Three Hands in The Fountain

LVI

Helena woke me around midday. She brought me a drink, put the baby in my arms, then snuggled up on the bed at my side while I slowly came to.

I freed a strand of her hair which had become trapped under my elbow. 'Thanks for being here when I came in.' I was pretending to joke about the threats she and Maia had made. Did I wake you?'

'I never really went to sleep. I just dozed, worrying about you out there.'

'Nothing happened.'

'No,' said Helena quietly. 'But if you had seen him, you would have gone after him. I was worried about that.'

'I can take care of myself.'

She nestled closer, saying nothing. I lay silent myself, worrying about leaving her every night, knowing that when she thought I was doing something dangerous she stayed awake for hours, opening her eyes at every sound and sometimes even jumping up to look out down the street for my return.

With me home in her arms, Helena slipped into a doze. The baby was awake, briefly clean, charming, kicking her feet contentedly, hardly a dribble in sight. I caught her looking up at me as if she was deliberately testing her audience. She had Helena's eyes. If we could bring her safely through the dangerous childhood years, when so many lost their hold on life, then one day she would have Helena's spirit too. She would be off out there, freeborn in her own city, probably half the time without telling us where she had gone.

Women should take care. The sensible ones knew that. But Rome had to allow them to forget sometimes. Being truly free meant enjoying life without the risk of coming to harm.

Sometimes I hated my work. Not today.

Julius Frontinus came for a conference that afternoon. I loved him for his blunt approach, but the constant fear that his honour would walk in did cramp my style. Still, he had had the courtesy to let his night-patrol take their rest first.

I stepped out to the porch and whistled across to Petronius. There was no response, but almost immediately he came loping up the street. I signalled; he joined us. We all sat together, accompanied by the quiet sound of Julia Junilla's cradle as Helena gently worked the rocker with her foot.

We spoke in subdued voices. Petro and I reported on our negative results last night.

'I have seen the Prefect of Vigiles this morning.' Frontinus could be relied on to chivvy and chase. 'He had a round-up from his officers. They caught various minor offenders who might have got away with it if we had not had the Circus surrounded and the city gates watched, but nobody who seems implicated in our quest.'

'Have any women been reported missing this morning?' I asked. I sounded hoarse, not wanting to hear the answer.

'Not so far.' Frontinus was subdued too. 'We should be glad.' We were, of course, although having nothing further to go on gave us no material help.

'At least we didn't miss someone being snatched.'

'You have nothing to reproach yourselves with,' said Helena. Seated in her round-backed wicker chair she seemed slightly apart from the conference, but it was understood she was listening in: In my household debates were full-family affairs.

Helena knew what I was thinking. I had once cursed myself bitterly when a young girl was murdered and I had felt I could have prevented it. That was in the past, but I still sometimes tortured myself turning over whether I should have acted differently. I still hated the killer for leaving me with his crime on my own conscience.

I had been brooding too much recently about Helena's dead uncle, the man whose corpse Vespasian had had me dispose of in the Great Sewer. It was his daughter, Helena's young cousin, who had been killed. Sosia. She had been sixteen: bright, beautiful, inquisitive, blameless and fearless – and I had been half in love with her. Ever since then, I had never quite trusted my ability to protect women.

'I had a message from the man we sent to the Porta Metrovia stables,' said Petro, interrupting my thoughts. 'Apparently Damon, the driver we're suspicious about, has been staying there full time. It's exactly what he is supposed to do. He goes to the chop-house next door, buys himself a drink, and makes it last for hours. He does try to chat up the waitress, but she isn't having it.'

'And he was there all night?' asked Frontinus, yearning to hear something which would implicate the driver. 'All night,' Petro gloomily confirmed.

'So that exonerates Damon?'

'Only for last night.'

'Damon should not be your killer,' Helena reminded us quietly. 'Damon is said to remain at the Porta Metrovia in case his mistress requires her carriage. Whoever killed Asinia abducted her in Rome yet threw her hand into the Anio within a matter of days – and then he drove back here to dispose of her head and torso at the end of the Games. If he follows the same pattern during these Games, maybe the vigiles can catch him among the traffic through the Tiburtina Gate – though at a fatal price for some poor woman, I'm afraid.'

'Only commercial traffic left last night,' Frontinus assured her. He must have really dragged details out of the Prefect of Vigiles.

'Can't the killer be a commercial driver of some sort – one who just happens to come from Tibur?'

'He's a private driver. He is delivering somebody for the festivals, then fetching them home again afterwards,' I said, convinced of it. 'That's why he makes two trips.'

'But not Aurelia Maesia, apparently,' Petro added with a grunt.

'No. Helena's right. We're letting ourselves be distracted by Aurelia and Damon. We're too desperate; if we aren't careful we'll miss something.'

