Ode To A Banker Read online

  ‘So who uses them?’ I asked.

  ‘The Aurelian is a family affair. Small fry may approach them, but for big deals you have to be someone they know. Otherwise, they will never explicitly refuse you, but nothing will ever happen. They work in a small circle.’

  ‘Matter of trust?’

  Nothokleptes let out a sardonic laugh. ‘That’s the word! It means that here, we check out strangers’ solvency by posting their names on the Columnia Maena and seeing if any of our colleagues can tell us their financial state. The Greeks want to know your grandfather and fifteen uncles sailing out of Piraeus. They want to believe you are one of them. Then your credit will be good. You could run off and default and they would still see you as one of them - though of course, you would not dare come back, which might be inconvenient.’

  ‘What about their own credit?’ I asked dryly. ‘Banks can fail’

  ‘Doh!’

  ‘Hush; don’t use such filthy language!’

  ‘Any hint of problems with the Aurelian?’

  ‘Not a whisper that I know of. I can listen out for you.’ His eyes sharpened keenly, scenting an insider tip. Initiating doubt was not what I wanted to accomplish, but questions always carry a risk.

  ‘Please do.’ I looked at him. ‘Chrysippus was very successful?’ I felt Nothokleptes was ready to be more open now. ‘So if he’s not prowling the wharves doing commercial stuff, what is his speciality?’

  ‘Loans with interest,’ Nothokleptes told me. His tone of voice would have been more suitable for saying the man had had intercourse with a pet mule.

  ‘Sorry - what’s the difference?’

  ‘Depends on the rates. Usury stinks.’

  ‘What rates does the Aurelian Bank demand?’

  ‘Twelve per cent is the legal maximum, Falco.’

  ‘And five is more decent nowadays. You are implying they are tough?’ He was implying something worse. ‘So what would a Golden Horse loan run at?’

  ‘I cannot comment.’

  ‘Well, of course not!’ I scoffed. ‘Don’t let me draw you into anything that seems commercially sensitive.’ He insisted on stubborn silence. I let it go. ‘All right. What can you tell me about the freedman who runs the loan side?’

  ‘Nothing odd about that.’ He must have thought I was querying the arrangement. ‘A common ploy.’

  ‘Ploy?’

  ‘Well, men who are struggling to arrive socially do not touch the filthy stuff from the mint with their own soft hands, do they?’ Nothokleptes was sneering at climbers with pretensions. He owned his own business, though he was low grade. As a result, so were his clients. Mind you, that did not make him poor; nor were most of the clients. He himself enjoyed handling money the way tailors fondle cloth.

  ‘Freed slaves can trade,’ he continued. ‘A banker can use a slave to act for him. Many have a trusted family freedman who organises the day-to-day work of the bank, so they themselves can dine out with patricians like the respectable Roman elite.’

  I whistled. ‘Rather a lot of trust, if this freedman is dealing in thousands - or millions”

  ‘He will be rewarded.’

  ‘With cash?’

  ‘With respect.’

  ‘Status? That all?’

  Nothokleptes only smiled.

  ‘What if he ever bunked off? Or simply was not up to the job? What if the agent Chrysippus used had made serious investment mistakes, or misjudgements in trusting creditors?’

  ‘Chrysippus would go bust. And the rest of us would shiver.’

  ‘So, do you know Lucrio?’

  ‘Oh, I know Lucrio,’ Nothokleptes remarked. ‘And then, I don’t know him, if you follow me.’

  ‘No. I need a clue of thread to wander in this Cretan labyrinth.’

  ‘I know who he is. But I would only approach Lucrio,’ said my banker, who had never before appeared fastidious, ‘with a heated meat skewer a yard long.’ He scowled in what probably passed for a fatherly warning. ‘I advise you to take the same line, Marcus Didius.’

  ‘Thanks for the tip.’ Interesting. ‘What do you know about Chrysippus’ son? His name is Diomedes.’

  ‘Heard the name; never met him. Cultured hobbies, I believe. Not a player in the same game.’

  Now I was surprised. ‘Why not? He’s twenty-five, or close; he’s reached his majority. I would expect him to tread in father’s sandal-marks. And presumably he inherits something now? At least, his mother told me he would have enough to live on - by their lights, so to me that’s more than enough.’

