Three Hands in The Fountain

XXXV

We were not going to complete the enquiry by the end of the Ludi Romani.

I expected that Julius Frontinus would pay us off. Instead, he accepted that without further clues we were stuck. He cut our retainer. He gave us stern talks. Without a solution to offer the Emperor, he was deprived of glory too, so he must have felt he needed us.

Our only advance was that Petro's enquiries drew out a few names of women who had gone missing in the past. Most had been prostitutes. Others in the same profession named them to us, and when we berated them for not reporting the disappearances to the vigiles, half the time they insisted that it had been done. (Sometimes there were children to care for; sometimes the women's pimps had noticed they had lost part of their livelihood.) Nobody had ever made a connection between the incidents; nobody had bothered much at all, frankly. It was difficult to put together a reliably complete file on the old cases, but Petro and I both felt there had been increasing numbers recently.

'He's bolder now,' said Petro. 'Common pattern. He's almost defying discovery. He knows he can get away with it. He's addicted; increasingly he needs his thrills.'

'He thinks he's invincible?'

'Yes. But he's wrong.'

'Oh? And if we can't find the crucial clue to his identity?' 'Don't think about it, Falco.'

It was impossible to link either of the first two hands we had found to any of the missing women. To show willing, we did regularly copy our list of victims to Anacrites in case he could make a connection with anything reported to the Curator. He never responded. Knowing him, he never read what we sent.

We had hoped the previous cases would throw up more information. It was hopeless. The abductions were too old. The dates were vague. The ethics of the profession discouraged the women's friends from helping. Seeing a whore approached by a man had hardly aroused other people's curiosity. All the women had apparently vanished off the streets without any witnesses.

At least we had some progress to report to the Consul. At our next conference Petronius suggested to Frontinus that we should call on the vigiles to help us watch during the final night of the Games; he wanted to smother the area around the Circus with plainclothes observers keeping a special eye on the prostitutes.

'The killer does not confine his attentions to prostitutes,' Frontinus reminded Petro. 'Asinia was perfectly respectable.'

'Yes, sir. It's possible that Asinia was a mistake. She was alone, late at night, so he may have jumped to the wrong conclusions. Alternatively, he is now widening his interests. But the night moths working the colonnades are still the most vulnerable girls.'

'How many registered prostitutes are there in Rome?' the Consul asked, ever keen on figures.

'Thirty-two thousand at the last count.' Petronius made the statement in a typically calm manner; he left Frontinus to reach his own conclusions about the impossibility of protecting them.

'And what is being done to discover whether any other respectable women have been similarly taken?'

'My old second in command, Martinus, is now assigned to enquiries in the Sixth Cohort. He has been reviewing unsolved missing person reports and in likely cases the family is being re-interviewed. He thinks he has found one or two that may be aqueduct killings, but so far there is nothing definite.'

'Should this have been spotted by the vigiles before?' Petronius shrugged. 'Maybe. You certainly can't blame Martinus because he was with me then up on the Aventine. Different officers took the reports, and over a long period. Besides, if a woman disappears during a public holiday, we first assume that she has run off with her lover. In one or two cases, Martinus has found out that was true; the woman is now definitely living with a boyfriend. One has even returned to her husband because she and the boyfriend fell out.'

'At least Martinus can close those files now,' I said.

My own area of investigation was still the water supply.

Bolanus grew tired of my nagging him. He was certain that there was no easy access to the aqueducts in Rome itself. Those which did not come in underground were carried on immense arcades which thrust across the Campagna on arches a hundred feet high. Once they reached the city they stayed high, to take them above the streets and to supply the citadels.

Bolanus had been asking workmen he trusted whether our man might actually be employed by the water board and have gained admittance that way. If anyone had had doubts about a fellow slave Bolanus would probably have been tipped a wink. Corruption was rife on the aqueducts, that was understood. The willingness of water board officials to take bribes was legendary – and they knew how to be obstructive if the bribes were not forthcoming. But perverted killing is a special crime. Anyone with real suspicions about a colleague would have turned him in.

Julius Frontinus began to show an interest in Bolanus. He was intrigued by the system, and drew up his own sketch plans. One day Bolanus took the two of us to see the crossover of the Aqua Claudia and Aqua Marcia, to demonstrate his theory that severed limbs might start out in one channel but be transferred later to another, confusing us about their real source.

Bolanus took us into the channel of a branch of the Marcia. It was about twice the height of a man, flat-roofed, and lined with smooth, continuous waterproof cement.

'Lime and sand, or lime and crushed brick,' Bolanus told us, while we were reaching our destination through a manhole above. 'Watch your step, Consul – It's laid in layers. Takes three months to set. The last lot is polished to mirror brightness, as we call it.'

'Seems a lot of effort,' I remarked. 'Why is the water board such a keen housekeeper?'

'A smooth surface inhibits the formation of sediment. It helps the flow too, if you reduce friction.'

'So if a foreign body got in, would it be damaged much as it tumbled along?' asked Frontinus.

