Venus In Copper Page 5

  'An apothecary. Name of Eprius.'

  'How did he die?'

  'One of his own cough lozenges stuck in his throat.'

  'How long had he lasted?'

  'Well it took him nearly a year to get her to the priest; she put on a good show of dithering. Then he survived another ten months; perhaps she needed to steady her nerve.'

  'The apothecary may have lingered because Severina wanted to acquire a knowledge of drugs... Was she there when he choked? Did she try to revive him?'

  'Desperately!' We both laughed, certain we had the measure of that. 'She was rewarded for her devotion with three drugshops and his family farm.'

  'Then what?'

  'Grittius Fronto. He imported savage animals for Nero's arena shows. She was bolder that time. She must have been courting Fronto while the executors were still snipping the tape on the Eprius will. The circus manager only managed to survive four weeks--'

  'Eaten by a lion?'

  'Panther,' Lusius corrected without a pause. He was as cynical as me; I loved the man. 'Strolled out of an open cage below the stage at Nero's Circus and backed poor Grittius up against some lifting gear. They say the blood was horrible. The thing mauled a tightrope walker too, which seemed a bit superfluous but made the "accident" look more natural. Grittius had been making a lot of money--his empire included a sideline in unusual floor shows for sleazy dinner parties. You know--naked females doing peculiar things with pythons... Servicing orgies is like owning a Spanish gold mine. Severina danced away from the Fronto funeral pyre with what I estimated at half a million big gold ones. Oh, and a parrot whose conversation would make a galley overseer blush.'

  'Was there a medical report on any of the bodies?'

  'The old beadseller's heart failure looked too natural, and there was no point calling a doctor to examine the panther's handiwork--not enough left!' Lusius shuddered fastidiously. 'But a quack did see the apothecary.' I lifted an eyebrow and without needing to look it up he gave me a name and address. 'He saw nothing to take exception to.'

  'So what put the law onto Severina?'

  'Grittius had a great-nephew in Egypt who used to arrange shipping for the wild beasts; the shipper had expected to inherit the loot from the lions. He sailed home fast and tried to bring an action. We made the usual enquiries, but it never came to court. Corvinus threw it out after an initial examination.'

  'On what grounds, Lusius?'

  His eyes were darting angrily. 'Lack of evidence.'

  'Was there any?'

  'None at all.'

  'So where is the argument?'

  Lusius exploded with sardonic mirth. 'Whenever did lack of evidence stop a case?' I could tell what had happened. Lusius must have done the work for the aediles (young local officials, responsible for investigating the facts but keen only on pursuing their political careers). The case had gripped him, then when his efforts came to nothing due to the Praetor's stupidity he took it personally. 'She was clever,' he mused. 'She never overreached herself; the types she picked had plenty of cash, but were nothing in society--so seedy no one would really care if they had met a sticky end. Well, no one except the nephew who was a rival for one of the fortunes. Perhaps Grittius had forgotten to mention him; perhaps he forgot deliberately. Anyway, apart from that slip, she must have been extremely careful, Falco; there really was no evidence.'

  'Just inference!' I grinned.

  'Or as Corvinus so lucidly put it: a tragic victim of a truly astonishing chain of coincidence...'

  What a master of jurisprudence.

  A portentous belch from a room indoors warned us that the Praetor was about to emerge. A door pushed open. A sloe-eyed slaveboy, who must have been the tasty bite Corvinus used to sweeten his palate after lunch, sauntered out carrying a flagon as his excuse for being there. Lusius winked at me, gathering his scrolls up with the unhurried grace of a clerk who had learned long ago how to look busy.

  I had no intention of watching the Praetor amuse himself rejecting pleas; I nodded politely to Lusius, and made myself scarce.

  Chapter IX

  I convinced myself it was now late enough to stop work for the day and attend to my personal life.

  Helena, who took a stern view of my casual attitude to earning a living, seemed surprised to see me so early, but the Pincian confectionery persuaded her into a more lenient frame of mind. Enjoying my company may have helped too--but if so, she hid it well.

