Ode to a Banker

XXXVI

The Janus Medius is an open-ended passageway at the end of the Porticus Aemilius. This was where Anacrites had told me he would meet up with the freedman if he needed to discuss business. It was just my luck that of the two of them the first person I recognised was not Lucrio but Anacrites himself.

'Don't you own an office to plot in?' I demanded, as mildly as possible. 'You seem to be everywhere I go these days.'

'Falco!' If he called me Marcus, I think I would have throttled him. Trust him to avoid retribution. It was one of his annoying characteristics. 'I'm glad to see you.'

'It's not mutual.'

'Listen.' He was looking worried. Good. 'There are bad rumours being whispered about the Aurelian Bank '

'What rumours?' I asked, intrigued against my will. 'Has the Golden Horse got the staggers suddenly?'

'Stirred up by your enquiries, I gather. You and Camillus have been questioning clients; people are losing confidence. Because of the work you and I did, you do have a reputation.'

'The Census? Our fame as tax terriers was never that extensive!'

Anacrites ignored my derision. 'People think you have been brought in as a specialist because the death of Chrysippus must have been related to problems with his bank.'

'Well, you can tell them I'm just sniffing for bloodstains!' I snapped.

All the same, I started looking around more keenly. The Janus Medius contained small groups of men who probably seemed more furtive than they were. Some had a foreign tinge. Most looked like gangs your mother would warn you not to play with. A couple were flanked by large ugly slaves, probably bodyguards. All could have found more congenial places to discuss the news – places where you could bathe, read, exercise, be massaged or eat fried pastries at the same time as you were gossiping. By gathering in this dead-end passage, they were consciously setting themselves aside in a private clique.

I had the distinct impression many were watching us. I felt they knew why I was there.

You can get like that on a case.

'I just want to know what's what,' Anacrites badgered me. 'I was looking for Lucrio, but he's gone to ground. Even if I corner him, he'll only pretend everything is fine – I have a large amount on deposit, Falco. Ought I to be moving it?'

'I have no information that your bank is in any trouble, Anacrites.'

'So you are telling me to shift my cash!' Why did he bother asking me if he was not prepared to listen? The man had taken a huge bang on the head in the past, and in his concern for his money he was growing hysterical. Never having had much cash myself, financial panic failed to grip me.

'Do what you think best, Anacrites.'

He cast a last desperate glance around and rushed off, intent on hasty action of some kind. Everyone knew who Anacrites was. At this rate, his agitation would itself start a run on the Aurelian Bank. For a wild moment, I speculated that I, by simply asking a few crass questions, might yet start an Empire-wide financial crash.

Anacrites had hardly vanished when I spotted the freedman, engaged in a hot discussion only a few yards away. He saw me, and managed to extract himself. The other party left, looking unhappy. I thought he threw back a glance at me, almost like a man seething at the source of his trouble. (I had seen enough of those to recognise the look and check that I had my dagger safely down my boot.) Lucrio recovered his composure immediately. Was that a result of regular practice?

'Didius Falco.' Unless my imagination was under too much strain, he was edging me gently to a spot where nobody could overhear us.

'Lucrio. I am afraid I bring sad news. Tell me, does a loan-contract end when one of your debtors dies?'

'No chance. We claim on the estate.'

'Why am I not surprised?'

'Which of our clients is dead?' he asked making it seem like mere curiosity.

'Poor Avienus, the historian.'

'Zeus! He was only young. What happened to him?' Wide-eyed and startled – apparently – the freedman stared at me.

'Suicide.'

'Ah!' At once Lucrio stopped asking questions. I bet this was not the first harassed defaulter who had taken that desperate escape route.

'Don't blame yourself,' I said, two-faced as a businessman myself. (It was surely not coincidence that the bankers liked to congregate in a place named for Janus?) 'Apparently, he had secured that loan of his on his old mother's house. She will be distraught to lose both her son and her home – but I dare say it is out of the question for the bank to forget his debt?'

