The Spook Who Spoke Again: A Flavia Albia Short Story Read online

  The actors performed a scene, which I found dull. It had a lot of talking and nothing happened. Afterwards Faustus took me down to Thalia and Davos on the race track. He gave orders that the full script of the play they intended to perform must be sent to him tomorrow at the aediles’ office so he could try to get to grips with it. Then they would not be allowed to vary a word after he approved it. He said he liked the acrobats, but he had to view several companies, so would only confirm whether Thalia’s were chosen for the Games once he had seen the others.

  He gave some money to his slave Dromo, a sneery, spotty young man, who I could see was jealous of me being on such friendly terms with his master. Faustus told Dromo to run to the sweetmeat-seller and buy me a cake.

  ‘Can I have one?’ demanded Dromo; he was like the cheeky slave in Falco’s play.

  ‘All right. Just one; no more, Dromo.’

  I think Faustus intended me to go along with Dromo on the cake errand but I stayed behind. I didn’t like the look of Dromo and I was hoping to hear what his master said to Thalia if it was about me. It was. The magistrate stood with one hand on my shoulder like an uncle. He suggested that Thalia should consider how I was a boy with potential, but if at some point in the future it ever became known I had worked with entertainers that would be a certain career impediment. She knew the legal situation.

  Thalia gave him a nasty look but said quietly she would bear it in mind. Dromo came back and gave me a cake he had bought with the aedile’s money. He tried to pass me the smallest, but I pointed out that I had seen what he was doing so he had better swap them over.

  After they left, Thalia changed her attitude. She told me in private that maybe Faustus was right. If I wanted to be a big rissole one day, I had best stop mucking out the menagerie animals. I asked what kind of rissole I could be. Thalia said, sounding less cross than before, that since Didius Falco was an equestrian and Helena Justina’s family were senators, the menu was mine to choose. As a Roman, I could be any kind of exotic rissole I wanted, with whatever fancy gravy I liked on it and a side dish of radishes. And I was not to worry because Falco knew what he owed me so he would pay for it. With fish pickle on the radishes.

  From what I knew of Falco, that seemed a rash claim. He often said to his children that we shouldn’t raise our hopes because he intended to spend everything and only leave us his good wishes and a pair of old boots.

  Thalia did not know about me taking visitors’ money for the menagerie. I decided not mention that, because I was halving the new increase in the ticket price with her, in case I needed any petty cash for my enquiries into Ferret’s disappearance.

  7

  I felt that my enquiries were bogged down. People in my family say this happens. You have to go home and rave about, groaning like an ogre, while everyone keeps out of your way. If you start throwing your boots at the walls too noisily, Helena comes in and settles you. She says, calm down, darling, you don’t frighten me but you are scaring your poor innocent children. Tell me what the matter is, please. Nothing is the bloody matter. I know, just tell me about it, sweetheart. You growl that the case is impossible, you wish you never took it on, why don’t you ever learn, you are going to sack the client and bugger it.

  I see, says Helena.

  Next day you get up, have a bright idea, and solve your case.

  You can’t get bogged down on the first day, that’s too soon to lose heart. You have to do spadework first. Spadework or legwork. I couldn’t do legwork because I wasn’t allowed to walk off on my own, I was supposed to stay in the tented area or at the Circus track. So I did more spadework.

  After the aedile left, the acrobats milled around. They were stretching, balancing and practising sleights of hand, juggling and manipulating. The kennelful of trained little dogs were running around pulling miniature chariots. Faustus had not witnessed this, which was a good thing because only half of the doggies did it, while the others broke out of their reins and scampered about, yapping naughtily.

  I announced loudly that I would not tell my sister’s boyfriend, the aedile Faustus, that the company’s performing dogs were hopeless, so long as someone helped me find out what happened to my ferret yesterday. They all pulled faces, as if they were impressed.

