Three Hands in The Fountain

XLI

When they flung open the access hole we could hear water in the darkness some distance below. There was no ladder. There were not enough wading boots and torches either. We had to wait for these to be fetched from a depot, while curious crowds gathered. People could tell something was happening.

'Why aren't these bastards ever around when the killer comes to dump remains? Why don't they ever catch him at it?'

Swearing, Martinus got his men to organise a cordon. It failed to stop the ghouls from clogging up the west end of the Forum.

We were still waiting for our boots when to my disgust Anacrites appeared. The Curator's office was near here. Some clown had been to notify him.

'Sod off, Anacrites. Your chief is only responsible for aqueducts. Mine has a total remit.'

'I'm coming with you, Falco.'

'You'll terrify the rats.'

'Rats, Falco?' Martinus became eager to stand back and let Anacrites represent him in this unpleasant enterprise.

I glanced at the sky, aware that if it rained the Cloaca would become a raging torrent and impossibly dangerous. Cloudless blue reassured me, just.

'Why didn't they just bring the remains to the surface?' Martinus really did not want to go down there. Where I merely lacked enthusiasm, he was openly panicking.

'Julius Frontinus has given instructions that anything found in the system must be left in situ for us to inspect. it go. If there are any clues I'll bring them back. You can take my description of the layout. I'm a good witness in court.'

'I reckon I'll send for Petronius.'

'There's too many of you already,' put in the gang leader of the sewer men. 'I don't like taking strangers down.'

'Don't worry me,' I muttered. If he was nervous, what chance for the rest of us? 'Listen, when Marcus Agrippa was in charge of the waterways, I thought he toured the entire sewer system by boat?'

'Bloody madman!' scoffed the gang leader. Well, that cheered me up.

Leather waders had arrived: thick clumsy soles and flapping thigh-high tops. A wooden ladder was produced but when they slung it over the edge, we could see it reached only halfway to the water; how deep that was at this point even the sewer men seemed not to know. We were being taken in near where the head was found; they themselves must have approached originally by some underground route, one that was reckoned too difficult for soft stylus- pushers like us.

A new length of ladder soon arrived, which was lashed on to the first with cords. The whole cockeyed artefact was dangled down the dark hole. It just reached the bottom, leaving no spare at the top. It looked almost vertical. Anyone who deals with ladders will tell you that's fatal. A large man was posted up top to hang on with a piece of ragged rope. He seemed happy; he knew he had the best job.

It was settled that I would go down, with Anacrites and one of Martinus' lads who was keen for anything. There was no point forcing Martinus to venture into the burrow if he was nervous; we told him he was our watchman. If we were too long below he was to fetch help. The gang leader accepted this rather too readily, as if he thought something might well go wrong. He told us to cover our heads with hoods. We wrapped our faces in pieces of cloth; muffled hearing and heavy feet made everything worse.

We went one at a time. We had to launch ourselves into thin air above the manhole to find treads on the ladder. Once on, the whole thing bowed disturbingly and looked completely unsafe. The gang leader had gone first; as he was descending we saw the top part swing away from where it was lodged and he had to be pulled back by main force applied to the rope. He went a bit white, as he looked up anxiously from the dark shaft, but the fellow on the rope called out something encouraging and he carried on.

'You don't want to fall in,' Martinus counselled.

'Thanks,' I said.

It was my turn next. I managed not to disgrace myself, though the treads were tiny rungs, too far apart to be comfortable. As soon as I started I could feel my thigh muscles protesting. With every step the whole flimsy ladder moved.

Anacrites hopped down after me, looking as if he had spent half his life on a wobbly ladder. A knock on the head had robbed him of both sensitivity and sense. Martinus' lad followed, and we stood carefully in the pitch dark, waiting for the torches to be lowered down to us. I suppose I could have shoved Anacrites in the water. I was too preoccupied to think of it.

The air was chilly. Water – or water and other substances – rushed past our feet and ankles, feeling cold and giving a false sensation that our boots leaked. There was a tolerable, yet distinct, smell of sewage. We asked the gang leader whether bare-flamed pitch torches were safe if there might be gas down here; he replied cheerfully that there were not often accidents. Then he told us about one the week before.

When the torches came down we could see we were in a long, vaulted tunnel, over twice as high as us. It was lined with cement and at the point where we had entered it the water out in the channel was easily shin-deep. In the centre the current raced, a fine tribute to gradient. In the shallows along the edges we could see brown weed, wavering all in one direction as it was pulled by slower currents. Underfoot was paved with slabs like a road but there was a great deal of detritus, sometimes rubble and rocks, sometimes sandy areas. The torchlight was not strong enough to let us see our feet properly. The gang leader told us to be careful how we trod. Immediately afterwards I stepped into a hole.

We waded along towards a bend in the tunnel. The water grew deeper and more worrying. We passed an inlet from a feeder channel, dry at present. We were deep under the Forum of the Romans. All this area had once been marsh, and was still natural wetland. The fine monuments above us raised their pediments to baking sun but had damp basements. Mosquitoes plagued the Senate; foreign visitors, lacking immunity, succumbed to virulent fevers. Seven hundred years ago Etruscan engineers had shown our primitive ancestors how to drain the swamp between the Capitol and the Palatine – and here their work still stood. The Cloaca Maxima and its brother under the Circus kept the centre of Rome habitable and its institutions working. The Great Drain sucked down standing and surface water, the overflow from fountains and aqueducts, sewage and rainwater.

