"I thank her for that. But I would not have wanted her to suffer for it. Morellus, do you think he followed her home?"
"Could be. Judging by the other cases, if he stabbed her by the tombs, she would never have made it back before the poison overcame her."
"Then someone in the neighbourhood may have seen him."
"Jupiter!.. I'll have a go," Morellus grumbled. "Seeing as it's you. I don't know how you persuade me into things. But I will send a couple of lads to the street, to knock on doors and ask."
I said thank you. I even said it nicely.
"Morellus, another thing. I tried to see that girl whose husband was one of the victims. She's out of town, for some reason, possibly significant. You may be able to clear up my query-you have met Manlius Faustus?" Morellus nodded. He made no comment, yet the look he gave me was distinctly odd. "Is he a satyr? Does he prey on women?"
"Faustus?"
"Are you deaf or just annoying? Does he?"
"No."
"Is that all?"
Morellus said heavily, "Manlius Faustus, plebeian aedile, does not grope, grab, fondle, squeeze, tickle up or insert his sanctified diddly-do into women."
"He likes boys then?" I punched back.
"I doubt it. I doubt it very much. He's normal. But he likes to keep to himself," said Morellus. "What a wise man!"
I was intending to leave then, but still lingered.
Morellus gave me the sceptical eye again. I sighed in response. We understood one another. He was so slow he made a snail look reckless, yet after half a day to consider a point, he possessed modest powers of reasoning. "What?"
"Morellus, I think I have made an appalling mistake."
"Looking at your face, I'm getting a horrible inkling… Jupiter," he said again, as I watched him working out what I meant. "I think I'm going to wet myself-you know who it is." A statement, not a question. He had realised too.
"I don't know what to do, Morellus. I have no proof, just that sick feeling when you see the answer. The answer that has been crying out to you all along."
"Oh that answer and I are old bloody friends! Come back in," ordered Morellus. He had roused himself as much as he ever bothered. I won't say he had livened up, but his gaze held a dim gleam of interest. "You know who you need to talk to. You can use my office. I'm going off-shift." Nothing interfered with that. The vigiles' main shift worked all through the night and were desperate to go home by morning. Apart from the fact Morellus had a wife, three children and that rusty-coloured puppy who would all want to climb all over him, the man was dead beat. "I pass his house. I'll tell him."
"He might not be there."
"He will. They've all been up until midnight, watching those plays. The black god of the underworld bursting onstage in his thundering chariot and snatching the pretty virgin while she gathers flowers. Who would miss that? All the audience is on the edge of their seats, hoping for a real rape of a real virgin. Real snorting horses. Real screams. Real blood. The finest Roman theatre."
"As far as I know, you animal, even in the name of culture, they don't show live deflowerings of maidens during solemn religious drama."
Morellus chucked me under the chin. "Hot stuff, this year's Cerialia. I heard that wide boy Faustus wants to popularise it, show something scandalous to bring in a new audience… Wait in my room. There's a nice map you can look at, so you don't need to read any confidential scrolls. If you play with my stylus, don't break the point or I'll stop your dress allowance."
I knew what the dozy article was doing there. Lightening the atmosphere, in his heavy-handed way. Telling me I would be safe here while I waited.
I watched him buzz off down the street, and by his standards, he was on the verge of running.
XLIV
When Tiberius strode into the enquiry office, he had dropped the pristine white flash of the other evening in favour of a street-style tunic that looked as if he'd filched it from a bathhouse manger while road-making slaves were cleaning themselves up. What made me really stare was that he had had all his facial hair scraped off. He looked almost unrecognisable.
The smartened vision took a seat, on the other side of Morellus' wooden table from me. I had been sitting alone for much less time than I expected. Although as he arrived he gave no sign of haste, once Morellus spoke to him about me Tiberius must have covered ground fast. I was unexpectedly grateful.
