A Body in the Bathhouse Read online

  A lie. Maia knew who it was, and so did Petronius, and so did I.

  It took us time to gently persuade her to shift. By then, Petro’s men had brought transport. They realized we must get her away. So we sent Maia and all the children with a vigiles escort to my father’s house, out of town, on the Janiculan. There they would have space, peace, perhaps some safety. Well, at least Pa would give them decent beds.

  Either something else would happen, or nothing. Either this was a statement and a warning—or worse.

  Petronius and I cleared everything that night. We spent hours tearing the innards from the house, carrying out the smashed belongings and just burning them in the street. Maia had said wildly that she wanted nothing. Little could be salvaged, but we did keep a few items; I would store them, and let my sister see them later if she changed her mind. The house had been rented. I would terminate the lease. The family never needed to come back here.

  Everything material could be replaced. Maia’s spirit would revive. Restoring courage to the children might be more difficult. Bringing back peace of mind to Petronius and me would never happen.

  After we finished at the house, we plotted. We were at the vigiles’ patrol station. Neither of us wanted to start drinking in a caupona.

  “Could we have stopped this?” I wondered grimly.

  “I doubt it.”

  “So much for recriminations! Best to get to the strategy, then.”

  “There are two questions.” Petronius Longus spoke heavily, in a dull voice. He was a big, quiet man who never wasted effort. He could see straight to the heart of trouble. “One: What will he do now? Two: What shall we do to him?”

  “You can’t wipe out the Chief Spy.” I would have done that to Anacrites years ago, if it were feasible.

  “Unsafe. Yes.” Petro continued to talk and plan in a far-too-level voice. “We’ll be known to have a grudge. First suspects.”

  “There must have been local witnesses.”

  “You know the answer to that, Falco.”

  “Too scared to talk. So what? We lay a complaint against him?”

  “No proof.”

  “Visit him mob-handed?”

  “Dangerous.”

  “Suggest that he desists?”

  “He will deny responsibility.”

  “Also, he’ll know he’s had an effect.” For a moment we were silent. Then I said, “We’ll do nothing.”

  Petronius breathed slowly. He knew this was not capitulation. “No. Not yet.”

  “It may take a long time. We’ll keep her safe. Keep her out of his sight. Let him think he has won; let him forget about it.”

  “Then—”

  “Then one day there will be an opportunity.” It was a fact. I was not emotional.

  “True. There always is.” He smiled faintly. He was probably thinking the same as me.

  There had been a man in Britain, during the Rebellion, who betrayed the Second Augusta, our legion. What happened to that man afterwards was subject to a communal pact of silence. He died. Everyone knows that. The record says he fell on his own sword, as an officer does. Perhaps he did.

  I rose to leave. I held out my hand. Petronius grasped it without speaking.

  First thing next day, Helena went over to my father’s house to find out what she could do. Pa was hovering at home; he kept the children out of the way while Helena comforted my sister. Maia was still in shock and, despite her previous reticence, the story all came out.

  After Maia had told Anacrites she no longer wanted to see him, he seemed to take it well. Then he kept reappearing on her doorstep as if nothing had happened. She never involved me because she immediately realized it would do no good. Maia was stuck.

  He had hung around openly for a couple of months; then she started dodging him. He shadowed her more secretly. After the first few weeks, he stopped approaching her. Nothing was said. But she knew he was there. He wanted her to know. She dreaded his presence all the time. The oppressive situation took over her life. He intended that. He wanted her to be frightened. Isolated with the problem, even my courageous sister became extremely scared.

  Maia kept hoping someone else would catch his eye. There was no reason why not. Anacrites could be pleasant. He was tolerable to look at; he earned a good screw. He had prestige. He owned property. He could take a woman to elegant receptions and private dinner parties—not that he had done so with Maia. Their relationship had been far more casual, just neighborly. They never formally went about the world together. I don’t believe they even went to bed. They never would now, so his obsessiveness was pointless. Men who stalk victims cannot see that. This was Maia’s predicament. She knew she would not shake Anacrites off. Yet she knew it was going nowhere. He had nothing to gain. But she had everything to lose.