'This morning when I was waiting for you to wake up,' Helena said, 'I had a thought. I knew from the quiet way you came in that nothing could have happened last night. Yet it was the opening of the Games, and you had been certain that that would be when he struck.'

'So, my love?'

'I wondered what was different. I was thinking about the black day. Some people might, as you say, travel to Rome early for these Games, to avoid a bad luck day. Last month the Ludi Romani started three days after the Kalends not two, so it didn't arise. That time the killer struck on the opening day of the Games, and you're assuming that's significant. But suppose whoever he brings is not particularly bothered about the grand parade? If they didn't want to travel on a bad luck day, they might just come up a day later.'

'You mean, he's not here yet!'

'Well, it's a thought. While you were all outside the Circus waiting for an attack last night, he might just have been arriving in Rome.'

I glanced at Petronius, who nodded glumly. 'It's all to do again tonight, Petro.'

'I wasn't intending to relax.'

I meant to say we ought to look through the lists of vehicles that came in last night from Tibur, but the conversation sheered off in a slightly different direction. 'We need a strategy in case the killer does strike,' Julius Frontinus put in. 'Of course we all hope he will be observed just before or during an abduction. But let's be realistic; that would take a great deal of luck. If we miss it, and if he sets off with his victim, there may have to be a pursuit.'

'If he leaves the city boundary, the vigiles have no jurisdiction.'

Frontinus gave me a look. 'It's up to you two then. You won't lack support. I have made some arrangements. The crimes are being committed in Rome, so if a pursuit is needed men can be allocated from the Urban Cohorts -'

Petronius, who loathed the Urbans, muffled a groan. 'I have a whole cohort on the alert at the Praetorian Camp, with a fleet of horses saddled up. The magistrate who will hear the case if it comes to court will have to provide a chit for the Urban Prefect. It's all set up, but we need a name for the arrest warrant -'

'Which magistrate?' asked Petro.

'One called Marponius. Have you come across him?'

'We know Marponius.' Petro loathed him too. He glanced at me. If we had a chance to apprehend the killer, we would do it ourselves, in Rome or out of the city – then politely request a warrant afterwards.

'I want this all carried out correctly,' Frontinus warned, sensing our rebellion.

'Of course,' we assured him.

Helena Justina bent over the cradle so the ex-Consul could not see her smile.

After Frontinus had gone, Petronius told me where he had been earlier. 'Up the Via Lata – halfway to the Altar of Peace. Very smart. Very select. Big houses with big money living in them, all the way out along the Via Flaminia.'

'What took you out there?'

'Checking that Aurelia Maesia really was there with her sister.'

'I thought we were now regarding the Damon line of enquiry as defunct?'

'Nobody had told me then! Dear gods, working in the vigiles has its problems, but nothing like the frustrations of working outside them. Look!' He chopped the side of his hand on the table. 'Lying low isn't working -'

'So you wanted to put pressure on?'

'Pressure's what I believe in, Falco.'

I knew he did. But I believed in lying low.

'Well, was old Aurelia there?'

'Both sisters were. Grata is even more short-sighted and decrepit than Maesia, but apparently that doesn't stop them both wobbling off to their seats at the Games every day. In the evening they have friends in to dinner. They can't go out; there's a father who also comes for the family party and he's too feeble to take elsewhere. Jupiter knows how old he is!" 'Did you see him?'

'No, the poor duck was asleep.'

'Lucky him!' I was feeling rough. And there were nine days of the Augustales to go yet.

In the early evening I Pulled on my best working boots. I wore wrist straps, which I rarely bothered with, and two thick tunics. I had a cloak, my knife in one boot, a purse for bribes. I bathed and lightly exercised, then had a shave to fill in an hour and warm me up cursing the barber's clumsiness.

Petronius would be wasting time in tedious confabulations with his colleagues in the vigiles. I let him go on ahead to get it over with. With nothing better to do myself, I walked over by way of the Via Appia to the Porta Metrovia. I wanted to meet Damon. The indications were that he was not our killer, but he might know something useful about his fellow drivers from the Tibur area. I had decided it was time to question Damon directly.

The stables where Aurelia Maesia kept her carriage while she visited her sister were the usual crowded hovels with large rats sitting up and grinning in the mangers while thin cats ran away in fear. Donkeys, mules and horses risked hoof rot while dowdy grooms committed sodomy on unturned straw. There were conveyances for hire at inflated prices, and relays of better-quality horses acquired at public expense for use by the Imperial post. Graffiti advertised a farrier-cum-blacksmith, but his anvil looked cold and his booth lay empty. Next door stood an off-putting tavern with rooms for rent, waitresses who could probably be hired to complete your suite, and a drinks list that proved price regulation was an ancient myth.

I could find neither Damon the gingery driver nor the member of the vigiles who had been assigned to watch and tail him. A waitress whose scowl declared she had reason to remember told me they had both gone out.