I gave him a survey. Barbering had revealed a good face, one that would stand daily familiarity. Neither too plain, nor too handsome to be trusted. With a few forgivable tweaks, a sculptor could make it noble. Straight nose, firm mouth, strong jaw, astute expression, those watchful grey eyes I already knew. The tanned skin of the Roman working class, who spend most of their day out-of-doors.
He endured my examination, though coloured modestly. That was good. Today I needed to like him, or at least not actively dislike him.
"You shave up well."
Typically, he ignored my compliment. "I have been looking for you." He leaned forwards on his elbows, resting his chin on his hands. "Things to discuss."
"Me too." I acknowledged that we would now work in partnership again after our recent tiff. "I went to Aricia."
"You need not have. I am having the woman fetched back to Rome."
"She won't come."
"No choice. Official custody."
"Well, I tried. She seems unlikely to give anything up."
"No, not to me either," Tiberius agreed ruefully. "Morellus can tackle her. I want him to keep her here at the station house." Seeing my expression, he was quick to add, "He can hold her for a couple of nights-for security-no brutal methods. That never brings out the truth. She has lived all her life in comfortable surroundings. The sights and sounds of a neighbourhood barracks should be enough to frighten her into a confession. To somebody." He meant me.
"Laia Gratiana," I said. "The maid will talk to Laia, if she talks at all."
Tiberius raised his eyebrows with a gleam that said I had had a smart idea. So; we were back on good terms.
I rode out an important pause. Tiberius began fiddling with the styluses and pens, the equipment Morellus had warned me not to break. We were both uneasy; we had to find a way to initiate a dark conversation.
Sticking with the maid, I approached the subject obliquely. "I doubt she herself has done anything wrong, but Venusia is shielding someone." The runner stopped fiddling. "I may be the only person in the Empire who believes this, but even if you fail to close the deal you wanted, a long journey is never wasted. You have a lot of time to think."
Tiberius leaned back again, arms folded. "Spill those thoughts?"
I braced myself to share all my sorry conclusions. I felt like Kylo-with the great difference that I understood the implications. "Start with Aricia. I went there the day after the Ides. I had a long and frankly tedious interview with the maid. She told me nothing, not directly. Venusia is…"
I was groping for words because I wanted to be fair to her; I had some sympathy with what I now saw as her personal predicament. Tiberius smiled wryly. "Yes. I have met her."
"Recently?"
"No, not for years."
"You are not her secret lover then?"
At that, he choked, full of masculine horror. "No!.. Does she have one?"
"I came to think so, although not the man I was being encouraged to identify. According to Andronicus, it's your darling master, the aedile." Tiberius breathed visibly. "He alleges Faustus dallied with this maid, then dropped her for his patron's wife, causing Venusia to destroy his marriage out of jealousy. That is the Andronicus version. Mine is different." I was watching Tiberius closely; he was restraining a tetchy response. Our eyes locked; he still refrained from comment. He in turn was watching my emotions as I speculated. I liked the fact he waited to hear my verdict; I liked him giving me credit for reaching one independently. "I asked Venusia if she knows Andronicus; she denied it. I think that's untrue. I think she has known him very well. She mentioned th
at, as she put it, I 'went around with him,' and I had the impression it mattered to her."
"Which means?" asked Tiberius.
"Andronicus has engineered a connection with her." My companion pursed his lips enigmatically. "I can imagine his method, unfortunately. He wormed his way in close then tried to winkle out of her what she knows about Faustus."
"Was he successful?"
"Not sure. He knows about the old affair, but it's recent; he heard it from Laia. He is a manipulator," I admitted. "Venusia may have believed it was love, but I have heard Andronicus describe her harshly. He despises her-as he does many people." I tried not to think that perhaps he despised me, too.
"Contempt is the key to him." Tiberius almost spoke in parenthesis. "Albia, I tried to warn you not to engage with him. He bounces from woman to woman-has done so since his teens. He started early, I've been told. Why is he digging anyway? Blackmail?"
"I suppose so."
"It wouldn't work. Faustus has nothing to lose. Laia Gratiana already thinks he is dirt. His uncle doesn't care. His patron and the wife are both long dead."
