Time To Depart

XLVIII

WHEN I REACHED the apartment I found we had visitors who were guaranteed to undo all the benefits of my bath and training session. I had walked in before I realised, or I would have turned tail quietly and fled. Too late: I found Helena talking in subdued tones to my brother-in-law Gaius Baebius. Gaius had brought along my sister Junia. I immediately noticed they had left their, dog Ajax at home. The absence of Ajax warned me of trouble. I assumed something dire had been discovered in connection with Tertulla, but there had been no further news; the trouble Gaius Baebius was bringing turned out to be worse.

Everyone had been waiting for me. It was lucky Petronius and I had not decided to bathe together and have a long session in a wine bar. (For some unusual reason Petro had not even wanted a drink.)

In the apartment the atmosphere was strained. Junia had the skip baby across her bony knees; Helena was telling her his story, as a polite way of filling in time. Gaius Baebius, sitting upright with a superior expression, was dressed in a toga. Not even this peculiarly formal character had ever been known to don traditional dress before calling at Fountain Court.

`Gaius! What are you all wrapped up like a parcel for? And why are you here anyway? I was told you were working at Ostia.'

A worrying thought struck me that Gaius and Junia might want to foster the skip babe. It was nothing so simple, though finding out took willpower.

`I went to Ostia this morning,' Gaius said. That explained nothing. Yet somehow he managed to give his routine trip to work a resonant significance.

I sighed and gave up. Persuading Gaius Baebius to tell a five-minute tale normally took about three days…

I hung my cloak on a peg, flopped on the floor (since all the seats were taken), grabbed the baby from Junia and started playing with him and Nux.

`Marcus!' said Helena, in a light, warning voice.

`What's up?' I immediately stopped playing camels with the babe, though Nux had less sense and carried on pretending to hunt me like a wild boar. This dog would have to be put through a course on domestic etiquette. Maybe a better solution would be to get rid of the dog. (Maybe Gaius and Junia would like to foster her.)

`Marcus, Gaius Baebius has to visit an official. He wants to ask if you'll go with him.'

`Well, I just wondered if you could tell me the name,' Gaius demurred, as I was fending off the crazy dog.

`Whose name?'

`The tribune of the Fourth Cohort of the vigiles.'

`Marcus Rubella. He's a misery. Don't have anything to do with him.'

`I need to. The customs force have a report to make.'

`In full formal dress? What's up, Gaius? Is this something sensitive?'

On reflection it had to be, if those plodders in the taxation force had sent a supervisor back to Rome before the end of his shift. Gaius Baebius was also clearly disturbed by his task.

I stood up and straightened my tunic. I gave Junia the baby to hold again. Helena quietly squashed along a bench, leaving me room to perch on the end of it close to Gaius. That big wheat pudding was sitting on a stool, so he was lower than me. It made him vulnerable. to stern treatment. Gaius knew that. He was looking uncomfortable.

I tapped him on the knee and lowered my voice into friendly cajolement. `What's the game, Gaius?'

`It's a confidential matter.'

`You can tell me. Maybe I already know. Is it graft?'

He looked surprised. `No, nothing like that.'

`One of the inspectors made a nasty discovery,' interrupted Junia.

My sister Junia was an impatient, supercilious piece. She had a thin face, a skinny frame, and a washed-out character to match. She wound her black hair into tight plaits pinned around her head, with stiff little finger-long ringlets in front of her ears and either side of her neck. This was all modelled on a statue of Cleopatra: a big joke, believe me.

Life had disappointed Junia, and she was firmly convinced that it could not possibly be her own fault. In fact, between her terrible cooking and her resentful attitude, most of what went wrong could be easily explained.

She always treated her husband – in public anyway – as if supervising customs clerks stood on a par with the labours of Hercules, and was better paid. But his ponderous conversational style must drive her wild. Now she snorted and took charge of him: `An inspector in pursuit of unpaid harbour tax looked into a boat and found a dead man. The corpse was in a bad condition but it carried an identification tag. Gaius Baebius has been specially selected to bring it to Rome.' Junia spoke as if the trusty Gaius had flown here on winged sandals in a gilded helm.

