A Body In The Bath House

XLIII

pounds A vf" aybe this clerk got his nights mixed up," Aelianus suggested. 1VJ-Whatever draught the medical orderly supplied had perked him up enough to take an interest.

I disagreed. "Be practical. You don't confuse yourself over yesterday, especially when being in the wrong place could make you the killer."

"Might he have been a bit fuddled? Does Gaius drink a lot?"

"Doubt it. I've seen him pour away half a cup of mulsu m just because a fly looked in the cup."

We were in my suite, the invalid sprawled on a padded couch. Aelianus had created a crude sketch of the new palace on which to mark witness positions in red ink, together with a box (headed by a lopsided graffiti wine cup where he listed those who claimed they went to town last night.

"They are all involved," I raved. "So tell me your results, Aulus. Can we prove anything?"

"Not yet. Some seedy character called Falco has failed to report in."

"Novio," I muttered. "Vouched for by your dear brother, plus a retainer of the King's. Come to that, you know perfectly well I refused dinner and trotted off on a pony… Is there any of your medicine left?" My tooth was on fire.

"No, Larius swigged it." Larius was now flaked out in a wicker chair that Helena normally used, white in the gills and semiconscious. "Exhausted by his wild life," Aelianus opined piously. "Or poisoned off."

My elder daughter Julia was using her little wheeled cart to play chariots around Larius, with him as a circus spina. The baby slept, for once, in her two-handled travelling basket. There were faint indications that Favonia's loincloth needed changing, but I was managing not to notice. Fathers learn to live with guilt.

"So what do we have, Aulus?"

"These tablets are a joke. Believe them, and the site was deserted

and nobody could have done it. It's amazing the corpse was ever discovered. Most of the project team claim they were in town."

"Gaius?"

"Yes, he says he was in town."

"With any of the others?"

"Not specific. He's put down Magnus as a witness."

"What did Magnus write?"

"In Novio too. Gaius is supposed to vouch for him."

That's wrong. Magnus just told me he was in his quarters."

"Must have forgotten his official excuse under the stress of your questioning!"

"Don't be rude," I rebuked him mildly. "So, was anybody left here?"

"The two junior architects, vouching for each other."

"Strephon and Plancus heart-searching, swigging and snoring. I am inclined to believe them. It's too touching to be a bluff."

"Also the clerk of works."

"Cyprianus, mooching round the site on his own, hoping to forestall trouble then heading for the baths and an unpleasant discovery. I think I trust him. He has family on site; if he was building a false alibi, he would make them say he was at home."

Aelianus dipped his pen and marked a blob at the baths for Cyprianus. "Isn't the person who claims to find a corpse sometimes the obvious suspect?"

"Rightly so, half the time." I considered the man's demeanour when he came to find me. "Cyprianus was in shock when he rushed here with the news. He seemed genuine. He was sickened by the gouged eye. It looked like genuine surprise."

"Still, it could be a ruse," Aelianus replied. He had second thoughts: "But if he had been the killer, would he have run out naked?"

"I see why you ask." Inactivity was doing Aelianus good. A bandage on his leg seemed to improve his brain. He surprised me with his logic, in fact. "The killer stayed calm. He cleaned and replaced one of the weapons in Magnus' satchel…"

We both paused.

"He took it out; he put it back. Curious," I said.

Aelianus mimed the actions. "The instrument satchel must have stayed on the clothes peg throughout the killing…"

'… So where was Magnus?"

He could be the killer. Then there were two possibilities that left him innocent. "Either he was in the tepidarium taking a slow cold plunge and oiling up- or he was fooling about with Gaius."

"Likely?"

"Neither seems the type."

"How can you tell?" asked Aelianus. "I've known people who poked anything handy, whatever the sex." It was Roman tradition, especially in high places. But it raised interesting questions about some of his own friends.

Reluctantly, I tackled the other possibility: "Why ever Magnus went to the baths, he could still have been one of the killers." I screwed up my face, still resisting the thought. "I caught him out when I showed him the string this morning. He owned up to it openly. But if he had knoum it was used to strangle Pomponius, he would at least have played down his ownership."

"Let's face it, Falco Magnus would have known better than to leave something that could be identified as his property on the body."

"Too disgusted to remove it?" I argued.

"No, no!" Aelianus had really entered into the spirit and his response was fierce. "If you hate someone enough to strangle them, and to gouge their eye out, you can remove the evidence."

"Agreed." I reflected. "It's interesting that whoever did it thought that the compasses should be replaced- but apparently they thought the string was just anonymous twine. Were they trying to implicate Magnus, or had they just never seen- or never noticed a five-four three being used to make a right angle? That means it was not a surveyor, and most likely not the clerk of works."

Aelianus shrugged. This was my theory. He would not argue, but he would not become excited by it either.

"If there was more than one man involved," I suggested, 'it could reflect different personalities. One removed the compasses, the other simply did not bother about the twine."

