Stone Cold

Twenty-One

Claudia was in the garden, peering at one of the statues (a wood nymph, to be precise) and calculating exactly how dangerous an enemy she'd made of Vincentrix, when she felt the first tingle at the base of her scalp. a

Someone was watching her.

She looked round, but it was just another day up at the villa, with slaves rushing about like wasps with their stingers on fire, rolling barrels, fetching sacks, rumbling amphorae across the courtyard, while others brought in baskets of charcoal and bundles of hay or carried armfuls of linen down to the river. Surely it wasn't possible for a peeping torn to be snooping in broad daylight with so much activity going on?

She glanced through the arch of the rose arbour to where Semir, dressed, if you could call it that, in his customary loincloth, was stroking the velvety leaves of a senecio to check how it had transplanted. Further down, his shaven head gleaming every bit as brightly as Semir's olive skin, Qeb was struggling along the path with a huge crate in his outstretched hands. Whatever new addition he was fetching to the menagerie, judging by the thrashing inside, the creature wasn't going gracefully, but, although the big Egyptian was too far away for her to catch his words, Claudia could hear him crooning to the animal as though it were a baby. Immediately, she was reminded of the king cobra she'd caught him caressing. And how Qeb liked to stroke little girls' hair…

Moving on to inspect another of Semir's masterpieces, a box tree topiaried in the shape of a cockerel, she decided that whatever faults he might have you couldn't criticize the Babylonian's artistry or his gardening expertise, and it didn't seem to bother him, either, that he had to rely on slave labour when it came to pruning, planting and clipping. Of course, the daily drudgery of watering and manuring would be done by slaves, anyway. All the same, it was unusual for a man of Semir's standing to hand over control of his landscaping project to a higher authority, especially a woman and an amateur at that. As Claudia continued to admire the cockerel's proud crest and applaud his strutting pose, the prickles returned and she shivered. Dammit, she was being watched!

Adopting an air of unconcern, she moved to the cockerel's southern side. Hor, she could see now, was in conversation with his brother. Could it have been him? Their voices weren't raised, but they seemed to be arguing and, from the increase in hand gestures, Hor was becoming more and more exasperated with his older brother. Glancing over her shoulder, there was nothing to suggest that Paris had been remotely interested in her, either. Down on his haunches, he was examining the gilding on the sandals of a statue of Minerva. But the sensation persisted…

In two leaps, Claudia was across the lawn and diving into the laurel.

'Got you, you pervert!'

Credit where it was due, at least the pervert was freshly laundered and smelled of rich, musky oils with just a hint of… just a hint of… oh, shit. Just a hint of sandalwood.

'Orbilio, what are you doing in the bushes?'

'Right now, I appear to be flat on my stomach chewing a mouthful of bay leaves with a harpy glued to my back,' he wheezed. 'What is even more bizarre is that I don't actually find this situation objectionable.'

'You must have been in the laurels for a reason.'

'Hope springs eternal and this is proof that patience eventually pays off. Have you been putting on weight?'

'Why do you ask?'

'Because that question usually makes women jump a mile.'

'Well, you ought to know, you lecherous bastard. What are you planning to do, anyway? Inseminate the whole of Santonum while you're here?'

'Only the women,' he rasped, 'but if you don't move soon, my broken spine is going to leave an awful lot of ladies disappointed and you wouldn't want that on your conscience, now would you?'

Dear Diana, what was she thinking of, flattening the Security

Police then straddling them like a bloody donkey? (And why didn't she find the experience objectionable, either?) 'What's a conscience?' she asked, scrambling off.

They were solid muscles she'd been astride, too. No wonder Curvy Thighs dropped her guard (and everything else).

'Why were you watching me?'

'Don't assume everyone else has eyes in the back of their head just because you have,' he puffed, straightening the crick in his neck.

Fair point. She couldn't have pinned him face down, if he'd been looking her way. All the same, the sensation of being observed had been strong…

'If you must know what I was doing, I spotted this.'

'It's a doll.'

'Ten out of ten, Mistress Seferius.'

'Don't tell me, you haven't been able to get to sleep at night without Dolly and that's the only reason you came back to the villa. To collect her.'

'Actually, you're thinking of Teddy and I was careful to take him with me. What do you notice about this doll?'

'Other than the fact that she's extremely ugly and has only one arm?'

'You don't think this little cutie might be a treasured possession, then?'

'Might have been,' she corrected. 'Past tense.'