  Like many women in that situation, she tried enduring her torment alone. In the end, she actually went to his office at the Palace, where for two hours she had tried reasoning with him. I knew how dangerous that could have been, but being Maia she got away with it, apparently unscathed. She appealed to Anacrites’ intelligence. Anacrites apologized. He promised to stop hounding her.

  Next day, thugs violently trashed her house.

  That night, talking grimly about our predicament with the spy, Petronius and I had sworn to be sensible. We would leave him alone. We would both be watchful and patient. We would “do” Anacrites, together, when the time was right.

  But I knew each of us was quite prepared, if a chance arose, to take separate steps to deal with this.

  Helena knew it too. Maia herself was a quick-witted girl—but Helena’s mind worked even faster. Those great dark eyes saw at once what was likely to happen, and how any move against Anacrites could rebound dangerously on us. I should have realized that while Petro and I were plotting men’s action, Helena Justina was constructing deeper plans. With the quiet logic of a cautious, clever woman, her plans were designed to take as many as possible of the people she loved well out of the way of trouble.

  VI

  IT WAS at this dark moment—and because of it—that Pa and I turned up that corpse his treasured builders had left behind.

  Maia had gone to live on the Janiculan, swearing it was temporary (hating the whole idea of moving in with our father). Her children were terrified; she herself was now desperate. Maia Favonia tried to give them all ordered lives. She stuck to normal mealtimes and bedtimes—and since facilities were there, she insisted that her children were clean. Then little Rhea became hysterical every time she was led to the bathhouse. And eventually we smashed a hole through to the disgusting grave.

  I knew it would happen.

  As we recovered outside in the fresh air, Pa managed an aggravating prayer. “Well, thank you, Jove! You have given me a son in a useful profession—Marcus, I rely on you to sort this.” He did not need to tell me he had no intention of paying fees.

  I stalked off, telling him to send for the vigiles, so he just had a slave fetch Petronius. I watched my crony curiously to see how he would approach it. “Geminus, stick this one up your arse.” Good lad! “It’s no use asking me. The vigiles only deal with crud inside the city boundary. Call in the Urban Cohorts. Give those sleepy wastrels something that stinks.”

  “Oh, come on, boys,” whined Pa. “Don’t wish the bloody Urbans on me. …”

  He had a point. I felt us weakening. The three Urban Cohorts were the inferior rump of the Praetorian Guard. In theory, they had a remit to solve serious crimes within a hundred-mile radius of Rome—but their expertise (I mean their lack of it) made us weep. The Urbans were a bandits’ charter. Towns in the Campagna and Etruria that were seeking law and order quietly made their own arrangements. Most could produce some ambitious magistrate who wanted to gain fame by cleaning pickpockets off the streets. If not, they had the sophisticated alternative: many bandits are available for hire as protection, often at quite reasonable rates.

  Petronius relented slightly. “You’ll have to dispose of the body, Ge
minus. You won’t even get an undertaker to face this—I’ll send up a man we use for clearing obscene remains. I warn you, he’s not cheap.”

  “The bill belongs to Gloccus and Cotta, surely,” I said. Then I had a rethink. “Unless this is Gloccus or Cotta. …” A pleasing idea.

  None of us wanted to go close enough to check. In fact, I would not have been able to identify our two useless contractors anyway. They believed in site management from a distance; I had cursed them for months, yet never seen either face-to-face. Their workforce had been depressing enough: the usual string of inadequates called Tiberius or Septimus who never knew what day it was—all irritating drips who had problems with hangovers, backaches, girlfriends, and dying grandfathers. The two things that united the labor force were feeble excuses and a complete lack of building skills.

  If you think I sound harsh, just you sign a contract for extending your workshop space or refurbishing your dining room. Then wait and see.

