The Grove of the Caesars Page 9

  Now I, Flavia Albia, had learned he existed. Could it be a turning point? I was not vain, but I knew I had skills. Nobody wanted me to be involved. That, naturally, convinced me that I should be.

  I was close enough to Tiberius to wish that I could talk to him, and I don’t only mean talk him around. But I was also remembering my life as a solo informer before I was married: I made my own decisions. I chose what to take on. I rarely avoided any task where I felt I had the right experience, or simply the tenacity to do what other investigators failed to achieve.

  I could ask my father about it. Hell, no.

  Falco would tell me not to touch this. He would threaten to tell my mother (who would herself tell me not to do it) and if it seemed an interesting puzzle, he would steal it.

  Wrong. Falco and Helena were a long-standing detection partnership. If it was really interesting, they would pinch it.

  I loved my parents. Like any daughter, I loved keeping them out of things.

  * * *

  After a rest, I confirmed my decision not to go back to the Transtiberina now, though I had an idea to follow up nearer home. I took Suza, so Gratus was satisfied. Respectable matrons always have a maid present when they are about dubious business. Then nobody questions them, do they? In any other household, with the master away, Gratus would have assumed I was tripping out to visit my lover, using Suza as disguise. Or she was being brought to whistle if an angry wife appeared …

  Suza had adopted me in the same way that my dog had, at around the same time. She was a dark-haired, big-bodied young girl, who managed to be both a dreamer and a surprisingly practical schemer too. Her personal goal was to be trained in my service in the creative arts of fashion. She had told me this openly. As her helpless model, I would be used for experiments in dress, jewellery and cosmetics, while she sneered at my own incompetence and lack of interest, as she saw it. I suspected that, once training at my house had made her proficient, she would abandon me for somebody more beautiful, rich and social.

  Meanwhile, she had come from a seashore shell factory, so there was much to do before she met metropolitan standards. I would not yet trust her with a hot hair-curling rod. However, she might pass muster as a chaperone, since in Rome no one looks twice at your maid. I was often so plainly turned out that few people looked twice at me either. For work, that was how I liked it.

  Trailed by this young girl, I went to see Vatia, Cluventius’s friend, who had given me his own address and told me questions could be asked there first, before I bothered the stricken family. He lived in a comfortable apartment on the first floor of a building on the Aventine, though on the other peak, which thought itself the more exclusive. More and more self-made people of wealth were coming to live there. It was a short walk from Lesser Laurel Street.

  We were admitted at once, almost as though I was expected. While we waited in a small salon with couches and floor rugs, I instructed Suza to sit still, not to fiddle, and never to speak. “What if I need the lavatory?”

  “Go now. Ask the porter to show you. Don’t chat to him. Look demure while you’re walking through the apartment. Be quick, then come straight back. If I’m talking to somebody, just sit down, silent.”

  Of course, now she had mentioned it, I felt I wanted the facilities myself, but I had learned to ignore that while on duty. Suza just managed to slip out before I heard someone coming.

  XXI

  Vatia was older than his friend Cluventius, though still working in the transportation business. A man who thought himself too shrewd to be bamboozled, he looked his age after last night’s event; he might be less tough than he had been in his prime.

  He called me a pretty little thing more than once. It was just his way of speaking, which was good because if he had been the type to turn frisky Suza might have socked him. She had no time for men who were dangerous on couches. But he and I held a perfectly sensible conversation, except that it was based on the premise that I was speaking for my husband.

  I did explain that I worked as a professional informer, operating my own business for my own clients. Vatia seemed not to understand this concept. We carried on anyway. At heart he was a kindly old cove. If he believed that everything I wrote on my note-tablet was for the absent aedile, I could live with it.

  Sometimes I tell people I come from Britain; they find this exotic, which explains me having an unusual role. British women are mystical empire-bashers, everybody knows that; all I needed was a queenly stance and wild red hair … Here, that would not work. Among the hard-working, hard-headed world of trade logistics, anything “exotic” reeks of bad faith and bad debt. Better to make myself look as if I could do neat shorthand and report faithfully to my head of household.

  Vatia repeated what I had already been told about the Cluventius family. Although he let me delicately probe the state of Victoria Tertia’s marriage, he could not understand why I needed to ask, since to friends the domestic relationship looked so stable. I explained that unfortunately, when women disappeared or were murdered, an inevitable question was whether they or their husbands had lovers; Vatia and I then solemnly agreed there was nothing like that here. I told him the vigiles were seeing it as a plain case of predatory assault, which seemed to have happened before in that neighbourhood.

  Vatia was disgusted. His friend’s birthday party had been arranged there because nobody would imagine anything untoward at Caesar’s Gardens, let alone in the sacred precincts of the Grove. He seemed worldly enough, so I mentioned that previous victims were thought to be prostitutes—I clued him up on the marine barracks. I thought that in Victoria Tertia’s sad case, we should assume the killer mistook why she was walking alone.

  Vatia was shrewd, because he immediately demanded, “And were the others all prostitutes?”

