Enemies at Home: Falco: The New Generation - Flavia Albia 2 Read online

  Graecina came down from their apartment. She spoke to Cosmus, though I could not hear what was said. He hunched up and stayed put by the leather shop, looking lethargic. Graecina waited a moment, then she walked to one of the other retail outlets. It was where Polycarpus had pulled open a shutter to produce Mucia’s chair for me yesterday.

  The shutter was obviously not locked but now it refused to move freely. As best she could, Graecina hauled on it then said something, as if someone – Polycarpus presumably – was inside. It looked like a routine exchange between a wife and her husband. He might be continuing the process of cleaning up the seat cushion, and she might be calling him upstairs for lunch.

  I was intending to exchange greetings as I went into the apartment. As I came closer, Graecina spoke again, more impatiently. Seeming on the clumsy side with physical mechanics, she failed to apply her weight properly so could not heave the heavy folding door any further open. I went forwards to help. Giving up, Graecina squeezed through anyway, muttering. It was a tight fit. She was a fleshy woman. She would have acquired bruises.

  I reached the shutter; I was standing on the threshold when, within the dim interior, the steward’s wife let out a shriek.

  31

  The scream sounded more like surprise than anguish, but sometimes you recognise trouble. With a great struggle, I pressed myself through the narrow gap, following Graecina inside. Through the gloom, I saw why the shutter was so hard to open. Polycarpus was lying against it, in a partly bent position with his shoulders and upper body pressed against the inside of the wooden leaf, his weight jamming it.

  I joined his wife as she knelt beside him. He was warm, though lifeless. Graecina was breathing fast, but she held herself together, a loyal wife and mother, refusing to give way to hysteria while there might be something necessary to do.

  No chance. No pulse. No breath. No life left. I said nothing, but the wife knew too.

  Together we lifted Polycarpus away from the shutter, so I could pull it open properly. We hauled him out and laid him on his back in the street. I checked again, but it was pointless. Light and air failed to revive him or alter my verdict.

  I sent for a doctor anyway. A widow needs to be sure. Graecina provided an address and I told Dromo to go; I reckoned Cosmus would be unreliable.

  Having brought back the cloak Graecina lent me the day before yesterday, I folded it and placed it beneath the steward’s head. It was too soon to cover over the body, not while his wife was still reluctant to accept he was dead.

  Though the corpse was recognisably Polycarpus, with the same build and desert-dweller’s chin stubble, all the spry bonhomie had vanished. To me, it was no longer him.

  Graecina and I sat side by side on the kerb; I held her hand. I had taken to her on first acquaintance and, unbeknown to her, we shared this hard experience. I too had once had my husband abruptly despatched, in the middle of what had seemed an ordinary, bright and sunny day. So, as the world went about its business unaware of her tragedy, I knew all too painfully what Graecina was going through.

  She stayed silent. Some people immediately become stupefied. Others of us clench up and fall into deep thoughts, planning ahead, already readjusting because we need to be ready, we need to be strong.

  She would be thinking about her children – how to tell them, how to console them, how then to provide for them, on her own, in whatever difficult future lay ahead. I had not had that worry, but on the other hand, when my husband died suddenly, he left me to a life alone. That’s hard, even if you call yourself tough. As far as I knew, her children were still young, and so Graecina would at least have someone to talk to, cry with, even snap at when everything became too difficult. The infants would grow up. They would grow up fairly well, I thought, from the little I had seen of her. She would have her family.

  The hairy dog came over and licked Polycarpus gently. His manner was sad and respectful, as if he realised he was saying farewell. This is why I like dogs.

  He sat down beside the body, a couple of feet from Graecina and me, sharing our vigil. Occasionally he had to scratch at a flea, but he did so unobtrusively. He seemed to understand our sadness, and wanted to be part of the scenario.

  The dog’s behaviour contrasted with that of the slave Cosmus, who had mooched to a new spot outside a cutler’s shop. He was staring at the goods on show, as if he had not seen us bring his master’s body out. I worry about young boys who gawp at knives – though many of them do it, some never actually reaching the stage of owning one.

