‘Not isolated enough for me; he crushes up against me and my family.’
Laeta laughed softly. ‘I wonder why?’ He went no further, naturally. ‘So, Falco, dare I ask: are you and your cronies still investigating the Pontine Marsh murders?’
I gave him a straight look. ‘How can we, when our last instructions were to drop the case? Instructions, Claudius Laeta, which you gave us!’
He laughed again. I smiled with him as a courtesy. But as soon as I left, I stopped smiling.
Momus, I was certain, never had a slave grandmama who was cosy with the old Empress. He must have crawled out of an egg in a streak of hot slime somewhere. Any horrible siblings were basking in rich men’s zoos or their heads were on walls as hunters’ trophies.
Momus reacted eagerly to news of the spy’s implication in sordid crimes, until I hankered for Laeta’s measured thoughtfulness instead. Momus even promised to help - - though he freely agreed it was hard to see what he could do.
‘Momus, I still don’t think the Claudii showed up and got jobs with the spy by accident. Are you ever going to tell me what you know about them?’
‘Falco, if I knew how they control him, I’d be controlling him myself
‘Do you admit you’ve put in people to watch him?’
‘Of course I haven’t,’ he lied.
I left, reflecting ruefully that Momus had always been useless.
There was one more possibility.
Anacrites sometimes used a freelance on very special assignments, a woman. Helena and I had run into her a few times, and although I had a professional respect for her, we viewed her warily. She killed for Anacrites, killed to order. She took a pride in a beautiful performance, whether it was death or dancing. Dance was her cover. Just like her assassinations, it was clean, prepared in every detail, immaculate and took your breath away. Her talent gave her access to people Anacrites wished to remove; distracted by her brilliance, they were at her mercy. As often as not, no connection was made between her dancing and the discovery of a shocking corpse. Her name was Perella. She used a thin-bladed knife to slit her victims’ throats. Knowing her method, I never let her stand behind me.
The first time I met Perella, before I knew her significance, it was at her home. Though a few years had passed, I managed to find the place again: a small apartment near the Esquiline, inexpensive but endurable. She let me in, barely surprised to see me. I was given a bowl of nuts and a beaker of barley water, urged to take the good chair and the footstool. It was like visiting a great-aunt, one who looked demure but who would reminisce about times when she juggled three lovers all at once - - and who was rumoured to still do it, passing them on to the baker’s wife, when she felt tired.
What made me remember Perella was my encounter with the mystic Alis. Perella, too, was of mature age and build; in fact more years of age than it was kind to mention. The skilled diva remained supple. She had power too; not so long before, I saw her kick a man in the privates so hard she wrote off all chance of him producing children.
‘Didius Falco! Whenever I see you, I feel apprehensive.’
‘Nice courtesy, Perella. And I take you very seriously too. Still working?’
‘Retired - generally.’ That figured. Her hair, never stylish, had once passed for blonde; she was letting the grey work its way out through the lopsided chignon. The skin on her neck had coarsened. But her self-containment did not alter. ‘Yourself?’
‘I had the chance - came into money. I decided work was in my blood.’
‘What are you working on?’ Perella was eating pistachios as if all that mattered was splitting their shells. She tossed off the question like casual conversation - - but I never forgot she was an agent. A good one.
I let time pass before I answered. Perella put the nuts down. We gazed at one another. I said quietly, ‘As usual, my role is complex. I cannot trust my principle - - insofar as I have any, given that the case I was investigating for a dead man’s nephew was then grabbed by Anacrites.’
Perella folded her hands on her full waistline, as if she was just about to ask me where I got my stylish wrist purse. ‘My whimsical employer!’
‘Still?’
‘Oh yes. You mean the marsh bugs, I suppose? He sent me there, if you’re interested.’ I must have looked surprised. ‘I can swat flies, Falco.’
‘And which fly,’ I asked with emphasis, ‘was he wanting you to swat?’
‘A vicious coward called Nobilis.’ Although Perella worked for Anacrites, he never quite managed to buy her loyalty. She was more likely to connive with me, a fellow professional. ‘Nobilis must have heard I was coming, so he fled abroad.’
