A Body In The Bath House mdf-13 Page 7

I had spent an hour wandering about, trying to get my bearings and make sense of the plan, before I was apprehended and asked to explain myself. So far, the site officials thought I was just a curious sightseer on a visit from Rome along with a lady of distinction who was staying in a house in town that belonged to the procurator of finance for Britain. They assumed I had brought the noble Helena Justina to see her uncle Gaius and aunt Aelia, pausing at their house in Noviomagus Regnensis to recover from our long journey before travelling on to Londinium.

  The clerk of works found a moment to speak to me. I held back, getting the measure of him. He tried putting me off, saying he had to go to a project team meeting; he said he would like to allow me to wander around, but building sites were dangerous, so a safety edict declared the works out of bounds to unescorted visitors. I was about to show him the governor's introduction. Depending on his reaction to my docket from Frontinus, either I would make him squirm by producing my pass from the Emperor as well – or I'd merely let him know it existed.

  He was a lean, middleweight, furrowed man of obvious intelligence. Dark brown eyes darted everywhere. Every time he crossed from his site hut to collect a hot drink from the covered canteen, he was looking for loafers, for errors, for sneak-thieves with their crafty eyes on equipment and materials – and it he had been forewarned to expect the proverbial man from Rome, then he was looking out for me. He oozed competence. And his restrained behaviour meant that whether or not he knew I was being sent to investigate, he would cope well when I came clean. If he was as good as my secretarial briefing had said, he would welcome my presence. If he had been away from Italy too many years, and had grown complacent or actually corrupt, then I would have to watch my back. The reason clerks of works can afford politeness is that apart from the architect, they hold absolute power.

  He was called away again, to answer some question about setting out. He gave me a nod, a gentle hint to leave. Not me.

  While he got stuck in with the surveyor around the groma, I stood where he had left me (so he would not worry what I was up to) but I refused to go, like a crass lad who had no social graces. Someone else then engaged the clerk of works in conversation, as tends to happen, so I tried chatting to the surveyor while he waited to resume.

  'It's a prestigious site.'

  'All right if you like it,' he returned. Surveyors are unhappy men. Intelligent, shrewd characters, they all believe that were it not for them, disaster would devastate any new construction. They feel their importance is not taken seriously. On both counts they are quite correct.

  'Big project?'

  'Five-year rolling programme.'

  'Big enough to go adrift!' I made the mistake of grinning.

  'Thanks for the confidence,' he answered sourly. I should have known that a surveyor would take it as a personal slight. He seemed tense. Perhaps he just had an edgy nature. He gave me a terse 'Excuse me.'

  Time to assert myself. I could have produced a note-tablet and written memos. That lacked subtlety. For official missions you need a certain air. I had it. I could cause anxiety just by strolling to the edge of a new wall's foundations, then watching what was going on among the labourers. (They were hand-bedding flints in concrete between a double row of piles. Well, a man and a boy were doing that, while four other men stood by and helped them by leaning thoughtfully on spades.)

  As I parked myself with my thumbs in my belt, simply looking in silence, the surveyor smelt audit immediately. I was expecting his half hidden jerk of the head to warn his crony; the clerk of works reappeared at my side again, with narrowed eyes. 'Anything else, sir?' I knew as well as he did that it pays to be courteous. But I started as I intended to continue – and it was tough. 'The name is Didius Falco. I did some work for Flavius Hilaris a few years back. There were cock-ups in the organisation of the silver mines. Now they've called me back again.'

  He remained non-committal. 'To my site?'

  'You hear me.'

  'I wasn't told.'

  'But you are not surprised.'

  'So what's your work here?'

  'Whatever is needed.' I made it clear there would be no messing.

  He knew better than to resist. 'You have authorisation?'

  'From the top.'

  'Londinium?'

  'Londinium and Rome.'

  That caused the right buzz of excitement. 'We have a team meeting about to start – I'll introduce you to our project manager.'

