Three Hands in The Fountain

XL

It began as an ordinary, bright Roman morning. I woke late, alone in bed, sluggish. Sunlight streaked the wall opposite the closed shutter. I could hear Helena's voice, talking to someone, male, unfamiliar.

Before she called me I struggled into a clean tunic and rinsed my teeth, groaning. This was why informers liked to be solitary men. I had gone to bed sober, yet today I felt like death.

I had a dim recollection of returning in the dark last night. I had heard Julia crying fretfully. Either Helena was too exhausted to waken, or she was trying out a plan we had halfheartedly discussed of leaving the baby sometimes to cry herself back to sleep. Helena had certainly moved the cradle out of our bedroom. Trust me to disrupt the plan: at Julia's heartrending wail I forgot what was agreed and went to her; I managed to walk about with her quietly, avoiding disturbing Helena, until eventually the baby dozed off. I put her back down in the cradle successfully. Then Helena burst in, woken up and terrified by the silence… Ah, well.

After that it was obviously necessary for lamps to be filled and lit, drinks to be made, the story of my night's surveillance to be told, the lamps to be doused again, and bed to be sought amid various snugglings, foot-warmings, kissings, and other things that are nobody's business which left me unconscious until way past breakfast time.

Breakfast would not be featuring in my routine today.

The man whose voice I had heard was waiting downstairs outside. Glancing over the porch rail, I saw thin curly black hair in a polished brown scalp. A rough red tunic and the tops of stout thonged boots. A member of the vigiles.

'From Martinus,' Helena told me. 'There is something you have to see on the embankment.'

Our eyes met. It was not the moment to speculate.

I kissed her, holding her closer than normal, remembering and making her remember how she had welcomed home her late-night hero. Homelife and work met, yet remained indefinably separate. Helena's faint smile belonged to our private life. So did the rush of blood I felt answering it.

She ran her fingers through my hair, tugging at the curls and attempting to tidy them so I was fit to be seen. I let her do it, though I realised the appointment to which I was being summoned would not require a neat coiffure.

We assembled up on the embankment just below the Aemilian Bridge. In charge was Martinus, the ponderous, big-buttocked new enquiry agent of the Sixth Cohort. He had a straight-cut fringe and a mole on one cheek, with large eyes that could look thoughtful for hours as a cover for not bothering to think. He told me he had decided against sending for Petro because his situation with the vigiles was so 'delicate'. I said nothing. If Petronius had stayed out on watch last night as long as I suspected, he would be needing his sleep. Anyway, the good thing about having a partner was that we could share the unpleasant tasks. This did not call for both of us. All we needed to do in person was note the discovery and record our interest.

With Martinus were a couple of his men and some water boatmen, not including my brother-in-law Lollius, I was pleased to see. Well, it was before midday. Lollius would still be asleep in some little barmaid's lap.

Lying on the edge of the embankment were a dark lump and a piece of cloth. Around them the stone paving was damp for a large area. Water dribbled from both. The items, as Martinus called them when he took down details slowly on his note-tablet, had been retrieved from the Tiber that morning, after tangling in the mooring rope of a barge. The barge had come upriver only yesterday so had been here just one night.

'Anyone see anything?'

'What do you think, Falco?'

'I think somebody must have.'

'And you know we'll have a hard time finding them.'

The material was perhaps old curtaining, for it was fringed at one end. It must have been heavily bloodstained before it went into the water, the blood sufliciently coagulated to survive a short immersion. The cloth had been wrapped around the slender, youthful trunk of a woman who must have had fine, dark skin. Now her once-supple body was discoloured by bruising and decay, its texture altered to something inhuman. Time, the summer heat, and finally the water, had all worked terrible changes. But worse had been done to her first by whoever robbed her of life.

We assumed this was the torso of Asinia. Nobody would be suggesting that her husband be asked to identify her. Her head and limbs had been removed. So had other parts. I looked, because it seemed obligatory. Then it was hard not to throw up. By now Asinia had been dead nearly two weeks. She had been lying somewhere else for most of that time Martinus and the water boatmen all gave as their opinion that the decomposing torso had only been in the water for a few hours. We would have to think about its history before that because the details could help us trace the killer. But it was hard to force our minds to the task.

A member of the vigiles pulled the curtain over the remains. Relieved, we all stood back, trying to forget the sight.

We were still discussing the possibilities when a messenger came for Martinus. He was wanted in the Forum. A human head had been discovered in the Cloaca Maxima.