I could not blame him. ‘So that’s why he vanished! How did he know you were coming for him?’
‘I wonder!’ scoffed Perella. She implied Anacrites let it slip.
‘Do you know where he went?’
‘Pucinum.’ Where had I heard that name recently? ‘Fled into hiding with his grandma,’ Perella said, sneeringly. ‘That’s where they come from, those animals. I could have gone over there and dealt with him easily.’
‘Did Anacrites run out of cash for your fare?’
‘Much more intriguing! Anacrites was going that way himself.’
‘Aha! So Pucinum is in Istria!’ I whistled through my bottom teeth, to give myself thinking time. ‘I’ve remembered - he bought wine there on the trip … Has Anacrites done the business? Has he finished Nobilis himself?’
Perella gave me an odd look. ‘Well, just like you, I’m off the case. But, just like you, I never let go. He didn’t. Nobilis is back, according to my sources. Seen in Rome. Anacrites must have reprieved him.’
‘Or he just bungled it.’
‘Not so,’ said Perella softly. ‘Claudius Nobilis came home on the same ship as the spy. The pair of them together, tight as ticks.’
‘Anacrites brought him back? But not in leg irons - - I haven’t seen a trial announced!’
‘Surprise! You’d think,’ Perella told me in disgust, ‘if he wanted Nobilis dead, as he told me, he could have found the chance to put a boot in the small of his back and shove the bastard overboard. Anacrites is handy enough - - and I hear you know all about that!’
‘What?’
‘A little bird twittered “Lepcis Magna”?’
‘That birdie must fly absolutely everywhere! I’ll wring his neck for tweeting.’ Anacrites had fought as a gladiator at Lepcis. It was illegal for any but slaves. Citizens who fought in the arena became non-persons. News of it would make Anacrites a social outcast; he would lose his job, his ranking, his reputation, everything. I smiled gently. ‘You are well informed. It’s true; he spilled blood on the sand. But that information is mine to exploit, Perella. I was there.’
‘I won’t step in - even though I want his job.’
‘You want his job?’
‘Why not?’ Indeed! The Praetorians would never accept her, yet Perella was just as shrewd, experienced and ruthless as the current incumbent. More intelligent, in my opinion. She had the talent. Only the ancient traditions of keeping women beside the hearth interfered with her qualifications. No tombstone yet had ever said: She kept the house and worked in wool - and slit a few throats for security reasons … ‘You could destroy Anacrites, Falco - - and presumably he knows it. Can you ever feel safe?’
‘I have protection: other witnesses. If he touches me, they’ll tell. So he’s the one who lives in fear. I’m saving the information for the sweetest possible moment.’
The dancer took up her barley water peacefully. She still sounded like a well-disposed aunt, giving me career advice: ‘Don’t wait too long, my dear.’
LIV
I found my team, not as tipsy as I feared, merely unreliable. I said it was good to associate with happy men. Petronius had to work, or at least take a nap at the station house. The Camilli, being persons of leisure, rolled along with me. They had reached the clingy phase, where I was their best friend. Trailing them like se
aweed stuck on an oar, I went up the Aventine to Ma’s house, intending to collect Albia.
She had left, for home my mother said. ‘Anacrites was here - he drops in, to see I am all right,’ she confided in Aelianus and Justinus hoarsely. ‘He knows my own don’t give me a second thought. When I am found stone dead in my chair one morning, it will be Anacrites who raises the alarm.’
I cursed this libel and sat down on a bench. The Camilli did likewise, fitting in fast, as people did at Mother’s house. They were clearly thinking: what a dear little old lady. She sat there, tiny and terrible, letting them believe it. Her beady black eyes rested wisely upon them. ‘I hope my good-for-nothing son hasn’t taken you drinking.’
‘They were drinking; I was somewhere else, working,’ I protested. ‘Now I shall have to take them to the baths, have them home to dine, and sober them up for their trusting wives.’
‘I don’t expect trust comes into it!’ reckoned Ma. The senators’ sons looked shifty. Belated doubts about the dear little old lady filtered through their blearied brains.
