Ode to a Banker

XXXIII

This was the dangerous stage, where the case could die on us. The problem with this one was not the usual lack of facts, but almost too many to co-ordinate.

The work had not ended, by any means. But there were no material clues, despite numerous loose threads. I prepared an interim report for Petro, summing up the dead ends: * The scriptorium manager, the scribes, and the household slaves are all ruled out either by proven absence, confirmed sightings off the scene, or lack of bloodstains at the initial interrogation. * We have yet to find the murderer's bloodstained clothes. * The wife, ex-wife and son, and the bank's agent have all produced acceptable alibis; some of their stories are dubitable, but their movements are in theory accounted for at the time of death. * The people who gained financially were on good terms with the victim, in funds beforehand, and in line to inherit anyway.

The authors have motives: * Avienus, the historian, has a huge debt. * Turius, the idealist, has offended and insulted the victim. * Scrutator, the satirist, has rebelled at being loaned out like a slave. * Constrictus, the would-be love poet, is a drunk and in line to be dropped. *Urbanus, the dramatist, is flying the coop and is angry about rumours belittling him.

There is, unfortunately, no hard evidence to link any of them to the crime.*

'Any big holes?' Petro asked.

'Pisarchus, the shipper with the lost vessels and cargoes, quarrelled with the victim on the day he died. We have not yet managed to interview him; he is out of town.'

'At sea?'

'Inland; berthed at Praeneste. He has a villa there; that's where Scrutator was supposed to be sent to pluck a soothing lyre – perhaps to compensate for the shipper's financial grief.'

'Out of our jurisdiction,' groaned Petro, the vigiles only operated within Rome. Then he added slyly, 'But I may find I have a man travelling that way eventually. Or we'll nab him for questioning next time he comes to the city to beg for a new loan… Think he will?'

'They always do. He'll find new security somehow; how often does a long-haul ocean-trader cease trading?'

'Anything else I should know?'

'The big puzzle one of the dead man's visitors. We were told Urbanus went there that day, but he denies it. I think I believe him. He had definitely been invited and the porter apparently counted him off, so was it somebody else? The regime is so vague and disorganised nobody knows for sure. If there was an extra caller, we don't know who.'

'Rats. Only Chrysippus could tell us, and he's in his funeral urn. That all?'

'I still think we ought to investigate customers from the bank.'

'And?'

'I don't trust the son.'

'You don't trust anyone!'

'True. What strikes you then, Petro?'

'I reckon the bank is at the heart of it.' He would. He was a cautious investor, suspicious of men who handled other people's savings 'I'm going to call back Lucrio and lean on him. I'll say we don't ask for confidential information, but he must give us some names and addresses so we can interview clients ourselves. We can compare the list he gives us with the names we grabbed that night when we had access to his records. If he tries to hide a client from us, we know where to jump.'

'Lot of effort,' I commented.

My dear friend Lucius Petronius grinned wickedly. 'Just your sort of job!'

That was where I called in my junior, even though Petronius had refused to pay fees for him.

Aulus Camillus Aelianus, Helena's brother, was kicking his heels without a real career, so he had decided he wanted to play at being an investigator. Nobody thought he would stick with it, but I needed to be polite to Helena's family so I was lumbered with him until he opted out. He had no skills, but as a senator's son he did command a certain presence – enough to impress mercantile types, if I was lucky.

'What do I have to do? Lurk in alleys and spy on them?' He was keen – too keen. He had turned up in a spanking ochre tunic that would stand out a mile in the kind of alleys I normally used for surveillance. He was full of the boyish eagerness that only lasts about half a day.

'Knock on doors, my son. Learn to keep knocking for a week while bored slaves insist that your quarry is out. When you do meet the witnesses face to face, mention that we are too honourable to extract private information from their banker – but that we are conducting a murder enquiry, so they had better co-operate. Enquire gently about their deposits – they won't mind; they'll enjoy boasting of their silver reserves. When they are softened up, sternly ask what loans they have.'

'Anyone with a loan is a bad character?'

'If that were true the whole of Rome would be villains, especially your illustrious papa, who has his whole life in hock.'

'He can't help that! The moment a Roman has any status, he is compelled to spend.' I was glad to hear Aelianus defend Camillus Senior, who had already wasted hope and cash on him. At least the son sounded grateful.

'The same goes for these people, unless we learn of any debts that are -'

'Enormous?' Aulus demanded eagerly.

'No, no; their debts can be any size – just so long as they believe they can pay them back. What I'm searching for is somebody who felt under pressure.'

'Are you coming with me on this?' A faint hint of anxiety had finally struck him.

'No.' I gazed at him with what I hoped was an inscrutable expression. 'We are a two-man operation. We have to keep one man in reserve so he can go round later and apologise if you offend someone.'

'You love a joke, Falco.'

'Who was joking?' Camillus Aelianus was a twenty-five-year-old patrician who had never had to negotiate a delicate social situation in his life.

Aelianus went off alone, with a list of addresses. I had to provide him with a note-tablet; I told him to bring his own next time. At the last minute, he thought of asking me if this was likely to be dangerous. I said I did not know – then advised him to take up self-defence lessons at his gymnasium. Always one for wearing scowls, he grew even more sullen when I reminded him it was illegal to go armed in Rome.

'So what do I do if I'm in trouble?'