I was not so confident. "It could make your aedile's life uncomfortable. Scandal always matters. A revelation of adultery, even now, would sully his term of office-and he could get into serious trouble with the emperor. Faustus may think it long dead, but you know how congealing flotsam bobs up again, with the same old stink. Andronicus believes he can control people through any knowledge they don't want him to have."
Tiberius frowned. "That was exactly why he was denied the post as secretary."
"He resents that so bitterly; he constantly harps on it. . But let me finish. The mad fancies get worse. Andronicus wanted me to believe Faustus was so vengeful about Venusia informing, he actually stalked and attacked her. We are asked to believe he killed the other maid, Ino, by mistake."
"Oh for heavens' sake! Flavia Albia, you don't believe any of this filth?"
"No." I let a beat pass before I added, "Not now."
"Meaning?"
I paused again, then for once teased him. "You need to be careful. He blamed you first!"
"He's a fool then."
"Yes, luckily for you, that was what I thought."
"Thanks!"
Tiberius dropped his arms onto the table. I reached and took up his wrist. He had no bandages today, so without undue intimacy I could inspect that wound I had given him, flopping his hand over to see both sides. The punctures were drying out and scabbing over at last.
"I should have listened to you." His tone was easy. "It needed air. I was laid up briefly; one morning there was even excited talk of blood-poisoning, though I recovered and disappointed them."
"I heard you were feeling seedy." In fact, that was not exactly what I heard. Releasing his arm abruptly, I dropped my gaze from this new clean-shaven version of the runner. "It was strangely self-destructive for Andronicus to insist that the mystery killer comes from your house."
"That's him. Stupidly impulsive. You would never have thought of it, if he had left the subject alone." Tiberius clearly anticipated what I was going to say next.
"He knows how to create a story. His reasoning is that you, or Faustus, were well-placed to find victims in the street, directly familiar with all the relevant locations. But he, too, passes freely between your house and the temple. Nobody monitors his movements, well not much." I knew Tiberius did on occasions. "And once I started to wonder-" I took a deep breath. "Andronicus himself became my prime suspect."
There. It was said. I had made the accusation that had bothered me all the way along the Via Appia yesterday.
In his dour way, at first Tiberius barely blinked. This was not a man who sensationalised.
He must have heard how dry my mouth had become from tension. Without a word, he stood up, took a jug from a shelf and went outside, reappearing with water. He found beakers, selecting the least chipped from a misshapen collection that Morellus kept in a basket on the floor. After he poured, we drank slowly, our mood of bitter preoccupation ruling out enjoyment. That assumes anyone ever could savour the bouquet and undernotes of the sludge the vigiles had in their water fountain for fire buckets.
The situation changed at that point. The runner fumbled in a pouch on his belt, one of those over-elaborate leather devices men favour to carry their small change, notebooks and whittling knives. Their only benefit, it seems to me, is that they make good presents when you are stuck over relatives' birthdays. Men are so fussy about these things, they really want to choose their own, but you can fix that for them. Did Tiberius have someone with whom he would pre-arrange a "secret" anniversary or Saturnalia gift for himself? Somehow I doubted that, though he seemed like a man who would be amused to do it.
He withdrew a couple of objects, placing the first on the table in front of me, one-handed, while he kept back something else. This was a small, round glass flask, with a thong round its neck to carry it by. Green glass, brown thong, no distinguishing marks. A lock-up shop alongside Prisca's baths sold scores of them. That was repeated throughout Rome, and on all across the Empire. A standard ablutions flask.
"Mean anything?"
"Possibly. Andronicus had one like it the other morning. I assumed it was bath oil. Most people take their own oil if they can afford it."
"Can you identify this bottle certainly as his?"
"Not without perjury. Sorry; I am a classic bad witness." Informers hate being reduced to the level of general uselessness they themselves encounter in enquiries. Ashamed of myself, I reached for the flask, unplugging the wooden stopper to sniff.