Carved out of oakwood and jointed, it would have been a little girl's dream when it was new. Right now, though, the doll's long black hair was caked with dust, what was left of her miniature tunic was in holes and the reason she was ugly was because her head had either been trampled or had fallen under a wheel. Which was probably how she had come to lose her arm, too.

'Uh-uh,' he said. 'Is. Present tense. Look.'

The hair was human and, like most dolls' hair, it was stitched on to linen then glued into place. When Orbilio shook off the dust, the hair shone.

'It's been washed,' he said. 'Recently. And the clothes might be ragged, but see how clean they are. In fact,' he added, turning the doll over, 'I'd say this little poppet couldn't have been lying here for much more than a week.'

'How fascinating, but if you'll excuse me I'll leave you honing your investigative skills in the bushes-'

'I'm not analysing dolls to keep my hand in,' he said evenly, and the amusement in his eye snuffed like a candle. 'I think this might be connected to the case I'm involved in.'

Something skittered in Claudia's heart and that something was happy. Whatever dirty pies she might have her fingers in, dolls, broken or otherwise, didn't figure! 'That's the case that brought you to Gaul, right?'

He bent down to adjust his bootlace. 'Actually, that wasn't the reason I came to Santonum, no.'

The skittering clattered to a halt and solidified. 'No?'

'No,' he confirmed. 'But shortly after I arrived, I received an anonymous tip-off about a paedophile ring from someone personally affected by the gang's activities, who felt unable to report it to the authorities for fear of involvement at a high level.'

'Anonymous?' she repeated for want of nothing better to say, because suddenly the lump in her stomach was turning to ice.

'My informant hoped the newly arrived representative from Rome would be objective,' he explained, 'but left the note unsigned just in case.'

'High places?' she echoed dully. Anything to keep his mind off her fraud. 'You think the traffic might be going through Marcia's villa?'

'It crossed my mind.'

'Then it was a very short journey,' she said. 'You know Marcia's history, Orbilio. After what happened to her, she's hardly likely to inflict the same hell on others, is she?'

'You've obviously never heard of victims repeating their own abuse?'

There's no embarrassing way to get rich, Marcia had said. And what he said was true. Victims of cruelty, whether physical, emotional or sexual, often visited the same torture on others, although for what reason Claudia could not say. Comfort in a pattern repeated? Justification on the grounds that it had done them no harm?

'It would go some way towards explaining her interest in my case load,' he added, 'not to mention her ordering Tarbel to go through my papers.'

At last it became clear what the big Base had been doing on the landing yesterday morning, watched by wily old Koros behind the tapestry. Why he wasn't in armour. Why he'd felt distaste at what he was doing. For a man used to combat, snooping was not a fair fight.

'A little over a week ago, around the time this doll got dropped, I happened to witness a child's abduction,' Marcus said. 'And incidentally did nothing to save her.'

No, no, no. This wasn't right. Not the man who'd dedicated his whole life to weighing in with the warships, careering down with the cavalry and loosing off with the legionaries.

'Marcus Cornelius, there is no way you'd stand idly by and watch a child become meat for a bunch of perverts.'

'It wasn't for the want of trying,' he said thickly, and suddenly she understood the deep lines round his mouth, the frown lines on his forehead, the purple hollows beneath his eyes. 'But whichever way you look at it, Claudia, the bastards got clean away. They killed the nightwatchman, threw his body in the river where it still hasn't been found, but, yes, it was my fault they slipped through.'

She stared at the doll in his hands, soiled and despoiled like the child he had failed, and felt sick. The hands that held it were shaking, she noticed. Shaking from rage and impotence, worry and shame, but, Croesus, couldn't he see that none of this was his fault? One day, she supposed dully, he would realize that these bastards held no respect for human life. That they'd have slit his throat without hesitation and that dead he'd be no help to that child either. At least he could prevent others from falling into the same filthy hands! But events were too fresh, the guilt far too raw, for him to see the full picture…

'Have you-' She cleared her throat and started again. 'Have you seen Hercules?' she asked brightly. The less he dwelled on what he believed to be his own inadequacies, the quicker his objectivity would return. 'Or rather Herakles, if you happen to speak "Paris".'

Orbilio seemed to wake from a very deep sleep. 'H-Herakles?'

'Last week, I came across our drop-dead-handsome sculptor scouring for a role model for his hero. At first, when he told me he was looking for Herakles, I assumed he was referring to a dog, although, funnily enough, it appears I am right.'

The doll had disappeared into the folds of his long patrician tunic, she noticed, as they cut across the lawn. The man was nothing if not professional.