  You have to identify where everybody was when the crime happened. So I walked around asking each person whether they had been in Thalia’s tent yesterday morning, or if not, where? I made a list in my notebook, the one Faustus gave me (he had told me I could keep it unless he ran out of them). There were two columns, one column for people who admitted they had been in the tent and one for those who hadn’t, but when I finished asking, all the people were listed in the same column, saying they had not been there. This was no use. But at least I had now learned their names.

  They all knew me too, so if anyone remembered anything helpful, they could come and find me easily.

  I then made a third column for anyone I believed had lied to me. This was one: the tiny woman called Sassia. She had a face like a monkey and I could see all her bones. The reason I thought she was lying was that she was now wearing a green costume with fringes on it which I knew I had seen in the pile of clothes in the tent. It was a crucial clue.

  On the other hand, it would be very dangerous for Sassia to go into that tent because if Jason thought she was a little monkey, he might make her his prey. But if she had badly wanted to fetch her costume, she might have shown him Ferret as a distraction from her.

  I could not really remember when I saw the green costume. Was it before Ferret disappeared, or afterwards? Luckily it wasn’t my job to remember things, because I was not a witness. I was the enquiry agent. We don’t come under suspicion. We are in command.

  If Sassia collected the costume this morning, she would be in the clear for the crime, which happened yesterday. I didn’t ask her that question. I was biding my time. I could make it a dramatic moment in my revelation of the suspect’s guilt.

  You have to do that in public, gathering together all the interested parties so you can discount them or discredit them. Don’t forget that someone may own up who hasn’t really done it, because they are protecting someone else. There is generally someone with a long-lost lovechild they have not dared to name, or another person has been blackmailing someone to force them to keep quiet about a terrible thing that happened twenty years ago. This is life. Especially when it’s death. Especially murder, because nobody would kill another person just because they lost their temper, would they?

  The acrobats were rather strange. When I was asking questions and working out who they all belonged with, Pollia was sitting across the lap of the one called Laurus; she looked extremely comfortable there so I asked if he was her husband. I knew it was wise to check. I carefully didn’t mention that I had seen her kissing Hesper yesterday. On no, said Pollia with a silly laugh, her husband was Pedo. I couldn’t understand it because Pedo at that moment was snuggling up to the other woman, Silvia. They were murmuring to one another and giggling the way people do when they are being all lovey. I didn’t know how to show all this on my chart of which people were linked to each other. These acrobats did not even try to make my job easy.

  After I had made a whole lot of notes, I noticed the scene-shifters were bringing in the water organ that Davos had mentioned. I had only seen one from far away before, so I walked up to watch.

  ‘Oi, oi,’ said a young man called Theopompus as they were setting it up. ‘Here comes the supervisor! Watch your backs.’

  I gave him a sickly smile, saying I hoped they knew how to do this without me helping.

  A nicer one called Epagatus stood aside with me and discussed how they put the organ together. That left Theopompus with all the heavy lifting, which did not please him.

  I knew something about this because in our library at home, I mean Falco’s house, we had a scroll with drawings of inventions. It included a hydraulus, which is the official name of a water organ. There is an octagonal base with the pipes on top
, twenty four (I counted) in decreasing sizes. The big fat longest pipe was twice as tall as me, so it was a very imposing structure. The force of the water descending somehow makes air rise up from a chamber into the pipes which creates sound. A double keyboard is used to choose which pipe, and so which sound comes out. Epagatus tried to explain the works, but I could not follow. He was not a good explainer.

  I wasn’t going to hear the hydraulus playing because Sophrona, the musician, had to look after all her brood instead that morning. Epagatus said that as well as five children she had a useless husband she couldn’t get rid of and also a lover, Ribes, the orchestra conductor, whom Epagatus called as dim as muck, and who was in fact the father of all her children. Theopompus called out scathingly, not too dim to have it away whenever he wanted, then let another idiot have the expense and trouble of his brats. Sophrona specialised in twerps. You wouldn’t think she was also capable of playing sublime music.