"Neat and Slapdash?"

"Even if they were Neat and Tidy the killer, or killers, could have been interrupted. Maia arrived at the baths," I pointed out. My sister was tough, but I tried not to dwell on her near encounter with the killers. "Cyprianus too, if we accept he was an innocent participant."

"It just won't work," Aelianus rebuked me, typically frank. "Maia Favonia never ventured further than the changing room. And we can discount even Cyprianus. You know bath houses have dead acoustics. Nobody in the final caldarium would have heard anyone outside until that person was on top of them. Then it was too late to escape."

"So," I began, pursuing a new line, 'do we reckon the killer or killers went to the baths on purpose, did their deed and quickly tied?"

"It they went there especially, Falco, how could they be certain that Pomponius was all alone and that nobody would interrupt?"

"They kept the baths under observation until it was safe to strike."

"It's rather horrible," mouthed Aelianus. "Pomponius is inside lazing with his stngil set…" He tailed off for a moment. "Well, that's clear premeditation anyway."

"No doubt a good barrister, untroubled by conscience, would argue them out of that…" I thought little of lawyers.

"But Falco! He was cornered like vermin. Once you get in the bowels of a bath house, you're trapped."

"Don't dwell on it, Aulus. Or next time you're slaking off the grime with your lavender oil, you might get jumpy."

Aelianus whistled through his teeth.

After a moment he perked up and decided, "So we think it's a conspiracy by the entire project team."

He and I had been so absorbed we had forgotten our companions. At that, there was an upheaval from the wicker chair. Larius bestirred himself, wriggled himself upright and let out an extraordinary belch. Aelianus and I looked pained. Julia Junilla sat down on a rug with her fat legs in front of her and tried to copy the disgusting noise.

"Myths!" exclaimed Larius. "You two mad buggers are indulging fantasies. Why say it's the damned project team?"

I raised an eyebrow. "You're defending them?"

"They are a bunch of wet-arsed, boneless sea anemones," Larius growled. "Jelly throughout. Not one of them could fight his way out of a cushion-case. The whole team together couldn't work out a plan to open a latrine door even if they all had the squits."

"You give us a fine assessment of these noble men," Aelianus congratulated him sarcastically.

"Let's have your assessment then, Larius."

"Uncle Marcus, the place is swarming with angry parties who all hated Pomponius for much better reasons than any of your suspects. The worse the project team had against him was that he was overbearing and horrible."

"I concede that if being unpleasant were enough to get a man slain at the baths, Rome would be an empty city."

"Try these," Larius listed. "The rnarblers. Who needs bloody marble veneers anyway?" he complained professionally. "I can paint better veining, without any expensive breakages… They had some ruse, which has been stopped."

"The over-cutting scam. Milchato was told to prevent it," I said.

Larius pulled a face. "No, it was something much more lucrative, not just the old coarse-sand trick. Don't ask me what. I don't gossip with marble-men."

"Standards!" scoffed Aelianus.

"Get stuffed." Larius grinned. "Next, how about Lupus or Mandumerus?"

"Both?" I was surprised.

"Of course."

"Mandumerus had a fake labour fiddle. I exposed that."

"So Falco is next for strangling with the tight necklace?" asked Aelianus, rather too keenly.

"Oh he has you and your brother to look after him!" Larius laughed. "Anyway, it's known all over the site that Pomponius wanted to crucify Mandumerus but Falco vetoed it. So Mandumerus still doesn't like him, but he knows my dear uncle has a sensitive side."

"Tell me more about the Mandumerus racket," I said. "And why you include Lupus."

"Mandumerus has been working this trick with the false numbers for decades. He probably cannot even remember how to operate honestly. Lupus has his own scheme."

"What? I've gone through the labour records with the fine side of my comb, Larius, and found nothing suspicious."

"You wouldn't. The overseas labour has to be paid for by the Treasury. They pay Lupus; Lupus provides the men. But what Lupus does is sell the jobs to the highest bidder."

"How does it work?"

"To be employed in the overseas gangs, men have to bribe Lupus. Once they come out here, full of hope, it's a long way home if they don't get taken on. So he sets his own terms. Mostly they give him a cut of their pay. Some manage to produce wives or sisters whom they pimp to him. He's not fussy. He'll take payment in kind."

"Beats three sacks of barley and a basket of garlic," I sighed.

"The Treasury is getting what they pay for. Does it matter?" Aelianus asked.

"It does to an emperor who wants a reign famous for fairness," I explained.

"That's a bit idealistic!"

Larius and I, both plebeians, stared at Aelianus until he moved uneasily against the arm rest of his couch.

"That you think so is no surprise," I told him coldly. "I would have hoped a man of your intelligence would know better than to say it."

Helena's brother shifted again. "I thought you were a cynic, Falco."

I clasped my hands over my belt. "Oh no. I'm constantly expecting good in the world, believe me!"