The Ides of April

IX

Informers have ridiculous rituals. One is that if anyone connected with a case dies, especially if it is your client, you must go to the funeral. Everyone pretends this action symbolises our good nature and fine feelings. Diligent nurses brought us up from the cradle to have elegant manners. We not only sympathise with the bereaved, we ourselves are troubled souls who share their sorrow…

The real reason is a myth-nothing more, believe me-the myth that you chance seeing the perpetrator wailing beside the pyre. Sometimes they are indeed present, if only because most murders are committed by a member of the victims family. If so, you can give up immediately. The person you are looking for has exactly the same snub nose and bad breath as all of their innocent relatives, and the same gormless expression. If they brazen it out, you will never home in on the guilty and catch them.

The funeral myth presupposes your killer is an idiot, who will be drawn to the scene, yearning to witness the grim results of their crime and daring you to identify her or him. It also implies informers have powers of prophecy and can tell, without using spells or magic talismans, exactly which of the off-putting mourners is really going crazy with guilt.

I have never met any informer who has achieved this feat of recognition. I go, but I never expect results.

Roman funerals comprise two events, over a week apart. Traditionally, informers attend the gloomy outdoor interment, not the jollier feast nine days later. Whoever wrote our rulebook must have been depressing-although, let's be fair; if you were to wait nine days and enjoy the feast, all the villains would have got their acts straight and any evidence would have vanished; also, anyone who might have paid you to investigate has learned they will inherit an olive grove, so they have lost interest in causing upsets.

The will is supposed to be read on the day of the feast, but anyone who hopes for a legacy has already popped the seal off the scroll by lamplight and peeked. You, the unlucky informer, will be granted no opportunity to spot a suspicious reaction. If anyone is going to froth with rabid rage at an outrageous bequest, it happened several nights ago, in the library, with no witnesses but moths.

Perhaps there is nothing to cause offence in any case. Most wills have been put together by lawyers, and some lawyers can do a decent job of advising a client (I know it hurts to hear that). Besides, people planning for their deaths have a besotted wish to be well thought of, so many wills adopt a shamelessly conciliatory tone. The slave who expected to be riven with disappointment because the horrid master fails to give him his freedom has in fact been freed, with an almost adequate pension and enough money to put up a dear little plaque praising the master's liberality. The pinched sister tormented by fears of neglect has acquired the villa at Laurentium. The disgruntled wife is praised as the most deserving of women. Business partners are delirious because they will now get their hands on the legendary wine cellar…

All these thoughts ran through my head as we said farewell to Salvidia. It was the next evening, out in the necropolis on the Ostia Road. Roman funerals involve a long period of standing about; unless you roll up late, exclaiming that the roads from Tarentum are terrible, you have to wait for hours, from the arrival of the bier until the body burns sufficiently for some sad mourner to scrape up the ashes. Winter is worst, but even in April the wood at this funeral was green and claggy. Although undertakers have covert ways of making fire take hold quickly, it seemed as if Salvidia was reluctant to go.

Metellus Nepos was there of course, carrying out the offices of chief mourner. Most of the mourners appeared to be Salvidia's home and business workforce, rather than friends or neighbours. It did not surprise me that she had no real social circle. I identified the stepson's wife, younger than him and about six months pregnant; she stood among a small group of women of a similar age, probably her own friends coming to support her, rather than people showing respect to the dead woman. They talked inanely of their houses and children, until I moved away.

I ended up alongside one of those old ladies who loves going to funerals. She could have been my grandma. A tiny, frail figure wrapped in swathes of black, she had had her mourning garments out of the clothes-chest regularly and knew how to keep a head-veil in place, even on a breezy day. She looked vague, and as sweet as honeycake, but without doubt had a vicious tongue when it suited her. I hoped she would be better value than the young housewives.

"Nothing like a good funeral to get you out of the house!" I said, striking up conversation. She looked interested in my frank attitude. "I am Flavia Albia; I had business dealings with the deceased. Did you know Salvidia well?" There was a chance this treasure had not known Salvidia at all, but just hung around the necropolis every day, attaching herself to any procession that came by; she could gloat at having herself outlived the corpse, whoever it was, and I bet she was adept at tagging along when the chosen few went back to the house for refreshments. Nobody ever likes to challenge an old lady. Gran managed to look inside plenty of strangers' houses that way.

"Oh I knew her for years. You're the investigator, aren't you?" That told me she did have prior connections, or she would not have known what I did. And as I expected, she took a nosy interest.

"Neighbour?" I guessed. I wanted to place her before I gave too much away myself.

She wasn't having it. She ignored my question with the selective deafness old ladies apply so readily. "Such a good son. It's right that he asked you."

I gave up on the first question and lightly posed another. "So do you think something odd happened?"

"Ooh, I couldn't say!" That's a trick they like to use. None of them are self-effacing really. She pursed her lips to show there was much she could say, but she clung on to pretending she was too insignificant to comment. "Nobody wants my opinion."

"I do," I challenged her, looking earnest. "It doesn't seem I will be able to do much more than reassure Metellus Nepos, but I'll try my best. I would welcome the views of someone with your common sense."