  ‘We shall have to wait and see.’ Nothokleptes was holding back. This was somehow too intimate, some professional wrinkle that he would not betray.

  I reckoned I had pushed it far enough. I urged the banker to keep his ears open for me, told him some horrific details of the murder as fair payment, and left him to be towelled up for his shave. His barber looked white after I described the violence. Clearly, he did understand Latin after all.

  I could not bear to watch the shaving process. Nothokleptes favoured the Egyptian pumice method: his beard was scratched off forcibly - along with many layers of skin.

  I had skipped down the four steps from the Porticus into the main Forum and was heading off through the rostra intending to leave on the opposite side. Then a voice hailed me, with the self-satisfied tone of somebody who knew I would have avoided him if I had spotted him first.

  Hades! It was Anacrites.

  XX

  ‘MARCUS OLD friend!’

  When he sounded so affable I could cheerfully have turned him upside down and placed him where the wild dogs come to pee.

  ‘Anacrites. Here you are, standing beside the Black Stone. Well, that’s an area of ill-omen, people say.’ The Black Stone is an area of dark paving that marks an obviously very ancient spot, though whether it really is the grave of Romulus as some believe, who can say? Superstitions hang about the place, anyway, and seeing the Chief Spy there would set many grabbing at their amulets and muttering incantations against the evil eye.

  ‘Same old Falco.’

  I grinned nastily, acknowledging my old wish to have him dead. In the past fifteen months I had seen him twice nearly dying - and twice he had thwarted me. On at least one of those occasions, I had only had myself to blame.

  He looked healthier now than for some while. An odd character. Odd, even for a Palace freedman. He could pass for someone of real consequence, or for any misshapen pebble on the track. He merged quietly into ordinary situations, yet if you looked closely his tunics verged on flash. Unusual embroidery in self-colours ran around custom-made neck-holes that were tailored to a perfect fit. He succeeded in seeming neutral and invisible, while maintaining his own, suggestively expensive, style. This subtle social double act was probably the most successful thing he did.

  ‘Anacrites, I’m busy. What are you after?’

  ‘Nothing particular.’ He was lying, because immediately he offered, ‘Fancy a drink?’ So he did want something.

  ‘I’ve hardly had breakfast.’ I started moving off.

  He stayed on my heels as far as the Golden Milestone. Well, that was a better place for him to park himself. Spies like to imagine they are the centre of the world.

  ‘So what’s the agenda these days?’ he begged, desperate to be taken into my confidence.

  ‘A patron of the arts,’ I condescended to inform him. He thought I meant that I was courting one, which was not entirely off the firing trajectory, because I had done it, briefly.

  He made a reference that now jarred, since my poetry recital seemed an age ago: ‘We enjoyed your performance the other evening.’ With that ‘we’ he was including himself in a clutch with my relatives, Ma and Maia specifically. ‘A refreshing occasion. It made me decide that I ought to go out much more. Life is not just about work, is it? Well,’ - he made an attempt at a joke - ‘you always take that attitude yourself.’

  I made no reply, leaving the conversation stranded.

  ‘Look,
Falco, I know you are very close to your family -‘ Wrong; if my relatives were allying themselves with Anacrites, I could not distance myself enough from them. ‘I just want to clear this with you - your mother feels it would help your sister recover from her bereavement if she started to go out sometimes -‘

  ‘Oh, Maia too?’

  ‘Can I finish?’

  He had said too much already. ‘What’s this then?’ I managed to hold down my anger and rely on a sneer. ‘Are you offering to mind Maia’s children while she gads off to festivals? That’s extremely decent, Anacrites, though four at once is a big gang to look after. Don’t get on the wrong side of Marius, is my advice - and of course you need to ensure that people don’t think you have an immoral interest in little girls ‘

  Anacrites flushed slightly. He gave up trying to interrupt. His plan was not acting as a nursemaid but escorting Maia, I was sure of that.

  I stared at him, trying to make out how old he was. It had never seemed relevant before: older than me; younger than he might have been to hold such a senior position as Chief Spy; certainly older than Maia - yet not too old. His strange pale eyes held mine, annoyingly matter of fact. He thought he was one of the family I wanted to choke.

