He strode out.
‘Oh dear! I was hoping to smooth over any unpleasantness, Falco!’ Anacrites was ghastly when he whined.
‘Not possible,’ I told him with a sneer, then I followed Petro from the room.
Outside, Phileros was hanging about nervously with such an enormous tray of confectionery his stretched arms could hardly hold it. Petronius cared about the poor, since he so often had cause to arrest them. He had ascertained it was all paid for out of the spy’s petty cash, not the shabby clerk’s own pocket. So we swept up as many cakes as we could carry, and took them away with us.
We gave them to a tramp, of course. Even if they were not dosed with aconite, to eat anything provided by Anacrites would have choked us.
There was no chance we would allow Anacrites to have our case. Earlier in the day Petronius and I had agreed on the same system as the last time he tried muscling in. We would proceed as normal. We would simply keep out of the spy’s view. Once we solved the case, we would report to Laeta.
According to Petro, he had Rubella’s support. I did not press for details.
Although we had implied to Anacrites we had reached a dead end, we had plenty of ideas. Petronius had issued an all-cohorts notice to look out for the runaway slave called Syrus, the one who had worked for Modestus and Primula then was passed on to the butcher by their nephew. Petro’s men visited the other cohorts to inspect any slaves they had found roaming. There was another alert too: for the missing woman, Livia Primilla, or more likely her body.
It was too risky to have official warrants for Nobilis or any other Claudii; Anacrites was liable to hear about it. Nonetheless, efforts were being made to trace the couple who were supposed to work in Rome, using word of mouth among the vigiles. There was also a port watch for Nobilis, arranged through the Customs service and the vigiles outstation at Ostia. Meanwhile Petronius was having his clerk go through the official records of undesirables, looking for members of the family listed in Rome. If the two called Pius and Virtus had become astrologers or joined a weird religious cult, that could turn them up.
Rubella would not permit Petronius to leave Rome again, so I was going back to Antium: I would be looking for the estranged wife of Claudius Nobilis, hoping to hear about life on the inside with the Pontine freedmen.
First, came an assignment close to home. When I returned, Helena met me at the door.
‘Marcus, you have to do something and it must be now, while Petronius is at the station house. Your sister sent a message; she sounds upset -‘
‘What’s up?’
‘Maia needs to see you. She doesn’t want Lucius told, because he will be too angry. Maia had an unwelcome visitor. Anacrites went to see her.’
Never mind Lucius Petronius. I was damned angry myself.
XXVI
My sister Maia Favonia had more locks on her door than most people. She had never recovered from coming home one day a couple of years ago to find everything in her home destroyed and a child’s doll nailed up where the knocker had been. Anacrites left no calling card. But he had been haunting her neighbourhood after she split from him; she knew who had given her the warning.
I had moved her out the same night. I took her away with us on a trip to Britain and by the time she came back, she and Petronius Longus were lovers; her children, a bright bunch, had democratically elected that friendly vagabond as their stepfather. Maia took a new apartment, closer to Ma’s building. Petro moved in. The children preened. Everything settled down. Even so, Maia installed a tumbler lock and a set of large bolts, and she never opened the door after dark unless she knew who was outside. She had been fearless, happy and sociable. Terror left its marks. Maia would never get over what the spy had done.
Petronius and I had sworn an oath together. One day we would exact retribution.
They lived, as most city people did, in a modest apartment. One floor up, a communal well in the courtyard, a small set of rooms to arrange as they liked. Petro, who was handy with a hammer, had fixed the place up in shipshape style. Maia had always had her own casual glamour and, given her work for Pa at the Saepta, she furnished it with dash. Our mother’s house centred on its kitchen and a table where onions were always being chopped; Helena and I liked to relax in private in a room where we read together. Any house where Maia lived had a balcony as its heart. There she kept a trough of plants that could survive breezes and offhand treatment, plus battered lounging chairs with mounds of well-squashed cushions, between which was the bronze tripod where she served a constant supply of nuts and raisin cake.