  ‘Does Sophrona’s useless husband know he’s being made a fool of?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, no. He’s extremely short-sighted, is Khaleed. Nobody knows the number of times he’s glimpsed Ribes making a fast getaway from their tent with his tunic still halfway up his arse, and not realised it was him, let alone what he must have been up to!’

  I was cross because that was another very complicated link to draw in my chart.

  As the organ wasn’t playing, I wandered off to where a properties controller from the theatre company was sorting out equipment. Large baskets had been delivered, which he was emptying out and exploring. He had a fake baby wrapped in a moth-eaten shawl, enormous rattly cooking pots, a shaggy coil of rope, bags of wooden money and a very old home-made snake with spangly eyes. He waggled the snake wildly, hoping I would scream though I didn’t. Sand fell out of it.

  They had some cracked leather armour for the boasting soldier to wear and a couple of wooden swords that any suitable character could use. I picked up one, struck a few attitudes and tried the edge. It didn’t feel sharp. ‘Would you be able to kill a person with this?’ I was thinking about my task of bringing retribution on whoever was to blame for my loss of Ferret. I really meant, would I be able to kill someone. Someone such as Thalia.

  ‘It’s blunt. That’s intentional. It wouldn’t go in, but if you ran at an opponent fast, you could inflict a really cracking bruise. Believe me, that has happened. Actors are always involved in deadly rivalries so they whack one another “accidentally”.’ I pricked up my ears, in case I had discovered more murky situations to investigate, then I reasoned that the acting troupe had only arrived this morning so none of them were relevant to the death of Ferret. While I thought about that, I swished the wooden sword about, frowning seriously.

  ‘What are you thinking of, Postumus?’ demanded the props man in a suspicious tone. His name was Dama. He seemed a better class of person than the acrobats, though not much better.

  I gave him my mysterious smile. That normally settles a conversation. Most people who receive my mysterious smile go away in a hurry.

  I had got the hang of investigating, and the next stage would be something that always happens to annoy the investigator. That was clear because of what Dama said: ‘Ho, ho!’ He sounded alert and stern. ‘Don’t tell me you are looking for a means to protect yourself, young man?’

  8

  This is what I mean about the next stage of the investigation. I know from my father and sister that when you have stirred up everyone sufficiently by your penetrating enquiries, the suspects and conspirators believe they have to defend themselves by trying to block you from asking any more questions. This is likely to involve some kind of violent attack on you. Suspects are always dim people who imagine you will be frightened off. They never reckon on courage and grit.

  What it tells you is that you have touched a nerve and are worrying them by coming too near the truth for comfort. This confirms you are being successful. You can take heart – though you must also be extremely careful and keep looking behind you wherever you go.

  Although Dama had suggested it was me who might need protection, I knew he must be bluffing. Underneath his question was a threat. What he meant was: ‘Are you wanting protection? – Because I am going to lure you down a dark alley and thump you horribly until you are covered in blood and can barely crawl home to be bandaged up and given hot soup.’

  Of course there were no alleys in the Circus of Gaius and Nero, though threateners who were small enough could crouch down and hide between the seats, ready to jump out at you.

  I gave Dama my thoughtful look, the one Albia says means I am considering whose head to put a hatchet in. Normally people who receive that smile then make themselves scarce. Sometimes I hear them muttering. If they complain to my parents, it used to be that Falco or Helena had a little talk with me, but they have now stopped bothering.

  ‘Oh,’ I replied coolly when he failed to leave the scene. ‘I am a boy, Dama. Naturally I like to pretend I am a soldier thwacking the enemy. I do it every day until my mother says, Alexander Postumus, do stop damaging the furniture and making such a racket. Please may I borrow this sword while nobody else is using it, so I can march around being a legionary in my imagination?’

  ‘No,’ said Dama.

  ‘It’s only a game, Dama.’

  ‘The theatre props are not toys, Postumus. Put it back immediately and don’t touch anything else.’

  I put back the sword tidily as soon as he told me to, like a meek obedient boy. This time I gave him my saddest look, all downcast and big brown eyes.

