Three Hands in The Fountain

LVII

Had all been normal, I was originally intending to call on Marina; I still had a question I wanted to ask her. Now there was no time to stop off at the Street of Honour and Virtue, not even to play the good uncle and visit my niece. Instead I strode quickly to the Temple of the Sun and Moon. There, as arranged, I met Petro and apprised him of the new development. Frontinus had given us use of the public slaves attached to the enquiry; in a trice we had them scampering in all directions, passing on the word to the vigiles that everyone should watch out for the red-haired Celtic-looking man with the gammy leg. It sounded like a joke; we knew it could be deadly serious.

'Has he taken the carriage?'

'No, but that's an eye-catching number. It's so big and so flash that he would risk being identified if it were seen near where a woman disappeared. He may go out on foot to grab the girls, then take them back to the stable.'

'If it's him,' Petro dutifully reminded me. But once someone under surveillance does something he isn't supposed to, it's easy to allocate to him the role of the villain you're searching for. Petro was forcing himself not to grow too excited. 'Let's not be led astray on this.'

'No. At least it looks as if the tail has stuck with him.'

'He'll get a bonus!' Petro should know that was doubtful in public service. But the man would do a good job. 'Damon doesn't fit!' Petro muttered, but he had a dark look as if he were wondering whether we had somehow missed something vital and Damon was, after all, the man we sought.

All we could do was wait and continue as normal. We were still swapping venues to keep us alert on watch. It was Petro's turn for the Street of the Three Altars, while tonight I took the Temple of the Sun and Moon. He thumped his shoulder in the old legionary salute, then walked off and left me.

It soon grew dark. Above the Circus I could see a faint glow from the thousands of lamps and torches that were lighting the evening spectacles. This time of year the shows could be even more magical than in summer.

Lindsey Davis

Three Hands in The Fountain

It was quieter, much less raucous than the long September evenings of the Roman Games. The Augustales, being closely linked to the Imperial court, tended to be subdued in periods when the court was acting respectably as it was under Vespasian. The applause from the stadium was polite. The musicians were playing at a measured, almost boring pace, allowing them time to slide up to the right pitch when they squeezed out their notes. I almost preferred them playing flat.

'Uncle Marcus!'

A muffled cry made me start. A long, tightly wrapped cloak did its best to hide my most disreputable nephew, although beneath the hem of the sinister disguise his dirty big feet in their outsize boots were unmistakable to associates.

'Jupiter! It's Gaius-' He was slinking along the dark Temple portico, pressing himself against the pillars and adopting a low crouch, with only his eyes showing.

'Is this where you're watching for that man?'

'Come away from there, Gaius. Don't think you look invisible; you're just attracting attention to yourself.'

'I want to help you.'

Since there seemed no harm in it, I described Damon and said if Gaius saw him he was to run for me or one of the vigiles. He should be safe. As far as we knew the aqueduct killer had no taste for lads. Anyway, if he smelt our unwashed Gaius he would soon have second thoughts.

I begged my nephew when he grew tired of surveillance to go home and look after Helena for me. She would keep him out of trouble. After a few whines about unfairness he crept off, still stalking shadows. Groaning, I watched him start to walk with an exaggerated stride, practising giant steps. A child at heart, he was now playing the old game of stepping on cracks in the pavement in case a bear ate him. I could have told him, it was avoiding the cracks that mattered.

It was to be a night of irritations, apparently. I had hardly freed myself from Gaius when a new scourge sidled out of the shadows. 'What's this, Falco?'

'Anacrites! In the name of the gods, will you lose yourself, please?'

'On observation?'

'Shut up!'

He squatted down on the temple steps, like a layabout watching the crowds. He was too old and too swankily styled to pass muster for an off-duty altar boy. But he had the gall to say, 'You really stand out up here on your own, Falco.'

'If idiots like you would just leave me alone I could lounge against a pillar with a fistful of cold rissole looking like a lad who's waiting for a friend.'

'You're in the wrong gear,' he pointed out. 'I could spot you as a plant from half a street away. You look ready for action. So what's moving tonight?'

'If you're staying at this temple, then I'm moving!' He stood up slowly. 'I could help, you know.'

If we lost the killer because I turned down his offer, nobody in officialdom would accept the simple plea that I considered him an idiot. Anacrites was the Chief Spy. He was on sick leave, reallocated to light duties at the water board, but ultimately he worked for the establishment, just like me.