I wondered if Anacrites had been allowed into that insiders’ sanctum this time. He knew how things worked. The damage to Maia’s previous much-loved sun terrace, when he trashed her place, had been particularly vile.
Helena had come with me tonight. Maia greeted her with a sniff. ‘Oh he’s brought a woman to worm out all the secrets, has he? You think I’ll be softened up by girls’ chat?’
Helena gave an easy-going laugh. ‘I’ll sit with the children.’ We had glimpsed them, doing schoolwork in subdued silence: Maia’s four, who ranged from six to thirteen, plus Petronilla, Petro’s girl, who lived here most of the time now because her mother had a new boyfriend. Petronilla had condemned Silvia’s latest conquest as ‘a lump of mouldy dough’. She was eleven and already scathing. So far, Petro was still her hero, though he expected daddy’s little girl to begin disparaging him any day now.
A shadow darkened Maia’s face. ‘Yes,’ she said urgently. ‘Yes, Helena. Do that.’ So the children knew Anacrites had been here, and they needed comfort.
I was shepherded to the balcony. Maia closed the folding doors behind us. We sat together, in our usual positions.
‘Right. You had a visitation. Tell me.’
Now we were private, I could see how badly Maia was shaken. ‘I don’t know what he wanted. Why now, Marcus?’
‘What did he say he wanted?’
‘Explaining is not his style, brother.’
I lay back and breathed slowly. Around us were the noises of a domestic district at nightfall. Here on the Aventine, there was always a sense of being high above the city and slightly aside of the centre. Occasional sounds of traffic and trumpets came from a very great distance. Closer to, owls hooted from the gilded roof trees of very old temples. There were all the normal wafts of grilled fish and panfried garlic, the rumpus of angry women berating tipsy men, the weary wails of sick or unhappy children. But this was our hill, the hill where Maia and I grew up. It was a place of augury, foliage gods and slaves’ liberation. It was where Cacus the hideous caveman once lived and where the poets’ association traipsed about singing silly odes. For us the flavours were subtly distinct from every other Rome region.
‘Better start at the beginning,’ I told Maia in a quiet voice.
‘He came this morning.’
‘If I am to evaluate what this bastard is really up to,’ I said quietly, ‘then start right at the beginning.’
Maia was silent. I gazed across at her. Normally you think of your sister as she was at eighteen. Tonight, by the flicker of a pottery lamp, every year was etched on her. I was thirty-six; Maia was two years younger. She had survived a wearisome marriage, births, the death of one daughter, a cruel widowhood and ensuing financial hardship, then a couple of crazy dalliances. There were at least a couple; I was her brother, what would I know? Her worst mistake was when she let Anacrites home in on her.
‘You never really told us: was it serious?’
‘Not for me.’ For once Maia was so unnerved she opened up. ‘I met him, you know, after he was hurt and you took him to Mother’s to recuperate.’ Maia was the kind of daughter who was always popping into Ma’s house to share a cabbage - keeping an eye on the old tyrant. ‘After Famia died, Anacrites turned up one day. He treated me respectfully - that was a change after Famia using me as a boot scraper for all those years …’
‘You liked him?’
‘Why not? He was well dresse
d, well spoken, well set up in an official position - -‘
‘Did he tell you about his work?’
‘He told me what it was. He never discussed details … I was ready,’ Maia admitted. ‘Ready for a fling.’
I could not resist my next question. Be honest, legate, you would have begged to know too: ‘Good lover?’ Maia merely stared at me. I cleared my throat and played responsible. ‘You made it clear all along that you wanted nothing permanent?’
‘At first it could have gone anywhere.’ I controlled a shudder. ‘But I soon felt he was pressing too close. There was something about him,’ Maia mused. ‘Something just not right.’
‘He’s a creep. You felt it.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Instinct.’
‘I certainly see him as a creep now.’
‘I don’t understand. I never understood why you had anything to do with him, Maia.’
