A Capitol Death Read online

  Two men had died on the Capitol, one loathed, one liked. They, too, must have reckoned on long lives with normal endings. Someone had destroyed that hope. I had always taken Gabinus’ fall from the Rock seriously, but when I first started looking into his “suicide” I felt neutral about it; I had simply aimed to establish the facts, whatever they turned out to be. Now, though, I began to theorise that both men were taken out deliberately, and perhaps by the same killer. I saw no reason to think the two deaths were random. There was probably a link. Having two corpses, I began to focus much more intensely on what had happened to them. If there was evil abroad on the Capitol, I was now determined to expose it.

  * * *

  I made my way to the building where Valeria Dillia lived. She was out, though I found a porter. He was the usual misshapen slave, like a pie that had slumped in the oven. I came upon him eyeing up the ground-floor urine tank. He dropped any plan to empty it, though he was not completely idle: he was ready to talk to me as much as I wanted.

  Lemni did not live in Dillia’s block. Even so, the porter knew who he was. He had seen Lemni come and go; he knew Lemni acted as a racetrack runner. He never asked him to carry a bet because he had no money.

  Lemni rented a room in the tenement next door, had done for years. The first porter took me along to act as my introduction to his janitorial colleague. I could have managed by myself, but it smoothed the way. I thanked him with a copper. He thanked me for it as though it was a fortune. Nobody normally noticed him, let alone gave him anything.

  The second porter, aware now that helping out might pay, eagerly led me up to Lemni’s lodging. He opened the door with a latch-lifter that he knew was kept above on the lintel. The door stuck, but he also knew the knack of bursting in with a sudden shoulder push.

  I found the familiar small, sparse room with the same battered furniture and the same sour smell as all the rest in this case: another bed-and-bucket bunk-up. By his wonky table, Lemni had two stools, not one. In those tenements it was luxury. It would have allowed him to entertain a visitor, so long as their leg muscles were strong enough to stop the stools wobbling. Larth had sat there presumably. Lemni’s sister, or his brother perhaps.

  The porter said he had seen Larth come home with Lemni more than once. “There was nothing funny in it!” he hastened to tell me. I was an informer, so he assumed I was looking for scandal. Of course I had not supposed anything of the sort. I had seen the two men together. Rome was rife with mismatched sexual partners, but I was sure that had never applied to them. “They was just mates. They would have a bite they brought in with them, they had a chat, then the tall man always went off, going home presumably.”

  “I think that’s right,” I said, to reassure the porter. “They got on well and enjoyed each other’s conversation. It can be done.”

  Lemni’s possessions held no surprises, just a few items of clothing, odd tools, a minimal set of household utensils. Two oil lamps, one dry.

  The bed was unmade. Nothing sensational, just a squashed pillow and the thin coverlet left open as if someone had recently climbed out. I pulled it straight, no reason not to. It was never a crime scene. No struggle had taken place there. This was simply the room of a man who lived alone and had done so for a long time. He had gone out one evening to his place of work—an unusual place, high on the Arx at night, but routine for him. Behind him he had left the casual untidiness of someone who most definitely expected to come home.

  XXXIII

  Despondent, I prepared to leave. My heart was heavy for the chirpy soul I had met so briefly. Why was Lemni dead? What pointless quarrel led to this?

  On the way out, I asked the porter, “Did you ever see Lemni with other visitors, apart from the tall man, Larth?”

  He shook his head.

  “Did he ever bring women back?” He looked nervous. “It is allowed, you know,” I reassured him.

  “Not like that.”

  “He had a sister, didn’t he? What about her?”

  It was worth pushing, because now the porter changed his tune: “I seen her a couple of times, yes.”

  “What’s she like?”

  “Normal.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “He never said.”

  “Did she come on her own?”

  “Most times. Or she had her little nippers. Lemni seemed very fond of them. You could see why he doted. Beautiful children. Well, they took after their mother.”

  I was not sure how to reconcile this woman being both beautiful and normal, but I let it go. “What about their father?”

  I was half expecting the answer, a common enough tale: “Never seen him. I used to hear Lemni having a go at his sister about the man, but she always said she had no reason to leave him, so Lemni ought to stop nagging.”

  “Do you think he knocked her about? Is that why Lemni was having a go?”

  “Not that I saw. She wasn’t cowed. She seemed like a woman who would stand up for herself. She wasn’t even letting Lemni tell her what to do.”

  “How many children?”

  “Two last time. And a babe in arms.”

  “Three, then. So what had the brother-in-law done?” I asked, though I could guess. “What made Lemni nag about him?”

  “Lemni called him a dead weight.”

  “He was just no good?”

  “No support to her.” With three children already, the wife had her hands full and I bet there was a chance of more if she stuck it out with that husband. She must be a tired and anxious woman, kept short of money, often on her own. A good brother would worry about her, maybe even fear he would be called in to provide for her and the infants himself. Of his own accord, the porter confirmed it: “From what I heard when they were arguing, the husband was never around much, so the sister relied on Lemni more and more.”

  “The pair were close, then?”