  “To be honest, I don’t know. From what I have heard, many corpses were never identified. Certainly, they would have been women from a poor background, possibly foreigners in the Transtiberina, whose associates might not have wanted to alert the authorities. Or they might not have known how to report a disappearance. Perhaps they believed no one would care, no one would bother to investigate. I’m afraid the authorities have some explaining to do. Very few people have nobody who will miss them if they suddenly disappear.”

  “Time to find out!” snapped Vatia.

  “I would agree.”

  “Will it be the vigiles looking into what happened last night?”

  “It will.”

  “You spoke to them?”

  “I met their investigator.”

  “What did you think?”

  “He seemed competent.”

  “Seemed? Was he too casual?

  “He did his job. None of them were rushing into action, but for the time being I suggest giving them a chance.”

  “It cannot wait. They need to be shaken up. Cluventius will raise hell. Paecentius and I will support him in any way he needs. This should never have happened. The perpetrator must be brought to justice. Such things have to stop.”

  I looked sympathetic, but my intuition told me it was too soon to offer my professional services. Let them agitate. That was, assuming complaints happened: some people make wild claims yet never do anything about it. I merely said I would be happy to give advice. Vatia did not take it up.

  My one suggestion was that if friends were able to act on behalf of the family, Vatia and Paecentius should organise an undertaker as soon as possible. Victoria Tertia’s body should not be left at the vigiles’ station-house. I had been promised that her corpse would be treated with respect, but she ought to be reclaimed.

  “In terrible circumstances like this, it can help the relatives to bring her home,” I told Vatia. “Of course, they have lost her, but in some strange way they will feel she is safe again among her own. When they give her a funeral and put up a memorial, they take back control. Those who love her are making her theirs again.”

  Vatia listened. He nodded. “You seem to know about terrible situation
s.”

  “I have seen grief.”

  “You know what to do.”

  “Unhappily, yes.”

  It was significant that before I left, Vatia led me to another room, where he introduced me to his wife, Romilia. She was a grey-haired, weeping woman of sixty or so, who could not bring herself to say much. I expressed my condolences quietly then we kissed cheeks.

  * * *

  The Cluventius home was also on the Aventine, farther over, on the street down to the Raudusculana Gate. Another comfortable apartment, another tidy reception room. There, I found him in shock, muttering over and over, “Why?” He was among his children, a boy and girl both approaching twenty, who were white-faced, tired and overcome, plus another tear-stained little trio of around four, six and seven, who sat in silent distress. The older pair had been at their father’s party, while the little ones still had not grasped that their mother, who had tucked them into their beds last night, kissing them goodbye and promising to tell them all about it, was never coming home.

  I told him that Vatia was calling in a funeral director, so Victoria Tertia’s body could be returned. Today this gave no comfort, though eventually it would.

  I knew it was useless, but I assured Cluventius that what had happened was in no way his fault. I could see how things were. He blamed himself. He felt guilty about his choice of venue, then berated himself for having enjoyed his party so much, leaving Victoria Tertia to talk to people by herself, letting her wander away for respite, sending her alone into the clutches of her killer. He ought to have noticed much sooner that she had gone missing. He should have tried harder to find her … There was no point in telling him she had been taken and was already dead before he even started.

  Ursus from the vigiles had already been to see him. I probed gently. As far as I could gather, everything said had been proper, though conventionally routine. Following the interview, Cluventius now knew that his wife might not have been the man’s first victim. Nothing was being kept from him, though I guessed the Seventh Cohort were doing their best to play down the historical situation. It was too soon to stir up Cluventius by criticising their past actions. He needed to rally, then start asking questions himself. As I had with Vatia, I left the widower to react when he was ready.

  Tomorrow or soon afterwards, it was likely that Cluventius would recover enough to want revenge. He would need to pass on his guilt, need to place blame elsewhere. Then he would throw himself into demanding more activity from the authorities. Ursus, poor dog, would be expecting this. I did not waste time shedding pity on him and his beleaguered men. They were calling the repeated deaths those of mainly unknown women in a worthless trade, even though there might have been other occasions when the victim’s identity was certain and her lost life mourned by angry relatives with social voices.

  If Cluventius ever found out that his wife was not the only respectable victim, the Seventh would be for it. Then would be the time for me to put myself forward professionally.

  XXII

  “Is your work always sad like that?” asked Suza, as we trudged home. At the end of a winter afternoon, the Aventine heights became dark and chilly. We huddled in cloaks. Our mood was ever more sombre.

  “That is why I do it. People in trouble need help.”

  “But you were just visiting. They are not going to pay you.”

  “Patience. They may do.”

  I thought they probably would. Cluventius would consult his friends. Vatia and Paecentius, already horrified, would lean on the troubled man to initiate his own enquiries. They might not know any other informers, but they had met me. Vatia’s wife had liked me. His taking me to meet her showed the respect he had for her. She must be a force in the household, one of so many Roman women who contributed to daily life without ever being given much notice. Barely acknowledged by the law or mentioned in literature, they gave vital support to the men who thought they ran the Empire. In that long-standing partnership, Rome’s existence was grounded.

  Thinking about these good family friends made me sure of domestic parallels. Victoria Tertia must have held a similar strong position to Romilia in her home. A terrible gap there would quickly become apparent. As the days passed, Cluventius would realise over and over again how much his wife had done, how bereft he and his children were going to be.

