Deadly Election Read online

‘My father saw that as critical,’ Philippus managed to put in.

  ‘How did it happen?’ I demanded. ‘Firmus was the favourite, Caesar’s candidate. His family paid over squillions to gain that. It put them deep in financial trouble, all for nothing. I’d like to know your colleague’s involvement. We all assume that Abascantus being sent off for a rest-cure was why Firmus gave up. But here’s a worse scenario. Can Julia Verecunda have worked some trick specifically to shove Firmus out? Is she capable? Does she have contacts at court, influence over Abascantus? If the Callisti even suspected she was responsible for Firmus losing out, they would be incandescent.’

  Philippus glanced around the finely decorated suite he had ‘borrowed’ from Abascantus. We could hear the evening silence. Nobody was listening in. It was so quiet that if the marble cladding moved on a contracting wall, as the day’s heat died, we would notice the subtle creak. ‘I have no reason to think my senior colleague went back on whatever he had promised the Callisti.’

  ‘Oh, so he covered his tracks?’ I mocked. Philippus did not deny that. ‘Olympus! Can it be that Abascantus took money from both sides?’

  ‘The relevant issue,’ Philippus hedged, in a tight voice, ‘is that Julia Verecunda openly hates all the candidates opposing Ennius, but what she hated most intensely was having one of the Callisti in her son’s way.’

  He stared at me significantly.

  I blinked back, not quite with him.

  ‘These are my father’s words to you, Flavia Albia. Think of how much Julia Verecunda hated Callistus Valens.’

  I could follow that.

  Bribing Abascantus to remove the Emperor’s backing from Volusius Firmus was vicious and probably illegal, but no different from tactics any candidate deployed. Julia Verecunda ought to have been satisfied. To anyone normal, ejecting Firmus from the campaign should have been enough.

  ‘So Verecunda never forgave Valens,’ I mused. ‘Even when she pretended to thaw, it was a ploy to get closer so she could cause him misery through marital strife. His rejection years ago still dominates her existence.’

  In my youth I had been in the same position. I knew how it hurt. How you threatened the direst punishment for the rat who betrayed you, by day and by night brooded upon him and threatened his destruction … I grew up, changed by the experience yet moving on from my loss, which is what most people do. I learned to be content, on occasions even happy. Other men had become more important to me.

  Julia Verecunda never mellowed. She married, a man who sounded harmless, and she had a large family, but nothing gave her consolation. She never forgot. She never forgave. At one point she pretended to be reconciled, married three of her girls into Valens’s family as a peacemaking gesture, but she had sent them to the Callisti full of hate.

  Assuming the Callisti had responded to their let-down over Firmus with quietness and dignity, a woman who liked to cause sorrow would be left disappointed. I had seen her gloat in public over Firmus stepping down. That was not enough. A woman of such ingrained, obsessive bitterness would want Valens to know this was his fault for refusing her.

  That was the answer. She went after Valens. It was Julia Verecunda who had had him hijacked on the way to Crustumerium. She had had him brought back to Rome ignominiously, roped up and on foot, like a criminal. When he arrived, she intended to confront him with his old crime.

  The long walk in the July heat had proved too much for him. He had died. It seemed to me that she would not have wanted him to die, not before she had a chance to make him understand the retribution she was exacting. If he died before they came face to face, she had probably not forgiven him for that either. She had been denied her chance of vengeance. No wonder she had had his corpse thrust into his own strongbox, hidden in a neglected storeroom, where she meant his remains to rot for ever.

  55

  Before he dismissed me, Philippus surprised me with a request. Apparently his father had told him to maintain contact with Falco. I said firmly, as my mother would want, that my father had retired from all that.

  ‘You mean, the current régime is not to his taste!’ Philippus responded astutely.

  ‘Everything comes to an end.’ Philippus could take that as referring to Falco giving up imperial work – or to my hope for Domitian’s régime.

  ‘Should the opportunity arise, maybe you would accept commissions, Flavia Albia. We do have women who carry out special tasks.’