Ma then described a cringe-making scene at her house earlier between Anacrites and Albia. ‘He said “I always admire Junilla Tacita; you should come to her when you are troubled, dearie”.’ He cannot have called Albia ‘dearie’; it was the word Ma used, to avoid truly accepting this outsider as a granddaughter. Albia saw Ma’s reservations; she only came up here when Helena sent her. ‘We all had a nice chat, then when your Albia was ready to go, he so kindly offered to see her home. Beautiful manners,’ Ma insisted to the Camilli.
Aulus said in a solemn, lawyer’s voice, ‘You can tell a man’s character by the way he treats young women.’ He thought he was being satirical: big mistake, Aulus.
‘You are the one who broke her poor little heart, are you?’ asked Ma, with her crucifying sneer. ‘Well, you would know all about character!’
I judged it time to leave.
Albia was safe at home. Anacrites had left her on the doorstep, merely sending in greetings to Helena; he probably knew this would only increase her anxiety - - and my wrath. Albia failed to see what the fuss was about.
She dined with us, despite Aulus being present. Nothing kept Albia from her food. So she overheard us relating our progress. Helena summed up: ‘Virtus has been dealt with; let us not remember how. He said Pius had gone home to the Pontine Marshes. Perella believes Nobilis is back in Rome, though you have no leads, unless it was him Marcus saw at the spy’s house. Now we know the “Melitans” are his brothers that does seem likely. You won’t get in there a second time to look. Relations with Anacrites are deteriorating, and he will hardly invite us all to dinner again - ‘
With yelps of pain, her brothers and I pleaded to be excused if he did.
‘I could go to his house!’ piped up Albia. ‘He is perfectly nice to me! He says I can go at any time.’
‘Keep away from him,’ snapped Helena. ‘Have respect for yourself, Albia.’
‘Don’t listen when he makes out you’re special!’ I said crushingly, ‘Saying he’s never met anybody like you is a very old line, sweetheart. When a man - any man - who has a collection of obscene art invites a young girl to visit, there is only one reason. It’s nothing to do with culture.’
‘Is this from experience, Falco?’ Albia asked, disingenuously. ‘How did you meet Helena Justina?’ murmured our little troublemaker.
‘I worked for her father. He hired me. I met her. She hired me as well. I never invited her to my horrible hutch.’ Helena turned up there of her own accord. That was how I knew enough about strong-minded girls to be afraid for Albia.
‘Was it when you lived at Fountain Court? I’ve seen it! I went with Lentullus, hiding that cameo. Is that how you know how the art invitation works, Falco? Did you lure girls up to your garret, pretending your father was an auctioneer so you had curios to show them - - then when they had climbed all those stairs and found out there was nothing, it was too late and they were too weary to argue?’
‘Certainly not,’ Helena interrupted calmly. ‘Marcus was such an innocent in those days, I had to show him what girls were for.’
Albia broke up in giggles. It was good to see her smile.
I topped up everybody’s water cup while I tried to reassert the myth of a respectable past.
We agreed it was time to go after Claudius Pius. Assuming his brother had told Petro and me the truth, then Pius was visiting his wife, that fragile soul Byrta. It meant another trip into the marshes, though at least that would let me go over to Antium and liaise with Silvius, of the Urban Cohorts. Petronius had checked with Rubella, who still refused to release him from Rome, even to work with Silvius. So Justinus, with his experience on our first trip, won the ballot to come with me.
Next day at dawn, I was all packed and about to mount a mule outside my house, when Helena ran out after me. She told me anxiously that Albia was not in her room. Our conversation the day before had had unwelcome results. The girl had left a note - at least she was that sensible - - to say she was going to Anacrites’ house ‘to have a look around’. If she went last evening, he had kept her overnight.
‘Don’t worry,’ Helena reassured me, though her voice was tense. ‘You get off - I’ll fetch her back somehow.’ I wanted to stay, but I had five slaves chomping at the bit behind me and had made arrangements with Justinus to depart at first light. ‘Leave it to me, Marcus. Don’t fret. Take care, my love.’