  When Dromo brought the doctor, he said Polycarpus had died of heart failure. The man needed to see an oculist.

  It must be true that the steward’s heart had failed at some point. He had told me he had been freed for five years, making him in his mid to late thirties, young for this to happen unexpectedly. There had been no sign that his heart was diseased, no warning that his body was liable to fail him. He had never lived foolishly. Yet plenty of people leave the world at his age or younger.

  Stress could have caused a heart attack. If he had been in an argument prior to his death, it was not with Graecina; I myself saw her arrive on the scene. Watching her discover the body, I had witnessed true shock.

  Her grief was real too. ‘Why?’ she asked, fixatedly. People do ask that, and generally there is nothing you can say in reply.

  I knew that heart failure alone did not kill the steward. The doctor saw nothing amiss, but I had noticed immediately: Polycarpus had been attacked.

  It was probably quick and simple. There were no self-defence bruises, no rope around the steward’s neck and no rope burns. But I could see tell-tale fingermarks.

  I answered the wife’s question. She had the right to know. ‘Look at his throat here, Graecina. Somebody strangled him.’

  32

  I decided to involve the vigiles. I had no doubt Polycarpus’ death was related to the murders of his master and mistress. If I failed to notify the Second Cohort, it might cause problems. This was a high profile case.

  Again, I sent Dromo. He had not evolved by magic into someone helpful; we had had no lunch and it would not happen in the near future. He would soon start to nag me. To pre-empt the misery, I gave him a few coppers, with orders to go to the station house with my message first, then buy himself a cake on the way back. He skipped off eagerly.

  Covered with crumbs, he returned with Titianus. Even the vigilis appeared to be chewing. I was stuck with him; he would probably fail to investigate properly all over again. Sighing internally, I sent off Dromo for an undertaker, ignoring his pleading looks for more tuck money.

  Titianus took the line that I was trouble. Nevertheless, he did not exclude me from his thoughts, which were as hidebound as ever. He immediately swore this was a second murder by the same parties. He had hardly looked at the corpse or considered the circumstances.

  I pointed out quietly that the original group of slaves had certainly not carried out this killing, because not only were they under guard at the aediles’ office on the Aventine, as Titianus well knew, but I had actually seen them that morning and could give them all alibis. This confirmed his bitter theory that I was a menace, intent on ruining his life. Still, he settled down to do his job, while I tried to make his efforts fit with mine.

  Polycarpus must have been murdered during my walk back to the Esquiline. I mentioned that the body had been warm when I first touched it. Titianus borrowed a stylus from me and wrote that down on a waxed tablet, asking how to spell ‘temperature’. He got lost in the middle of the word and had to ask twice.

  At least he paid attention to the time-of-death issue, though he only wanted to know because the closer death occurred to the discovery of the corpse, the shorter the time period Titianus would need to cover in his enquiries. I already knew he was a minimalist. But there was no hope he would give up and leave things to me.

  He went over to the nearest bar and asked if anyone had witnessed the killer entering the shop while Polycarpus was inside. Of c
ourse not. People spend their time at bar counters staring out at the street, but nobody ever really sees anything that happens. Zeus could descend in a shower of gold and rape that fat woman at the bread counter, the one with the daughter-in-law who ran off with a sailor, but the divine apparition would pass unnoticed.

  The same drinkers now stayed on, to gawp at the dead body.

  Anyone else walking down the street at the crucial moment was long gone. People slip in and out of shops all the time, even when they are empty or closed. This is daily life. No one ever takes it in. If there had been a noisy altercation, nobody had heard it. If they had, they would have walked on faster.

  After a while, Secundus and Myrinus came sauntering back to their shop. They had been taking lunch with Secundus’ aged mother; she could vouch for them. Titianus sniffed; I saw he would have liked to pin the crime on the leatherworkers, because they were foreign. They must have known it too.