  The project manager was bound to be an idiot. The clerk of works clearly thought so; to have no faith in the project manager was the formal specification for his job. The surveyor was laughing behind his hand too, I reckoned.

  'Who leads your team?' It can vary between the disciples, particularly on schemes like bridges or aqueducts, with a high engineering content.

  'The architect.' The fellow I had seen earlier, being rude. No doubt he would soon be rude to me.

  'Any hope that they issued you one who knows his stuff?'

  The clerk of works was formal: 'Pomponius has had many years of training and has worked on major schemes.' He deliberately did not comment, And he buggered up the lot of them. The surveyor sniggered openly, however. When this surveyor started his career, he would have undergone serious training of his own; some sessions would have been taught by grizzled old rowd-geniuses who called their task 'Stopping the bloody architect mining the job.'

  I had gained a good impression of this pair. 'You mean, Pomponius is the usual mixture of arrogance, sheer ignorance and fanciful ideas?' The clerk of works allowed himself a faint smile.

  'He wears Egyptian fancy shoulder brooches!' confirmed the surveyor dourly. He himself was the smartest professional on site: crisp grey hair, immaculate white tunic, polished belt and enviable boots.

  He carried instruments in a neatly buckled, well-oiled satchel; I would happily grab it oft a second-hand stall, even though it had obviously seen a lot of wear.

  The clerk of works decided he should lighten the atmosphere. 'Watch out if Pomponius offers you a presentation. It has been known to last three days. The last VIP was carried out unconscious on a stretcher. Pomponius had not even started to show him colour charts and paint samples.'

  I smiled. 'Then don't introduce me formally. Just slide me in at the project meeting and I'll make myself known to him at a later stage. I mean, after I've seen just how stupid he is.'

  They grinned.

  We set off towards some elderly wooden buildings, ancient military hutments that looked as if they dated back to the Claudian invasion. Now they were being used as site huts, but must be earmarked for demolition when the new scheme was complete.

  The project meeting would normally have started before this, but had been delayed. Somebody had had an accident.

  'Happens all the time,' the surveyor gushed dismissively. Although we had been acting like friends up to that point, he was glossing over an issue.

  'Who was it? Is he hurt?'

  'Done for, unfortunately.' I raised an eyebrow. The surveyor seemed tetchy and made no further comment.

  'Who was it?' I repeated.

  'Valla.'

  'What happened to him?'

  'He was a roofer. What do you think happened? He fell off a roof.'

  'Better get along to the meeting,' interrupted the clerk of works. 'Do you have a clerk, Falco?'

  We were now entering the old military hutment they were using as the project manager's office. I let the unspoken issue about the roofer fade away, at least temporarily. 'No, I take my own notes. Issue of security.' In fact I had never been able to afford secretarial help. 'My assistants back me up when needed.'

  'Assistants!' The clerk of works looked startled. A man from Rome was bad enough. A man from Rome with reinforcements was really serious. 'How many do you have?'

  'Just the two,' I said and smiled. Adding for fun, 'Well, until the rest arrive.'

  XI

  Pomponius spotted me at once. It cannot have been easy. The site meeting was the largest coll
ection of men with tool-holsters and one-sleeved tunics that I had attended. Maybe this explained the problem. The palace project was too big. No one man could keep track of the personnel, the programme and the costs. But Pomponius thought he was in charge the way men who are losing their grip on a situation usually do.

  I took against him immediately. The thick hair pomade gave him away; his vanity and studied vagueness clinched it. He was a distant man, too certain of his own importance, who behaved as if someone had waved a bowl of rotten shellfish under his nose. He had a deliberately old-fashioned way of looping up his toga, which made him seem an oddity. To wear a toga at all set him apart: we were in the provinces, and he was at work. One of his gaudy finger-rings was so bulky it must interfere when he was at the drawing board.

  I found it hard to envisage him actually designing plans. When he did, it was a sure bet he would be so busy thinking up expensive decor, he would forget to include stairs.