  “Seemed like it.”

  “Was he older?”

  “Looked to be.”

  “Might the husband and Lemni have got together and had a quarrel?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Hmm. “So there was a sister with troubles—and then I think someone told me Lemni might also have had a brother?”

  “Yes, he used to share the room with Lemni, but he moved out.” The porter looked as if he was about to add something, but he must have changed his mind. He scratched his groin instead. They all do it. He was unaware of his action; I ignored it.

  “Did a man called Gabinus ever come around here?”

  “Not that I know.”

  “In Transport. Not very likeable. Everyone hated him, in fact.”

  “No,” said the porter, in the vague way that made him seem to be hiding something. “No, I wouldn’t know anything about anyone like that.”

  “Gabinus is dead. He’s not going to bite you.”

  Still nothing.

  “Do you see all visitors to these apartments?”

  “Only if I’m out of my cubicle. Someone might arrive when I’m doing a job in one of the rooms, or if I’m having a lie-down. I wouldn’t see them then, not if they came in quietly.”

  “Of course.”

  “Doing a job in one of the rooms” might not mean mending a shutter or filling the oil lamps. I had seen the casual way the man could force his way in when an occupant was absent. And from the reek of his breath, drink might frequently lead to him “having a lie-down.”

  In this he was no different from thousands of building caretakers. They might just about form a deterrent to thieves and others who might not want to be seen, yet on the whole they are just hidden charges on tenants, a distinct liability. Any woman who has lived alone, and even some cohabiting with male partners, will have tales to tell.

  I had been in this one’s company for long enough. He had made no moves. But experience drew me to the exit.

  He stopped me. “I tell a lie.”

  “I hope not!” I quipped. Light-heartedness was lost on him.

  �
�There was a girl Lemni brought.”

  “A girl?” I snapped. “I thought that wasn’t his style.”

  “No, he must have made an exception, because this one was a real looker. Young, though. Old enough, if you see what I mean, but she can’t have had much time to practise … Only the other day it was—how could I have forgotten?”

  “Let’s hear about it, shall we?” I pressed sternly.

  So the door porter stood there, with his turned-up nose, wearing his grimy tunic and his faint leer. He was hoping I would pay him for this. I might tip him at the end; if so, it would be even less than I had given the first porter, who seemed more reliable.

  But this loon supplied me with a story. “She was so young, I was very surprised at Lemni. Nothing happened, though, so that was all right.” I did not ask how the man was so certain that Lemni had had no sexual activity in his room, either in general or with this young girl. Door porters spy on tenants. Some of them think voyeurism is their right, their perk to top up meagre wages. Some go on to use crude blackmail against the parties involved. This one now came right out and asked me: “Do you pay people for telling you this stuff?”

  I applied an expression of regret. I spoke as if what I was saying was routine. “No, I am so sorry. My inquiry is official, I’m afraid, so every aspect has to be seen as purest white in case there are questions about probity. You have a choice: talk to me without hassle, or my clients will send along specially trained men who will put you up against a wall and take it in turns to pound your liver into a smooth terrine. Then you tell them. That’s assuming you can still speak, which I believe does not always happen.”

  He thought about that, looking far from queasy. I guessed people often abused him, so he was less scared than he might have been.

  “The young girl?” I prompted. “So this happened very recently, but what was it about her that made her stay in your mind?”

  In vigiles parlance, I must have seemed a nice woman. That is, compared to Rome’s liver-terrine bullyboys. He decided to tell me. “Lemni came in one night with this little bird, but she didn’t stay long. She looked as if she’d been crying—he can’t have done that to her, he wasn’t the sort. He never said anything, just looked very grim. He brought her indoors in a hurry, then I heard him ask where her family were staying. Not long afterwards they came out again and they left. He had her wrapped up in a cloak of his, so her face wasn’t showing. They bustled past me as if I wasn’t there, and rushed off.”

  “Know where they went?” A really curious porter might even have gone after them to find out, but this one was too lazy.

  “No. I couldn’t follow them. I’m not supposed to leave the building. Anyway, Lemni looked back over his shoulder and glared at me. I was never scared of him—except that night.”

  I was troubled by all this. “So the girl was extremely young and lovely, and not Lemni’s type—if he had a type. It sounds as if he never knew her well, but he did know that she had relations somewhere and he took her back to them. Anything else you can tell me?”

  The porter shook his head. It seemed final. Once again, I was on the verge of leaving.

  Then he found his voice again. “Whatever she looked like, I’d never have touched her, not me. She smelt like a basket of whelks.”

  XXXIV

  When I came out of the building, Scorpus had arrived to make his own enquiries about Lemni.

  “I thought you went off duty?”

  “Well, I’m more thorough than you think!”

  He was about to go in. I hung around while he, too, inspected Lemni’s room. He made no objection to me waiting. Given time, he might even come to enjoy having a wise colleague to talk to about his cases.

  His peek at the room was even more cursory than mine. He then made a big event of instructing the porter to lock up and not let anybody else see the place. He found out who the landlord was, saying he would pay him a visit. The man might have knowledge of Lemni’s relatives, though we both thought it unlikely.