  Here was Philippus trying to set up his own network, just like his father. I chortled. ‘So Perella is still cutting throats? Hades, that dangerous woman ought to hang up her tambourine and castanets. Good as she was, she can’t still be going about in disguise as a dancer!’ Perella was a legendary agent, but worked undercover. Philippus blinked at my inside knowledge. ‘Not for me,’ I disabused him. ‘I’m not a spy. I hate spies.’ I had reasons for saying that. My intense feelings must have been obvious.

  ‘I know nothing of a tambourine!’ he claimed. ‘Well, please bear it in mind.’

  Philippus was a smug bastard. He had no concept of ever being turned down. (He had not dealt with me before.) Distrusting him deeply, I wondered if he would respond to rejection as malevolently as Julia Verecunda. I could imagine it. You collaborated with these ambitious officials at your peril.

  Riding Patchy back to the Aventine, I blanked out his invitation.

  Philippus had given me a scroll, prepared by his father, showing the intertwined Callistus and Verecundus family tree. Patchy knew his way, so as the donkey reluctantly trotted homeward, continually stopping to nose at people’s flower tubs, I unrolled the scroll on my lap for an initial scrutiny.

  Most was familiar. I understood why Laeta had been so annoyed at the interconnection of those on the aedilate list. I already knew that two candidates, Volusius Firmus (originally) and Vibius Marinus, were brothers-in-law of a third, Ennius Verecundus. There was one extra surprise: only now did I see that Julia Terentia, the sister who had found her own rich husband, was in fact married to Dillius Surus, he who enjoyed his drink. (Niger’s wife Galeria regarded him as a sponger, but Laurentina had said the couple were genuinely affectionate.) I now recalled that, before I knew who Terentia was, Nothokleptes had said he envied her investment in Baetican olive oil – and Baetica was where the fleeing Julia Pomponia had been offered a refuge.

  So that made a fourth knot in the candidates’ tangled relationships.

  Once I rerolled the document, I used the slow journey from the Palatine, round the Circus Maximus and up my own hill, to add to the significant case against Julia Verecunda. I suspected she had looked for – and found – someone she could employ to attack Valens; she had chosen someone from within her own family. The man I called Puce Tunic would be a possibility, if I could place him on that family tree – and I now believed I could.

  What if he was Aspicius? Everything I had heard about Julia Pomponia’s low-grade, feckless husband made him obvious for dirty work. Always up for a fight or a dodgy deal and, more important, he never had enough money. The rich daughter, Julia Terentia, provided financial help but she had threatened to stop. So I guessed Aspicius would readily accept any black commission, if his mother-in-law paid enough. A hod-carrier could probably call on associates to help arrange an ambush. He would certainly be strong enough to carry a corpse on his shoulder and shove it into a chest.

  If Aspicius had organised the snatch on the Via Salaria and his wife had found out, that explained why Julia Pomponia fled. I will never go back to him! After what he did … And I shall never see or speak to her again … That must have been a reference to her mother. Pomponia would not want her newborn to have a killer for a father, especially one acting for her own obnoxious mother. Besides, even though in youth she had abandoned her first husband, Callistus Secundus, prior to her elopement she must have known Valens as a decent fatherin-law.

  All the sisters must be in a dilemma. How could they reconcile loyalty to Valens, a good man, with his death at the hands of their relatives
? I had heard Julia Pomponia tell her sister fearfully, If you go to their house … that family will see you know something … So Julia Optata also knew the truth. Pomponia must have told her what had happened to Valens, and how Aspicius was involved. She would have had to explain why she needed to hide. But even after she had left him, out of fear or misplaced loyalty Pomponia might not have wanted anyone else to turn Aspicius in.

  That explained, too, why their sister Julia Laurentina was so anxious. She intended to stay married to Volusius Firmus and to remain on good terms with his family. If her mother had caused Valens’s death, while employing a disreputable brother-in-law, Laurentina’s position was difficult. I myself thought the Callisti would be understanding, but all this must be hard for her – and just when she, too, was expecting a child.

  What to do now?

  Some informers would have gone straight to Julia Verecunda and confronted her. It would be a pointless exercise, and dangerous. She was unlikely to confess and might turn vicious. I certainly would not see her without taking a witness, and any interview would be safer with armed back-up.

