A Dying Light in Corduba Read online

  'How did you know he belonged in the Palace, Calisthenus?'

  Calisthenus handed me a bone tablet, the kind many officials wear to impress innkeepers when they want a free drink. It gave Anacrites a false name which I had heard him use, and claimed he was a palace secretary; I knew that disguise too, and presumably so did whoever at the Palace received the architect's message.

  Was anything else with him?'

  'No.'

  I lifted the Chief Spy's lifeless left wrist, splaying the cold fingers on mine. 'What about his seal ring?' I knew he wore one; he used it to stamp passes and other documents. It was a large chalcedony oval engraved with two elephants entwining trunks. Calisthenus again shook his head. 'Sure?' He was growing indignant as only an architect can (all that practice blufling out overspent estimates and expressing disbelief that clients expect a house that looks like what they asked for ...) 'No disrespect, Calisthenus, but you might have thought the ring would cover any costs you incurred in tending the victim?'

  I can assure you -'

  'All right. Settle down. You have rescued an important state servant; if it does impose any financial burden, send your invoice to the Palace. If the ring turns up it should be returned straight away. Now if your boy can run out for a litter, my colleague here will take this poor fellow away.'

  Laeta looked put out that I assigned him to babyminding, but as we watched Anacrites being loaded into a hired chair for what could be his last journey anywhere, I explained that if I was being asked to work on the problem I had best nip off and start. 'So what is required, Laeta? You want me to arrest whoever bopped him?'

  'Well, that would be interesting, Falco.' In fact Laeta sounded as if apprehending the villain was his least concern. I began to wonder if it was wise to let him escort the wounded spy back to the Palatine. 'But what investigation do you think Anacrites was working on?'

  'Ask the Emperor,' I instructed.

  'Vespasian is unaware of any major exercise that could be relevant.' Did that mean the Emperor was being kept in ignorance - or simply that the intelligence network had no work? No wonder Anacrites always gave the impression he feared compulsory retirement was lurking just around the corner.

  'Have you tried Titus?' The Emperor's elder son shared

  the business of government. He happily involved himself in secrets.

  'Titus Caesar had nothing to add. However, it was he who suggested bringing in your good self.'

  'Titus knows I won't want to tangle with this!' I growled. 'I told you: interview Anacrites' staff. If he was on to something, he will have had agents out in the field.'

  Laeta was frowning. 'I have been trying, Falco. I cannot identify auy agent he was using. He was very secretive. His record-keeping was eccentric to say the least. All the named employees on his bureau's roll seem very low-grade runners and messengers.'

  I laughed. 'No operative who worked for Anacrites would be high class!'

  'You mean he couldn't choose good people?' Laeta seemed pleased to hear it.

  Suddenly I felt angry on the damned spy's behalf. 'No, I mean that he was never given any money to pay for quality!' It did raise the question of how his own villa at Baiae had been acquired, but Laeta failed to spot the discrepancy. I calmed down. 'Look, he was bound to be secretive; it comes with the job. Olympus! We're talking about him as if he were dead, but that's not so, not yet -'

  'Well, no indeed!' Laeta muttered. The litter-bearers were maintaining their normal impassive stare straight ahead. We both knew they were listening in. 'Titus Caesar suggests we ensure no news of this attack leaks out.' Good old Titus. Famous for flair - especially, in my experience, when organising cover-ups. I had helped him fix a few of those.

  I looked Laeta firmly in the eye. 'This could have something to do with the dinner last night.'

  Reluctantly he admitted, 'I was wondering about that.'

  'Why was it you invited me? I had the feeling there was something you wanted to discuss?' He pursed his lips. 'Why were you keen to have me meet that senator?'

  'Only my own general impression that Quinctius Attractus is getting above himself.'

  'Might Anacrites have been investigating Attractus?'

  'What reason could he have?' Laeta would not even admit that Anacrites might have noticed the man's behaviour just as he did.

  'Spies don't have to have legitimate reasons; that's why they are dangerous.'

  'Well, somebody has made this one quite a lot less dangerous, Falco.'

  'Perhaps,' I suggested nastily, 'I should be asking whether you got on with him badly.' Since I knew better than to expect a sensible answer, I turned my attention back to the spy himself.

  I wondered whether it would have been better to leave Anacrites discreetly at the house of Calisthenus, paying the architect to have the sick man nursed and to keep quiet about it. But if someone really dangerous was about, the Palace would be safer. Well, it ought to be. Anacrites could be the victim of a straightforward palace plot. I was sending him home to be looked after - that nasty ambiguous phrase. Maybe I was sending him home to be finished off.

  Suddenly I felt a surge of defiance. I could see when I was being set up as the booby. Laeta loathed the spy, and his motives towards me were ambiguous. I didn't trust Laeta any more than Anacrites, but whatever was going on, Anacrites was in deep trouble. I had never liked him, or what he represented, but I understood how he worked: knee deep in the same middenheap as me.