Then last night some bastard had dragged up an access cover and chucked down a human head.

It was probably Asinia. Her skull had lodged on a sandbank, where a low beach of fine brown silt jutted into the shallow current.

The condition was too poor for even somebody who had known her to be certain, though some hair and facial flesh survived. Rats had been here in the night. I was prepared to make an identification despite that. There were other black women in Rome, but as far as I knew only one had disappeared a couple of weeks ago.

We could be fairly accurate about the timing: this skull was put into the Cloaca last night. We were told the public slaves with their baskets had worked their way downstream cleaning out the channel yesterday, and they saw nothing then. She must have been dumped just before or just after her torso was disposed of. There was not enough depth of water in the Cloaca to have carried the torso down this way to the Tiber. Anyway, I remembered that it was found upstream of the outlet. It must have been thrown into the river direct, off the embankment or over the parapet of a bridge, the Aemilian probably.

So the head and body had been dumped separately. A distinct pattern was emerging: the killer disposed of body parts in several different locations, even though it meant there was more chance of his being spotted doing it. He had wheels; last night he started out carrying at least the head and the body, plus maybe limbs we had not found yet. He could drop a parcel and run. On to another location, then quickly heave the next piece down a manhole or over a parapet. For year after year he had been doing this, learning to look so casual that any chance witnesses thought nothing of it.

Water tumbled past Asinia's head so the sand ran away from beneath her in rivulets, to be replaced by more. Left alone, she might bury herself on the bank or she might suddenly break free and roll along the channel to the great arch of peperino stone that gave on to the river.

'Have you ever found heads before?'

'Occasional skulls. You can't tell where they come from or how old they are – not normally. This is more…' The gang leader faded out politely.

'Fresh?' Not quite the word, Anacrites. I gave him a disapproving look.

The gang leader breathed, deeply uncomfortable. He made no reply.

He reckoned there was another sandbank like this further down. He said we could wait while he took a look. We could hear Martinus shouting in the distance, so his lad went back to the ladder to confirm we were all right. That left Anacrites and me together in the tunnel.

It was quiet, smelly, safe only to the point where hairs curled on your neck. The cold water continually raced past our boots as they sank slightly into the fine mud while we stood still. Around us was silence, broken by infrequent quiet drips. Asinia's skull, a parody of humanity, still lay in the silt at our feet. Ahead, lit from behind by wavering torchlight, the black figure of the gang leader walked away towards a bend in the tunnel through deeper and deeper water, eerily diminishing. He was alone. If he walked round the turn in the tunnel we would have to follow him. Going out of sight alone in a sewer was unsafe.

He stopped. He was leaning against the side wall with one hand, bending over as if inspecting the area. Suddenly I knew; 'Too much for him. He's throwing up.' We stopped watching.

There was a task waiting for us. I handed my torch to Anacrites. Regretting that I had put on a clean overtunic that morning, I stripped off a layer. I planted one boot right against the head to steady it, then bent and tried to ease the tunic underneath. I was trying not to touch the thing. A mistake. It rolled. Anacrites scuffled up his own foot, making a wedge with mine. We trapped the head, and I captured it as if we were playing some ghastly game of ball. Unwilling even to hold the weight directly with a supporting hand underneath, I held on to the four corners of my garment, letting the water stream off as I stood up. I kept the tunic and its contents at arm's length.

'Dear gods, how does he manage it? I thought I was tough. How can the killer bring himself to handle the body parts once, let alone repeatedly?'

'This is a filthy job.' For once Anacrites and I spoke the same language. We were talking in low voices while he held the lights and with his free hand helped me knot the corners of my tunic to make a secure bundle.

I agreed with him. 'I have nightmares that just by being involved in scenes like this some of the filth might rub off on me.'

'You could leave it to the vigiles.'

'The vigiles have been ducking out of things for years. It's time someone stopped this man.' I gave Anacrites a rueful grin. 'I could have left it to you!'

Holding up the torches, he returned the wry look. 'That wouldn't be you, Falco. You do have to interfere.'

For once the comment was dispassionate. Then I felt horrified. If we shared many more foul tasks and philosophical interludes, we might end up on friendly terms.

We waded back to the ladder. There we waited for the gang leader. Martinus' lad was sent up first with the torches. I went next. I had threaded my belt through the knots on the bundle and made the belt into a shoulder loop, in order to leave me two free hands. On a bowing ladder with narrow treads, in wet footwear, going up was even worse than coming down.

When I climbed out like a mole into the glare of the sunlight Martinus dragged me upright. I was telling him what had happened while Anacrites came clambering out behind me. I moved to give him room. That was when I realised the Chief Spy was quite professional; as he emerged in his turn he looked round rapidly at the faces in the ogling crowds. I knew why; I had done it myself. He was wondering whether the killer was there: whether the man had dumped remains in different places specifically in order to taunt us, and whether he was hanging about now to watch their discovery. Seeing Anacrites checking like that was a curious relevation.

Shortly afterwards I discovered something else. When you have walked through a sewer, you have to pull off your own boots.