Three Hands in The Fountain

XXXIV

Next day Julius Frontinus summoned us to a case conference. It was the kind of formality I hate. Petronius was in his element.

'I'm sorry to have to press you, but I am being urged to produce results.' The Consul was being poked from on high, so he was Passing down the aggravation to us. 'It's now the eighth day of the Games -'

'We already have a much better picture of what's been happening than when you commissioned us,' I assured him. It seemed unwise to argue that we had only been on his enquiry for four days. Always look ahead, or it sounds as if you're wriggling.

'I expect that's how you normally lull your clients into a sense of security.' Frontinus seemed to be joking. But we did not bank on it.

'Identifying Asinia gave us a good start,' declared Petro. More lulling. Frontinus remained unimpressed.

'It has been suggested to me that we ought to aim to solve the problem by the end of the Games.'

Petronius and I exchanged a glance. We were both used to impossible deadlines. Sometimes we met them. But we both knew never to admit they might be feasible.

'We have had graphic evidence that this killer carries out his work during festivals,' Petro answered levelly. 'He snatched Asinia on the first day of the Ludi Romani. However, I am wary about assuming too readily that he is still here. Maybe he visited Rome for the opening ceremony only. Grabbed a girl, had his thrill, then left. Maybe once he had carved up Asinia, his bloodlust subsided until some future time. Besides, there is a theory that he does the carving up and dumping outside the city.'

That was rich. It was Petronius who had insisted we should ignore that possibility on logistical grounds. When I had discussed it with Helena, she inclined to the theory that we were searching for a man who travelled to and fro, and I had a feeling she would be right.

Given what I had heard about such men, I also thought privately: the corpse is only a week old yet. He has cut off one hand, but he could still be snuggling up to the rest of her in some lair.. . No. September was a very hot month.

Frontinus was grumbling at us. 'I cannot have my enquiry put into limbo until the start of the next Games. If we do that, we lose impetus and the whole thing stagnates. I have seen it happen too often. Besides, what would it entail? That we allow the man an opportunity to kill some other girl during the Augustales opening ceremony?'

'Too great a risk,' Petro agreed. We might have no choice.

'That's the worst scenario,' I suggested, rousing myself to take part. 'But we don't plan to sit on goosedown cushions until October, just because our quarry might have left Rome.'

'If he has, you ought to go after him,' said Frontinus.

'Oh, we would, sir, but we don't know where to look. Now is the time to follow leads – and we do have some.'

'Can we go through them?' The Consul's manner as always was brisk. He managed not to suggest he was calling us incompetent, although his presumption that professionals would be eager to supply exactly what he wanted did impose a strain. We would need to be sharp with this one. His standards were sky high.

To start, I plied him with Helena Justina's summary of what we knew about the killer's personality. He looked pleased. This was well thought out. He liked its clarity and sense. Petronius assumed I was extemporising; he let me know by a frozen expression that he preferred not to have an imaginative orator for a partner. Still, he too recognised good stuff. He was only annoyed he had not thought of it first.

Petro then did some fly work of his own. 'We know, sir, that Asinia disappeared somewhere between the apsidal end of the Circus Maximus, where she was last seen, and her home. She had set off heading north. She may have been abducted in the Press around the Circus, or later when she reached quieter streets. It depends whether this man works by tricking his victims, or if he just jumps on them. Falco and I will continue our nightly surveillance. Solid routine may throw up something.'

'Solid routine,' repeated Frontinus.

'Exactly,' said Petronius in a firm voice. 'What I want to pursue as well is whether any of the commercial chair and litter hire men saw anything on opening night.'

'You think it's one of the commercial transporters doing this?' We could see Frontinus immediately deciding to hammer the aedile who had responsibility for managing the streets.

'It's an ideal cover.' Petro clearly had a ruse. Trust the vigiles; they have to invent a single hypothesis then prove it, whereas informers can cope with several ideas at once. When real life throws up something that departs from the vigiles' scenario, they come unstuck. Being Petro, however, his theory did sound apt. 'The chairmen can pick up the women without looking at all suspicious – and afterwards they have the means of conveying the corpses about.'

'They tend to work in pairs, though,' I demurred.

Petro went on levelly, 'Maybe we'll find in the end that a couple of them work as a pair for more than carrying. Julius Frontinus, I'll be making my own enquiries, but there are plenty of these characters. It would help, sir, if you could ask the Prefect of Vigiles to order an official survey.'

'Certainly.' Frontinus made a swift note on a waxed tablet.

'He needs to get the Fifth and the Sixth Cohorts on to it so we can cover both ends of the Circus. The killer may stick to a favourite route, but we cannot rely on that. The vigiles should also make enquiries among the night moths.'

'Who?'

'The Prostitutes.'

'Ah!'

'If this man approaches women regularly, one of themoths who flit around near the Circus must have encountered him.'

'Yes, of course.'

'He may in fact hate the professionals; he may prefer respectable women because they are cleaner, or less adept at escaping from trouble. Who knows? But if he hangs about a lot, then the night girls may know he exists.'

It was my turn to make suggestions. Like Petro I adopted a pious manner. 'I want to look further into the water systems, sir. The engineer's assistant who came here, Bolanus, had some good ideas. He's willing to examine the aqueducts out in the country too, just in case our man's not a city boy. That's another reason we aren't rushing outside Rome ourselves; Bolanus may turn up something specific.'

'Pursue it with him,' Frontinus commanded. 'I will give instructions to the Curator that Bolanus is to assist as we require.'

'What about the magnificent Statius?' Petro enquired wickedly.

Frontinus looked over the rim of his note-tablet. 'Suppose I say we have asked for Bolanus so as not to remove his superior from his more vital managerial work. What else?'

'Make contact with the Prefect of Vigiles -'

He nodded, though he looked as if he realised we were giving him the boring jobs while we escaped on our own. Still, we were confident the two contacts would be made. He would do it this very morning, then he would keep chasing the Curator and the Prefect for results. He had not minded us telling him his duties either; he accepted as much chivying himself as he handed out to us. For a man of his rank that was rare.

We had hoped the enquiry was just taking off. The new evidence connected with Asinia seemed to give us a boost. It was temporary, though. We left the conference with Frontinus already aware we were bluffing, and as the next few days passed depression overtook both of us.

Petronius wore himself out interviewing chairmen, which was dreary enough, and trying to interview streetwalkers, which was positively dangerous. He learned precious little from any of them. Meanwhile I eventually managed to make contact with Bolanus, who seemed to be always out on site now. When I did catch him, he appeared curiously deflated. He said he had been conducting searches of the castelli and other parts of the aqueducts out across the Campagna; as yet he had found nothing. I feared he might have been warned to be obstructive. Ready to bring in the full might of the Consul to lean on his superiors, I asked him straight, but Bolanus denied it. I had to leave him to it.

We had hit a low point. It was one both Petro and I recognised. Unless we had some luck, this was as far as we would ever go. The Ludi Romani were trundling through their final days. The damned Greens were going to come out ahead of the Blues overall in the chariot racing. Several prized gladiators had suffered unexpected defeats and gone to Hades, breaking women's hearts and bankrupting their trainers. The dramatic performances were dire as usual. As usual nobody but me dared say so.

And the case was slipping away from us.