'Back off. If it becomes unavoidable, you can hit people – ideally, just before they hit you. But try to remember that any ugly characters you meet may be friends of mine.'

He was bound to wreak havoc. I was content to let him. Firstly, he thought he knew it all; making mistakes was the only way he would ever learn. And secondly, havoc always comes in useful when a case is stuck.

'I suppose if trouble arises, you will just blame me anyway, Falco?' Helena's dear brother was brighter than I had feared.

I assigned my apprentice the straightforward clients Unknown to him, I was out there myself nosing around the names I thought looked tricky.

We worked on the debtors and creditors for a few weeks. Meanwhile, Petronius had formally requested the responsible vigiles cohorts in the Forum environs to look out for Pisarchus.

The month changed. That August was stifling. I had to explain to Aelianus that only honest men and career criminals stopped for holidays. In our twilight world, we kept going. At best, people would be so surprised to see us, we might catch them off guard. At worst, like the shipper Pisarchus, they would be off and unobtainable at some fern-shaded retreat.

'I don't mind a trip to Praeneste,' my junior offered hopefully. I ignored him. He was too new to be told that the jaunts were mine, while the learner minded the shop. You have to ensure that a young person, faced with life's inequalities, does not lose heart.

We had found nothing. We had to admit we had no real idea what to look for. I marked up Praeneste on a road map in a desultory way, none too keen to undertake the journey in hot weather. I knew Petro would be unable to fmd the cost of transport, since it lay outside his jurisdiction. Rubella would love to jump on such a breach of the rules.

Anyway, if I had to go outside the city, I would from choice be at Tibur, where I possessed a farm and needed to check on its new tenant. No chance! Informers are not supposed to have a private life. 'Is this a waste of time, Falco?'

'Most of this job is a waste of time, Aulus.'

'Why do we bother then?'

'For the tiny scrap of information that solves everything.' If and when we found it, we were unlikely even to recognise what it was.

Almost collapsing in the heat and thoroughly depressed, we were still waiting to discover any helpful clue when my dog started having her pups.

Nux had been making strange nests for a while. She had chosen me as a master; it was her mistake, but as with women, that made me feel responsible. I had been expecting the birth for some days, but we could not he sure which of her horrible suitors had fathered the pups – or when it occurred.

As soon as Helena sent me word that things were happening, I rushed back home, meeting my young nephew Marius on the stairs. After some comment from Helena that I was better at attending the dog's labour than I had been about the birth of my own daughter, Marius and I crouched alongside, while Nux struggled to deliver. She was having problems.

'Uncle Marcus, it is hopeless!' Marius was frantic. So was I, though I could not show it. He was nine; I was thirty-three. Besides, Helena was listening. 'Stuff this for a game of soldiers!' he roared. Marius had been working at Pa's warehouse. His language had deteriorated sadly. 'There's a friend of my father's who keeps dogs; I'm going to get him.'

So Marius hared off and returned with a bemused horse-vet from the Greens. This man was a typical friend of Famia's – vague, dozy and sinister. He did have more application than my departed brother-in-law; he grunted and muttered, then while Marius and I clung together unable to watch, he eventually helped Nux to whelp a single, absolutely enormous pup.

'It's a dog.'

'A boy – he's mine!' screamed Marius determinedly. The horse-vet and I surreptitiously worked on the creature, trying not to let Marius realise the imminent tragedy: the puppy was lifeless. Marius was told to look after Nux. The animal doctor sighed. My heart sank. I presumed he meant it was all over.

He faced up to the limp wet puppy, holding it between both hands, one dirty thumb propping up its flopping head and two fingers opening its pale mouth. To our astonishment, he blew air from his own lungs into it. After a moment of passive resistance, the pup could no longer bear the reek of garlic on his breath. It choked and glugged and tried to escape. It was handed to my nephew who was told to wrap it up and rub it vigorously to make it breathe by itself. I gave the vet the price of several drinks mainly for preventing heartache for Marius; he sloped off, then when the pup had warmed up, we placed it beside Nux.

At first, she just wagged her tail at us. Noticing the bedraggled creature, she sniffed it, wearing the bemused look she had whenever Helena mentioned that Nux had let out a fart. Then her offspring moved; Nux pawed it – and decided she might as well clean it and allow it to take over her life.

'She knows she's his mother.' I felt thrilled, 'look, he's starting to suckle. Helena, come and look at this!'

Marius tugged at my tunic. 'Come away, Uncle Marcus. We have to leave her quiet now. She must not be disturbed, or she might reject him. There must be no parade of nosy sightseers, and I think your baby had best stay in another room.' Marius, an intellectual at heart, had gone into this. I knew Helena had lent him a compendium of animal husbandry. Flushed with knowledge and ownership, he refused to entrust his precious pet to amateurs. 'I'll feed Nux for you when it is needed. You two,' he told Helena and me balefully, 'are rather too excitable, if you don't mind my saying so. By the way, Nuxie seems to have given you a problem…'

How right he was. Despite all my efforts to find her an attractive basket in a dark nook where she could have her grotesquely oversized pup in privacy, Nux had chosen her own spot: on my toga, in the middle of our bed.

Let us hope,' said Helena, fairly gently, 'you are not required at any formal dress functions in the next few days, Marcus.'

Well, at least that was unlikely; August has some advantages.