  We sat in the garden at her parents' house, devouring the pastry doves, while I told her about my new case. She noted that it was an enquiry packed with feminine interest.

  Since she could tell when I was evading an issue I described my day as it had occurred, glamour and all. When I got to the part about Hortensia Atilia being like some dark oriental fruit, Helena suggested grimly, 'A Bithynian prune!'

  'Not so wrinkled!'

  'Was she the one who did all the talking?'

  'No; that was Pollia, the first tempting nibble.'

  'How can you keep track of them?'

  'Easy--for a connoisseur!' When she scowled I relented. 'You know you can trust me!' I promised, grinning insincerely. I liked to keep my women guessing, particularly when I had nothing to hide.

  'I know I can trust you to run after anything in a pair of silly sandals and a string of tawdry beads!'

  I touched her cheek with one finger. 'Eat your sticky cake, feather.'

  Helena distrusted compliments; she looked at me as if some Forum layabout on the steps of the Temple of Castor had tried to lift up her skirt. I found myself mentioning a subject I had told myself I would let lie: 'Thought any more about what I suggested yesterday?'

  'I've thought about it.'

  'Think you'll ever come?'

  'Probably.'

  'That sounds like "Probably not.'

  'I meant what I say!'

  'So are you wondering whether I mean it?'

  She smiled at me suddenly with vivid affection. 'No, Marcus!' I felt my expression alter. When Helena Justina smiled like that, I was in imminent danger of overreacting...

  Luckily her father came out to join us just then. A diffident figure with a sprout of straight untameable hair; he had the vague air of an innocent abroad--but I knew from experience he was nothing of the kind; I found myself sitting up straighter. Camillus shed his toga with relief, and a slave took it away. It was the Nones of the month so the Senate had been in session. He touched on today's business, the usual wrangles over trifles; he was being polite, but eyeing our open cake basket. I broke up the must cake I had purchased as a present for my sister, and we handed it round. I had no objection to going back to Minnius' stall another day to buy something else for Maia.

  Once the basket was empty, Helena tried to decide what she could do with it; she settled on making a gift for my mother, filling it with Campania violets.

  'She ought to like that,' I said. 'Anything that sits in the house serving no useful purpose and gathering a layer of fluff reminds her of my father...'

  'And someone else!'

  I said to the Senator, 'I like a girl who speaks her mind. Was your daughter always so cantankerous?'

  'We brought her up,' he answered between mouthfuls, 'to be a gentle, domestic treasure. As you see.' He was a likeable man, who could handle irony. He had two sons (both on foreign service), but if Helena had been less strong-minded she would probably have been his favourite. As it was, he viewed her warily but I reckoned their closeness was why Camillus Verus could never bring himself to send me packing; anyone who liked his daughter as much as I did was a liability he had to tolerate. 'What are you working on nowadays, Falco?'

  I described my case and the Hortensius freedmen. 'It's the usual story of the wealthy and self-possessed, fighting off an adventurous newcomer. What makes it so piquant is that they are nouveaux riches themselves. I'll take the commission, sir, but I must say, I find their snobbery intolerable.'

  'This is Rome, Marcus!' Camillus smiled. 'Don't forget, slaves from impo
rtant households regard themselves as a superior species even to the freeborn poor.'

  'Of which you're one!' Helena grinned. I knew she was implying Sabina Pollia and Hortensia Atilia would be too finicky to tangle with me. I gave her a level stare, through half-closed eyes, intending to worry her. It failed as usual.

  'One of the things I find interesting,' I mentioned to the Senator, 'is that these people would probably admit they rose from next to nothing. The man who owned them polished marble. It's a skilled job--which means the piecework rates hardly pay enough to keep a snail alive. Yet now the ostentation of his freedmens' mansion suggests their fortunes must be greater than a consul's birthright. Still; that's Rome too!'

  'How did they overcome their unpromising origins?'

  'So far that's a mystery...'

