Graveyard of the Hesperides

XII

Tiberius came and joined me with the basket of bones, which he shoved under the bench. I turned and kissed his cheek, merely a greeting. He leaned sideways a little, rubbing his head against mine briefly.

“So, how was the forensic examination?”

“Up to scratch for the vigiles.” He sounded depressed. “The Third Cohort claim to be poor overworked slaves who don’t have the time or capacity for ancient murders where the chief suspect has died anyway. One of their half-baked investigators took a peek, but only when I acted up.”

I would have liked to have seen that: Tiberius Manlius Faustus, magistrate and man with a conscience, explaining to a cohort who had never met him before why the demands of public order meant they should do what he wanted. “And?” I asked sympathetically.

“They are human bones, it seems.”

“We knew that.”

“Quite.” He sounded annoyed.

I told him about the waiters. Faustus immediately wanted to know what kind of salesmen had been in the bar. I realized I had not thought to ask, so I turned tetchy on him. Who likes to be shown up?

I had initially supposed they were passing trade, visitors on a spree who would now be impossible to track down. Strangers. Irrelevant. Merely indicative of how the Garden of the Hesperides operated when the bar was humming. But they were here that particular night and Rufia “looked after them.” Curses. They mattered.

“Albia, my love, it’s hardly a disaster.” I had chosen such a reasonable husband. Damn. Why could he not be a self-satisfied swine I could kick? “Ask the waiters later.”

Not so easy if that pair of conspiratorial swine had put their heads together on the way to the Four Limpets and agreed to keep quiet. “Of course I will, darling.”

Listen to me! I was a wife already.

I suggested that the next time one of us was going over to the Aventine we could take the basket then toddle along to the Fourth Cohort, our local, and consult Morellus. He was a truculent bastard too, but we worked with him. Faustus had given money to his wife while Morellus was on prolonged sick leave after being attacked on duty. Morellus owed him. Even so, Faustus was now too glum to cheer up.

I took his hand. He squeezed mine back automatically. But we relaxed. Late-morning sun beamed down on us, unfiltered by foliage or awnings; in due course we would have to move into a shadier position but until then we let lethargy seep into us.

We sat on our bench in silence, thinking. No, I do not mean canoodling. We were practical inquirers, simply reflecting on what we had learned, or not learned, and considering where, therefore, we could look next.

The courtyard hardly seemed like a murder scene; it was peaceful. Out here, you could barely hear the teeming Vicus Longus. Most people who used to have lunch or a drink here probably failed to notice how muffled the street hubbub was; they would have their own concerns, the society of their friends, their irritation at the serving faults of Nipius and Natalis …

We were so still and silent you might suppose no one was here.

Scuffling noises on the staircase made us glance at one another. Someone was coming down. “All quiet down there now; the interfering bitch must have scarpered.”

Tiberius lifted an eyebrow, amused. I flashed back a smile. We stopped holding hands but otherwise stayed motionless.

Into the garden came a couple of no-hope, high-trussed bust-band, barefoot sluts, sneakily creeping downstairs.

“Hello, girls!” I greeted them cheerily. They wondered whether to run for it. “Come on down, my dearies, don’t be shy.”

They came down. From the start, these Hesperides honeypots were not in the least shy.