  The team he had assembled was dominated by the decorative trades. Cyprianus (the clerk of works) and Magnus (the surveyor) pointed out in undertones the chief mosaicist, the landscape gardener, the chief fresco painter and the marble mason before they got to anyone as sensible as a drains engineer, carpenter, stonemason, labour supervisors or admin clerks. There were three of the latter, for tracking the programme, cost control and special ordering. Labour was divided between local and overseas, each with a man in charge.

  An obvious tribal dignitary, very proud of his torque, had cleared himself a substantial area right at the front. I nudged Magnus, who muttered, 'The client's representative has graced us with his hairy presence!'

  Pomponius had decided to bar me. He spoke in a superior accent that increased my loathing. 'This meeting is for team members only.'

  Dark heads, bald heads and the one crown of flowing ginger locks on the client's representative all turned my way. They all knew I was there and had been waiting to see how Pomponius reacted.

  I stood up. 'I'm Didius Falco.' Pomponius gave no sign of recognition. I had been told by the imperial secretariat in Rome that the project manager would be warned I was coming. Of course, Pomponius might wish to keep my role a secret so I could observe his site incognito. That would be too helpful.

  I was sure he had been sent a briefing. I could already deduce his irritation with correspondence from Rome. He was in charge; he would give no time to orders from above. Bureaucracy cramped his creativity. He would have glanced at the relevant memo, could not face the tricky issues, so forgot he ever read it. (Yes, I had previous experience of architects.)

  He gave me two options: to be sidelined or to fight back. I could live with an enemy. 'I'll take it that my letter of authority has been mis-filed here. I hope that is not indicative of how this project is run. Pomponius, I won't delay you. I'll spell out the situation to you when you're free.'

  Polite but terse, I strode to the front. Apparently leaving, I positioned myself in full view of everyone.

  Before Pomponius could stop me, I addressed them: 'You will learn this soon enough. My brief is direct from the Emperor. The scheme is behind time and over cost. Vespasian wants lines of communication cleared and the whole situation rationalised.' That implied what I was here to do, without using dangerous phrases like allocate blame or weed out incompetence. 'I am not setting up a war camp. We are all here to do the same job: get the Great King's palace built. As soon as I'm established on site you will know where my office is -' That made it clear Pomponius had to give me one. 'The door will always be open to anyone with something helpful to say – use the opportunity.'

  Now they knew that I was here and that I felt I had more authority than Pomponius. I left them all to mutter about it.

  Right from the start, I had detected a bad atmosphere. The conflict was brewing before I spoke; it had nothing to do with my presence.

  With all the prominent team members trapped at their meeting, I decided to inspect the corpse of the dead roofer, Valla. Wondering how to find it, I was able to appreciate the site at a quiet moment. A labourer humping a basket of spoil glanced at me with mild curiosity. I asked him to show me around. He seemed completely incurious about my motives, but quite happy to take time off from his duties.

  'Well, you can see we've got the old house there, on the shore side -'

  'You're pulling it down?'

  He cackled. 'There's a big row about that. Owner likes it. If he gets to keep it, we'll have to raise all the floor levels.'

  'He won't be happy when you start in filling his audience suite and he has concrete up to the ankles!'

  'He's more unhappy with losing the building.'

  'So who says he can't keep it?'

  'The architect.'

  'Pomponius? Isn't his brief to provide what the client wants?'

  'Reckon he thinks the client ought to want what he's told.'

  Some labourers are well-built specimens, their muscles and stamina suited to heaving stone and concrete. This was one of the wiry, pasty, strangely feeble-looking types. Perhaps he was happy on ladders. Or perhaps he simply started in the trade because his brother knew a foreman and fixed him up with work cleaning old bricks. Like most building workers he obviously suffered with his back.

  'Did I hear you lost someone in an accident?'

  'Oh Gaudius.' I had meant Valla.

  'What happened to Gaudius?'

  'Swiped with a plank, knocked backwards in a hole. Trench wall collapsed and he was crushed before we could dig him out. He was still alive when we started clawing at the fill. Some of the boys must have trod on him as they tried to help.'