  I was certain my being commissioned was guaranteed.

  * * *

  At my own home, Paris had returned. He brought our own troubles. Tiberius’s sister, Fania Faustina, had died. Tiberius had not reached her in time.

  Paris slumped and rubbed his eyes, worn out by his journey and depressed by carrying bad news. He had served his previous master as a runabout so was familiar with travel. Since his old master had been murdered, he knew tragedy too. That was how he had come to us; Tiberius and I were friends with his old master so taking him on after the loss had suited all of us.

  Paris would recover but was temporarily deflated. Fornix, our cook, brought him something to eat and mulsum, the sweet fortified drink that serves as a restorative. Then Fornix turned out to be unexpectedly good with live animals as well as a master of meat; it was he who he persuaded Patchy, the borrowed donkey, to step into the yard where he could be fed, watered, and kept safe from thieves. It took some effort. Paris mentioned glumly that Patchy was hopeless.

  “His normal job is carrying the porter about. I can remember him for as long as I’ve been going to the Saepta,” I mused. “He may be nearly as old as Gornia. It could be time we bought a new beast for ourselves.”

  “Thank the gods for that!” replied Paris, with feeling, before he added, “Get one that’s no trouble!”

  I had never bought a donkey in my life. The only things I knew were that if you got a tricky one it caused misery—and that most donkeys took delight in being full of tricks. My staff stood around watching me with cynical smiles. I decided to think about it. Finally, I announced that I wasn’t allowed to make big purchases like that without permission from my husband. Their smiles broadened.

  By myself I read a short note from Tiberius. He was terse, not yet ready to pour out his grief. Sister dead. Aunt heartbroken. Three little boys confused and lost. Doctor believed the foetus had been “out of place,” a common cause of death in early pregnancy. Tiberius was having to organise a funeral (from which I could deduce, brother-in-law no use as usual). No need for me to come; better to look after things at home …

  I wanted to go. I wanted to be with him. That was something else I must think about privately.

  Later that evening I went along to tell Uncle Tullius he had lost his niece. He was out, so I sat down to await his return in the quiet house where Tiberius had spent his youth. I had told the staff my visit was important; I suspect a slave slipped off to find and bring Tullius. He was single-minded about his own pleasures but that night he quickly arrived home and seemed tolerant of having his social life interrupted. He pulled a face at the bad news, called for wine, even gave me some since he said I looked in need of it. I explained I had had a bad day. Tullius never asked why, and I neither knew him nor liked him well enough to discuss my affairs.

  After one beaker of intense red wine, he sent me home in his personal carrying chair. I found a party wreath among the cushions, along with a strong stink of perfume. Tullius Icilius was reckoned to have disreputable tastes. I suspected once his transport returned, he would be carried back to whatever entertainment he came from earlier. But before we parted, he told me he would travel to Fidenae for Fania Faustina’s funeral; if I wanted a lift in his mule cart, he would take me.

  “The event will be rural,” he remarked, with a shudder. “Every gruesome custom you have ever heard of. Miserable flowers, squashed berries, mounds of mouldy greenery. They are bound to display the poor corpse for all the nosy clods from miles around to view her … We’ll have a few days to prepare ourselves. They need to get through a lot of weeping and wailing first. Don’t worry, my sister-in-law will let me know when the ceremony i
s to be. Valeria won’t pass up a chance to make it look as if I have shown disrespect by not attending. But I’ll go, just to surprise her!”

  I decided to take it as a sign that Uncle Tullius was warming, that he spoke so frankly to me. At the same time, I knew he was rude enough to say all this direct to Aunt Valeria or even to Tiberius. Like many such people, he made out he had no idea how crass he was—yet he knew exactly.

  As if he realised I feared ten miles in a mule cart with him might be tough, he told me not to worry because he would be asleep. “I’ll need to rest up ready for my usual role of upsetting people!”

  I replied, as if unfazed, that I would bring a picnic for our journey.

  XXIII

  I had a disturbed night, with thoughts of all that had happened churning in my brain. Next morning my spirits were very low. In sadness, I wrote a letter to Tiberius, then sent off Paris with it. I had Suza prepare an overnight bag, so I was ready to go to Fidenae at short notice. While Gratus was talking to Fornix about groceries, I winked at Barley, who came with me as I slipped out of the house.

  It was a grey day, no sun, though at least neither wind nor rain. Everyone I passed seemed to be talking about what they were planning at Saturnalia. It would be our first. We would be a household in mourning. I ducked my head and walked fast to avoid stressful thinking.

  I crossed the Tiber again by the splintery Sublician. This bridge was a favourite with beggars, which might have made me anxious, but my surly mood obviously showed. Those who were sitting there either hid their heads or jumped up and fled. Barley wagged her tail at the ones who were pretending to be asleep. I did toss a coin to a very old woman. She cursed me. I vigorously cursed her back. She went off into panic that she had been given the evil eye. Sometimes I did not need to claim to be a druid—just as well, since I have no idea what the evil eye is or how you deploy it.