A Capitol Death Page 14

  Even to myself I seemed to be nitpicking. It was down to past experience. People do tell lies to informers. Sometimes there is no reason for them to do so. They mislead on principle. Nobody wants Truth coming out. Any onset of Truth-telling makes people feel uncomfortable, even when this dangerous commodity will have no bearing on their income, their status in the community, or whether their girlfriend will still like them.

  Long-held secrets do escape. So many Saturnalias have been ruined by people with too much wine inside them letting fly: “This has gone on long enough. It’s time for the Truth, Drusilla!” Don’t say it, you idiot!

  Next thing, Drusilla tries to silence him by whacking him with a big bread paddle. She—having even more wine in her so that she can put up with his horrible habits—whirls around, wobbles off balance, falls over. She lies helpless, whimpering. Even if she tries to get away, she can’t. He grabs the paddle; he cracks open her skull with it.

  With luck, he then conceals the body, trying to explain away her disappearance, until her mother, who never liked him anyway, hires an informer to investigate. Excellent. Some good comes out of it for my profession. Eventually, if the mother’s informer is any good at all, the idiot has to face Truth, Whole Truth, Unpalatable Facts, Hideous Revelations, and Complete Ignominy for the rest of his life.

  Which may be short. Murder is a capital crime. That ought to teach him to keep quiet, though in my experience it fails.

  While these ideas were fandoodling through my brain, my feet somehow took me down from the palace on the Forum side. I often let my mind wander. Conscious thought can be an inhibitor. This especially applies in the middle of a case, when all you have to go on is a mish-mash of half-truths from witnesses who weren’t looking properly, or else those curious stories people invent because they believe it is always vital to mislead the authorities.

  No private investigator can compel members of the public to give evidence. To be honest, for me this is part of the fun. Any law-and-order bully can crash in demanding answers, which inevitably makes witnesses clam up. I have to be subtle: I must persuade them I am good to talk to. They want to talk to me. They trust me with what they know. It is a relief to share it, then to be reassured I will use it for the most good.

  Until they unburden, I keep my mind open. Some might say it is like writing a poem—you drift into creativity, letting your soul guide you—but that’s mystic tosh. I know that when my father has reached this stage in a case—when he gets himself stuck or tries to be too clever, my mother says—he often goes for a drink. He does hold a few set theories about how to do the job; this, he says, is his best. He relies on sitting at an uncomfortable table, thinking, What crappy wine this caupona has taken to serving. Dear gods, what horrendous pit in Hades did they dig it up from? while waiting not even for a flash of intuition of his own, but for the next event. Things always happen. “Hang around,” Falco says. “Let Fate do the work.” He taught me the job; he taught me such patience.

  Today the waiting method was to work. Something had happened and I came upon it. Without my vacant musing, I would never have wandered where I did. I had no purpose in taking myself down to the top end of the Sacred Way. Once I woke up and saw where I was, I groaned and thought to make the best of it.

  The Forum is a place of men. Solidly rich, obscenely rich, unbelievably even richer than that, or occasionally hard-up but begging a dinner from the others. They congregate, meet, greet, masticate, obfuscate, plan their next chance to fornicate, and generally mill around in a highly charged aura of business and sex. They could discuss religion or public administration, but why spoil their fun?

  I go there when I have to. I am not afraid of men. A woman alone will not be mistaken for one of the tired Forum prostitutes if she carries a businesslike satchel, walks steadily and never meets anybody’s eye. I cannot decide whether it is better to tackle catcalls by ignoring them or by snarling back a witty riposte. Depends. Too vague in ignoring, and you can end up with a pesterer glued to your elbow; too witty, and annoyers can turn nasty. If stuck, wave wildly at a stranger then speed up, as if you have spotted a friend. Fix on a big one. At the last minute dodge around this innocent person and keep going fast. The vigiles tend to congregate outside the Curia, so head for them, though don’t actually ask for help or you will end up having to shake them off.