  I shook my head. 'Horrible!'

  'Then Dubnus. Dubnus got stewed one night. He ended up knifed in a bar at the canabae.' Canabae were semi-official hot huts outside military forts normally; I knew them from my army days. There the locals were allowed to set up businesses servicing off-duty needs. This meant the flesh trade, with other offerings that ranged from dangerous drink to hideous souvenirs. It led to disease, birth pangs and illegal marriage – though rarely death.

  'Life out here is tough?'

  'Oh it's all right.'

  'Where are you from?'

  'Pisae.'

  'Liguria?'

  'A long time ago. I never like to settle down.' That could mean he was fleeing a ten-year-old charge for stealing ducks – or that he really was a rootless bird who liked his boots on the move.

  'Do the management treat you well?'

  'We have a nice clean barracks and decent tuck. It's fine, if you can stand living on top of nine other fellows, some of them right farters and one who cries in his sleep.'

  'Will you stay in Britain when the job's completed?'

  'Not me, legate! I'm for Italy as quick as you like… Still, I always say that. Then I hear about some other scheme. There's always pals going, and the pay sounds rich. I get lured off again.' He seemed content with this.

  'Would you say,' I asked narrowly, 'that this site is any more dangerous than others where you have worked?'

  'Well, you lose a few fellows, it's natural.'

  'I know what you mean. I've heard that outside the army, more men are killed on building sites than in any other trade.'

  'You get used to it.'

  'So what are the casualty numbers like?'

  He shrugged, no statistician. I bet this easy-going lamb was just as dozy over his pay.

  No, I didn't. I bet he knew what he was owed to the nearest quarter as.

  'Know anybody on this site called Gloccus or Cotta?'

  He said no.

  XII

  Directed by the labourer, I found the infirmary where the body of the roofer killed that morning was supposed to lie. This was a small but efficient medical station, set among some site huts on the far side, with a young orderly, Alexas, who tended day-to-day cuts and sprains of which there were many. I guessed his job also included identifying malingerers. They would have those on a regular basis too.

  Without surprise, he show
ed me the dead roofer. Valla had been a typical site navvy, ruddy-skinned and slightly paunchy. He probably liked a drop to drink, probably too often. His hands were rough. He smelt very slightly of old sweat, though that might only be that he rarely washed his tunic. He would smell worse soon if nobody paid to cremate him; my recent memories of the corpse under Pa's hypocaust were revived unpleasantly.

  Valla lay on a stretcher, untended by mourners or flute-players, yet respected. A coarse cloth was pulled back with a gentle hand, ready for my inspection. The orderly stayed with me, as if he took as much care of this dead man as any screaming ditcher with a sickle through his leg. They had standards on this site, apparently.

  'Will Valla be given a funeral?'

  'It is normal,' said Alexas. 'We get deaths on any project, some perfectly natural. Hearts give out. Disease takes a toll. The workers will have a whip-round, probably, but on a long-distance job, arrangements are made by management.'

  'You then ship the ashes home to relatives?' He looked embarrassed.

  'Too much trouble,' I agreed calmly. 'I bet half the crew here have never named a blood relation to be contacted.'

  'They are supposed to,' I was assured earnestly.

  'Of course.' I tapped his chest. 'Have you put your wife or your mother on a scroll?'

  Alexas began to speak, then paused and grinned back at me. 'Now you mention it…'

  'I know. We all think anything bad will happen to some other man. This one was mistaken, though.'

  The body was cool. I was told nobody saw what happened. It looked as though he came off cleanly; there were certainly no signs that he scraped his hands trying to regain a grip. There were no real marks on him. The fatal injuries must be internal. If anybody shoved the poor fellow to make him lose his footing, then they had left no evidence.

  'Where did his fall happen?'

  'The old house.'

  'It's under scaffold, I know. Isn't there some dispute over the building's future?'

  'I'm not the man to ask,' Alexas said. 'If they are demolishing any part of it, Valla would have been salvaging tiles.'