  While we talked I had been licking honey off the vine leaves from the cake basket; it suddenly struck me a senator's daughter might not wish to associate with an Aventine lout whose happy tongue cleaned up wrappings in public. Or at least, not associate with him in her father's townhouse garden, amongst the expensive bronze nymphs and graceful bulbs from the Caucasus, especially while her noble father was sitting there...

  I need not have worried. Helena was making sure no currants from the must cake were left behind in the basket. She had even found a way of forcing the corners open so she could recapture any crumbs that had worked themselves among the woven strands of cane.

  The Senator caught my eye. We knew Helena was still grieving for the baby she had lost, but we both thought she was starting to look healthier.

  Helena glanced up abruptly. Her father looked away. I refused to be embarrassed, so I continued to gaze at her thoughtfully while Helena gazed back, in peaceful communion about who knows what. Then Camillus Verus frowned at me, rather curiously I thought.

  Chapter X

  Although I had given up for the day, other folk were still labouring, so I popped along the Vicus Longus to see whether the letting agent Hyacinthus had mentioned was open for business. He was.

  Cossus was a pale, long-nosed individual, who liked to lean back on his stool with his knees apart; luckily his green and brown striped tunic was sufficiently baggy to allow it without indecency. He clearly spent most of his day laughing loudly with his personal friends, two of whom were with him when I called. Since I wanted a favour, I stood by looking diffident while these orators dissected the various perverts who were standing in the next elections, discussed a horse, then hotly debated whether a girl they knew (another hot tip) was pregnant or pretending. When my hair had grown half a digit waiting, I coughed. With little attempt at apology the clique slowly broke up.

  Alone with the agent, I found an excuse to drop the name of Hyacinthus as if I had known him since he cut his teeth on an old sandal strap, then I explained my yen for upmarket real estate. Cossus sucked in his breath. 'August, Falco--not much shifting. Everyone's away...'

  'Plenty of death, divorce and default!' Since my father was an auctioneer, I knew property moves at all seasons. In fact if I had wanted to buy something outright, my own papa could have put some ramshackle billet my way; but even he kept his hands clean of the rented sector. 'Still, if you can't help me, Cossus -'

  The best way to screw activity from a land agent is to hint that you are taking your custom somewhere else. 'What area are you looking at?' he asked.

  All I needed was lavish space at a small rent, anywhere central. The first thing Cossus offered was a boot cupboard beyond the city boundary stone, right along the Via Flaminia, an hour's walk out of town.

  'Forget it! I must be near the Forum.'

  'How about a well-established condominium, no snags, small out-goings, extremely appealing outlook, on the Janiculan Ridge?'

  'Wrong side of the river.'

  'It comes with shared use of a roof terrace.'

  'Can't you understand Latin? Even if it comes with Julius Caesar's riverside gardens, Cossus, it's not my area! I'm not some damned itinerant matchseller. What else do you have?'

  'Courtyard outlook, shaded by pine tree, opposite the Praetorian Camp -'

  'Rats! Find a tenant who's deaf.'

  'Ground floor, by the Probus Bridge?'

  'Find one who can swim in the spring floods...'

  We worked through all the dreary dumps he must have had on the stocks for ages, but eventually Cossus acknowledged he would have to shift those onto some raw provincial visitor. 'Now this is just the thing for you--a short lease in the Piscina Publica. Someone else has expressed an interest, but seeing as it's you, Falco -'

  'Don't make a drama. Tell me what it offers?'

  'Four good rooms arranged conveniently on the third floor -'

  'Over the courtyard?'

  'The street--but it's a quiet street. The neighbourhood is most attractive, well away from the Aventine warehouses, and favoured by a genteel clientele.' What comedian writes their speeches? He meant that it was too far from the markets and peopled with snobbish hydraulic engineers. 'The premises are being offered on a six-monthly basis; the landlord is uncertain of his plans for the block.'

  That suited me, since I was uncertain of my plans for staying solvent enough to pay him. 'How much?'

  'Five thousand.'

  'Annually?'

  'A half-year!' Cossus gave me a frosty stare. "This is the market for men of means, Falco.'

  'It's a market for fools, then.'