  Leaving the porter untipped, Scorpus and I strolled to a snack bar where we ordered late-morning refreshments to help us forget how gloomy murder made us feel.

  Scorpus complained he had not managed to shed Karus from the case. The agent had stayed up on the Hill, making his secret importance widely felt. He would be asking anyone who worked in the temples whether they saw anything last night when Lemni and his assailant must have had their fatal confrontation.

  “That should ensure no one there will be willing to share their evidence!” growled Scorpus, glumly. “No point me going back up the Hill. Co-operation ruined. I give up!”

  I sat quiet. I was picking apart a fruit tartlet. The pastry was stale; I would eat only the contents, even though it was difficult to tell what berries these were.

  “Borage tea? I don’t know how you can drink that muck, girl. You could have a go, after,” offered Scorpus. His shy magnanimity was sweet. “On the questioning, I mean. Dip a toe in. If bloody Karus hasn’t entirely put their backs up, Flavia, they might still talk to you. Sorry, I should’ve said Albia.”

  “Thank you,” I answered meekly. “I can certainly try.”

  “If you run into that bastard, bloody Karus, don’t say I said to.”

  “No, Scorpus.”

  It went without saying that if I learned anything I was supposed to report on it to Scorpus, without telling Karus. Maybe I would. That depended on what crumbs of information I picked up.

  “How are you getting on, Scorpus, having him on your neck?”

  Scorpus spat out an olive stone. This passes for repartee in Rome. His style was slick: he achieved controlled acceleration. The stone bounced off the counter marble, then zinged accurately into an empty saucer. I clapped my hands silently.

  “Getting on with Karus? Badly. Bloody badly, Albia. When I’m ready to swing a hatchet at his throat, I go off by myself and catch bath-house thieves. My prefect is amazed at the sudden upsurge in our clothes-snatchers clear-up rate.”

  “Proves it can be done!” I remarked. Losing your tunic at the baths is a perpetual problem. The worst bath-house keepers sell off stealing rights as a franchise. For the public, left standing nude in the street, the only recourse for their missing clothes is yelling about the keepers’ dishonesty and the vigiles’ complete disinterest in this awful crime. If you train a dog to sit on your stuff in the clothes manger, thieves often steal your dog too. Ditto your little slave if you leave one. “Want to tell me which places you have made safe, Scorpus? Or is it obvious from the advertisement: Only bath-house in Rome where the mangers are guaranteed thief-proof, due to vigiles’ interference?”

  Scorpus gave me a nasty look. We paid up and separated.

  * * *

  I stayed on. I ordered another beaker of borage tea at the counter. He was right. It is filthy stuff. I had only asked for it in the first place to stop Scorpus developing ideas that if I had wine he could get frisky. In fairness, he had never done that. I had simply worked in Rome so long I expected the worst.

  Julius Karus struck me as a stubborn brute. He would stay up on the Capitol until somebody told him something, even if a consortium of altar-boys finally put their heads together to invent a big lie just to get rid of him. Then, if they had any sense, they would ritually purify any ground he had stood on.

  When I thought even Karus might have cleared off back to his own dungheap, I went quietly back up the Hundred Stairs. I spent a couple of hours interviewing priests, temple sweepers and occasional tourist guides. Workmen making arrangements had thinned out but I spoke to a couple of spare soldiers. With all of them, I showed an interest in their work, assumed they wanted to be helpful, used good grammar, always said thank you. Most seemed grateful to be talking to someone who made no threats, not even silent ones. I kept going until I ran out of human witnesses and was talking to statues. None of them knew anything, either about Lemni or even Gabinus.

  I then made enquiries at the Tabularium, the huge building above the
Forum where Rome’s archives are stored. The reception staff told me there had been excited talk after Gabinus died, but nobody had seen him fall from the Rock. As for Lemni’s murder, the building closed when darkness fell so no one would have witnessed events that we believed had occurred at night. They promised to let me know if they heard anything. This gave them a genuine excuse to gossip with clerks and visitors, so they were happy.

  As I left, I discovered Karus had not yet given up. I spotted him having a face-off with Nestor. The guard looked his usual truculent self. The secret agent’s sinister manner failed to quell Nestor’s bombast. Nestor was giving Karus his usual routine: investigating deaths on the Capitol ought to be his job.

  I guessed another report on him would soon whizz along to his superiors at the Praetorian camp. The word was that Karus hunkered down in another barracks, the Castra Peregrina, which was set up for spies, but his authority would weigh. The Praetorian Guard’s two prefects might curse Karus as imperial embuggerance, but they and the Peregrina snoops were brothers, bonded in crushing the public. If Karus fingered Nestor, Nestor would be flattened like a beetle in an olive press.

  Since the pair were together, one wide loop allowed me to dodge both. I hooked around towards Juno Moneta, where I went looking for Feliculus. I braved a train of hissing geese, to whom I returned the traditional threat of “Onion sauce!” Pretending to have no idea what I meant, they veered away snootily.