  Titianus had to treat them politely, especially with me watching. They equally politely told him what little they knew. They had seen Polycarpus go into the empty premises. They exchanged greetings while he was opening up the shutter, but he was still in there on his own when the two North Africans left. He had pulled the shutter closed after him, except for a space of about a foot – which I thought was odd, because whatever he wanted to do there, the place would surely have been too dark.

  ‘Graecina, did you know why your husband came down here?’

  Something about the carrying chair, but Graecina did not know what. I went and had a look at it. The soiled seat, a padded drop-in rectangle on a wooden frame, had been lifted out. If there had been a bucket of water and a sponge, that would have answered the question for certain, but there were no cleaning materials.

  Apart from being bloodstained, I could see nothing odd about the cushion. I swung open the chair’s half door and inspected inside. There was a compartment underneath the seat. It was empty.

  As I emerged, Titianus spotted Cosmus loitering and remembered him from the Aviola incident. Apparently it was Cosmus Polycarpus sent that night to the station house.

  ‘Come here, you!’

  Cosmus looked around as if he thought Titianus meant someone else, then loped across. He was a sturdy lad, just growing his first moustache. The vigilis muttered under his breath to me, which at least meant I was now a colleague he could grumble with.

  Titianus questioned the slave with the air of a man who had wasted effort on the hopeless many times. He had an impatient, bullying approach which only drew out answers he clearly expected. Cosmus was the kind of slave who drifted about the neighbourhood, yet never heard or saw anything.

  Cosmus said he had been sent downstairs by Polycarpus that morning to carry water to the apartment, so he was either away at the fountain (out of sight further down the street) or indoors out of earshot at the time when someone must have visited Polycarpus in the lock-up. Just before I arrived and saw him by the leather shop, Cosmus had been inside the house talking to Myla.

  He was useless as a witness. Titianus could only roll his eyes and let Cosmus go.

  I told him, ‘See if Graecina wants you to do anything. Then stay with her. She needs support.’

  To make sure, I myself led him over to Graecina who was talking to the undertaker. She confirmed the story about Polycarpus sending Cosmus to fetch water, as he did every day.

  Titianus and I went indoors to question Myla. She was in the kitchen nursing her baby. She made sure Titianus had an eyeful. He was more tolerant with her than I would have been, perhaps because he was riveted by the breast-feeding. Typical.

  I told Myla Polycarpus was dead. She responded quite aggressively. ‘I hope you’re not saying I had anything to do with that!’

  ‘Well, did you?’ asked Titianus, unmoved.

  ‘How could I, when I’m in here all day with the little one and with all the jobs I have to do?’

  I managed not to snort.

  ‘So is it right, you were here talking to that half-baked boy Cosmus?’ Titianus persisted.

  ‘Cosmus is all right.’

  ‘He behaves like a spook, who doesn’t know who he’s supposed to be haunting. Answer the question, Myla.’

  ‘We were here, I suppose. I don’t know. I don’t know when it was, do I?’

  ‘An hour ago, or less,’ I said, joining in, hoping to speed up the agony.

  ‘Well, Cosmus came in for a bite of lunch.’

  ‘Does he not get fed at home?’

  ‘Yes, but he comes down to see me sometimes. When he wants to chat.’

  ‘What do you chat about?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘He says what he wants to. He’s a sad boy.’

  ‘Why is he sad?’

  ‘He doesn’t know how to be happy.’

  That was a conversation-stopper.

  I started to rustle up lunch for myself, inviting Titianus to share. A true vigilis, he asked if I had anything to drink and when I said no, he went off to buy something from the bar. By the time he returned, carrying two full beakers on a rocky take-out tray, I had laid a portable table with snacks in the courtyard. The two chairs were still there.

  He apologised if he had been a long time. ‘That place opposite serves sewer silt. I had to walk down to the other one. I met an old codger who wanted to talk about Polycarpus. Nothing pertaining to the death, but the old fellow would go on. Apparently the steward was very friendly.’