  Nor was I ready to enlighten the Callistus family. Julia Laurentina was right to keep her own counsel. She knew them. I, too, was sure they would explode at the news. Both brothers and the nephew used bodyguards. They got physical themselves. They might well respond violently.

  All this needed to be relayed urgently to Manlius Faustus. Criminal investigations were not his responsibility, especially on the Caelian, out of his area, but he and I together could safely conduct further interviews, including one with the hod-carrier, if we could find him. Then, when it came to arrests, Faustus had vigiles contacts.

  I went first to his office, but he was not there. It was now late. I could travel about because there were always lights on bar counters and glimmers from lamps lit to signal the all-clear to adulterous lovers. Still, I would go home now and try to find Tiberius in the morning, having breakfast at the Stargazer, for instance.

  Leaving the Temple of Ceres, which was next to the aediles’ office, I had to steer Patchy down Lesser Laurel Street, so I paused at the house Tiberius had bought. I knew this hilltop street extremely well, and had been inside the property, both the working yard and its adjacent home. That was of modest size, but in a desirable location on the main historic summit of the Aventine, among some of its most prestigious temples.

  Renovation work was continuing by torchlight. The place badly needed to be cleared. Any neighbours must be complaining, though when the local aedile is himself being a menace, people are stuck.

  I wondered if Faustus turned up to chivvy his men after his other business finished at the end of the day, but again he was absent. I knew the foreman slightly, so we fell into conversation. He reckoned Manlius Faustus was having doubts about whether to do up the place and sell it for profit. ‘He says he wouldn’t mind living here himself, if he gets married.’

  I grinned. ‘Cunning. He’s been single for ten years. Supposedly living here himself could be a ploy to make you work to a higher standard!’

  ‘No, he’s bringing some woman along to look.’

  What woman? He had not asked me. With slight foreboding, I bade him farewell and rode on.

  This made up my mind. I knew where Faustus lived. I had been there too. What I had to say was so important I would go to his house and leave a message.

  It was not too far from Fountain Court – indeed, since it was past the donkey boy’s bedtime, I dropped him off there. I went on alone. I knew the streets and felt safe even at night. Faustus’ home lay beyond my horrible alley, further across the hill. But we were really as close neighbours as all those people who lived on the Caelian.

  Faustus and his uncle resided in a smart area to the west of the Street of the Plane Trees. Their house was a part-block, double-storeyed atrium residence: prime real estate, as befitted people who owned half of the warehouses nearby, above the Lavernal Gate.

  I found it from memory. I nervously approached the double front doors, up three marble steps, each with a rose urn, the expensively trained standard trees in full flower this month and dripping after a recent watering. The aged porter did not remember me. Even so, he allowed in a declared friend of the young master. I already knew this was not a pompous household. It was well run but had a comfortable atmosphere.

  The porter said Faustus was out. I was growing tired of that refrain. Wherever was he?

  ‘Is Dromo here?’

  Yes, but fast asleep.

  A slave went for writing materials so I could leave a note. I stood by the porter’s cubicle and tried to admire the frescos. There was no reason to feel guilty, yet I did. Last time, when I barely knew Tiberius, I had been sneaked in here by somebody else for a secret tour of the reception rooms. This time, being here without his knowledge made me even more uncomfortable. This wasn’t a suspect’s house where I would seize any chance to explore. I barely entered the atrium, with its roofed shrine to their household gods and images of ancestors. A worn plaque showing a young couple side by side was probably a memorial of his parents. I had taken no notice before, but now it mattered.

  A secretary, yawning, turned up to take dictation. I composed a brief letter telling Tiberius in three or four sentences what I thought had happened to Valens and the need for us to act. Being under mildly curious scrutiny from the staff quashed any temptation to add endearments. I was handed the stylus and signed the tablet myself.

  I nearly got away with this. Luck was not with me, however. Just as I breathed freely and was about to leave, a man stalked in from the street. He had his own house key but was not Tiberius. He came in, demanding loudly, ‘Whose is that disgusting donkey left tied to our ring outside? One of you go out and give it a kick up the street!’