  ‘You’ll have to take your chance,’ I heard myself growl. ‘Maia Favonia has her own ideas about what she will do - or not.’

  ‘I don’t want to upset you, that’s all.’

  Whenever he pretended to respect me, I wanted to knock him down and jump on him. ‘I don’t upset that easily.’

  All the time we had been in confrontation, he had been weighing his purse in one hand. ‘Just come from my bank,’ he said, noticing my fixed stare on it (fixed on how fat his damned moneybag looked).

  ‘Oh? Which do you use?’ I asked making it sound like a technical request for a friendly tip on which establishment was best.

  ‘Private receivers that I’ve been with for years, Falco. You go to the Alexandrian in the Porticus of Gaius and Lucius, don’t you?’

  How did he know where my bankbox was? He had probably weaselled out this information as part of some strategy when he wanted to get at me. Even in the period when we were partners, I had kept all personal details from his prying eyes and I instinctively avoided a straight answer even now: ‘Mine’s a basic safe deposit man. What’s yours like?’

  ‘They charge commission on deposits, but I get real security. The service is old-fashioned, rather secretive, even.’

  ‘Sounds a bit Greek.’

  ‘Well, they are, as it happens.’

  ‘Really? Would your secretive receivers lurk at the sign of the Golden Horse?’ He looked startled. It was a guess, because the Aurelian Bank was on my mind, but I smiled urbanely, letting Anacrites think I had carried out some dark surveillance in his own style.

  ‘How did you -‘

  ‘Say nothing!’ I tapped the side of my nose, enjoying myself and hoping to unnerve him. We were dancing around each other well today. ‘A Chief Spy needs absolute discretion, I realise.’ It went with the villa in Campania that Anacrites did not like to talk about, and probably other secret hoards of treasure and properties acquired through intermediaries. As a well-placed slave at the Palace whose work involved discovering facts that people wanted to hide, he must often have come across unsought bankers’ orders propped against his favourite stylus box. They might be anonymous - but he would know exactly who was asking him not to lean on them.

  Well, sometimes he would be baffled; as a spy he had always been incompetent. Perhaps he had to be, to have survived in the bureaucracy. Good types are very quickly weeded out in case they corrupt the administration with dangerous methods and ideas.

  ‘I’ve always been well looked after at the Golden Horse,’ he bragged. ‘Lucrio is an old crony -‘ Then the pallid eyes became suddenly wary as he wondered why I was asking. ‘Is there anything I ought to be told about the Aurelian Bank, Falco?’

  ‘Not as far as I know,’ I answered breezily. Which was true at the time. If in the future his finances were threatened, I would decide then whether I had more profit in telling him as a favour - or in keeping quiet.

  ‘Why were you interested?’ Anacrites was sure he ought to be worried.

  ‘I’ve just been with Nothokleptes,’ I said mildly. ‘That always makes me wonder what alternatives exist. Tell me; when you need to consult Lucrio, where do you get hold of him?’

  ‘In the Janus Medius.’ That was a covered passageway at the back end of the Porticus Aemilius - a haunt of financial dealers of all kinds. ‘Can I assist with an introduction, Falco?’

  ‘To the lofty Lucrio? No thanks.’ No fear. I knew Anacrites wanted to overhear what I had to say to the agent.

  I preferred to run suspects to earth for myself. Besides, if the Aurelian Bank’s freedman had any sense of business preservation, he would soon ensure he introduced himself to me.

  XXI

  I CHECKED IN at the Fourth Cohort’s patrol-house. The enquiry team were all out and the duty clerk reckoned I would be on my own with the Chrysippus case. Then Petronius rolled in and confirmed it.

  I brought him up to date. ‘So it may not be literature but banking. Want to pull it back and handle the case yourself?’

  Petro flashed his teeth. ‘Why should I? You’re the Census tax expert. You are fully at home with money, Falco.’

  ‘I wish I’d called in your Census return and audited you to Hades and back.’

  ‘Mine was impeccable - at least, it was once I heard it might be checked by you.’

  ‘I should have made life harder for my so-called friends,’ I grumbled.

  Petro shook his head sadly. ‘Dream away - you’re a soft touch, boy!’