  Pa did eventually report the corpse to the Prefect of the Urban Cohorts. They wandered out to his house and first tried their ususal trick: since the victims and presumed suspects were Romans, Pa should pass the problem to the city vigiles. Pa stamped on that idea, and Petronius was there to state the case with real authority. Authority was a new concept to the Urbans, who caved in and borrowed lights. Inspecting the burial after nightfall was a great help.

  Acting as if they had never seen a corpse before, they took note of the fact that a man (even they could tell that) had croaked and been dumped under a new mosaic floor. Petronius steered them into working out that someone staved in his head with a building tool. “That might be a spade,” he explained rudely. “Or a heavy pick, maybe.” The Urbans nodded wisely.

  Their corpse was of average age, height, weight, and appearance. As far as they knew, there were no missing persons reported with that description. They thought themselves very clever for noticing the dead man had been bearded and was barefoot.

  “Someone stole his boots after they topped him,” suggested my father (it was the kind of thing he would have done).

  The Urbans then stumbled about the garden in the dark, looking for clues. Surprise! They found nothing. The contractors had been gone a couple of weeks now. One thing they had done really well was to sweep clean the site before they left. “That must have surprised you!” I commented to Pa. He laughed grimly. We knew now why they were so careful.

  The dumb Cohort boys caused themselves a lot of confusion when they discovered the tools Pa and I had been using earlier in his garden. After a bit of arguing, we managed to deflect them from that little byway; then they lost interest. They convinced themselves they knew who had killed the man. I pointed out that while somebody working on the bathhouse might be responsible, there was no proof. They saw me as a troublemaker, and ignored that. They sauntered off into the night, believing this one was easy.

  Two days later, a sad officer called on Pa at the Saepta Julia. By now, the Urbans were greatly miffed that no solution had been dropped into their laps by the gods. All they knew was that Gloccus and Cotta had both left Rome. While this seemed to confirm their guilt, it meant no arrest. Were we surprised? What do you think?

  The Urban Prefect wanted to clear up the case—and the situation was even worse for me. Pa expected me to take over when the real investigators feebly dropped out.

  Well, at least it could be a training exercise for my bright young assistants.

  Young, yes; bright, perhaps. Assisting—no chance. I got more help from Nux. The lads were an unlikely pair for informing. Friends of mine thought they would quickly tire of me. I reckoned I would soon be dumping them.

  Helena Justina had two well-brought-up patrician brothers: Aulus Camillus Aelianus and Quintus Camillus Justinus. When I first knew her, both had looked promising citizens—Justinus, the younger, especially. He and I shared some foreign adventures; I liked him and, although he could behave like an idiot, I was impressed by his abilities. I never expected to work much with him because he seemed cut out for higher things.

  Aelianus, two years the elder, had been on the verge of standing for the senate. To look respectable, he became betrothed to an heiress from Baetica, Claudia Rufina. A nice enough girl, with extremely nice financial assets. Then Justinus stupidly eloped with Claudia. They were in love when they ran off, though probably not now.

  The abandoned Aelianus felt a fool and refused to go through with the senate election. He had a point. The family had already survived a political crisis when an uncle tried some dangerous plotting. Now public scandal gathered again. All the chalk-white robes in Rome could not really make Aelianus look a pristine candidate, one with illustrious ancestors and blameless modern relatives.

  Deprived of his expectations and in retaliation, while Justinus was away marrying the heiress in Spain, Aelianus wormed his way in with me. He knew Justinus was planning to come home to work with me, and hoped to steal the position. (What position? skeptics might well ask.)

  Justinus reappeared in Rome early that spring, not long after my daughter Sosia Favonia was born. Claudia had married him. We had all thought she might lose interest (mainly because Justinus already had), but they were both too stubborn to admit their mistake. Her rich grandparents had bestowed some money on the pair, though Justinus told me privately it was not enough. He appealed to me for support, and since he had always been my favorite, I was stuck.