'See?'

Herakles stood straight backed and square shouldered on his podium, lion pelt slung nonchalantly over his shoulders, olive-wood club in one hand, the golden girdle of the Amazon queen (Labour No. 9) in the other, as he stared across to the villa. A wayward marble fringe was poised for eternity about to flop over his forehead, and, although his strong j aw was set in determination, there was a twinkle behind his dark painted eyes.

'But… that's me,’ Orbilio gasped.

'Woof woof.' Although wolf might be a more appropriate description. 'You're mass produced, of course. At least your body is, but that's all right, considering you're already mass producing yourself all over Santonum-'

'Does it ever occur to you that you might be wrong occasionally?'

'Never. Now take a look at Medusa.'

'One look from Medusa and men turned to stone.' Orbilio let out a loud sigh. 'I suppose it's too much to hope Paris fashioned her in your image?'

'Be careful what you wish for,' Claudia said. 'But luckily for you, that's me over there.'

She pointed to Venus, and since the statue was too far away for him to recognize Stella rising from the foam surrounded by cherubs Claudia swept on towards the monster with the face of a beautiful woman but whose hair was a writhing mass of serpents. Orbilio sucked in his cheeks.

'Does Marcia know?'

Her trademark expression had been captured in stony perfection.

'The lady's objections, I believe, have been voiced. Especially in connection with the statue's location.'

He looked up at the tree that was shading Medusa and could no longer keep his face straight. 'A medlar. Ouch! And Marcia's objections, presumably, were along the lines that the snakes are painted purple and green, rather than the blonde tones she likes to pass off as natural?'

'It wasn't the colours she took exception to,' Claudia quipped back. 'More that they don't hissssss like the real ones.' She turned and lifted her eyes to his, and the laughter died on her tongue. 'Orbilio, I want to do a deal with the Security Police.'

'Interesting,' he murmured, brushing a few specks of soil from the sleeve of his tunic. 'Go on.'

'It's about the Scarecrow and these missing girls. I presume you've heard about them?'

'I'd show you my file notes,' he said, and she detected an irritating twinkle at the back of his eye, 'only I've written them up in Greek. Five young women in the prime of their life have gone missing, yes. What about them?'

'The deal,' she said firmly. 'I mean, we are talking murder here?'

'It's beginning to look that way.'

Goddammit, the bastard was hedging. She ploughed on. 'And murder beats fraud on the Naughty Scale?'

'Usually… '

Don't commit yourself. 'So, if I was to help you catch a mass murderer and save lots of young women's lives, that would surely count in my favour?'

He folded his arms over his chest. 'Keep going

Janus, Croesus, the snake was making her grovel! 'I propose an exchange,' she said crisply. 'I help you track down their killer-'

"This isn't my case,' he cut in. 'I'm not involved at any level.'

'No, but solving the murder of five innocent women wouldn't exactly be a black mark on your record?'

'True.' He stroked his jaw thoughtfully. 'So let me get this straight. You make Padi's prediction come true by turning me into a local hero and… and I do what, exactly, in return?'

She took a deep breath and held it for a count of three. 'You drop your investigation into my business affairs.'

'Very well.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'I said, yes. Agreed.' He held out his hand. 'It's a deal.'

'Are you serious?'

'Would I lie to you?'

'Marcus Cornelius, you could talk the Ferryman into rowing you to Atlantis instead of Hades and still not pay the damn fare.'

'I take that as a compliment,' he said, with a firm shake of her hand.

Yes, it was a deal, Claudia thought, turning away to follow the marble path as it twisted its way through beds of mallow and hibiscus. Unless one happens to be a member of the Security Police…

That handshake. Far too slick. No negotiation, no questions, no verbal arm-twisting? He'd given in too quickly, which meant either he was slipping in his old age or he was turning even wilier. The answer, she concluded, as he caught up with her by the statue of Saturn, was that wolves had nothing on Marcus Cornelius.

'There seems something vaguely familiar about the tilt of the head,' he murmured, running his hand over Saturn's sickle and reaping hook. 'That stocky body and bull neck

'The head groom,' Claudia said. Very well. Let's play it your way, wolf-man. She sat down on a wooden bench over which chamomile had been planted to make a fragrant seat. 'I suppose you know that Marcia is organizing another manhunt in the morning and that she means to trap the Scarecrow one way or another?'

'She's put Tarbel in charge this time,' Marcus said, settling on the grass at her feet. 'And something tells me he's not the type to accept defeat.'

'That's why you have to stop it from going ahead.'

