to me.'

I was startled. 'I'll lie like a legionary – but I like to know I'm doing it! What am I supposed to have said?'

'Witnesses have listed you as one of the dead party's visitors today.'

'I don't believe it. Who is this?'

'Man called Aurelius Chrysippus,' Petro told me. He said it matter-of-factly, but he was watching me. 'Battered to death by some maniac a couple of hours ago.'

'He was perfectly alive when I left him' I wanted to scoff, but I kept my voice level. 'There were plenty of witnesses to that. I only saw him briefly, at his scroll-shop in the Clivus Publicius.'

Petronius raised an eyebrow genteelly. 'The shop that has a scriptorium at the back of it? And behind the scriptorium, as I am sure you noticed, you can pass through a corridor into the owner's lovely house. Big spread. Nicely finished. It has all the usual luxuries. Now, Didius Falco, didn't you tell me you would like to invite Chrysippus to some quiet place and do him in?' He grinned bleakly. 'We found the body in his library.'