‘I told you. He comes over well when he wants. The man had had a terrible head injury, so I thought any oddness was because of the damage.’
‘Well, I like to be fair - - only I knew Anacrites long before he had his skull bashed in by some bent Spanish oil producers. He was sinister from the start. I’ve always thought,’ I told Maia, ‘the head wound only made his character more visible. He’s a snake. Untrustworthy, obnoxious, poisonous.’
Maia said nothing. I did not insist. I never wanted to push her into admitting she had been fooled.
‘We had nothing in common,’ she said in a depressed voice. ‘As soon as I told him there was no future, I felt so relieved it was over -‘ So true. Women are not sentimentalists. I remembered how she had immediately begun flirting with Petronius, who happened to be available. ‘Anacrites would not believe that we were finished - then he turned vindictive. You know the rest, Marcus. Don’t make me go over it.’
‘No, no,’ I reassured her. He had hung about, morosely stalking her, until the fateful day he had her home destroyed. I could see my sister growing tense as she tried to avoid those memories. ‘Just tell me, what happened today, Maia?’
‘For some reason, I opened the door - I don’t know why. He hadn’t knocked. There he was - - standing in the passage, right outside. I was completely shocked. How long had he been out there? He got inside before I caught my breath.’
‘Then what?’
‘He kept pretending everything was normal. It was just a social call.’
‘Was he unpleasant?’
‘No. Marcus, I hadn’t seen him, not to talk to, since I gave him his marching orders.’
‘Were you scared?’
‘I was worried Lucius would come home. There would have been a horrendous row. Anyway, I pretended he was there, asleep indoors, so I shooed the spy away. You know Anacrites - I thought he probably realised I was lying.’
‘So what did he say?’
‘That was the funny thing.’ Maia frowned. ‘He tried small talk - not that he knows how to do it. His conversation is zero. That was one reason I couldn’t continue with him. After Famia, I needed a man who would respond if I talked to him.’
I laughed. ‘Oh, you get banter from Lucius Petronius?’
‘He has his hidden side; don’t all of you!’ scoffed Maia. ‘I was about to mention the incident, when Anacrites actually brought the subject up himself. Apologised. According to him it was “an administrative mistake”. Then he pleaded his injury, said he couldn’t remember properly. He tried to make me sorry for him by telling me how tired he had been, how he had to cover that up so he didn’t lose his job, how he had lost years of his life through being bludgeoned … Anyway - and this is what I wanted to tell you, Marcus - Anacrites seemed mainly interested in that case he’s taken off you,’ said Maia. ‘The warty melon kept trying to extract from me just what you and Lucius have found out.’
‘And you said …?’
‘I had nothing to tell him. You know Lucius.’
Petronius never believed in discussing his work with his womenfolk. Anacrites should have approached Helena instead - she knew everything; not that she would break my confidence. He was too scared of her to attempt it, of course.
Anacrites had upset my sister for nothing. He had angered me too - - and if Petro heard about this, he would be livid.
Maia and I agreed that Petronius had better not be told.
XXVII
With Petronius stuck in Rome, grounded by his tribune, I made another trip to the coast.
This time Helena came with me. I took her to see Pa’s maritime villa. I brought Nux as well, since my household was completely ruled by the dog. Luckily tearing through the pinewoods and racing along the beach suited her just fine. Nux was prepared to allow us to keep this wonderful place.
Helena also approved, so we spent several days discussing how to arrange things to suit us, turning the house into a seaside family home rather than a businessman’s retreat. While we were working, some of the slaves reported a man hanging around in the woods. He was a stranger to them, but from their description, I wondered if it was one of Anacrites’ agents.
We knew a woman who lived with the priestesses at a temple in Ardea. Driving off with a deal of commotion, Helena went to visit her. I stayed at the villa; I made myself visible shifting furniture and artwork to outbuildings, then spent time loafing on a daybed on the shore while the dog brought driftwood to me. The mysterious sightings stopped. I hoped the agent had gone back to Rome to report that I was at the coast for domestic reasons.