Then Lucrio surprised me. 'The contract was already torn up, Falco.'

'Kind-heartedness? Is there profit in that attitude?' I scoffed.

'No – but Avienus had cleared the debt.'

I was shocked. I could not believe it. I remembered what Lucrio had told me previously. If Avienus had paid up, he must have found the money through another loan. So when that fell due, his widowed mother would just be pursued by some new lender. 'Do you know who remortgaged him?'

'He maintained,' Lucrio said thoughtfully, 'that there was no covering loan. He just produced the cash. We don't quibble over that! He must have had a windfall, mustn't he?'

'Did you,' I asked, 'have a succinct personal word with him, before he paid?'

'Regularly.' Lucrio knew I was suggesting he had used threats. 'Very quiet and calm. Thoroughly professional. I hope, Falco, you are not slandering my business methods by implying harsh tactics?'

'You don't employ enforcers?'

'Not allowed,' he assured me smoothly. 'Legally in Rome, to ask a third party to collect debts, counts as passing on the loan to them. We keep ours in the family. Besides, our preference is only to deal with those we know, and know we can trust to pay.'

'Yet Avienus had great difficulty with his debt.'

'A temporary embarrassment. He did pay. That proves my point. He was a highly-valued member of our circle,' said the freedman unblushingly. 'We are very sad to lose him from among our customers.'

That settled it for me. I was now convinced this lying deviant sent Avienus to his death.

I went and saw Nothokleptes. He was at his barber's again. I was starting to think he slept there in the chair overnight. It would save paying rent. He would like that.

The barber had two customers waiting, so in the traditional manner of his trade he was slowing down. Nothokleptes drew me aside and let another man take the chair.

'Have you heard,' I asked quietly, 'that a client of the Aurelian Bank committed suicide rather strangely on the Probus Bridge?'

'Word was going around the Forum first thing this morning.' Nothokleptes smiled in a sad Egyptian way. 'Suicide, was it? Very ancient traditions apply in Greek banking, Falco.'

'Apparently! You warned me about Lucrio. I had the impression you regard him as dangerous – so would he ever use enforcers?'

'Of course he does.' For once Nothokleptes actually signalled his barber to back away and leave us to talk in private.

'He pretended it's virtually illegal.'

'It virtually is.' Nothokleptes was so calm about it, I wondered if he used enforcers himself. I did not ask.

'Right! I meant, really violent ones.'

'He would call them "firm", Falco.'

'So firm they would be prepared to make ghastly examples of defaulting clients?'

'Oh, no banker ever hurts defaulting clients,' Nothokleptes reproved me. 'He wants them to come back and pay.'

I persuaded him to talk to me more generally about how bankers – or at least Greek bankers – worked. Nothokleptes painted a picture of Athenian secrecy, often involving tax avoidance, the hidden economy, and the disguising of their real wealth by the elite. As he saw it – in his self-righteous Egyptian way – his rivals had notoriously tight-knit networking relationships with clients who were treated almost as family members. Much of what he knew had come to light as a result of court cases involving fraud – significant in itself.

'Of course the biggest scandal ever was the Opisthodomos fire – the Treasurers of Athene had a clandestine arrangement where they illegally loaned sacred funds to bankers. They were planning to use the "borrowed" cash to make huge profits. They failed to realise the expected yield, could not replace the capital, and to hide the fraud, the Opisthodomos – where the money was supposed to be secured untouched – was burnt. The priests were jailed for that.'

'And the bankers?'

Nothokleptes shrugged and grinned.

'But I suppose the bankers could not entirely be blamed, Nothokleptes. The priests chose to steal the funds and to use banking confidentiality to hide their own misappropriation of the sacred treasure.'

'Right, Falco. And the poor bankers were innocents, misled by their awe for their religious clients.'

I laughed. 'And has the Aurelian ever made mistakes?'

'It would be slander to say so!'

'Would you say then,' I asked, 'that the Aurelian is straight?'