‘Always. You too. Sweetheart, I love you.’
‘I love you too. Come home soon.’
As I rode through Rome in the thin air of a very early morning, on my way to collect Justinus at the Capena Gate, I thought about those words. How many people have said them as a talisman, but never saw their precious love again? I wondered if Livia Primilla, the elderly wife of Julius Modestus, had spoken the words when her husband rode to challenge the Claudii. If I failed to return from this journey, Helena Justina would come after me too. I should have told her not to do it, not without an army. But that would have meant planting the suggestion that her brother and I might be in serious danger.
At the Capena Gate, Aelianus emerged to wave us off. He was mildly jealous, though as an assistant he always enjoyed being left in charge. I mentioned what had happened to Albia. ‘Aulus, it’s not your affair. Obviously this is awkward for you, but could you check with Helena that everything is all right? Will you tell her I had a thought as I came through the Forum: if she goes to see the spy, take my mother.’
‘Will he listen to your mother?’
‘Mediation! Helena will know - - in a crisis with an enemy, it’s a fine Roman tradition to send in an elderly woman, with a long black veil and a very stern lecture.’
Justinus suggested leaving behind Lentullus, who could bring us news later.
So Justinus and I, taking a handful of slaves as back-up, rode off once more to Latium. Thirty miles later, as near we could get discreetly, we camped overnight, not showing ourselves at any inns where landlords might give advance warning of our presence. We planned the traditional dawn raid.
At first light, with the promise of an unpleasantly hot late August day, we reached the end of the track. Here, we knew, three of the Claudius brothers lived when it suited them, in poverty and filth, with two skinny, subdued wives and innumerable wild children. We had already passed the shack where their brother Probus mouldered; we saw no sign of him, nor his ferocious dog, Fangs.
The woodlands were sultry. Fetid steam rose from depleted pools as the marshes dried out through the summer. It must have rained recently; there was a dank, unpleasant smell everywhere. Clouds of flies rose up from tangles of half-decayed undergrowth, skirling in our faces in predatory black curtains as we disturbed them. The insects were worse than we remembered, the going more difficult, the isolation drearier.
We rode up as quietly as possible. We all dismounted. With drawn swords, Justinus and I went straight to the hovel where Pius and his wife lived, while our slaves checked around the back
. We banged the door, but there was no answer. The hutment which belonged to Nobilis looked as deserted as before. While we continued knocking, a man appeared in the doorway of the third hut. A woman’s voice sounded behind him.
‘What’s that noise?’ he shouted. It was the other ‘Melitan’. I recognised him, and he recognised me - though he cannot have known quite how familiar he seemed. Anacrites had said the twins were not identical; maybe this one was half a digit taller, a few pounds heavier, but there was little in it.
‘Claudius Pius?’ If so, he was on the wrong doorstep, growling over his shoulder at the wrong woman. Mind you, it did not surprise me that one of the Claudii should be screwing his brother’s wife.
He rounded aggressively. ‘No. I am Virtus.’
I believed him. We had muddled them up. I should have known. Anyone who has ever seen a theatrical farce would expect the wrong one to pop out of a doorway. That’s what you get with twins.
LV
He could be lying. Impersonating each other to fool people is a lifelong game for twins. When I was at school, the Masti were famous for it; their loving mother helped by always dressing them in identical tunics, with their hair curled in the same ridiculous quiff. They spent their days tormenting our teacher, then later were reputed to swap girlfriends. Causing confusion would have gone on forever, if Lucius Mastus had not been run over by a stonemason’s wagon. His brother Gaius was never the same afterwards. All the joy went out of him.
Virtus had the same build, skin, freckles, light eyes and upturned nose as the man Petro and I had captured. I felt uncomfortable with it, though I did not believe the telepathy of twins could have told him what his brother went through. I suppose I had a bad conscience.
After grumbling noises from indoors, Byrta sidled into view next to him. In the act of re-draping her clothes, she hitched a scarf around her neck. Maybe it was to hide love bites, if she called their relationship love. It was some rich red colour, decent material. I supposed Virtus must have brought it for her from Rome as a present.
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