  ‘His modus,’ I said. ‘He kept in with everyone around here. I can imagine he would generously share some listening time with a maundering grandfather – though when he had had enough, I bet Polycarpus also knew how to go on his way without causing offence.’

  ‘I never seem to manage that,’ Titianus confided. He spoke with an innocence that reminded me of my late husband.

  ‘It’s a knack.’ I let myself reply consolingly, even though I thought it was a knack anyone who joined the vigiles ought to have mastered by their third day. ‘Did you find out anything from the old man?’

  ‘Polycarpus had had a moan about Aviola intending to give his job to someone else.’

  ‘Bad feeling against his master?’

  ‘Well, the old ’un said Polycarpus wasn’t exactly pleased. You can’t blame him.’

  ‘Polycarpus lined up something else for himself as soon as Aviola died.’ I said. ‘He had a good reputation. He was always going to find a place.’

  We ate. Titianus drank. I merely sipped. I would enjoy the wine more on my own in peace, after he had gone. I could have a melancholy reminisce about Lentullus, my husband. I did that occasionally, often when a case was proving troublesome. You have to share with someone. At least the dead don’t argue with you about it.

  Not that Lentullus ever argued much with me. The dear lad thought anything I said was wonderful.

  It was ten years since the gods took him, though it felt like only as many days. Poor Graecina had no idea yet what she would have to go through.

  As he mellowed with a drink, curiosity got the better of Titianus. He had to ask me about the man captured in the attack on Camillus Justinus two days ago. Of course he knew that my uncle had been to see his tribune before that. I caught a hint of grumpiness; Titianus evidently thought Justinus and Faustus went over his head. As of course they did.

  ‘I hope you don’t resent them,’ I said, aiming to win him over with frankness. At least I was able to assure Titianus that the male-only meeting when they saw his tribune was nothing to do with me.

  ‘They made themselves marked men when they interfered. Old Rabirius is bound to have heard about it. You must be glad not to be identified as their associate, Albia.’

  I did not tell Titianus that it was me who had spoken to Gallo. Titianus clearly didn’t know that. He certainly would not approve. He was not as stubbornly ‘traditional’ as, say, that funeral director I saw this morning, Fundanus, but anyone who works with the vigiles hates women joining in their gam
es.

  ‘So you think it’s obvious the attack on Camillus was set up by this gang?’ I pretended to ask for an expert opinion.

  ‘Seems likely.’ Titianus preened himself. This might have been easier if he ever bothered to have a good lotion on his awful hair. ‘I heard that their henchman, Gallo, went strutting to the Fourth’s barracks, asking for the captured man to be released.’

  ‘No – really?’ I cooed.

  ‘Gallo must have thought they were bound to hand him over.’ Titianus sounded as though he had supposed the same. ‘Apparently their tribune uses a different protocol. He refused outright.’ Titianus whistled, either in astonishment or admiration, it was hard to tell.

  ‘I am amazed as you are, Titianus. What did Gallo do?’

  ‘He abandoned the man, apparently. Just scowled, walked off, and left him to his fate.’

  ‘Did the fellow talk?’ I had no need to ask. Of course he did. The Fourth can do their job.

  ‘I believe the screams were terrible,’ Titianus told me salaciously.

  ‘What will be done with him? The usual?’

  ‘Correct. He’ll never resurface on the streets. He’ll be among the criminals labelled “tunic-thief” and “sheep-abuser” in the morning arena show.’

  I kept playing my part, looking innocent. ‘When the slashing is fast and routine, while nobody in the audience is paying too much attention to the pieces of meat getting killed? Do you think the Rabirius gang will go to watch?’

  ‘Bound to. They will show proper respect to their own,’ Titianus surmised. ‘After that, we may have some crap to deal with. Maybe the fellow’s mother will start harbouring horrible bitterness because Gallo abandoned him. One of their family feuds may blow up. Blood at the barber’s. Some senior Rabirius stiffed over his lobster stew at lunch, while gang members look the other way and hope they won’t be next.’