The Ides of April

LIV

Oddly enough, even in this confined space, I felt little fear being alone with him. It was easier to be face-to-face than menaced by an unseen presence. Anyway, I knew him. Even with a killer, you feel that it matters. You have been friends, so he will not harm you. He will believe you can help him. You loved him once, so he cannot kill you. Alone among the people he threatens, you will be safe.

"Well there you are!" he exclaimed.

He had his weight on one elbow, leaning on the irregularly shaped, pastel-coloured pieces of marble that form the crazy patterns of most bar counters. He was giving me the old look, that flash of innocent, open eyes, the wrinkled forehead, the bright, shared, conspiratorial gaze. The past few days might never have happened. He was boyish and mercurial again, acting the man I fell for. This time the attraction failed.

I kept my voice level. "I am surprised you show your face, Andronicus!"

"Why? I have done nothing wrong." He would always believe that. It was at the heart of his madness, a disease of his soul. He had no remorse.

"You know what you did. You killed five people-five we know about. Viator, the boy, Salvidia, the old lady, the maid. Were there more?

He shrugged. He seemed indifferent.

"Do you admit you killed those people?"

"Why not? None of them is a loss. Don't grieve. The stiffs deserved it."

"Were there others beforehand? Or when you heard about the needle killings at the aediles' meeting did you start then? Did that first give you the idea?" When he made no answer, I insisted, "Andronicus, were there others?"

He shrugged again. "That was all." I would never know whether I could believe him.

"So you confess to me, Andronicus? Five people offended you, so you murdered them? You knew poisoned needles were being used in an outbreak all across Rome. You reasoned you could do something similar, concealing your crimes?"

"It was not me, I'm just fooling you."

It was you.

"Why do you care?"

"Because I hate injustice!" I railed at him. His lack of empathy exasperated me. There was no reasoning with him. "All of those people were taken from life before their time and for petty motivation. All because you are an emotionless, irresponsible, utterly cold-hearted bastard. Superficially charming-but in truth you are dishonest, arrogant and completely callous."

Finally, my agitation shook him. My failure of composure forced him to say, "If you are right, then I am sorry for it all."

I could see his thoughts already, finding excuses for himself, working up some new story to try out on me. "I had a hard life, Albia. You have no idea."

"Rubbish. I know about hard lives. You were never abandoned, starved, beaten, abused. What do you know of isolation and hopelessness? Bitter cold, curses, constant fear and misery? You never endured any of that. You have always had a roof and food, you never knew insecurity. Compared to me, Andronicus, as a freedman brought up in a comfortable home and given every opportunity, you were damned fortunate."

He would never accept my comparison. He was totally self-centred.

I was trying not to let him spot me watching for a chance of assistance. For the only time ever, it seemed, nobody at all came walking down either of the streets on whose corner the Stargazer sat. If I tried to attract attention from Junillus and the vigilis, Andronicus could easily reach me before they understood what I wanted. Nothing on my table would make a satisfactory weapon.

"I am trying to understand why, Andronicus. Why are you so resentful, why so unhappy? You are amiable and talented, well thought of as an archivist, with a good post in a prestigious temple." A thought struck me. "It sounds as if it all went sour for you when Manlius Faustus became aedile. You and he had already had a set-to over the position as secretary that he refused you-you see him as idle and worthless, favoured by his uncle and in high position simply because of who he is. Am I right?"

"Shrewd as ever," answered Andronicus, turning it into one of the compliments I now hated. "You see it as it is, dear Albia-why him? Most honoured in Rome? Aediles must be among the top hundred officials. What has he ever done for that?"

"Won votes and acted effectively-that's the system, you know! I think your main quarrel is that he is too strong for you," I told him. "He sees through you. He won't do as you want. Were all the terrible things you did to those other people caused by your naked jealousy of him?"

When I asked an uncomfortable question, Andronicus simply failed to answer me.

With no way yet to attract help, I was running out of ideas. I did not want to talk to him at all, and it was an effort concentrating on arguments with someone whose mind worked so differently from normal.

I dared not take my eyes off him. I knew I was tiring. "You found my apartment, I gather. And earlier, you took my needle-case?"

"Just a memento of you," Andronicus declared, as if it was a lover's trophy. "You can have it back, if you want?"

Determined to stop his games, I lost patience and snapped, "Don't lie. You cannot do that. Tiberius has it now."

I watched Andronicus adjusting his story, as Tiberius had described. "He and I are on good terms. I can ask him for it any time."

"You're not on good terms. He won't give it to you; he needs it as evidence."

"He would give it to you!" said Andronicus, smiling in a way I did not care for.

"Do you still have my sewing needles?"

"Probably not. Who knows?" He did have them. With luck, he had had no opportunity to coat them with anything dangerous.

I said to him, as if it was perfectly normal, "Well, I would offer you refreshments but you know I have to keep a good eye on you, in case you jump over that counter and stick me with a poisoned needle."

At that, he gave me a sweet, sweet smile. "I used the last one. Used it to kill the vixen." He was lying again, because I knew he had been in my apartment and taken the needle on the ribbon after he dispatched the vixen. "I had to help her, didn't I? I did that for you, Albia."

"I know." I remained quiet, despite my anger. What was the point in saying I would rather not have such consideration from a killer? I didn't need him. I could myself have found a way to do whatever was necessary. When the wounded fox was on the stairs, I could have been brave, held down her head with the broom, carried out the humane deed. "Yes, that was your only decent and honest action."

"And you know, it was horrible to do! Not a woman's job," Andronicus insisted.

That made me flare up. All my work is thought by some to be unsuitable for women. I hate that attitude. "According to you, a woman should only admire men respectfully and submit. Shut up and open up."

"I never treated you like that, Albia."

"What you did to me was worse. I was not someone you preyed on for particular ends like Venusia, trying to pick her brains about Faustus, and even stealing her money. You liked me. I do believe it. You wanted our friendship, as much as you ever truly value anything- yet even so, you lied, deceived, manipulated and played with me."

"You are so hard on me!" He grinned shamelessly.

"At least you never stole my life savings."

He feigned shock. Then he said, unbelievably, "Are you telling me it is all over?"

"Of course I am. Be realistic. Our so-called friendship died the moment I began to see through you."

Andronicus gave me his jealous frown. "So there is somebody else?"

He would never change. The fault could never be his. He would not accept that he had let himself down, that he had damned himself in a knowing woman's eyes. He would go through life-whatever he had left of it-continually blaming others. When he blamed someone too angrily, he would remove them. He would plan someone's destruction, secretly prepare his weapon, stalk them, attack them, then revel in their death as though he had somehow taken a responsibility upon himself-not to revenge his own imagined slights but to cleanse society.

For rejecting him, he would kill me too, if he could.

Suddenly, two things happened.

Junillus came in from the back, carrying a large pottery container of the Stargazer's horrible daily chickpeas.

Two men we knew came walking together towards the caupona: Morellus and Tiberius.