He plucked a blade and began to chew. 'I would only intervene,' he said slowly, 'provided I had bloody good reason.'

Claudia selected a ripe, velvety peach from an overhanging branch and tossed it to him, then plucked another one for herself. 'The problem as I see it,' she said, 'is that these girls were abducted without any sign of a struggle, which made me wonder whether this was actually true. Had the search party been looking in the right places, I asked myself, and would they recognize signs of violence if they saw them? The Santons are untravelled-'

'Untravelled doesn't mean stupid. These people understand the land better than anyone else, and if there had been a struggle, believe me, they'd know it,' Marcus said, wiping the juice off his chin. 'They're expert huntsmen who read the forest like you read the daily gossip sheet-'

'One should always keep abreast of current affairs.'

Orbilio leaned back, absorbing his weight on his elbows. 'Most people take that to mean politics, not who's cheating on whom.'

She tossed the peach stone over the hedge. 'A lot of hard work goes into the production and distribution of those sheets. I feel it only fair that their efforts are supported.'

'And I always thought philanthropy began with an "f",' he murmured, stretching out on the grass and folding his hands behind his head.

'That aside,' she sniffed, 'and as much as it grieves me to admit it, I actually arrived at the same conclusion. No violence took place.'

'That isn't necessarily the case,' Marcus said, closing his eyes against the harsh glare of the sun. 'I can think of several methods just off the top of my head, but go on.'

'Well, it occurs to me that everyone for miles around has heard of the Scarecrow. In fact, I would go so far as to say his reputation is notorious.'

'It's human nature for people to be frightened of things they don't understand.'

'Precisely. So how come these girls didn't scream or run off at the first flutter of wingbeats in the trees? Even if they believed the local superstition that he was Death himself, they wouldn't just walk calmly up to him. But! Assuming all five were stupid enough to do just that, once they got close, they'd quickly tell the difference between the Guardian of their Souls and a smelly individual who lives rough in the woods. I mean, imagine his teeth.'

One lazy eye opened. 'I'd rather not.'

'Which brings me back to my original point: why no blood? Why no signs of a struggle?'

Marcus sat up and hugged his knees. 'There are only two possible reasons,' he said. 'One, the killer is a professional, a man who has been trained to move quietly and kill cleanly, and the second-'

'It's someone the women trusted. Exactly.' Claudia paused. 'Which means whoever is abducting these girls, it isn't the Scarecrow.' And if Orbilio didn't stop tomorrow's manhunt, another victim would be added to the mounting list of innocents… 'We need to find the Scarecrow before Tarbel,' she said.

He flopped back on to the grass with a groan. 'I do not believe it,' he told the sky. 'Marcia's people have spent months trying to flush this elusive creature out of the woods, yet milady here thinks she can do it in… yes, just how long do you think it will take you?'

'A day.'

'Are you sure you don't mean half a day? An hour? Twenty-five minutes?'

'Sarcasm is beneath you and so, incidentally, is a long, black, wriggly thing that seems intent on crawling inside your tunic.'

Orbilio jumped up and brushed the earwig away. 'Tomorrow is the Emperor's birthday. I might be able to persuade Marcia to show a bit of respect on that score, but she won't hold back for long. That woman eats, drinks and breathes glory and I'll bet Hor is already pencilling out the victorious scene on the east wall of her tomb.'

'Then he'd better wheel out the whitewash,' Claudia said. 'But in order to beat Tarbel to the Scarecrow, there's something I need you to do.'

'I had a feeling there would be.'

'Nonsense. Everyone knows the Security Police don't have feelings! Now, pay attention, Marcus. Your job is to put that manly baritone of yours to good use, shouting out orders as loud as you can and repeating them endlessly, to make sure the Scarecrow gets to hear about the impending manhunt.'

'I'm so glad my military training has some purpose.'

Claudia snorted his cynicism aside. 'It's absolutely crucial that our woodsman understands the strength of the contingent set to track him down and the fact that, this time, Rome is behind the manhunt.'

'You don't think he might become a teeny bit suspicious about the lack of legionaries clumping about?'

'Frightened men don't think logically,' she said. 'Just make sure you bark out your orders round the perimeter, so there's no chance of the Scarecrow not hearing.'

'Yes, ma'am.' He saluted. 'Anything else, ma'am?'

Her retort was cut short by the arrival of a hired courier, jogging down the path at a professional trot. 'Message for Master Marcus Cornelius Orbilio.' He handed over the letter. 'Will there be a reply?'