All the same, if Anacrites caught the killer because I passed him a clue, then Petronius Longus would strangle me. I could cope with that, but not the other things Petro would do to me first.

'We're still on general watch: any man who looks at women suspiciously. Especially if he has transport.'

'I'll keep my eyes open.'

'Thanks, Anacrites.' I managed to say it without bile rising.

To my relief he moved off, though he was heading on a course that would bring him to the Street of the Three Altars and Petro. Well, Petro could handle Anacrites.

At least I thought he could. However, unknown to me, my stalwart partner was no longer there.

It was a dreary night. It seemed more tedious than usual. At regular intervals the applause rippled skywards from the Circus. Bursts of ear-splitting music from the cornu bands disturbed my weary reverie. A slow trickle of exiting ticket-holders began early.

The crowds started to disperse more quickly than they had after the Ludi Romani, as if people sensed the approaching chill of autumn evenings, though in fact a warm and sunny day was ending in a perfect late summer night. I served my watch beneath swarms of bats, and then under the stars.

Enjoying the night too, the crowds slowed up again. Men suddenly discovered a need for one more drink in a bar. Women lingered, chatting, though eventually they flung their bright stoles around them – for effect rather than necessity on this balmy night – shook out the creases from their clinging skirts and strolled off amid plenty of chaperons. The Augustales were very restrained Games. Too respectable for the hardcore rabble. Too staid for the keenest race-goers. Lacking the pagan edge of longer-established series whose histories of spilt blood went back for centuries. Honouring a man-made, self-made god lacked the gut attraction of the old Games that had been inaugurated under more ancient, more mysterious deities.

Strange rites had been enacted, however, for instance a visit to the second-day events by five pistachio-chewing, mulsum-swigging, parasol-wielding, late-staying, man-baiting members of the Braidmakers' Old Girls. Their leader was the loudest, crudest, brightest, boldest wench that I had seen all night. She was, of course, Marina: the fast, fickle mother of my favourite niece.

'Oh, Juno – it's Falco, girls!' How could anyone so beautiful in repose become so raucous when she spoke? Easily, in Marina's case. Just as well, perhaps. Armed with breeding and refinement too, she would have been desperately dangerous. 'Let's chase him around the Temple and see who can rip his tunic off!'

'Hello, Marina.' I sounded pompous already.

'Hello, you bastard. Can you lend me some money?'

'Not tonight.' Lending to Marina could only be viewed as a form of civic charity, though nobody put up a statue to you in return for doing it. 'Where are you off to?' At least she seemed sober. I was wondering how to get rid of her.

'Home, dearie. Where else? Marcia likes me to sing her a lullaby.'

'No, she doesn't.'

'That's right – she hates it. I just like to remind the little madam who's in charge.'

I refrained from saying that her mother had stopped out so late, little Marcia would be getting up for a new day soon.

The other retired braid-knotters were bobbing around my brother's girlfriend like a flock of vibrant, slightly uncoordinated birds. They went in for giggles and whispered bad language. They were worse than the marauding schoolgirls who normally patrolled in packs looking for boys to harass. These women had learned how to wield their power, and in the long process had gained nothing but contempt for men. No shred of romance was allowed to besmirch their brashness. They wanted to terrify me. The gods only knew what they would do if they achieved it.

'I've been looking for you -' I said.

'Oooh!' Marina's escort set up a round of mock-shocked twittering. I groaned.

'You dirty dog!'

'Settle down; this is business -'

'Ooh-hoo!' They were off again.

'Rome's finest,' I commented. 'As highly commendable as Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi!'

'Oh, don't go on -' Marina had a short attention span, even for making life a misery for a man. 'What do you want, Falco?'

'A question. That night we met in the Forum -' 'When that weird girl threw up over the Vestals?'

'I thought she was a friend of yours?'

'Never met her before. Never seen her since. No idea who she was. She was feeling a bit demoralised so I thought I ought to see her home.' Ah well. Clearly the Braidmakers were a loving sisterhood.

'Well, never mind her – it's not the girl I'm curious about. Who was the man in the carriage that went by, the man you were shouting at?'

'What carriage?' asked Marina, totally unaware she had done anything of the sort. Her current friends reduced their bad behaviour to shuffling about impatiently. Bored with me, they were already looking around for somebody different to tyrannise. 'I never shout at men in the Forum; don't insult me, Marcus Didius.'