Tiberius shouted, "Careful!" so I nearly dropped it. I don't know what the contents were; not oil. Some thinner liquid, with a strange odour that could be chemical or plant-derived. I had opened a palm to pour some out but then, abruptly wary, I made sure not to. Tiberius reclaimed the flask and closed it, still one-handed. "Silly girl, Albia! Tests will be carried out."
"How?"
"As a gesture to you, on some creature even you would see as vermin. How are you with pigeons?"
"Try a rat. You expect fatal results?"
"Don't you?"
"Where did you find this?"
"His room was searched this morning."
"So you knew the truth already?"
"Not 'knew.' I suspected. Because he and I are so constantly at loggerheads, I have been trying not to condemn him until I had to."
"Well, we don't want to be unfair to a multiple murderer, do we? — Gods, it is so much easier to form charges against a stranger."
Tiberius was looking concerned for me. "Has this become too personal? Do you want to stand aside?"
"I want to see it through."
"It's hard." Voice low, the runner seemed affected himself.
"It has to be done," I answered, though my jaw set and my tone was drab. "So what else was in your evidence haul?"
Displayed with a conjurer's gesture, his second item was my own bone needle-case.
"That belongs to me." I heard my voice croak. I felt hot, then sick, even though I was not surprised.
"Don't protect him, Albia."
"I don't even want to. He must have taken it."
I sat silent, remembering that afternoon when I had been stitching braid. I saw Andronicus examining my sewing box, hazel eyes bright with curiosity as he opened the box and explored the contents. He must have palmed the needle-case, right there in front of me.
I pulled out the plug, a tiny wad of old papyrus, and shook, aware once again that my companion flinched at the danger, though this time I was ejecting any contents safely onto the table. Nothing fell out; the case was empty. Tiberius asked how many needles I had owned. "One in this case, plus another still at home. Even two is a luxury. Do you know what needles cost?" In my head I heard Andronicus say, I don't do sewing… Like so many of his utterances, it had had a double meaning.
Tiberius confirmed in a quiet voice, "Identical killings elsewhere have been carried out with poisoned needles. O
ne was found stuck in a victim, over on the Esquiline. He felt something prick him, so spun around unexpectedly, causing his attacker to let go and leave the needle behind. That lunatic was caught, incidentally, so we can be sure the deaths on the Aventine have been caused by someone else. The method has been known for a while, but was deliberately kept from the public."
"Oh your damned secrecy! You got it wrong, Tiberius. Someone who did know could use the idea to make it look as if his killings were part of the general epidemic. That would divert attention."
"Yes."
"Andronicus must know."
"I never told him, Albia."
"Are you sure? Andronicus once said he has taken the notes at situation meetings with the four aediles. When they reviewed the needle killings, he must have heard the method discussed."
"That fits." Tiberius drained his beaker, refilled it, drank to the bottom again. He leaned on his elbows once more, in order to move a little closer to me. Mornings were quiet for the vigiles. There were no sounds of anyone outside in the colonnade, or beyond in the muster yard. Yet even though we were alone in the enquiry room, Tiberius instinctively dropped his voice: "So, Flavia Albia, let us say it: you and I are both convinced that the needle-killer on the Aventine is our archivist, Andronicus."
XLV
Andronicus was the killer. Now that someone else agreed with my suspicions, it all seemed horribly obvious.
To diffuse my panic, I fell back on nervous humour. "Oh he can't be a murderer; his eyes twinkle!"
The runner sat tight while I grappled with the truth. I was stalling. He knew it. For the first time, I faced up directly to the personal implications. It did not take long, because the dread had been lurking all last night. Not for the first time, I had given my heart impetuously to a man who then betrayed my trust-but this was by far the most sinister occasion.
"Story of my life," I admitted bitterly. "Being strung along by a bastard, taking far too long to notice it…"
Judging by his expression, Tiberius had met embittered women before and had little patience with my self-pity, but what he said was, "From my observations, Andronicus truly fell for you."
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