  Which is worse, believe me. The Forum beat is assigned to the First Cohort, whose members (say my relatives with attachments to the Fourth) are little better than the vagrants they are moving out of temple porches. Almost as bad as the lawyers who are gambling on the basilica steps. Brothers to pickpockets and sons of loose women. Not as nice as the stray cats who occasionally manage to kill pigeons by the Black Stone. Not even as nice as the lost dogs.

  Surprisingly, it was the First who bothered to deal with today’s problem. That was: a body, which had been lying all morning below the Tarpeian Rock.

  XXVII

  Hello, hello, this was familiar! Hail and farewell, mysterious rock-battered corpse.

  I was hours too late to see it happen, but for once Fortune had guided my steps to an incident. I could so easily have turned left at the Vicus Jugarius, strolled around the top end of the Palatine to the Porta Carmentalis, before I wandered home after a quick visit to the vegetable market, just in case I could find any of those artichokes I had seen Valeria Dillia serve up to Nestor. I was still hankering. With food, once you get an idea you have to keep trying until you fulfil your hunger. At that point you find the real thing fails to match your dreams. Still, if you have ever taken a lover, you are prepared for that.

  Had I been chasing after vegetables, I would have missed the big event. Instead, I had found myself so near the site of Gabinus’ death, I felt called to take another look. Something relevant might strike me. So back I went to where the old woman had seen the transport manager fall.

  By the time I hit the Tullianum jail, there were five vigiles. The red tunics stood about in a typical bored formation. As they hovered on the fringe of the death-scene they were eyeing up women and sharing a packet of flatbreads, while they tried not to notice any crimes occurring, lest they had to abandon their scoff to intervene. I found them waiting for their senior investigator. He would need to trek down here from the station-house, after they sent a message for him. When the day shift had gone on patrol that morning he probably yelled after them: “Make sure you don’t call me out to anything!” So now he would be slow to unglue his backside from his comfortable stool.

  The station-house was along the Via Flaminia, currently clogged with traffic ahead of the coming Triumph. There were legionaries everywhere. En route, he was bound to run into military friends he hadn’t seen for years, which would hold him up. For a body, why hurry?

  Why? He ought to know why: because this was next to the Forum. He risked having the entire Senate piling out of the Curia in their broad purple stripes and tottering around the corner to take a look. He would not care if the noble ones gawped at the corpse, but he could do without three hundred of those pernickety fellows watching how he handled things.

  “Is your man any good?” I could make a guess.

  “Scorpus can manage a crime scene.”

  “Scorpus? I know him!”

  I introduced myself to his crew, explaining my connection. The First are responsible for not only the Forum but the Quirinal, where I had worked a previous case, with which Scorpus was familiar. Their station-house stands very near the Saepta Julia, so Scorpus also knew my father. For added impact, I mentioned that my uncle had been an inquiry chief in the Fourth Cohort.

  Laying out my wares like this immediately made me an acceptable person to gossip with. The vigiles, tough ex-slaves, would have liked conversing more if I was male but they were, after all, engaged in their traditional role of eyeing up women. Now here was a woman who actually strolled up and talked to them. That was highly unusual.

  “So do we have a repeat performance?” I asked, playing it gently. I used my
connections when I could but knew better than to push it. “Copycat?”

  “No. That’s why we called in the chief. He’s going to love this!”

  “I can imagine. Just when he’s ready to go home for a kip, eh?”

  I told them I was already enquiring into the Gabinus case for the authorities. They looked surprised but accepted it. I hoped my professional manner would convince them to discuss this new event, though I am realistic. It was more likely they just wanted to continue the rare treat of a respectable-looking woman chatting to them.

  “You called it a crime scene. Is it?” Might as well make the chat purposeful, even if I was stretching what they had said.

  They looked shifty, unwilling to commit. With Scorpus on his way, they knew better than to give a verdict, to me or anybody else. Scorpus would want to pronounce.

