Three Hands in The Fountain

XXIII

The third hand was swollen, but undamaged. Julius Frontinus unwrapped and presented it without drama, placing it in our dish like an organ removed by a surgeon. The first two relics had been dark with decay. This hand was black because its owner had been black. She must have come from Mauretania or Africa. The fine skin on the back of her hand was ebony, the palm and fingertips much lighter. The cuticles had been kept manicured, the nails neatly trimmed.

It looked a young hand. The fingers, all still present, would recently have been as fine and slender as those of Helena's which had just now so urgently tapped my wrist. This was a left hand. Trapped in the swollen flesh of the fourth finger was a plain gold wedding ring.

Julius Frontinus stayed fastidiously silent. I felt depressed.

Helena Justina had reached out abruptly and covered the severed remains with her own much paler hand, fingers splayed and straight, thankfully not quite touching the other. It was an involuntary sign of tenderness for the dead girl. Helena's expression held the same absorption as when she made that gesture above our sleeping child.

Perhaps my recognition of it struck a chord; without a word Helena rose, and we heard her walk into the next room where Julia Junilla was safe in her cradle. After a short pause as if she was checking on the baby Helena came back and resumed her seat, frowning. Her mood was dark, but she said nothing so Frontinus and I began discussing our work.

'This was found during the cleaning of the Aqua Claudia reservoir in the Arch of Dolabella.' Frontinus' manner and tone were businesslike. 'It came up in the sand in one of the dredging buckets. The work gang who discovered it were badly supervised; instead of reporting the find officially they displayed it in public for money.' He spoke as if he disapproved, yet didn't blame them.

'That caused today's riot?'

'Apparently. The Curator of Aqueducts was at the Circus, fortunately for him. One of his assistants was not so lucky; he was identified in the street and beaten up. There has been damage to property. And of course there is an outcry for hygienic supplies to be restored. The panic has caused all kinds of difficulties. An epidemic started overnight -'

'Naturally,' I said. 'The minute I heard the city's water might be contaminated, I started feeling dicky myself.'

'Hysteria,' stated the consul tersely. But whoever is doing this must now be found.'

Helena had heard enough. 'So inconsiderate!' She spoke too sweetly. We were about to be blasted. 'Some silly girl gets herself killed by a madman, and disrupts Rome. Women really will have to be deterred from putting themselves in this position. Dear Juno, we cannot have females being responsible for fevers, let alone damage to property -'

'It's the man who needs deterring.' I tried to ride out the tempest. Frontinus shot me a helpless glance and left me to cope. 'Whether his victims fall into his clutches through their own folly or whether he grabs them from behind in a dark street, nobody suggests they deserve it, love. And I don't suppose the public have even started to think about what he does to these women before he kills them – let alone the way he treats them afterwards.'

To my surprise Helena subsided quietly. She had had a sheltered upbringing, but she paid attention to the world and had no lack of imagination. 'These women are being subjected to terrible ordeals.'

'Not much doubt of it.'

Her face clouded with compassion again. 'The owner of this hand was warm and young. Only a day or two ago she was sewing perhaps, or spinning. This hand was caressing her husband or their child. It was preparing their food, combing her hair, laying wheatcakes before the gods -'

'And she was only one in a long line, snatched away to end up hideously like this. All with lives ahead of them once.'

'I was hoping this was a recent phenomenon,' Frontinus said.

'No, it has been happening for years, sir,' Helena explained angrily. 'Our-brother-in-law works on the river and says mutilated bodies have been discovered for as long as he can remember. For years the disappearance of women has been going unreported – or uninvestigated, anyway. Their corpses have been hidden away in silence. It's only when people begin to think the aqueducts are contaminated that anybody cares!'

'It has initiated an enquiry at last.' Frontinus was a braver man than me to suggest it. 'Of course it's a scandal, and of course this enquiry is too late; nobody denies that.' 'You're being disingenuous,' she chided him mildly. 'Practical,' he said.

'Whoever they were,' I assured Helena, 'these women will have the investigation they deserve.'

'Yes, I think they will now.' She trusted me. It was a serious responsibility.

