Time To Depart

LVIII

`Me name's Igullius!'

He was a runt. I myself would never have let him nick my purse; I would not have let this ill-favoured, pathetic creature stand near enough to me to finger it. `His name's Igullius. Write it down, Martinus!' Martinus fetched out his note tablet and wrote it down. First, however, he courteously checked the spelling.

This pickpocket had a greasy face and oily hair. His breath was coming in short, frightened pants. It informed us that his breakfast had included hard-boiled eggs; his lunch was a garlic stew. The flavouring had been generous and was now pervading all the pores of his unhealthy skin.

Martinus and I stepped back. Igullius wondered if he dared make a run for it. We glared. He stayed put. Martinus explained like a kindly uncle that it was necessary for him to submit to a search.

Igullius was wearing a natural wool toga which Martinus lifted off him, using the tips of his fingers as if he thought he might catch plague. Somewhat to our surprise we found nothing in its folds. Igullius looked self-righteous. We surveyed what was left of him: battered boots and a rather wide-necked tunic, fastened tightly round his midriff by a nipped-in belt that was nearly bisecting him.

`Take off your belt,' I commanded.

`What for?'

`So I can thrash you with it, if you don't get a move on.' I sounded like a watch captain. Sometimes you have to lower yourself to obtain a result.

With a filthy look, Igullius hoicked in his rib-gripper and let the clincher off its notch. Purses tumbled from beneath his tunic with a melodious clink. One bounced on his kneecap, causing his leg to kick. `Ooh look, Falco, it's snowing denarii!'

`I'll see you,' the pickpocket replied defiantly as Martinus tweaked at the tunic in case there was more.

`I don't take.' The answer from Martinus came out sweetly and calmly. Igullius probably failed to realise this was the Forum Romanum district, whereas we were from the Aventine. The First Cohort ought to be in charge here, though typically none had been visible anywhere for the past hour. Martinus stooped, gathering the booty. `The game's up, Igullius. You're going to climb the tree; we'll crucify you.'

`I never did nothing.'

Martinus shook a couple of purses in his face. `We'll have to discuss that. Falco, let's take him to a private room somewhere.'

`Oh no!' Sheer terror now gripped our captive. `I'm not going in any cell with you!' Martinus had never intended taking him to the Fourth's patrol house; apart from the fact we did not want to involve Petronius, we were too far away. But the mere hint caused an extreme reaction. Somebody somewhere in the cohorts had a formidable reputation.

In fright Igullius made a sudden break. I grabbed- him and wrapped his arms around his back, holding him fast. Martinus was stuck with the flavoursome breath, but carried on bravely. `You stink and you steal. Give me one good reason to go easy on you, Igullius!'

The pickpocket had been in the streets long enough to know what was required. `Oh Jupiter! Well what have I got to do?'

'Co-operate. But you'll like it,' we told him. `We're going to give you the money to go with a prostitute!' We turned the pickpocket round, took an arm each, lifted him over a screever who was begging on the pavement with a piteous message, then marched him down the Sacred Way.

As we crossed the Via Nova into the shadow of the Palatine I noticed Tibullinus, the centurion of the Sixth. We had seen him at Ostia, and he had turned up when we were looking at the corpse of Nonnius. Tibullinus was too closely involved in events to let him notice us here. I gave Martinus the nod. Alert, he took the point. But Tibullinus was patrolling the Palatine in a style that seemed to suit him – laughing and joking with fellows he recognised. He did not see us..

We took our new acquaintance back to the Oily jug. This time we were more brisk with the woman. She had two choices – either to spend the next couple of days with a friend somewhere, or to pass them in a cell. Once again this threat worked miracles. She decided she had a sister who was longing to see her, and fled from our watching post.

Training Igullius was tiresome. We used the kind method, only thumping him when his eyes glazed. `That building over there is called the Bower of Venus -'

`That's Plato's.'

`Have you been there?'

`Of course.' He was possibly bluffing, but he wanted to appear a smart man about town.

`Well Plato's may be under new management, but we're not interested in the brothel itself. There's a phoenix in Rome. A person who is supposed to be banished has come home again.' Maybe Igullius knew. He was already pale. `His name is Balbinus Pius. Some of his men are hanging out in Plato's. Maybe he's there too. Maybe he's just hiring rooms for them. But if he visits his troops, we want to know. You see how it is, Igullius. You're going in, you're going to recognise a friend, or make a new one if you have to, but however you do it you're going to sit in a corner keeping quiet until you can come out and tell us a date and time when Balbinus will be available for interview.'