The old dame gave me a half-reproving look, to say she recognised blatant flattery and it would not work on an owl-wise being like her. I grinned, unfazed.

I knew she was assessing me. Trying to decide whether she condemned me as a flighty piece, or could just about concede that I was experienced and capable. Clearly, she did not mind me working. She came from low enough in society to accept that many women had to help their husbands earn a living in the family shop, bakery or forge; she understood how some of us had no male head of family, so must find our own way to avoid prostitution yet to bring in money for rent and food. I guessed I would be categorised with manicurists and hairdressers, women who knew about herbal creams and traditional medicines, freed slaves who were literate enough to read or write letters and documents for other people. And yes, the local abortionist.

I categorised her as a widow of course. Women either die young in childbirth or they tough it out for decades and long survive their husbands.

The undertaker's musicians broke into a burst of determined fluting and wailing, so we had to stay silent for a while.

Afterwards, the moment was lost. I extracted no more from the old lady, who then had to leave early. As she went, she patted my hand and encouraged me. "You do what you can for her, dearie." She definitely implied that Salvidia had gone before her time.

As the ancient one departed, someone who must know her remarked that she could not stay because of obligations at home. So she did not, as I had assumed, live alone, but had a close relative she must care for; who, was unclear. I could guess. Either a drooling husband, too demented nowadays to know her, or some great lummock of a son or daughter who had been damaged in the birth canal. A daily burden and a responsibility, for whom the exhausted old body had to stay alive because they would be helpless without her. This half-sighting of a hard life made me melancholy.

With nothing to do but think during another hour or so of chilly pyre-watching, I ended up considering yet again what she obviously believed about Salvidia's death.

I walked over to the undertaker. His previous contribution when asked for an opinion had just not been good enough; I asked him again about that comment he had made when he came to view the corpse.

"You said, 'There's a lot of it about.' Did you mean people keeling over, for no reason? I have to admit it has stayed in my mind. Would you mind telling me what made you say that?"

He was a big-bellied pompous type, who was accustomed to patronising bereaved people. He must be a particular trial to defenceless new widows. All the man could come up with for me was that he "had a vague feeling." He still believed it might be nothing more than coincidence.

"Were these people all women?" I asked, pushing him.

"No, all sorts. Just a few more sudden deaths than usual- possibly. I haven't been counting. Don't ask me for names."

"Any rumours?" I wondered. The public can be good at picking up illegal activity.

The funeral director gave me a swift glance. He did not look nervous or hunted. He did not brush me aside like a silly young thing. Instead, he appeared to consider my question fairly and to honestly say no, there were not. If he was hushing up a scandal, he was good. I had to believe him.

I was to develop more doubts about Metellus Nepos. In a quiet moment while he waited to do his duty gathering the ashes into a ceramic urn, he approached and thanked me for coming. I took the opportunity to mention that I knew he had visited the aedile. He confirmed that he went to say he was paying compensation for the child's death, and make it plain that the family were satisfied with what he offered them. He made no mention of the wall poster; Nepos seemed too decent to demand its removal, or even to think of doing so.

Nepos volunteered that he told the magistrate about his suspicions regarding his stepmother's death. He had discussed hiring me. (I wished my friend the archivist had thought to warn me about this.) "I discussed with Faustus all the aspects you had checked so carefully, Albia, and admitted that you found no evidence." Nepos seemed concerned that I might be annoyed. Certainly, if the case had been live, I would have wanted any client to consult me before he involved the authorities. "The aedile is not the same as the vigiles, but he does have responsibility for aspects of law and order. It seemed right to let him know my concerns."

I reassured him. "That is perfectly reasonable. I would not have stopped you … So what did you think of him? According to my contacts, Manlius Faustus sounds-let's say, unsympathetic."

Nepos stared at me for a moment, seeming surprised. "No, I found him very straightforward. He doesn't say much, but he listens. A good, intelligent choice for the job."

"That's rare."

"Exactly!" replied Nepos. He sounded annoyed, as if I had insulted a friend of his.

I did not let this alter the picture of the aedile I had previously from Andronicus. Plenty of men behave quite differently with a onetime business visitor from how they treat members of their household. In that case, how they are at home tends to be their true character. Manlius Faustus must have social skills; he needed votes to win election to his office. In short, he must know how to schmooze. It was quite possible for him to act polite to Nepos two nights ago, and yet be a pernicious swine to his own slaves and freedmen on a daily basis.

"And did he react to your unease about Salvidia's death?"

Nepos was gazing at the spitting flames. "Not specifically."

"I presume he is not intending any follow-up action?"

Nepos spoke a little abstractedly. "No. No, he won't be doing that."

Like the undertaker, Nepos made it casual and seemingly sincere. But his acting was less good. He was a cheesemaker and seller. He did not spend his professional life putting on a show of false emotion, as any funeral director has to. Nepos seemed so honest that if a piece of cheese had a spot of mould, he would point it out and advise you to slice off the worst before you served it. So in his case, I saw through him: as he tried to deflect me, a curtain came down. More had been discussed with Faustus than he was prepared to tell. He was blotting out a topic he did not want to discuss with me.

Something was going on. Something that was being kept from the public in general and me in particular.