I reached for the dish and held it. 'One thing I shall have to do – even though it seems disrespectful – is remove this poor soul's wedding ring.' It would be best done unobserved. The ring was embedded in waterlogged flesh and would be ghastly to extricate. 'The only way we stand any chance of solving this is to identify at least one of the victims and work out exactly what happened to her.'

'How likely is that?' Frontinus asked.

'Well, it will be the first time the killer has to dispose of remains while somebody is actually looking out for him. The girl's torso is likely to be dumped soon in the Tiber, as Helena said.' The consul looked up quickly, already responding and considering logistics. 'In the next few days,' I told him. 'At the latest just after the Games finish. If you have any men at your disposal they could be watching the bridges and embankments.'

'A day and night watch calls for more resources than I have.'

'Which are?'

'A modest allocation of public slaves.' His expression told me he realised he was heading an investigation on the cheap.

Lindsey Davis

Three Hands in The Fountain

"Do your best, sir. Nothing too obvious, or the killer will be scared off. I'll put the word among the water boatmen, and my partner may be able to get some help from the vigiles.'

Helena's great brown eyes were still sorrowful, but I could see she was thinking. 'Marcus, I keep wondering how these smaller remains are being put into the water system in the first place. Surely most of the aqueducts are either deep underground or high on arches and inaccessible?'

I passed on the query to Frontinus. 'Good point,' he agreed 'We must consult with officials about how unauthorised entry is possible.'

'If we can find where it's happening we may trap the bastard in action.' I was interested in how our intervention would affect Anacrites. 'But won't speaking to water board officials cut across the Curator's own investigation?'

Frontinus shrugged. 'He knows I have been asked to provide an overview. I will ask for an engineer to be made available for consultation tomorrow. The Curator will have to accept it.'

'He won't encourage his staff to help. We'll have to win them over with guile,' I said.

'Use your charm,' smirked Helena.

'What do you recommend, love? Approachability and the dimpled grin?'

'No, I meant slip them some coinage.'

'Vespasian won't approve of that!' I pulled my face straight for Frontinus. He was listening to our banter rather cautiously. 'Consul, we should be able to extract something useful from the engineers. Will you want to be in on this part of the enquiry, sir?'

'Certainly.'

Oh dear. 'Oh good!'

I wondered how Petro and I would manage, sharing our hunches with an ex-magistrate. Cosying up to a consul was not our style.

The question was about to be addressed; Petronius had shambled up to visit us. He must have spotted the lictors wilting in Lenia's entrance. In theory he and I were still not speaking, but curiosity is a wonderful thing. He hovered in the doorway briefly, a tall, wide-shouldered figure looking diffident at interrupting.

'Falco! What have you done to acquire six rod-and-axe men in your train?'

'Belated recognition of my value to the state… Come in, you bastard. This is Julius Frontinus.' I saw that Petro was receiving the message in my glance. 'He's this year's Consul – and our latest client.' As Petronius nodded pleasantly, pretending to be unaffected by rank, I explained about the commission of enquiry and how our expertise was needed for the legwork. I managed to slide in a warning hint that our client intended to impose himself on our interviews.

Sextus Julius Frontinus was of course the man who in our lifetime would achieve an unrivalled reputation for his talents as lawyer, statesman, general, and city administrator, not to mention his skilled authorship of major works on military strategy, surveying and water provision (an interest which I would like to think he acquired while working with us). His career structure would be the illustrious ideal. At the time, though, the only question that concerned Petro and me was whether we could endure him as a supervisor – and whether the mighty Frontinus would be prepared to bunch up his purple-bordered toga on his knobbly knees and stand his round like an honest trooper in the seedy winebars where we liked to hold our debates about evidence.

Petronius found himself a seat and installed himself comfortably in our group. He took the dish containing the most recent hand, stared at it with a suitably depressed sigh, listened while I pointed out some apparent axe-marks on the wrist bones, then placed it carefully on the table. He did not waste his breath on hysterical exclamations; nor did he demand a tiresome review of the conversation he had missed. He simply asked the question which he reckoned took priority, 'This is an enquiry of major importance. I presume the fee will be appropriate?'

I had trained him well. Lucius Petronius Longus was a real informer now.