I described how the vehicle had appeared out of the darkness, and how I had overheard what sounded like a ribald exchange with somebody Marina thought she knew.

Marina thought about it.

I stood quietly, allowing her to pilot her thoughts woozily around the very small piece of human tissue that served her as a brain. I had learned from experience that this process could take time. I also knew it would probably not be worth it, but I was the kind of dumb professional who always had to try.

'What do you mean by a carriage?' she demanded.

'Things on wheels; horse in front; person or persons can travel long distances in huge discomfort at unbearable expense -'

'Gods, you do like to mess around, Marcus! I must have thought it was the one I see sometimes.'

'Don't you remember? Are you guessing now?'

'Oh, I'm sure I will remember if I think about it long enough – to tell you the truth, I was somewhat incapable of noticing much that night.'

'Well, that's frank.'

Marina was still slowly pondering. A neat frown creased her alabaster forehead; some men might have wanted to smooth away the creases, but I was on the verge of imprinting them there with a clenched fist. 'It can't have been him, or he would have stopped; we have a chat if I pass him.'

'Who are we talking about?'

'A fellow who parks in our street. We all have a great laugh over it. You'll love this. He brings his master to visit – respectable people, very prim family – but what they don't know is: the night before he arrives looking pious at their house, the master drops off to visit some old girl. She used to be a professional, and he's her last loyal client. He looks about a hundred; heaven knows what they can get up to. We never see her; she can hardly totter to the window to wave him off next day.'

'What's his name?'

'The master or the driver? Don't ask me. I don't inspect people's birth certificates just to pass the time of day.'

'Where do they come from? Is it outside Rome? Could it be somewhere like Tibur?'

'I shouldn't think so,' murmured Marina. 'You said it was a carriage, but it's not what I would call one. I'm talking about one of those sit-up-and-suffer carts like a box on two big wheels.'

'No covering, but they nip along? Get away! The old fellow can't sit up on front?'

'Oh, he clings on manfully.'

'Have they been in your street this week?'

'I haven't noticed.' Marina had a slightly shifty look; I guessed she wanted to avoid telling me she had been out a lot, dumping Marcia somewhere else. There was no point in trying to pursue that.

'This driver isn't a small red-haired man with a limp?'

'Oh, gods, where do you think them up? No; he's a man, so he's ugly – but ordinary.' Once again I reluctantly acknowledged that this was not our convenient suspect Damon.

'Does he flirt?'

'How would I know?' scoffed Marina, drawing herself up indignantly. 'What's this about?'

I spoke gently: 'Oh, I just wondered if the vehicle we saw in the Forum belonged to the man who must have been there that night throwing the head of a murdered woman down the Cloaca Maxima.'

She went pale. Her fluttery friends grew still. 'You're trying to frighten me.'

'Yes, I am. All of you, take care tonight. Marina, if you see this sit-up-and-suffer cart, try to find me or Petronius.'

'Is it him? The bastard you're looking for?'

'It doesn't sound quite right, but I need to check. If it's not him, the real bastard is still likely to be out and about.'

I told her I would be coming to see her tomorrow and would want her to point out the house of the ancient prostitute, who would have to be interviewed. So much for the Street of Honour and Virtue. As usual, it was living up flagrantly to its charming name.

I stayed at the Temple until nearly dawn. I saw nothing relevant.

What Marina had said was niggling me. While I waited far longer than usual for Petro, I realised I badly wanted to consult with him. He must be clinging on until the very last minute, reluctant to admit we had wasted another night.

I walked down the temple steps, taking care not to step on any cracks in case I alerted the pavement bears. I began to pace round the Circus in search of Petro. If he was there, I never found him. Instead, by the now closed grand exit gate under its arch in the centre of the apse, I saw something that caught my attention. Torches. They were bright, and apparently newly lit, whereas the few lamps left in the streets had all faded to a dim flicker.

I had run into a group of slaves, led by a young man in patrician whites whom I recognised immediately. From his anxious behaviour I knew before I even called his name that he was in some kind of trouble.

'Aelianus!'

Helena's least favourite brother had been rushing to and fro outside the Circus gate. When he saw me, pride made him slow and straighten up. 'Falco!' It came out with too much urgency. He knew that I knew he was desperate.

'Marcus Didius – perhaps you can help me.'

'What's wrong?' I had a bad feeling.

'Nothing, I hope – but I seem to have lost Claudia.'

The feeling was correct then: and a nightmare had begun.