  Laeta, Titus is right. This needs to be kept quiet until we know what it's about. And you know how rumours fly at the Palace. The best solution is to put Anacrites somewhere else where he can die in peace when he decides to go; then we can choose whether or not to announce it in the Daily Gozette. Leave everything to me. I'll carry him to the Temple of Aesculapius on Tiber Island, swear them to secrecy, but give them your name to inform you of developments.'

  Laeta thought hard, but submitted himself to my plan.

  Telling him that I had a few ideas of my own to pursue, I waved him off.

  I then examined the doorway where Anacrites had been found. It was easy to see where and how he had been hurt; I discovered an ugly clump of blood and hair on the house wall. It was below chest height; the spy must have been bent over for some reason, though he carried no marks of any blow that would have doubled him up. I looked around, covering some distance, but found nothing significant.

  The wounded man had been propped in a chair long enough; I told the bearers to come along with him. I did walk them to Tiber Island where I unloaded Anacrites and dismissed the chair. Then, instead of depositing the sick man amongst the clapped-out abandoned slaves who were being cared for at the hospital, I hired another chair. I led this one further west along the riverbank in the shadow of the Aventine. Then I took the unconscious spy to a private apartment where I could be sure of his good treatment.

  He might yet die of last night's wound, but no one would be allowed to help him into Hades by other means.

  VIII

  Though I was a man on a charitable mission, my greeting was not promising. I had dragged Anacrites up three flights of stairs. Even unconscious he made trouble, buckling me under his weight and tangling his lifeless hands in the handrail just when I had got a good rhythm going. By the time I arrived upstairs I had no breath to curse him. I used my shoulder to knock open the door, a worn item that had once been red, now a faded pink.

  A furious old biddy accosted us. 'Who's that? Don't drag him in here. This is a peaceful neighbourhood!'

  'Hello, Mother.'

  Her companion was less blunt and more witty. 'Jove, it's Falco! The little lost boy who needs a tablet round his neck to tell people where he lives! A tablet he can consult himself too, when he's sober enough to read it -'

  'Shut up, Petro. I'm giving myself a hernia. Help me lie him down somewhere.'

  'Don't tell me!' raged my mother. 'One of your friends has got himself in trouble and you expect me to look after him. It's time you grew up, Marcus. I'
m an old woman. I deserve a rest.'

  'You're an old woman who needs an interest in life. This is just the thing. He's not a drunk who fell under a cart, Ma. He's an official who has been cruelly attacked and until we discover the reason he has to be kept out of sight. I'd take him home but people may look for him there.'

  'Take him home? That poor girl you live with doesn't want to be bothered with this!' I winked at the unconscious Anacrites; he had just found himself a refuge. The best in Rome.

  Petronius Longus, my big grinning friend, had been lounging in my mother's kitchen with a handful of almonds

  while he regaled Ma with the now famous finish of my big night out. Seeing my burden his mood quietened, then when he helped me shove Anacrites on a bed and he glimpsed the damage to the spy's head, Petro's face set. I thought he was going to say something but he buttoned his lip.

  Ma stood in the doorway, arms folded; a small, still energetic woman who had spent her life nurturing people who didn't deserve it. Olive black eyes flicked over the spy with flashes like signal torches announcing an international disaster. 'Well, this one won't be a lot of trouble. He's not going to be here long!'

  'Do your best for the poor fellow, Ma.'

  'Don't I know him?' Petronius mumbled in a low voice to me.

  'Speak up!' snapped Ma. 'I'm not deaf and I'm not an idiot.'

  Petronius was frightened of my mother. He replied meekly, 'It's Anacrites, the Chief Spy.'

  'Well, he looks like a nasty dumpling that should have been eaten up yesterday,' she sneered.

  I shook my head. 'He's a spy; that's his natural attitude.' 'Well, I hope I'm not expected to work some miracle and save him.'

  'Ma, spare us the quaint plebeian cheerfulness!' 'Who's going to pay for the funeral?'

  'The Palace will. Just take him in while he's dying. Give him some peace from whoever is trying to get him.' 'Well; I can do that,' she conceded grumpily.

  I come from a large feckless family, who rarely permit themselves to perform deeds of kindness. When they do, any sensible conscious man wants to run a fast marathon in the other direction. It gave me a grim pleasure to leave Anacrites there. I hoped he came round and got thoroughly lectured - and I hoped that when it happened I would be present to watch.

  I had known Petronius Longus since we were both eighteen. I could tell he was holding back like a nervous bride. As soon as we could, we edged to the door, then bidding Ma a fast farewell we were out of the apartment like the naughty schoolboys she reckoned we both still were. Her derogatory cries followed us downstairs.

  Petronius knew I realised there was something he was bursting to say. In his usual aggravating way he kept it to himself as long as possible. I clamped my teeth and pretended not to be wanting to knock him into the copper shop opposite for keeping me on tenterhooks.

  'Falco, everyone's talking about a body the Second Cohort found this morning.' Petro was in the Fourth Cohort of vigiles, lording it over the Aventine. The Second were his counterparts who covered the Esquiline district.