  My heart sank. Alone, at the end of a long hot day when I was drained of energy, I had to make friends with my friend’s uncle, Tullius.

  56

  Someone I once knew had accused Tullius of lewd and predatory behaviour. Even Faustus acknowledged they were very different characters. Still, this man had taken in an orphaned nephew, brought him up, then stayed on good terms while they had lived together for most of the past twenty years. I had never heard Tiberius make a complaint.

  Face to face, I saw little physical resemblance between the two men, nor any between the uncle and that young woman in the ancestral plaque who must have been his sister. The uncle was bulky though not gross. He must be sixty, sixty plus. He had a bald crown, inquisitive light brown eyes, and a contemptuous manner. I knew why that was. Even though he asked, ‘And who are you?’ he knew. ‘Don’t tell me − the cheeky piece who has been luring my nephew away from home!’

  Quietly, I answered: ‘My name is Flavia Albia, daughter of the equestrian Didius Falco and the noble Helena Justina. I do have the friendship of Tiberius Manlius –’ I deliberately chose to use his first two names rather than the more formal last two. The Roman naming system is so subtle, and I knew how to deploy it. ‘I apologise for coming so late. I have been assisting your nephew with his election work. We uncovered foul play and I badly need to give him information.’

  ‘“Election assistance” – that’s a new word for an old game!’ Tullius screwed up his eyes, which gave him a piggy expression. ‘Well, this is a useful meeting, young woman!’ He folded his arms aggressively.

  I decided there was no point in holding back. ‘I see. You think I am a graspy little gold-digger and this is your chance to see me off.’

  Good move. My calm words surprised him. He expected me to be defensive, not to come straight out with my own challenge.

  With anyone else, I would have suggested we relocate to somewhere private. Here, we had the porter, the secretary and several slaves, who had popped out to greet their returning master, a rash of attentive people who had heard him come home. In view of what I had been told about his crude habits, I chose not to be alone with him. So we held our conversation there in the atrium, with an eager audience.
r />   I had to be very careful. Faustus wanted to avoid a quarrel. It was wise for me to cultivate good relations with his uncle.

  ‘You had your fun,’ sneered Tullius. ‘Him too, I gather!’

  He looked me up and down, his meaning unmistakable. I wondered what he made of my white funeral-going drapery: thoroughly discreet, with minimal jewellery and the formal veil I had automatically lifted over my hair. I watched him assess me, as people so often did when I was working. He would be puzzled by the grave appearance that belied my smart talk. He had expected three-inch cork heels and thick lead face paint, with layers of gold necklace – probably loaded onto me by Faustus. He could not know that Faustus’s idea of a love-gift was a stone bench, but even so Tullius was bemused by his nephew’s taste in girlfriends.

  ‘Tullius Icilius …’ Nobody seemed to use it, but I knew his cognomen from my father’s investigation. Indeed, I knew much more about this man than he would expect. Good at what he does, had been Falco’s verdict. Apparently without undue use of sharp practice. A sly mover and a hard-working money hound. Thank you, Father! ‘Tullius Icilius, it is late. If you want to say something important, do. But please remember that your nephew has chosen to be friends with me.’

  ‘And now he’ll see sense.’ That old line!

  ‘You haven’t been watching closely enough. He has changed.’ I sounded sure.

  ‘Oh, no!’ So did Tullius.

  ‘I have seen the alteration.’ I remembered Tiberius when we first met: hard, belligerent, short-tempered – simply unsure how to wield his magisterial authority, I now realised. For a time it had made him unpleasant to deal with. That was how I had ended up stabbing his hand with a meat skewer. He learned; he calmed down. I calmed down too. I spoke very levelly now. ‘Other people have commented on the alteration. He spent thirty years doing nothing, then he acquired the aedilate. You must have thought this was simply good for your business contacts, good for prestige. You underestimated the results. Never mind how other men approach such a post, your nephew took it on and mastered it. And when the work and his ability to carry it out thrilled him, he discovered himself. A cliché, perhaps, yet true.’