`Oh give me a chance, Falco! I'm dead if I try that.'

`You're dead if you don't,' smiled Martinus. He enjoyed playing the cruel executioner.

I took a hand again. `Now settle down, Igullius. We know you're not entirely bad, so we're giving you this fine job opportunity. You're going to be our undercover man. And to compensate your loss of earnings from your regular work, we'll find you a big ex gratia at the end of the day.'

`How about paying some in advance?'

`Don't be stupid,' said Martinus. `We're in the vigiles. We have to remember public accountability.'.

Igullius tried one last desperate wriggle. `That place is full of hard men. They'll spot a weed' in the garden straight away.'

`You've been there before, according to you. You'll have to make sure you blend 1n,' I said callously. `You're perfectly capable.

Anyone who can slide up and sneak purses even though he has breath that can be smelled at twenty paces can merge into a nest of mostly stupid criminals.'

We gave him the price of a whore to start him off convincingly, then pushed him on his way.

Success came fast. Igullius was back in a couple of hours, nipping across the street like a startled cat. Whatever he learnt had left him panic-stricken. He fell into the thermopolium, then threw himself behind the counter with his head in his hands.

`Oh you bastards! Don't make me go back again.'

`That depends,' sneered Martinus. `What have you got for us?'

`I've got what you asked for, and I'm not getting any more!'

I found him a drink to calm his hysteria. He gulped down the wine, which I knew was disgusting, as if he had just crawled out of a six-day sandstorm in an arid zone. `Control yourself. You're safe now. What was your girl like?'

`All right…' Easily sidetracked! Martinus and I leaned on the counter watching him. Crouching at our feet, he managed to slow his breath.

`I think he's there! I'm sure he is!'

`Not visible, presumably?' Martinus asked.

`I didn't see him. I mean, I didn't see anyone who looked that big a character.'

`Big? Don't believe it,' I snarled. `Balbinus is just a flea.'

Igullius continued, talking fast as if he wanted to get this over. `The place is, humming. I've never been in a barn with such a live atmosphere. 'I saw half a dozen faces, I mean serious faces. There's one big room – 'He shook, unable to spit it out. That sounded like the cavernous hall Petro and I had glimpsed. It had been full of small-timers then, but when I pressed the trembling Igullius for details he described a real thieves' kitchen with mobsters nesting openly.

I stared at Martinus. `Something's changed. It sounds as though Balbinus has taken over and made the place his own. Igullius, was there any mention of Lalage?' He shook his head. `Well if you've been there before, is the brothel business being run the same as usual?' This time he nodded.

While I was pondering, Martinus tried screwing more useful facts from our eavesdropper, though to little effect. I sat in silence. – We certainly could not send him straight back into Plato's this afternoon or it would arouse the suspicions of the girl on the door. Martinus decided that Igullius could be let off and dismissed. -

'I want my money then.'

Martinus was looking at me unhappily. I realised he lacked the authority to pay over the kind of reward we had promised, and he was even too straight to hand back the purses Igullius had stolen in the Forum (which is what I would have done, given this was a crisis). Instead, Martinus was forced to remove the back block from his note tablet and write out a chit. `Take this to the patrol house – tomorrow!' he said sternly. That would give him some grace before Petronius found out.

The pickpocket snatched the warrant, then found his feet and scurried off.

I continued thinking. It looked as if Lalage had lied to me – no surprise at all.

I did not believe she was running the crime empire from Plato's herself. Lalage was not so stupid as to do that openly.

They were still working for the old regime. After all Lalage's claims about seizing her independence, it was hard to accept that she had caved in and allowed Balbinus Pius to take over her premises. That he might even be hiding up there seemed incredible.

She would not do it. Either he had removed her – in which case I doubted that the brothel would be running as smoothly as usual – or Lalage had some ploy in hand. That boded ill for Balbinus. But it might help us.

As Martinus and I continued our vigil we abandoned casual chat – and draughts. That suited me. It also stopped his overblown raving about men who played board games being suitable to pit their wits against major criminals. Removing Balbinus from Rome called for a sudden rush with a sharp weapon, not cerebral guile.

It already felt like a long day and I reckoned we were heading for a big night exercise. We found some stale bread to gnaw on. We had a drink. Indigestion set in cruelly.