  'Take it or leave it. That's the going rate.' I gave him a look to say in that case I was going. 'Well, I could probably come down to three thou for a friend.' Half the price was his commission, if I read him right--which made him no friend of mine. 'Because of the short lease,' he explained unconvincingly.

  I sat frowning in silence, hoping this would beat him down: nothing doing. The Twelfth is a tolerable district. It lies east of the Aventine on the far side of the Via Ostiensis--nearly home to me. The public fishponds which supplied its name dried up years ago, so I knew the mosquitoes had decamped... I made an appointment to troop along with Cossus tomorrow and inspect the let.

  By the time I approached Fountain Court that evening I was determined to take the Piscina Publica apartment whatever it was like. I felt tired of bursting blood vessels climbing up stairs. I was sick of dirt, and noise, and other people's sordid troubles intruding into my life. Tonight I came back into the tangled mass of those Aventine lanes which feed into each other like the underground filaments of some disgusting fungus, and I told myself that four rooms, conveniently arranged, anywhere else must be better than this.

  Still dreaming, I turned the corner within sight of Lenia's laundry. Tomorrow I would sign the lease that enabled me to stop feeling ashamed whenever I had to tell a stranger my address...

  A pair of feet stopped my happy plans.

  The feet, which were enormous, were kicking at each other in the portico of the basketweaver's lock-up about ten strides away from me. Apart from their size, I noticed them because that was where I always parked myself if ever I had some reason to squint at my apartment discreetly before I showed myself.

  Those feet were definitely loafing. The person they were attached to was taking no notice of the weaver's artefacts, even though he had lolled up against a gigantic pile of general purpose wicker carrying-hods which would be a boon to any household, while at his feet lay an excellent picnic basket which any genuine bargain-hunter would have snapped up fast... I squeezed behind a pilaster for a closer scrutiny. I knew he was not a burglar; burglars like to have something to steal. Even the incompetent ones steer clear of Fountain Court.

  A client or a creditor would go in and chat to Lenia. These outsize platters must have been sent here by Anacrites, the Chief Spy.

  I eased myself backwards, and nipped through a side alley to the back lane. The area behind the laundry appeared its normal self. On this muggy summer evening the open cess trench was polluting the nostrils vibrantly. Two starved black dogs lay asleep on their sides in the shade. From behind a cracked shu
tter above my head I could hear the spiteful daily conversation of a husband and wife. A pair of female chicken-pluckers were arguing, or just gossiping, by a pen of off-colour capons. And a man I had never seen before was sitting on a barrel, doing nothing much.

  He had to be another spy. He was in full sun. It was the last place you would choose to sweat, if your only motive in planting your posterior on a barrel was to rest your legs. But it was the only place to sit if you wanted to survey coinings and goings from Lenia's drying-yard. Unless he was in love with one of the teazle girls, he must be up to no good.

  I opted for a strategic retreat.

  A large family can be useful. I had numerous relations, all of whom assumed they owned me. Most would condescend to give me a bed in return for the chance to complain about my habits. My sisters would want to rant about our mother having to arrange my jailbreak, so I went to mother's instead. I knew that meant being obsequious about her standing sponsor but I thought I could put on a polite show. I did manage to play at being grateful for as long as it took to devour a bowl of her prawn dumplings, but when the strain of remembering to look humble became too oppressive I went home after all.

  The watcher in the back lane must have been the well-organised one; he had fixed up a relief for himself. His replacement was now perched on the barrel trying to look inconspicuous; not a success, since he was a bald-headed, hook-nosed midget with a drooping left eye.

  Around the front the monstrous feet were still outside the basket shop--all the more unconvincing since the weaver had taken in his produce, dragged across his sliding screen and bolted up. I slid into the local barber's, and paid one of his offspring to tell the feet that a homunculus wanted to speak to them in the lane. While footsie plodded round there for a fruitless chat with the midget, I planned to be pouring myself a goodnight drink six floors up on my balcony.

  And so I was. Some days, some things actually go right.

  Chapter XI