  ‘Still, I’m happy that Anacrites deposits money with Chrysippus. I’d laugh if that bank should hit the rocks taking him with it.’

  ‘Banks don’t fail,’ Petro disagreed. ‘They just make money out of their customers’ debts.’

  ‘Well, I bet this bank is relevant to the murder,’ I said. ‘If only because of who gets to inherit the glittering reserves.’

  ‘Assuming they have any reserves,’ Petro warned. ‘My banker once - when very drunk indeed - confided that it’s all a myth. They rely on the appearance of solid security, but he reckoned they just trade on air.’

  On our usual good terms, we gossiped some more about the dead banker, not forgetting his women. Then Petro fished out a note-tablet. ‘Passus left this for you - the addresses of the writers that Chrysippus had summoned for interviews yesterday. Passus left orders that they should all be told to present themselves to you this morning. He commandeered a room there for you to use. You’ll like this,’ saidPetronius Longus, with a gleam, ‘you will be allowed to occupy one of the libraries.’

  ‘The Greek one?’ I asked dryly.

  ‘No; the Latin,’ came Petro’s riposte. ‘We knew a sensitive soul like you couldn’t bear to sit looking at horrible bloodstains on the floor.’

  Before I made my way to the Clivus Publicius, I had a moan to him about Anacrites smooching up to Maia. Petro heard me out impassively, not saying much.

  This time I did not enter the Chrysippus abode via the scriptorium, but broached the formal entrance portico as the killer must have done. It was grand architecturally, though there was a faint smell of mice. Was young Vibia Merulla a poor housewife? I could imagine what the deposed Lysa would make of that.

  Today at least there was a porter sitting in a cubicle, as though after the householder’s death security had been tightened up. Not much, however. The airy slave could hardly be bothered to ask my name and business. He waved me through, and let me find my own way to the library.

  ‘I am expecting the writers whose books your master sold. Have any arrived yet?’

  ‘No.’ And I was quite late getting here myself. Bad news. Still, writers have their little routines: if I knew anything, they were either still in bed - or they had gone early for lunch. Long and leisurely, probably.

  ‘
I want to see them one at a time, so if more turn up together please make them wait. Don’t let them talk to each other but put them somewhere separately.’

  The house was very quiet. There were slaves padding about, though I could not decide whether they had definite errands for their mistress or were pottering by themselves. The Latin library was deserted. The inner Greek one lay even more silent. It had already lost the corpse, though cleaning up was still in hand. A couple of buckets with sponges stood against one wall. And the scrolls I had asked Passus to catalogue were now collected in a dirty heap on a table. It looked as if he had dealt with some, which he had discarded into a large rubbish hamper, though others had still to be listed. Sensibly, he had not left his list lying around - though I wouldn’t have minded an advance peek myself.

  Passus was not there. Nobody was.

  Nobody visited the Latin library for over an hour. I dipped into Virgil’s Georgics and put myself in pastoral mood.

  Eventually, a man sidled in. ‘Well, good afternoon, or should I say good evening!’ I might be pastoral, but since I lacked the ameliorating influence of a warm-blooded shepherdess, I was also slightly sarcastic. ‘Here to see Didius Falco? Jupiter, how prompt!’

  ‘Iam generally the first,’ he said, sounding self-satisfied. I took against him immediately.

  He was in his thirties or forties, moderately tall and very thin, with spindly legs and anus, and hunched shoulders. It brought out the urge to bawl like a centurion for him to straighten up. Saturnine, sallow, and dressed in shabby black. I had not been expecting high fashion from a bunch of authors, but this was the worst kind of low taste. Black fades. It also leaks at the laundry onto other people’s whites. To find black on the second-hand clothes stalls you have to be in a world of your own, and a public menace.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Avienus.’

  ‘I am Falco. Investigating yesterday’s death.’ I took out a note-tablet and let him see me start a fresh waxed board in a capable manner. ‘Were you the first visitor yesterday as well?’

  ‘As far as I know.’

  We discussed times briefly, and I reckoned Avienus had turned up shortly after my spat about publication terms. He was almost certainly the first to appear after Chrysippus came into the house from the scriptorium, so if the others confirmed they saw their patron alive later, it cleared him. I lost interests but I was stuck with him in the absence of anyone else.