A dying light in Corduba

XLIV

I walked back to the quays, needing to rid my mind of other men enjoying a long convivial lunch – which they called doing business. I hated my work. I was tired of working alone, unable to trust even the people who had commissioned me. This was a worse case than usual. I was sick of being a plaything in the pointless bureaucratic feud between Laeta and Anacrites.

If Helena had been here, she would have made me feel ludicrous by appearing to sympathise – then suggesting that what I wanted was a new job as a cut-out-fringe sewer in the suede-purse market, with a stall on the Via Ostiana. Just thinking about it made me grin. I needed her.

I found myself staring at the shipping. More boats than I would have expected had plied their way through the straits of Hercules and into the broad gulf at the start of the Atlantic Ocean, past Gades, past the lighthouse at Turris Caepionis, and up the wide estuary of the Baetis to reach Hispalis. Huge merchantmen from all around the Inner Sea were here, and even deep-sea ships that ventured around the outer edge of Lusitania to make landfall in North Gaul and Britain by the hard route. They lined the wharves; they jostled in the channel. Some were anchored out in the river, for lack of space on the quays. There was a queueing system for the barges that came down from Corduba. And this was April, not even the olive harvesting season.

It wasn't April. May had arrived. Some time this month, unavoidably, Helena would produce our child. While I stood here dreaming she might even be having it…

Now I had Selia's address. Even so, I was in no hurry to go chasing there. I was thinking about this just as carefully as a man who finally made a successful move on a girl who had been playing hard to get – and with the same mixture of excitement and nerves. I would be lucky if the worst that happened was acquiring a slapped face.

Before I could tackle the dancer, I had to prepare myself. Brace myself. She was a woman; I could handle her. Well, I was a man so I assumed I could; plenty of us have been caught out like that. She might even be on my side – if I had a side. The evidence in Rome said Selia was a killer. It might be wrong. She might work for Anacrites. If she did, someone else must have attacked Valentinus and him – unless the Chief Spy was even more behind with approving expenses for his agents than usual. That would be typical, though not many of his deadbeats responded by trying to crack his skull.

If Selia was in the clear I still had to identify the real killer. That was a very big unknown.

Whatever the truth – and being realistic, I thought she was the killer – this woman knew I had come to Baetica; she would be waiting for me. I even considered approaching the local watch and asking for an escort, an option I rejected out of sheer Roman prejudice. I would rather go alone. But I had no intention of just strolling up to her door and asking for a drink of water like an innocent passer-by. One wrong move and the dangerous lady might kill me.

I must have been looking grim. For once the Fates decided that I was so pessimistic I might give up this job altogether and deprive them of a lot of fun. So for the first time ever they decided to offer me a helping hand.

The hand was ink-stained and nail-bitten, attached to a weedy arm which protruded from a shrunken long-sleeved tunic with extremely ragged cuffs. The arm hung from a shoulder over which was slung a worn satchel; its flap was folded back for easy access and I could see note-tablets inside. The shoulder served as a bony hanger for the rest of the tunic, which came down below the knees of a short, sad-dooking man with pouchy eyes and uncombed hair. Every dry old thong of his sandals had curled back on itself at the edges. He had the air of being much rebuffed and cursed. He was clearly ill-paid. I deduced, even before he confirmed the tragedy, that he worked for the government.

'Is your name Falco?' I shook the inky hand cautiously as a sign that it might be. I wondered how he knew. 'I'm Gnaeus Drusillus Placidus.'

'Pleased to meet you,' I said. I wasn't. I had been halfenjoying myself remembering Selia as I prepared myself to visit her house. The interruption hurt.

'I thought you would be coming downriver to speak to me.'

'You knew I was here?' I ventured cautiously.

'The quaestor's clerk told me to look out for you.' The old black slave from Hadrumetum; the one who had lost the correspondence with Anacrites – or had it lifted from him.

'He didn't tell me about you!'

The man looked surprised. 'Pm the procurator,' he cried importantly. 'I supervise the port taxes and export tax.' My enthusiasm still failed to match his. In desperation he lowered his voice and hissed, 'It was me who started this!'

I nearly let myself down completely by asking 'Started what?' But his urgency and the way he looked over his shoulder for eavesdroppers explained everything.

'It was you!' I murmured discreetly, but with the note of applause the man deserved. 'You were the sharp-eyed fellow who first wrote to Anacrites, sounding the alarm!'