My heart took an unpleasant lurch. `Show Marcus, Gaius,' Helena urged as if she had already managed to see it.

What he unwrapped cautiously from a piece of cloth was a simple bone disc. Gaius held it out to me on the cloth, reluctant to touch it. It looked clean. I picked it up between my fingertips. A nerve in my wrist gave an involuntary twitch.

It had a round hole at the top, through which were threaded two entwined leather strings. One of them was broken. The other still held in its knot. On one side of the disc were the letters COH IV. There were very neat, centrally set, with that telling gap which showed the last two letters were the numeral four. Around the rim in smaller letters was the word ROMA followed by a spacing mark, then PREF VIG. I turned the disc over. More untidily scratched on the back was one masculine name. It was a name I knew.

My face had set. `Where's the body, Gaius?'

Gaius must have recognised the dark tone in my voice. `They're bringing it from Ostia.' He cleared his throat. `We had a problem persuading a carter.'

I shook my head. I could work out how many days the body might have been lying at the, port. The filthy details I did not want to know.

It was clearly a matter of pride to have identified the disc and to be drawing official notice as promptly as possible. Customs like to think they are as sharp as fencing nails. Even so, my brother-in-law must have had mixed feelings even before he saw me. Officials stick together. A blow against one arm of the public service dismays them all. Always a lover of a crisis but aware of the implications, Gaius murmured, `Is this bad, Falco?'

`As bad as it could be.'

`What's happened?' demanded Junia.

I ignored her. `Was the man drowned, Gaius?'

`No. Thrown into the keel of an old barge that had been stuck on the silt for months. One of our lads noticed footprints on a mudbank, and thought he might have uncovered some smuggling. He had a bad fright. There were no hidden bales, just this: a corpse hidden out on the barge. Whoever dumped him probably thought no one would ever go out there to look.'

`You mean it made a safer hiding place than the ocean, which might have washed the corpse ashore?'

`Looked as if the fellow had been strangled, but it was hard to tell. Nobody wanted to touch the body. We had to, of course,' Gaius added hastily. `Once discovered it couldn't be left there.' Nice to know that in the customs realm the highest standards of public hygiene ruled.

`Was the disc actually on the corpse?'

Something in Gaius' manner made me wish I had not asked. He flushed slightly. Customs have their moments. Screwing money from reluctant importers they have to face plenty of aggravation, but it usually stops at shouting and obscenities. Holding back a shudder he confirmed the worst. `We spotted the thongs. I'm afraid the disc had been rammed in the poor fellow's mouth. It looked as if in the process of killing him, someone had tried to make him eat it.' I swallowed air. In my mind I was seeing a boyish, cheery face with bright eyes and an enthusiastic grin. Gaius enquired, `Is anyone missing?'

`No one the cohort knew was lost.'

`So was he one of theirs then?'

`Yes.' I was terse. I stood up again. `I knew him briefly. This is very important, Gaius – for the cohort and for Rome. I'll come with you to see Rubella.'

I refolded the cloth gently around its significant contents. Gaius put out his hand to take it back, but I closed my fist too fast for him.

We found- Marcus Rubella at the cohort headquarters. I was surprised. It was by then the hour when most people were thinking about relaxation and food. Mentally I had had Rubella listed as the type who worked set hours – the minimum he could get away with. I had imagined he would slide out with his oil flask and strigil, bidding his clerks farewell the minute the bathhouse stokers started thrusting wood into their stoves. I thought he probably left his work behind him then, and kept a clear mind all through dinner and his recreation hours.

But he was alone in the office, a still, brooding presence, staring at documents. When we first walked in he barely reacted. When I told him there was trouble he opened a shutter, as if to see the problem more clearly. For a brief moment he seemed the type who faced up to things after all.

Gaius Baebius relayed his story, prompted by me when he tried to slow down. Rubella made no fuss. Nor did he decide on any action, beyond some comment that he would write in sympathy to the family. Maybe he liked to brood first – or more likely he just loved to let events roll forwards without throwing in his own spear.

`Any idea where Petronius Longus is, Falco?'