  ‘Cut it out,’ said Dama. ‘Now hop off and irritate somebody else.’

  I walked off as he had told me, still pretending to be well-behaved. I went far enough for him to think he had safely got rid of me, then I turned around. I was still in hearing distance. Of course I was, or there would have been no point.

  ‘Just one other thing, Dama, if you don’t mind.’ This is called tactics. Dama scowled. I ignored that. He was pretending I had not spoken to him. You have to carry on anyway, to catch them out. ‘What was the reason, please, why you thought I might need to protect myself?’ He wasn’t going to answer me, but I made myself look horribly anxious about it. ‘Am I in some kind of danger that I don’t know about?’ I sounded as nervous as I could. Since I didn’t know of any danger, I wasn’t really.

  Dama still made no answer but he stopped looking angry. I waited a little then walked back slowly until I was close up again. I was showing I trusted him utterly, so it was his duty to be kind to me. I sat down cross-legged beside one of the props baskets. Then I waited. I am an extremely patient person.

  ‘You’re not in any danger,’ Dama said, after he had fiddled with the props for a while. Obviously I then knew I was in danger. That was a surprise.

  He went on with what he was doing, though it looked as if he was drawing it out to avoid speaking. He had a huge cloth costume, like a gigantic circular sheet with holes for eyes, which I guessed was the ghost’s robe. Lots of plays contain a ghost though in the ones I have seen it never does much. People tell you that you will like the play because it is really exciting with a ghost, then it never is. They are just trying to persuade you to go to the play with them, so we can all be together as a family for once. It’s best to go. That keeps them happy and they will hand around a lot of sweets.

  The ghost’s eye holes had grown tattered so Dama was sewing around them neatly. He had a basket of stuff for mending jobs, with glue pots, shears, hammers, thread and different kinds of wire and string. I would have liked to investigate these things, but decided not to. Or not while Dama was watching.

  He put the costume material over his own head to try it out; most people would have made woo-woo noises and waved their arms spookily but Dama didn’t bother. He must be a man of the world. Anyway, I had the impression he didn’t believe in ghosts.

  I had waited this long time, because I could tell he was not a bad man, but one who wished me well. So I asked in a little voice, ‘W
ho doesn’t like me, Dama?’

  Finally Dama gave me a straight look. ‘I can’t comment on who likes you or doesn’t like you, Postumus, but you need to be aware of your position, boy.’

  ‘What position, Dama?’

  ‘With the other company. You are Thalia’s lad. They have been an established performing group for two decades. Everyone thought they were a communal troupe, each with joint interests. Shared fates and shared fortunes. But now suddenly you arrive. Some people are bound to suspect that Thalia brought you in to be the heir.’

  Did that mean I would own the menagerie and the tents, and I could give orders to the acrobats?

  ‘I am only twelve.’ I didn’t confuse him by mentioning Helena’s theory that I might be eleven.

  ‘Well, you’re twelve now,’ Dama told me in a dark voice. ‘You will grow. Some people might not want to stick around to watch.’

  ‘What do they think is going to happen, Dama?’

  ‘What always bloody happens – injustice and ingratitude!’

  ‘Oh will that happen in the theatre group as well?

  ‘Who knows? It doesn’t bother me. I can always go home to the hills and keep pigs in my old age. That’s assuming I can stand the rural life and my foolish bloody relatives.’ He had thin grey hair, a beaten-up manner and he looked quite old already.

  ‘So,’ I asked carefully, ‘do you think the acrobats believe I am a threat to them?’

  ‘Well, they are all mad buggers. Some of them can’t think. Even the ones that can do seem to leave their brains behind when they put on rosin and take hold of a balance pole. The animal trainers are the worst misfits in the universe – and I say that after working with bloody actors. But look closely, Postumus, and you may catch a tiny whiff of discontent about how you popped up as Thalia’s pride and joy. Word has already run around about you reorganising the gate money at the zoo like some little eastern king in a turban. It would hardly be surprising if there are those are around here who are worried. They could well be hoping to get rid of you.’