Nothokleptes hardly paused. 'It once had a rough reputation – Lysa and Chrysippus started out here as ropy old loan sharks, in essence. There has been talk. Lucrio is generally considered hard but straight.'

'How hard?'

'Too hard. But if Lucrio is behind this death at the Probus Bridge, if he actually wants it made public that he has rough-handled a client, then he has stepped well outside normal practice. His reason must be special too.' Nothokleptes was leading me somewhere.

'What does that cryptic pronouncement mean?'

'There is a curious whisper that the "suicide" had made threats against the bank.'

'What threats?'

That was all Nothokleptes would say. Possibly, it was all he knew. He could not say which enforcers the Aurelian Bank patronised – apparently there were debt-collecting specialists aplenty – but he thought he could find out for me. He promised to send word as soon as possible, then he scuttled back to the barber's chair.

I had a sour taste as I walked back across the Forum. I went to the baths, as I was in the area. At the gym, Glaucus commented that I was taking him through a training exercise as though I wanted to break somebody's neck. He hoped it was not his. When I said no, it was a banker's, he lowered his voice and asked me if I could confirm that one of the big deposit-takers was about to liquidate. Glaucus had heard from his customers that people in the know were withdrawing their deposits and burying their money in the corners of fields.

I said that would help thieves, wouldn't it? And did he know which fields?

He had genuine anxiety. After I limped out, I decided on an early lunch, at home. I skirted the Palatine, keeping on the flat as much as possible; Glaucus knew how to punish me for cheek. I staggered round the end of the Circus, and then walked slowly up the slope of the Clivus Publicius.

It was weeks since I had been at the Chrysippus house. I liked to keep an eye on scenes of unsolved deaths. And it was still rather early to reappear at Fountain Court, so on an impulse I went into the house. As usual, a slave on the door merely nodded when he saw me enter. He probably knew me and knew that I was being allowed to borrow the Latin library. Still, I had come without an appointment and once indoors, I could have wandered anywhere.

Without a clear idea of what I wanted, I walked through the little lobby and into the library I had used as an interview room. For a moment I stood soaking in the atmosphere. Then, hearing a slight noise, I crossed to the room-divider, which had now been pulled across, dragged open a peeking-in space and surveyed the Greek section. I was amazed to see Passus. I had thought all the vigiles had been pulled from this case. (Was Petronius wanting somebody to spy on me?)

Passus was seated at a table, intently reading. My empty stomach must have let out a gurgle, because he looked up and flushed rather guiltily.

'Passus!'

'You made me jump, Falco. The chief just reminded me I was supposed to catalogue these scrolls for you.'

Great gods, I had forgotten all about that. 'Thanks. Found anything? You looked totally absorbed.'

He grinned shyly. 'I must admit I started reading one and found it interesting.'

'What is this great work of literature?'

'Oh, it seems to be called Gondomon, King of Traximene – just an adventure tale.'

'Who wrote it?'

'Well, that's what I'm struggling to find out,' Passus told me. 'I sorted out most of the scrolls, but I'm left with some that were badly mangled and messed-up. I am having to piece them together and I have not yet found the title pages of the last couple. They may have been ripped off in the fight.'

He had the furtive air of a reader who had been thoroughly hooked; he could hardly bear to break off and talk to me. Immediately I left him, he would plunge into the thrilling scroll again. An author's dream.

Grinning, I walked back quietly through the lobby. There I was in for a second surprise, one that seemed far more significant. Coming here as an unexpected visitor had certainly paid off: in the main reception area two women were taking leave of each other, embracing like sisters. One had a slight air of reserve, yet she permitted her effusive companion to kiss her, and herself returned the salutation quite naturally.

Which was odd – because the women were Vibia Merulla and Lysa, the woman she supposedly ousted from the Chrysippus marriage bed. I made a quick choice between them. Both were tricky, but one was more experienced. I always like my challenges to be as difficult as possible. When Lysa's covered litter left the house and Vibia disappeared up a staircase, I set off hotfoot to follow Lysa.