  “That’s all right. Save it. Let’s wait for your man.” I treated them like human beings. Most people can never manage that, even when the vigiles are heroically carrying them out of their burning homes. “So what are you allowed to tell me? What looks different this time, lads?” That was precisely what they should not tell me or anyone, but they readily spilled.

  First, nobody had witnessed this one. Whereas Gabinus had died in the early morning, this must have happened in the dark, last night. Come daylight, all anyone around here noticed to begin with was what looked like a bundle of old clothes lying at the foot of the rock. For several hours, nobody took any interest.

  Eventually a lone vagrant managed to clamber over there, hoping to pick up a wearable cloak. Once he came close, he realised that the enticing material was wrapped around someone. He reeled back, too moral to steal anything that had an owner wearing it, in case they jumped up and bopped him. A public slave, sweeping the Gemonian Stairs, spotted the vagrant from his elevated position when he stopped to wipe his nose on his arm. Since the authorities liked to keep people away from the Rock, this slave whistled to Zenon, a vigilis who was passing. Zenon shouted. The vagrant bolted. His colleague Taurus, who was just catching up Zenon after stopping at the flatbread stall, laid the suspect low with a flying tackle.

  “Yes, I thought your snack-packet looked a bit battered!”

  “Someone fell on it. Luckily it was Taurus, not the vagrant. The vagrant was lighter, but he stank even worse.”

  They ate the food anyway. They would have offered some to me but, as they sadly admitted, there was none left. That saved me having to give them either an enormous tip, or some worse thank-you present. Taurus was not the only smelly one among them.

  “Where’s the vagrant?”

  “Done a bunk.”

  “You let him?”

  “He had nothing else to tell us.”

  I nodded. “Well, it saves on paperwork.”

  “Stops him pissing in our holding cell!”

  Scorpus turned up. He was broad in the beam and none too tall, as they all were, although, unlike the rankers, their investigator was a free man with a military background. No hair, no trust in women, no joy at a corpse turning up on his patch. Some manners. Some tact. Beard stubble: the manly man-about-the-alleys look. A bad limp; I had never dared ask how he’d got it. Astute: he spotted at once that there had been food, but it was finished.

  He pretended not to remember who I was or that he had even met me. I carried on as if I had not noticed I was being blanked. The rule is that an informer who deals with the vigiles must prove they are worthy of respect; they have to do this every single time they come into contact. Like most rules, it is rubbish. Still, I knew it always happens.

  Scorpus took over. He had the public moved back to where they would see and hear less, though he was vague about whether his order included me. I took that for professional courtesy, the most I would be granted. I stood my ground, though I kept quiet to avoid annoying him.

  Before I arrived, the vigiles had been into the jail to fetch long poles with hooks. The apparatus was stored ready for incidents like this. The ground was too rough simply to climb over so, using their fire-fighting skills, the men stuck the implements into whatever lay by the cliff and hauled. For them, it was like pulling down a wall to gain access to the seat of a blaze. Scorpus, who probably never went to fires, stood watching with his thumbs in his belt. He was not the type to offer helpful tips.

  When it came to removing bodies, these lads were handy. In Rome, they had regular practice. They dragged their burden in fits and starts across the rough ground below the Rock. As it came, it was definitely heavier and more solid than rags, several times causing them to adjust their hooks.

  Once they had hauled it right to our feet, we saw what had alarmed the vagrant. A dead body was indeed contained within the wrappings: a human sausage in a stiff leather skin, which was tied on with rope. Feet in sandals had come out at one end. A head, face down, became visible when one of the men pushed back the leather.

  Scorpus crouched to inspect the remains. I managed to peer over his shoulder without being sworn at. The top of the skull had been stove in, with blackened blood matting dark curly hair. “Fall damage?” one of the men asked, almost hopefully.

  Scorpus shook his head. “Too deep. Much more than he’d get from knocking against the rockface. Something wide, flat-headed. A lump of rock? A club hammer? Done first. Then this wrapping-up job. Then fly-tipped.”