Towards the evening we started feeling tense. Something was going on. Men, singly or in twos or threes, walked up to the brothel. They appeared in the street as quietly as bats. Making

their way inside, they might have been bound for a party with their workplace dining club. If so, they were dressed less smartly than most colleages going out for a bash. Also, they were being asked to pay a hefty ticket price: `That's boodle, or I'm a baby!' Martinus had identified our first definite sack of swag – a bedcover knotted at the corners, from within which came the charming chink of stolen silverware.

We both knew what we were watching. I had discussed this when I first tried to involve the deputy, and now as the early dusk fell I was being proved right. The starlings were roosting. All the day shifts were closing and their operators were reporting in with their take. Cashing up: making their way here with their takings from all the corners of the Aventine, the waterfront and the Forum. The snatchers and grabbers, the confidence tricksters and bluffers, the strangling muggers, the dirty alley girls with thugs for minders, the robbers of drunks and schoolchildren, the mobs who held up ladies' litters, the thieves who beat up slaves. It was mainly money that was pouring in. Saleable goods would be passed to receiving shops or metal furnaces. I had to slip out to a stationer's to buy more wax tablets as Martinus had run out of space to note down all the criminals he knew. There were many more we could not identify – or not yet. Most of them left again shortly after arrival, clearly lighter of baggage.

We had to decide what to do. `Balbinus could have an accountant working at, Plato's. A sidekick who just keeps the ledgers and pays off the workmen.'

`What would you do, Martinus, if your most trusted collector had been Nonnius Albius, and he put you away?'

`I'd do the reckoning myself after that.'

`I bet he agrees! If so, then he's in there.'

`He's in there, Falco. Now he is. But if I was him, I'd move about.'

`So you're saying let's nab him before he hops?'

`Don't you agree?'

Of course I agreed – but I wanted to go in there in strength. In particular I wanted Petronius among us. It was partly old loyalty. But more than that, if I was going into Plato's knowing it was full of evil men and hoping to find the worst of all calmly sitting there with a glass in his hand and an abacus, then I wanted someone at my back I could trust.

`So is it a jump?' Martinus demanded impatiently. From his tone it was clear that if I declined tonight, he would not continue to work with me. I could live without his draughts game, but not with whatever chaos he might wreak if he started working on his own.

`It's a jump if Rubella will give us some backup.'

Even Martinus, with his high opinion of his own quality, could not consider a raid at Plato's with just the two of us. He went off to consult his tribune. I had to stay on watch. Things were so lively we no longer dared to leave together in case we missed something.

I sat there for some time. I had taken one of the spare noteblocks, and was drawing a map of the brothel based on what I remembered from my two visits. One thing I knew was that the place was very large. It occupied at least three storeys, each with numerous corridors. It had probably grown from a single house, taking in those either side as success enabled expansion. Although there was one main door, we had noticed that some of the gangsters knocked and were admitted to a more innocent-looking hole in the wall: they had a family entrance for criminals. In the other direction was a similar house door, much less used. Women occasionally slipped in and out. Once one emerged with two small children: it must be the prostitutes' private exit. Not many had freedom to come and go. I wondered where that would place them in a fracas with the law.

Sometimes the prostitutes received their own visitors. All were women. I made up some pretty reasons for these intriguing social calls. Some involved special entertainers who lived elsewhere but were hired in. Some involved the sort of tales adolescents tell each other about high-class ladies working in brothels for highspending favoured clients. Some of my theories were purely daft. Then two women called whose behaviour convinced me I knew what sometimes happened behind that private door.

They had come in a litter. It waited for them at the corner. They climbed out slowly, looking up and down the narrow street. Their skirts were long and full, their heads muffled in quite heavy cloaks. After a brief hesitation they straightened up and marched arm in arm to the mysterious door. Well-heeled sandals clipped the pavement. One of them rapped, so loudly I could hear it. Soon there was a furtive conversation with an inmate and the two women went inside.

Of course I knew what I was witnessing. A girl with money had got into trouble with a lover. Taking a friend for support, she had come to the brothel in order to end her problem with the aid of the abortionist. The Bower of Venus was bound to possess one.

I could have lived with that. Desperate people are entitled to risk their lives if it seems less harsh than the alternative.

What made me sick was that despite their caution I recognised those women. One was short and sturdy with a self-confident walk; one taller and straight-backed. The first was my sister Maia. And the other was Helena.