It would be typical of Anacrites to waste time and resources. He should have been pursuing the Claudii. Instead he was obsessed with Petro and me. He knew us well; he knew we would try to pip him on the case. But that cut both ways. We understood him too.
On Helena’s return we went down to Antium. We -were enjoying our break from the children, and we did love to be out and about on enquiries. She was right: I must never stop doing this work - and when it was feasible I must always let her join in.
Helena was charmed by Antium, with its shabby, outdated grandeur. As always happens, there was nothing we wanted to see at the theatre, though old posters told us annoyingly that the week before Davos, our old contact who was Thalia’s lover, had presented a play here. I would really have liked the chance for a chat with Davos!
Exploring more successfully than I had had time to do with Albia, Helena and I managed to find decent local baths then a cluster of fish restaurants. We lingered over a fine meal, eaten out of doors with grand sea views from the lofty precipice where Antium stood. This was always an hour when we liked to come together, to relax, review the day and reassert our partnership. With just the two of us tonight, it was like old times - that elusive condition married people should seek more often.
As we savoured the last of our wine, I took her hand and said, ‘Everything will be all right.’
‘The case, Marcus?’
‘No, not that.’
Helena knew what I meant.
We enjoyed the evening a little longer, then I went to pay the bill and ask the restaurant-keeper where he bought his bread. His baker was not Vexus, Demetria’s father; still, the man gave me suggestions where to start looking next day.
I went on my own, leaving Helena to take Nux around the forum.
It took me some tramping of narrow streets. Vexus worked at the edge of the city, with one small oven and not even his own grindstone. It was a rough, depressed quarter with dusty streets where half-starved dogs lay on doorsteps like corpses. There were better shops, with a better clientele, in the smarter areas. This man, a short, thickset ugly-faced fellow, baked heavy dark ryebread for the poor. He looked as if he had been miserable for the past thirty years. I began to understand how his daughter, growing up here without a future, might have settled for one of the Claudii. Even so, there seemed nothing basically wrong with the home she came from. Unless she had only one eye in the middle of her forehead yet failed to attract men with her novelty value, there was no reason for Claudius Nobilis to assume
she was so desperate he could treat her badly.
I bought a bread roll to start the conversation; it never works. As soon as I said what I wanted, Vexus turned unhelpful. He had not overflowed with customer care to start with. I introduced myself and I might have been trying to sell him a silver-boxed ten-scroll set of Greek encyclopaedias. Used ones.
‘Get lost.’
‘I want to help your daughter.’
‘Leave my daughter alone. She’s not here and she’s had enough trouble.’
‘Can I see her?’
‘No.’
‘I don’t blame you - - but my enquiry won’t harm her. Maybe I can get the Claudii off her back.’
‘I’d like to see that!’ Vexus implied I wasn’t up to it.
‘Will you at least tell me about Nobilis?’
‘Mind your own business.’
‘I’d like to - but those wastrels on the marsh have become the Emperor’s business. I’m stuck with investigating. So let me guess: your girl married Nobilis when she was too young to know what she was doing - against your advice, no doubt? It went sour. He beat her.’ I wondered if the father was violent too. He looked strong, but controlled. Still, men from boot-menders up to the consulship have been known to conceal their domestic brutality. ‘Did they have any children?’
‘No, thank Jove!’
‘So Demetria decided to leave, but Nobilis would not let her go. She came home; he hated it. She found someone else, and he put a stop to that … Right?’
‘Nothing to say.’
‘Is she still with her new man?’
‘No.’
‘Nobilis put the scares on?’
‘Half killed him.’
‘In front of her?’
‘That was the point, Falco!’
‘So the new man caved in?’
‘He got rid of her,’ agreed her father bitterly.
A ghastly thought struck me. ‘Don’t say she went back to Nobilis?’
Vexus pressed his lips together in a thin line. ‘Thankfully, I put a stop to that.’
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