'Falco and I discussed that. There'd probably be some friction effect, but if the severed hands look badly damaged I'd be more inclined to put it down to decay, given that we do keep the walls so smooth. But one major tumble could batter them badly. If any foreign body ends up just here while we're switching, I reckon not much would survive -'

We had arrived at the point that he wanted us to see. The Aqua Claudia was passing the Marcia directly overhead – not a thought for anyone who hated confined spaces. Bolanus told us there was a shaft let into the side of the Claudia's channel above us, controlled by a sluice-gate. He was showing us the shaft, about a yard square. Frontinus and I were peering up obediently into the gloom. We had lamps with us, but we couldn't see much at the top of the dark, narrow chimney.

'As you can see, down in the Marcia the flow is very feeble at present. We need to replenish it quickly because the Marcia supplies the Capitol. Ideally the channel ought to be at least a third full -'

It was a set up, of course. As we listened politely someone had been primed to pull up the sluice. We heard it creak faintly high above us. Then without warning a huge quantity of water was released from the Aqua Claudia and thundered straight down the shaft through the Marcia's roof. It poured towards us, falling over thirty feet and hitting bottom with a tremendous noise. The water in the Marcia surged with furious force, and its level rose alarmingly. Waves went careering down the channel. Spray soaked us and we were deafened.

We were in no danger. We were standing on a platform out of reach. Bolanus grabbed Frontinus in case the shock made him topple in. I stood my ground, having met jokers before, though I felt my legs quake. The tumbling water made a fantastic sight. Bolanus mouthed something that looked like 'In the Caerulean Spring only this morning!' though it was pointless even to try to speak.

As Bolanus said, any foreign bodies from the Aqua Claudia that dropped down in that cascade would probably be pulverised. On the other hand, they just might go bobbing away in the current of the replenished Aqua Marcia, to be found eventually in its reservoir, like the second hand which was produced by the public slave Cordus when he replied to Petro's Forum advertisement.

Frontinus was thrilled by this sightseeing. I would not have missed it myself, come to that. We learned nothing specific, so strictly it was a wasted day. But there seemed little to be discovered in Rome either.

'Tell me when you want a guided trip out to Tibur!' Bolanus offered with a grin as we were leaving.

I do like a man who can stick with a theory.

There had been no further grim discoveries. Many people now bathed, drank water, and cooked their food with hardly a thought for the consequences.

Though the absence of limbs in the aqueducts was a relief in some ways, it did mean that a man called Caius Cicurrus was left suspended in misery. Just before the Games ended, I walked out to see him. I took Helena, in case a woman's presence was consoling. Anyway, I wanted to know what she thought of him. When a wife is murdered the husband is inevitably the first suspect. Even if there have been scores of similar deaths before, it is wiser to consider that the man may have deliberately copied them.

We went at midday in case Cicurrus was now back running his chandlery. We did find him at home, though it looked as if he was spending most of his time there now and letting the shop remain closed. The same slave as before let us in.

'I'm sorry, Cicurrus, I have very little to tell you. This visit is just to let you know we are still looking, and we will look until we find something. But I cannot pretend we have achieved much yet.'

He sat meekly listening. He still seemed dreamy. When I asked if he wanted to know anything, or if Frontinus could do anything to help him officially, he shook his head. Sudden death causes anger and recriminations usually; they would come. At some inconvenient time, when he had too much to do, poor Caius would find himself demanding endlessly: why her? Why had Asinia walked by the route she chose that night? Why had Pia left her alone? Why Asinia and not Pia, who courted trouble so openly? Why Cicurrus himself gone to the country that week? Why had Asinia been so beautiful? Why did the gods hate him?

Not yet. So far he had been granted no formal end to the nightmare. He was caught between knowing and not knowing the exact, horrendous details of his young wife's fate.

Cicurrus indicated a brown marble casket which he said contained her embalmed hand. Thank the gods he did not offer to open it. It looked too small, more like a pen case than a reliquary. Even to us it seemed an unreal symbol of the lost Asinia.

'We are stil! watching the Circus Maximus every night,' I said. 'On the last night of the Games there will be saturation coverage -'

'She was a perfect wife,' he interrupted quietly. 'I cannot believe she has gone.'

He did not want to hear what we were doing. All the man really needed was to be given his wife's body so that he could hold a funeral and grieve for her. I could not help him.

After we left his house Helena Justina said nothing immediately. Then she reached her decision. 'He's not involved. I think if he had killed her he would rail against the supposed murderer more dramatically. He would issue threats, or offer ostentatious rewards. When he says Asinia was perfect, his protestations would be louder and longer. But he just sits there, hoping his visitors will soon leave him alone. He's still in shock, Marcus.' I thought she had finished, but then Helena murmured, Did you see the rock crystal necklace that the slave girl was wearing? I imagine it's one which belonged to his wife.'

I was shocked. 'Has she stolen it?'

'No, she was wearing it openly.'

I was even more shocked. 'Are you telling me after all that Cicurrus had a reason to dispose of Asinia?'

'No.' Helena shook her head and smiled at me gently. 'He's heartbroken; that's genuine. I'm telling you he's just a typical man.'