The Silver Pigs

XXXV

"Now you think it's me."

"What?"

You spend months stalking a problem that constantly escapes. Then cover more ground in half a second than your brain can comprehend.

This was why Decimus had spoken of Pertinax in such a reluctant tone: Pertinax was his misery of a son-in-law. Atius Pertinax! Now I knew. I knew how the silver pigs were carried to Italy, by whom, and how concealed: under a cargo so dull the customs force at Ostia who operate the luxury tax and have perfect artistic taste glanced once inside the hold, groaned at the ghastly shale, then never stooped to search his boat. Poor Helena had innocently tried to arrange our passage on a ship weighed down to the gunnels with silver pigs!

More. At the start of all this Atius Pertinax, as aedile in the Capena Gate Sector, would have been the snoop in the praetor's office who heard where his praetor's friend Decimus had hidden the lost ingot in the Forum probably he arranged to have Sosia Camillina snatched from home. After I spoiled that, he nosed out that she was with me, told her father, then used Publius as an excuse to arrest me for stalking in too close. All this in high panic, because the ingot lost in the street might have pointed to him.

Helena was his wife.

"Your first thought," she insisted, "will be that this implicates me."

She was not his wife now.

"You're too straight." My second thought always the best.

She goaded me on.

"Now can your dull brain tease it out? The two names Triferus gave to Uncle Gaius must be my husband Pertinax, and Domitian, Vespasian's son."

"Yes," I said. I felt about as useless as she always implied. It must be because Pertinax had been her husband that Gaius had refused to tell us whose names they were.

There was a long pause. Somewhat stiffly I asked, Tell me, lady, how long ago did you work this out?"

For a moment she remained silent. "When the captain of my husband's ship refused to carry us. Gnaeus and I had parted kindly. It was such a spiteful act." So she still called him Gnaeus!

The captain of your ex-husband's ship must have felt quite dismayed when you asked! How close," I demanded as another aspect struck me, "is your ex-husband to your Uncle Publius?"

"Uncle Publius cannot know about this."

"Sure?"

"Not possibly!"

"Any views on Vespasian?"

"Uncle Publius supports him of course. He's a businessman; he wants stability. Vespasian stands for a well-run state: high taxation also high profits in trade."

"Your uncle provides wonderful camouflage for Pertinax in more than one way."

"Oh Juno, my poor uncle!"

"Is he? Tell me, what line did Publius take in the discussion about Domitian Caesar that made you quarrel with Pertinax?"

"None. He wasn't there. He only came to our house for family events. Stop hounding my uncle!"

"I have to."

"Falco! Why? For heaven's sake, Falco, he's Sosia's papa!"

That's why. It would be too easy for me to ignore him"

"Didius Falco, your one certainty must be that none of her relations her father least of all can be part of anything that let that child be harmed!"

"What about your own father?"

"Oh really, Falco!"

"Pertinax was his son-in-law; a close tie."

"My father seriously disliked him after I was divorced." It fitted what I had seen. Decimus had been clearly annoyed when I mentioned Pertinax.

I asked her who was party to the Domitian conversation. She listed some names that meant nothing to me.

"You know anything about an alley called Nap Lane?" I sprang the question at her; she looked at me, wide-eyed, as I pressed on. "Sosia Camillina died in a warehouse there. Belongs to an old patrician stick, fading from the world on his country estate – a man called Caprenius Marcellus"

"I know him slightly," Helena interrupted in a steady voice. I have been in his warehouse; Sosia came with me. A dried out, painfully dying old stick who had no son. He adopted an heir. Common enough. A presentable young man with no hopes of his own, who was pleased to be welcomed by Marcellus into his noble house, honour his resplendent ancestors, promise to bury him with devoted respect and in return supervise the substantial Marcellus estates. The Censor's office would have told you if you bothered to ask. My husband's my ex-husband's full legal name is Gnaeus Atius Pertinax Caprenius Marcellus."

"Believe me," I commented blackly, "your ex-husband has several other filthy names!"

It seemed most comfortable not to talk for a while.

"Falco, I suppose you searched the warehouse?"

"You may suppose we did."

"Empty?"

"By the time we searched."

More frogs plopped. Some of them croaked. Some fish plopped. I threw a stone into the little pond and that plopped. Clearing my throat, I croaked.

"It seems to me," the senator's daughter dictated, sounding like her British aunt, "boors in a praetor's office and brats at the Palace cannot organize world events."

"Oh no, a real manager runs this monkey troupe!"

"I don't believe," she said, in a much smaller voice, "Atius Pertinax is capable of murder."

"If you say so."

"I do say so! Be cynical if you must. Perhaps people never really know anybody else. Yet we must try. In your work you must trust your own judgement"

"I trust yours," I admitted simply, since the compliment was true.

"Yet you don't trust me!"

My ribs were causing me severe distress, and my leg hurt.

"I do need your opinion," I said. "I do value it. For her sake Sosia's sake there can be no luxuries in this case. No loyalty, no trust then with any luck, no errors."

I limped to my feet, distancing myself as I spoke that name. It was a long time since I had thought of Sosia so directly; the memory was still unbearable. If I was going to think about Sosia Camillina, I wanted to be alone.

I walked over to the fishpond, huddled in my cloak. Helena remained on the bench. She must have spoken to no more than a grey shape, whose cloak flapped occasionally in the night wind rising off the sea. I heard her call out quietly.

"Before I face my people it would be helpful to know how my cousin died."

Gaius, who must have broken the news to her, would suppress details if he could. Since I respected her, I told her the bare facts.

"Where were you?" Helena asked in a low voice.

"Unconscious in a laundry."

"Was that connected?"

"No."

"Were you her lover?" she managed to force out. Silence. "Answer me! I'm paying you, Falco!"

Only because I knew her stubbornness, did I eventually answer. "No."

"Did you want to be?"

I remained silent long enough for that to be an answer in itself.

"You had the chance! I know you did… Why not then?"

"Class," I stated. "Age. Experience." After a moment I added, "Stupidity!"

Then she asked me about morals. It seemed to me my morality was self-evident. It was none of her business, but in the end I told her a man should not abuse the eagerness of a young girl who has seen what she wants, and owns the instincts to obtain it, but lacks courage to cope with the inevitable grief afterwards.

"Had she lived, someone else would have brought Sosia disillusion. I did not want it to be me."

The night wind was rising, tugging at my cloak. My heart felt very grey. I needed to stop this.

"I'm going in." I had no intention of leaving my client alone in the dark; by now if there was any justice she knew that. Raucous revelry intruded from the mansio. She was uneasy in public places, and Massilia during drinking time is no place for a lady. No place for anyone; I was starting to feel unhappy out here in the open myself.

I waited, not impatiently.

"Better see you up."

I took her to the door of her room, as I had always done before. Probably she never knew how many offensive types I warned away during our trip. One night in a place where locks had yet to be invented and the clientele were particularly vile, I had slept across her threshold with my knife. Since I never told her, she had no chance to be grateful. I preferred it that way. It was my job. This, even though she was too awkward to have spelled out the contract, was what the precious little lady was paying me for.

She grieved more closely for Sosia then I realized. When, in the shadowed corridor, I turned to say goodnight and finally looked at her, I could see that although in the garden I heard nothing, she had wept.

While I stood, helpless at this unlikely spectacle, she remarked in her usual way, Thank you, Falco."

I assumed my own normal face, a shade too humble to be true. Helena Justina ignored that, as she always did. Just before she turned away she murmured, "Happy birthday!"

Then because it was my birthday she kissed me on the cheek.