  “This one never jumped?”

  “No, lad. Chucked off. This one had been killed first.”

  Gingerly, he pulled down more of the wrapping material. It was unyielding leather, difficult to bend or pull aside. He gave up. At a nod, one of the men helped Scorpus turn the body over, still complete with this stiff shroud. It was a man’s corpse, his visible skin a little blotched, either with bruising from the fall or simply the decay of death. No other wounds were visible.

  A vigilis worked at one of the rope knots, which was amateurish. It would have been easier to cut through it with a dagger, but the night watch are unarmed. He soon freed it anyway. They opened up the leather.

  The dead man was not young. His hair was part-shaved around the sides of his head, leaving his ears prominent. Any human character had left him. No cheeky-chappy light remained. He was dressed in a plain unbleached, unbelted tunic, with no identifying jewellery; no pouch, purse or stylus bag was with him.

  Scorpus and his men looked despondent. To them, a tragic incident now acquired added pain. It would be hard to find out who this person was, which made it near impossible to work out what had happened and who had killed him. This was a very public death, so high-level interest would be a menace. The scribes at the Daily Gazette would mention it. The scene was central; sightseers would come wandering around for days.

  “Over to us!” Scorpus finally acknowledged me as he groaned at his task. “Nothing to go on, but half Rome wondering whether we’re making progress. The big nobs wanting answers. Our prefect constantly on at us. All we can do is tidy up.”

  I gazed at him quietly. I sympathised, yet I hate the way the vigiles always resist outside help. “You could let me ask questions.”

  “Why?” he growled. “Have you got a special dispensation to grab anything that happens on the Tarpeian Rock?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Get lost, Flavia! Leave it for the big boys, who know what they are doing.”

  “Up to you, Scorpus.” I pretended not to care that I was being excluded. “You want this the hard way? You are the expert.” He was already looking suspicious at how easily I seemed to give up. He knew me better than that. “I thought you had your hands full of gangster killings, Scorpus, not to mention that imperial spy they dumped in your office. But why should you let me help?” I asked dramatically. “Ooh, look—an answer! I can help you, Scorpus, because this death occurred so close to my own case—an official commission, remember. These events may be linked.”

  “No dice, Flavia.”

  His choice. He wanted to be intransigent. He thought it made him look tough.

  I would
not beg. So I did not reveal to this mighty inquiry chief that I had recognised the unyielding stuff the corpse was wrapped in. The vigiles were picking at it in puzzlement, but I knew what it was. Besides, when they allowed me enough space to look at him, I could identify the dead man. He was a witness I had interviewed.

  I let a beat pass. Scorpus could stay down there wondering aimlessly, while I would nip ahead of him. Because I knew this: the body was wrapped in a leather sidewall from an observation tent. The dead man was an augury assistant. His working name was Lemni.

  XXVIII

  Scorpus was not entirely dim. He might sometimes wake up and put his left boot on his right foot, but he would notice it halfway through the morning.

  Suddenly he spun around and fixed me with an accusing finger. “You’re having me on, Flavia! You bloody well know something.”

  “Albia,” I said routinely. “I told you before, Scorpus. Show some respect, please.” Like many in the Empire I had been stuck with an imperial name, but had no obligation to like it or use it.

  He ignored that. “What are you hiding? Who is this cove?”

  I kept him waiting long enough, then replied haughtily, “Lemni. Some kind of assistant at the Auguraculum. A knows-it-all and runs-it-all fellow, according to him. I interviewed him alongside an augur called Larth—I think those are both working pseudonyms. They cannot have been given antique Etruscan-sounding names at birth. Who would know what poncy religious career a couple of innocent little babies would end up in?”

  “Get on with it.”

  “I assume Lemni used to work with all the augurs, but I would start with Larth. He and Lemni seemed quite close when I saw them. They were setting up a tent for the observations that must be carried out ahead of Domitian’s Triumph.”