Claudia recognized the seal as he broke it. It was his own.

'Yes,' he said, tipping the runner with a coin from the bronze purse round his wrist. 'Tell her I'm coming at once.' Orbilio turned to Claudia. 'I've got to go,' he said.

'Zina?'

'The Scarecrow will have to wait,' he said, nodding. 'This can't.'

'It's about the child, I suppose?'

'Yep.'

She watched him race back to the villa. Dammit, the lecherous bastard could at least have lied.

'Zina's found her,' he shouted.

A lot of things reassembled themselves in Claudia's innards.

'Wait!' she yelled, although for some reason she was quite out of breath. 'Marcus, wait! I need to borrow that doll!'

Among the items that had rearranged themselves was another piece of the puzzle. With icy clarity, she knew exactly why the Scarecrow was hanging around in these woods…

As it happened, the Scarecrow wasn't in the woods.

For some reason, the middle-aged man in the purple-striped tunic had stopped bringing the children down to the meadow next to the paddock. Presumably he felt the grass was too long for racing about in, so he'd taken to playing with them at a spot by a bend in the river. One of the many branches that separated from, and then rejoined, the Carent, this stretch was known locally as the Solora, after the water spirit who inhabited it. Often, the lean, leathery man would bring them here to skinny dip first thing in the morning, or for a picnic of cheeses and chestnuts with hot damson pastries before they were packed off to bed.

It hadn't been easy to get close to the wide, open bank where they played, but the Scarecrow had found that by arriving early then concealing himself under an elderberry bush and waiting, often for hours, his patience was rewarded. From time to time, the man would scan the woods behind with narrowed, soldier's eyes, as though expecting to see someone, or something. But once he had satisfied himself that they were alone, he would throw himself wholeheartedly into whatever activity the children were engaged in, be it watching fish, stamping the ground to drive tiny frogs into the reeds, feeding the ducks or gasping at snakes underwater.

As sunlight glistened off the Solora and grasses nodded their feathery heads in the breeze, the children dabbled their nets in the river for tiddlers that they never caught or played Mermaids and Sea Monsters, and no one told them off for eating while their hands were still covered in mud. Most amazing of all, considering there were six siblings ranging in age from three to nearly ten, the Scarecrow could hardly believe they were so well-behaved. An occasional squabble might erupt, but when the man with the feathers pinned to his chest started clowning the quarrel was quickly forgotten.

Hidden by the elder, the Scarecrow's eyes followed the children. Twin boys, alike as two peas in a pod. The oldest girl, with dark glossy hair like her mother's, and the youngest, who still had a slight lisp. He watched the toddler, chortling with glee as his little fat legs slurped in the river mud, but especially, yes especially, the Scarecrow watched Belisana. Belisana, with hair the colour of ripe corn and eyes as big and blue as the Aegean…

'So that's where you're hiding!' Their mother hove into the clearing like a warship in sail, hands on hips, head tipped to one side, but the children weren't fooled for a minute.

'We've been playing statues with Uncle Hanni,' the oldest girl said.

'I was Alexander!'

'I was the Hammer God!'

'I'm Cupid,' the littlest one said, standing on one leg and toppling over.

'No, darling, you're just cute,' she crooned, hoisting him out of the mud. 'But I'd like to know what you are,' she said to the man.

'Extremely sorry?' he suggested.

'Hannibal, you know full well that Marcia insists the children stay in the classroom until the sun sinks over the stables. Right then, you lot.' She clapped her hands for attention. 'You know what this means. It means I'm going to have to teach you monsters a lesson myself, and the subject today is She tipped back her head and adopted the traditional pose of Juno, Queen of Olympus. 'Well, come on!' she squealed. 'Who am I?'

'Minerva?'

'Aunt Marcia?'

'The Emperor's wife?'

'No, she's Mummy!’ the little one shrieked, and the statue dissolved.

'Yes, I am, darling, I'm Mummy, and Mummy supposes we'd all best get back to the villa.'

'Into line, chaps!' The middle-aged man formed his troops into a column. 'A-n-d march! Left, right, left, right.'

With a knot round his windpipe, the Scarecrow watched as the littlest one, struggling to keep up, was scooped under the arm of the slender young woman with dark, glossy hair and bounced along in formation. As the army marched off through the trees, Belisana broke away, racing back to collect the rag doll she'd left propped up against a fallen tree trunk. Watching the bounce of her curls and the hop-skip-and-jump of her run, the Scarecrow felt an ache round his heart the likes of which he'd never known.

At moments like this, he wanted to die.