  'Whose body's that?'

  'Looked like a street attack; happened last night. Man had his head stove in, in a remarkably violent manner.' 'Rammed against a wall, perhaps?'

  Petro appraised my suggestion. 'Sounds as if it could have been.'

  'Know anybody friendly in the Second?'

  'I thought you'd ask that,' Petro replied. We were already making headway on the long route back to the Esquiline.

  The Second Cohort's guardhouse lies on the way out to the Tiburtina Gate, close to the old Embankment which carries the Julian Aqueduct. It is situated between the Gardens of Pallentian and the Gardens of Lamia and Maia. A bosky spot - much frequented by elderly grubby prostitutes and persons trying to sell love potions and fake spells. We burrowed in our cloaks, walked quickly, and discussed the races loudly to reassure ourselves.

  The Second Cohort were in charge of the Third and Fifth regions: some routine squalor, but also several large mansions with tricky owners who thought that the vigiles existed solely to protect them while they annoyed everyone else. The Second patrolled steep hills, run-down gardens, a big chunk of palace (Nero's Golden House) and a prestigious public building site (Vespasian's huge new amphitheatre). They faced some headaches, but were bearing up like Stoics. Their enquiry team were a group of relaxed layabouts whom we found sitting on a bench working out their night-shift bonus pay. They had plenty of time to tell us about their interesting murder case, though perhaps less energy for actually solving it.

  'Jo! He took a knock all right!'

  'Bang on the knob?' Petro was doing the talking. 'Cracked open like a nut.'

  'Know who he is?'

  'Bit of a mystery man. Want a look at him?'

  'Maybe.' Petronius preferred not to be that kind of sightseer, until it was unavoidable. 'Can you show us the scene of the mugging?'

  'Sure! Come and see the happy fellow first ...' Neither of us wanted to. Blood is bad enough. Spilt brains we avoid.

  Luckily the Second Cohort turned out to be an outfit with caring methods. While they waited for someone to come forward and claim the victim, they had slung his body in a sheet between two laundry poles, in the shed where they normally kept their fire engine. The pumping machine had been dragged out to the street where it was being admired by a large group of elderly men and small boys. Indoors, the corpse lay in a dim light. He had been neatly arranged and had his head in a bucket to contain leakage. The scene was one of respectful privacy.

  I did not enjoy looking at the body. I hate becoming introspective. Life's bad enough without upsetting yourself drawing filthy parallels.

  I had seen him before. I had met him briefly. I had talked to him - too briefly, perhaps. He was the cheerful lad at the dinner last night, the one in the oatmeal tunic who kept his own council in a diffident manner while watching the dancer Attractus had hired. He and I had later shared a joke, one I could not even now remember, as he helped me round up some slaves to shoulder my amphora of fish- pickle.

  The victim was about my own age, build and body- weight. Before some thug split his skull apart he had been intelligent and pleasant; I had had the impression he lived in the same world as me. Although Anacrites had pretended not to know who he was, I wondered if that had been a lie. An uneasy feeling warned me the dead man's presence at the dinner would turn out to be relevant. He left the Palatine at the same time as me. He must have been killed very soon afterwards. Whoever attacked him may well have followed us both from the Palace. He went off alone; I had been escorted by two hefty slaves with my amphora.

  A nagging premonition suggested that had I also been unaccompanied, the body in the firefighters' shed could well have been mine.

  IX

  Petronius and I made a cursory survey of the corpse, trying to ignore the head damage. Once again we found no other significant wounds. But a stain on the sheet which was cradling the body made me lift his right leg. Behind the knee I discovered a torn flap of skin - little more than a scratch, though it had bled freely because of its location, and it must have stung when he acquired it.

  'Petro, what do you make of that?'

  'Snagged himself on something?'

  'I don't know ... Anacrites also had a cut leg for some reason.'

  'You're scavenging, Falco. It's nothing.'

  'You're the expert!' That always worried him.

  The Second Cohort had ascertained that the dead man's name was Valentinus. It had only taken a few moments of asking around locally. He had rented lodgings on the Esquiline, just ten strides from where somebody had battered him to death.

  The neighbour who identified the body had told the Second that Valentinus had lived alone. His occupation was unknown. He had gone out and about at different hours and quite often received callers of various kinds. He went to the baths, but avoided temples. He had never been any trouble to his neighbours. He gave no signs of enjoying himself much, nor had he ever been arrested by the vigiles. Until the night he die
d, he had always taken care of himself.

  The Second led us to his apartment, which they had previously searched. It was a two-room fourth-floor lease in a dark tenement. Its furnishings were sparse but neat. The inner room held his bed, a couple of tunics dumped on a bench, his spare boots, and a few unrevealing personal items. The outer room contained a table, his smart red gloss food bowl, his winecup with a jocular message, his stylus and string-bound note tablet (clean of useful information), and a hook with his cloak and hat. Each room was lit by one high window, too far away to see out.