  I did escape one hairy proposal: Helena had talked about Justinus and Claudia coming to live with us. But their first visit on their return to Rome coincided with one of our nursemaid’s days off. While Hyspale was gallivanting on yet another shopping trip, Julia was racing about our new home’s corridors with Nux. My dog thought being “good with children” meant pretending to savage them, so that was noisy. Nux smelled too. Mico’s Valentinianus must have rubbed bits of gherkin into her fur. At the same time, the baby—who picked up tricks very quickly—had just learned how to turn herself blue with hysteria. Dear Favonia was well tended, but an unkind father might say babies produce as many smells as dogs. So our newlyweds backed out of sharing accommodations, rapidly. I’m sure I would have begged them to reconsider, if I had thought of it.

  Over the job, however, Justinus refused to give way to his brother. So now I had both lads at my tunic tails. It was a misery to their parents, who had already lost their daughter to the low-life Didius Falco; now both their noble boys were coming to play in the gutter as well. Meanwhile, I had to keep the jealous pair apart.

  I gave them the bathhouse incident to experiment with. They had been hoping for more impressive clients than Pa. For instance, ones who would pay fees.

  “Wrong,” I explained harshly. “This man is excellent to start with. Why? Now you learn about clients. As informers, you must always out-maneuver the devious crook who commissions you: weigh him up first! My father, whom you know as Didius Geminus, is really called Didius Favonius—so right from scratch, you’re facing a fake name. With a client, this is typical. He has led a double life; he runs a shady business; you can’t believe a word he says; and he’ll try to duck out of paying you.”

  My two runners gazed at me. They were in their mid-twenties. Both had dark hair, which like aristocrats they left to flop annoyingly. Once a few derisive barmaids had pulled it, they would learn. Aelianus was thicker set, a little more untidy, a lot more truculent. Justinus, finer featured and better mannered, had more of a look of Helena. They were entitled to wear white tunics with purple bands to show their rank, but they came to work, as I had instructed, in subdued clothes and nothing fancier than signet rings. They still sounded so well-spoken I winced, yet Justinus at least had an ear for languages, so we could work on that. Unobtrusive behavior would help. If ever they got in deep trouble, they had both been through army training; even as junior staff officers, they knew how to put in the boot. I was now sending them to Glaucus, the trainer at my gym; I had told him to slaughter them.

  “So,” Aelianus condescended to addr
ess his younger brother, “we have learned today that our mentor, Marcus Didius, holds his papa in traditional respect!”

  “It sounds,” Justinus said to me, grinning, “as if we should look at your father as the most likely killer.”

  Even I had never thought of that. But with Pa, yes: it was a possibility.

  VII

  “AULUS,” I instructed, addressing Aelianus by his personal name in an attempt to make him feel inferior. Pointless. If one thing had qualified that blighter for the senate, it was his inborn sense of divinity. “Your job is to root out background on our suspects. We have a couple of leads: Pa gave me an address for the yard out of which they are supposed to operate, also a name for the winery where they were regulars. That’s where he used to meet up to commission them for work—work being a euphemism with these fellows. Then here’s a possible home address for Cotta. It’s an apartment by a food shop called the Aquarius at the side of Livia’s Portico.”

  “Where’s that?” asked Aulus.

  “On the Clivus Suburanus.”

  A silence.

  “That runs into town from the Esquiline Gate,” I said calmly. Senators’ sons were bound to be ignorant. This pair would have to start drawing themselves street maps. “If the apartment location is right, someone there should be able to send you on to Gloccus.”

  “So if I find them—”

  “Not likely. Unless they are very stupid”—which was a possibility—“they will have fled as soon as their man died. That’s whether they topped him personally, or merely had the killer on their payroll.”

  “What would they be afraid of if they are innocent?” Innocent, that was a sweet word. Was our thickset, sullen Aulus a closet romantic?

  “They would fear being tortured by the vigiles,” I corrected him. “The dead man had been deliberately hidden under their floor—so they are at least accessories.”

  “Oh.”

  “Just pump their associates for clues about where they have run off to—and physical descriptions would help.”