I had a good idea, and I preferred to keep it private. `He's following up an interview. I can track him down.'

`Good.' This was the sunflower-seed eater, neutral and standing well back. `I'll leave it to you to tell him then.' Thanks, tribune!

Gaius Baebius and I left the building. With the usual difficulty I managed to shed my brother-in-law, who always liked to cling on when he was not wanted. As the streets grew darker, I walked somberly from the Twelfth sector, where the Fourth had their headquarters, and down the hill to the Circus side of the Aventine. I could hear gulls squabbling over the Tiber wharves. They must always be there, but tonight I noticed them with resentment. Tonight was not the time to be reminded of the sea.

Everywhere seemed full of excited parties going out to dinner. Horse-faced women shrieked. Crass men chivied their trains of slaves to trot along faster. All shopkeepers looked malevolent. All passers-by had the air of would-be thieves.

A meek porter admitted me to Milvia's elegant house. I was told Florius was still out. No one seemed perturbed by it, even though respectable householders normally show up at home in the evening. If he was going out to dinner he ought at least to change his tunic – and some wives would expect to be taken along. No one had much idea when they might expect him back either. It seemed routine. Warily I asked whether an officer of the vigiles had visited that evening, and was told he was talking to Milvia in private.

As I feared. Another allegedly respectable husband was marauding off the leash. Petronius Longus could behave like a real boudoir bandit.

I was shown once more into the salon with the thin-legged Egyptian furniture. No one else was there. The house seemed very quiet, with not much going on. The whole time I was there Milvia, the young lady of the house, failed to appear.

I waited. After a few minutes Petronius walked in. He was wearing a green tunic that I had last seen the night he and Silvia dined at our apartment. He had bathed and changed, but there was no special odour of unguents. I might have been wrong; this was hardly the debonair adulterer at work. He looked perfectly normal – calm, steady, utterly the man in charge. My abrupt appearance here gave him some warning. We were such close friends he immediately knew far more than I had done when I set eyes on Gaius Baebius.

But I would still have to tell him.

‘What's up, Falco?' Petro's voice was quick and light.

`You won't like this.'

`Can things get worse?'

`A lot worse. Tell me, do all members of the vigiles carry identity tags?'

He stared, then took from a pouch on his belt a small bone counter, exactly like the one from Ostia. He let me examine it. On the face was the symbol COH IV, surrounded by ROMA and PREF VIG. On the reverse, being a neat, systematic character, Petro had scratched in full his three names.

`You don't wear it?'

`Some do. I don't like cords around my neck – villains can grab at them and throttle you.' Well he was right about that.

I gave him back his tag. Then I took from my tunic the other disc, handing it over in silence. By then he was expecting sorrow… His face had set into melancholy hollows. He turned the bone and read the name: LINUS.

Petronius sat on one of the delicate couches, leaning forwards, knees apart, hands clasped between them, holding the disc. I told him what had happened, as far as the customs force had worked it out. When I finished I walked over to a folding door and stood staring out at a garden while Petro absorbed the facts and tried to cope.

`This is my fault.'

I had known he would say that. It was nobody's fault, but taking the blame was the only way Petronius could handle his grief. `You know that's wrong.'

`How can get them, Falco?'

`I don't know. Look, we can't even start yet; there have to be formalities. Rubella is going to write a letter of sympathy to the relations, but you know what that will sound like.' We had both seen how officialdom informs bereaved families of death.

`Oh dear gods! That isn't any good.' Petronius roused himself. `I'll have to go. I'll have to tell his wife.'

`I'll come with you,' I said. I hardly knew Linus, but I had met him once and even the brief memory affected me. I was involved.

Petro made no move yet. He was still struggling. `I'm trying not to think about what this means.'

He spoke the name on the tablet he was cradling so gently. Linus. Linus, the young, keen undercover man whom Petro had placed on the ship that had supposedly taken the condemned criminal Balbinus into exile.

The death of Linus at Ostia must strongly imply that Balbinus Pius never went. In reality the ship must have dropped off passengers at the harbour mouth. Either then, or very shortly afterwards, Petro's agent was dead: