Poseidon s Gold

XVI

Don't ask me to describe it.

You never expect what you find. Sometimes-the lucky times-any evidence that a violent crime has occurred seems hardly noticeable. So little shows that quite a few crimes must entirely escape discovery. At other times, the violence is horrendously clear. You reel back, amazed that anyone could wreak such savagery on another human being. This was one of those.

This murder had been committed in a frenzy. Even my warning from Petronius had failed to prepare me. Petronius apparently believed in Greek understatement.

We had talked about villains 'making their mark', as if Censorinus's death might have been a syndicated killing ordered by some magnate in the underworld. As soon as I saw the room I gave up the idea. Whoever killed Censorinus Macer was acting under devastating stress.

It had to have been a man. Impassioned women can achieve vindictive damage, but this act had taken brute strength. Blow after crazy blow, long after death had occurred. The face, when I forced myself to look at it, was difficult to recognise. Petro was right: there was blood everywhere. Even the ceiling was splashed. To clean the room properly would entail dismantling the furniture and swabbing the surfaces several times. Olympus knows what the killer must have looked like when he left.

I felt reluctant to move around even now, after the gore had dried.

But there was no point in having come unless I used the opportunity. I forced myself into routine activity.

The place was roughly eight feet square. A small room. It had one small, high window, deeply recessed. A small bed. One blanket; no pillow. The only other furnishings were a cloak hook, beneath which a faded scarlet uniform item had dropped to the floor, perhaps during the murder, plus a stool that stood by the rickety bedhead. On the stool I saw one of Flora's stained wooden trays with a full pitcher and a winecup that had been knocked on its side. The rich liquid gleam of the red wine in the pitcher mocked the dried and caking bloodstains everywhere else.

Military kit had been neatly stowed at the foot of the bed. To reach it meant passing close by the dead soldier, whose remains lay half sprawled on the bed. I knew Petro and his men had managed to search the kit. I, with an indictment hanging over me, had to get there and do likewise.

The man's boots were lying just under the bed; I stumbled over one of them and barely avoided contact with the corpse. I gagged, managed to recover myself, then carried on.

His boots were off; he must have been going to bed, in bed, or getting up. Someone else might have been joining him under the blanket for social reasons, but in my opinion an intruder did this. Censorinus was not dressed for company. Soldiers put their boots on before they answer a knock at the door. Soldiers always want to be able to kick out if they hate your face.

Anyway, there was only one winecup on the tray.

The rest of his stuff, as Petronius had said, appeared to be complete. I had seen it all before when I helped Censorinus pack to leave my mother's house. Sword, dagger and belt; helmet; vine staff; knapsack of the usual small tools; spare red tunic and underwear. As he was on leave, he was not carrying spears or a shield. An old mansio bill was the only document. (From the Via Appia out on the Campagna, a place I knew.)

The weapons were all stowed tidily. It confirmed my theory that he was caught completely off guard. He must have been attacked unexpectedly, making no attempt to reach his gear and defend himself. He must have died after the first ferocious blow.

Had he been robbed? At Mother's he had kept his financial arrangements from me. I could see an arm-purse on him now, unopened; that alone would not have held enough funds for his journey to Rome. The mattress looked as if somebody had pulled it askew looking for money, but that could have been Petronius. Until the body was removed there was no scope to investigate the bed properly. Censorinus would have to be lifted off first. I was desperate-but not that desperate.

With the room in such a sorry condition, I was not prepared to ferret under floorboards either. There were practical problems. I was short of time, minus a jemmy, and unable to make noise. Petro would probably come back to do it. Better for him to find anything that was there.

I tried to memorise everything so I could brood on it later. Later, something that meant nothing now might suddenly make sense.

Averting my gaze, I eased my way past the body and escaped.

I had to fight for self-control before I replaced the ropes, and when I turned round from doing that a figure standing in the gloom below frightened the wits out of me.

'Epimandos!'

We stared at one another. Even with the length of the stairs between us, I could see he looked petrified.

I descended slowly until I reached him; the horror from above came after me, fingering my neck.

He was standing in my way. He was carrying a whole earthenware pot of oysters, holding it in the crook of his arm quite easily; years of heaving great food containers from the fire to their counter-holes had given him muscle.

'Forget it, I lost my appetite.'

'Do you know who did it?' he burst out in a frightened whisper.

'I know it wasn't me!'

'No,' Epimandos said. He was high in customer loyalty.

I would have preferred time to recover, but while we were out there in the kitchen, away from other eyes and ears, I asked him about the night the soldier died. 'I told the watch captain all that.'

'You're very public-spirited. Now tell me.'

'The same as I told Petronius?'

'Only if it's true! After Censorinus and I had had our little disagreement, when did he reappear?'

'He came back in the evening.'

'By himself?'

'Yes.'

'You sure of that?'

Epimandos had been sure until I asked him; insisting he thought about it frightened him into doubts. His eyes moved rapidly as he quavered, 'He was alone when he had supper here anyway.'

'Did he stay in afterwards?'

'Yes.'

'Drinking?'

'He went upstairs.'

'Did he say anything?'

'Like what?' demanded the waiter suspiciously.

'Anything at all?'

'No.'

'Did anyone come to see him afterwards?'

'Not that I saw.'

'Were you busy that night?'

'Well: More than the Valerian was.' That meant normal trade.

'That evening, could anyone have gone indoors past you without you noticing?'

'It's possible.' With the tight internal arrangements, front entry would be difficult for anyone avoiding notice. But the waiter could never watch the back end of the caupona, which we locals used as our private way out if we saw debt-collectors approaching down the street. Sharp bailiffs and their bully-boys came in that way.

'Did you go out on any errands?'

'No. It was pouring with rain.'

'Were you working all night?'

'Till we closed.'

'Do you sleep here?' Epimandos nodded reluctantly. 'Show me where.'

He had a cabin on one side of the kitchen. It was a dreary burrow. The occupant slept perched on a ledge with a straw pillow and a sludge-coloured coverlet. I noted few personal possessions-just an amulet on a nail and a woollen cap. I remembered my brother had given him the amulet, probably as a pledge for an unpaid bill.

He ought to have heard anyone who got in after he closed the caupona, whether they forced the sliding doors at the front or secretly used the back entrance. But there were five empty amphorae lolling on their points against one wall: knocking back the ends of them must be the waiter's perk. I guessed he normally turned into bed dead drunk, a habit that might well be known by local villains. That night he could have been in such a stupor he failed to hear the violent struggle overhead.

'So did you notice any odd noises that night?'

'No, Falco.' He sounded pretty definite. Such certainty worried me.

'Are you telling me the truth?'

'Of course!'

'Yes, of course you are:' Did I believe him, though?

Customers were shouting for attention. Epimandos edged towards the main area of the shop, eager to get away from me.

Suddenly I sprang on him: 'Who found the body? Was it you?'

'No, the owner, going up to get his rent:'

So there was an owner! I was so surprised I let the waiter slip away to face the raillery in the bar.

After a moment I let myself out through the back way: a slatted stable door on rusty pins that led to an alley full of dead fish-pickle jars and olive-oil flagons. There were about fifteen years of empties, lurking below a corresponding smell.

Anyone like me who had been coming here for half a lifetime would have known about this unsecured, unsecurable exit. Any stranger could have guessed its existence too.

I paused for a moment. If I had emerged straight after seeing the body I would have thrown up drastically. Controlling myself while I questioned the waiter had helped put it off.

I turned back, looking closely at the stable door in case the killer had left bloodstains to mark his retreat. I could find none. But inside the kitchen area stood pails of water. A murderer could have washed, at least partially, before he left.

Walking slowly, I went round to the main street. As I passed the caupona heading homewards, a tall figure, plainly not a customer, hovered in the shadows outside the Valerian. I took no notice. There was no need for the usual caution. The sinister individual was neither a robber nor a marauding pimp. I recognised that bulky shape, and I knew what he was doing there. It was my friend Petronius, keeping a suspicious eye on me.

I called a mocking goodnight and kept going.

It failed. Petro's heavy footfall pounded after me. 'Not so fast!'

I had to stop.

Before I could start grumbling at him he got in first in a grim tone, 'Time's running out, Falco!'

'I'm dealing with the problem. What are you doing, wearing out the pavements on my tail?'

'I was looking at the caupona.' He had the tact not to ask what I had been up to there myself. We both glanced back. The usual dismal crowd were leaning on their elbows arguing about nothing, while Epimandos applied a taper to the tiny lamps that were hung above the counters at night. 'I wondered if anyone could have made a forced entry to the lodger's room from out here:'

I could tell from his tone he had decided that was unlikely. Looking up at the frontage of Flora's we could see that while the place was open, access would be impossible. Then once the shutters were drawn for the night there would be a blank face on the street side. Above the bar were two deeply recessed window openings, but it would take a ladder to reach them and then climbing in through such a small opening would be awkward. Censorinus would have heard anyone trying to do it well before they were on to him.

I shook my head. 'I think the killer went up the stairs.'

'And who was he?' demanded Petro.

'Don't nag me. I'm working on it.'

'You need to work fast then! Marponius has summoned me to a conference tomorrow about this stinking case, and I can tell you in advance, the conclusion will be that I have to haul you in.'

'I'll keep out of your way then,' I promised, as he growled and let me go.

Only when I had turned the corner did I remember meaning to ask him about the caupona's owner, the mystery rent-collector whom Epimandos told me had discovered the corpse.

I made it back to Mother's in a sombre mood. I seemed no further forward, though I now had some feeling for events the night the soldier died. How his death connected with Festus was a mystery. Censorinus had been killed by somebody who hated him. That depth of emotion had nothing to do with my brother; Festus had been friends with everyone.

Or had he been? Maybe somebody had a grudge against him that I wasn't aware of? And maybe that was what had brought disaster on a man who had been known as one of my brother's associates?

The ghastly scene in the room still hovered on the edge of my consciousness as I went indoors.

I was already hemmed in by problems, and when I entered the apartment I discovered another: Helena Justina was waiting for me, alone.

Mother was out-probably gone to see one of my sisters. She might stay the night. I had an idea things had been arranged that way. Our driver from Germany had already taken his pay, such as it was, and left us. Helena had lent her maid to her mother. Nobody on the Aventine has a maid.

So we were alone in the apartment. It was the first time we had been on our own like this for several weeks. The atmosphere was unconducive to romance.

Helena seemed very quiet. I hated that. It took a fair amount to upset her, but I frequently managed it. When she did feel hurt I lost her, and she was hurt now. I could tell what was coming. She had been thinking all day about what Allia had told her. Now she was ready to ask me about Marina.