A Body In The Bath House

by Lindsey Davis

  When I wanted air, I took a walk around. The place today was full of abandoned barrows and half-dug trenches. I could either regard it as a site where everything had gone into limbo because of a real emergency - or as a perfectly normal building scheme where, as so often, nobody had bothered to turn up.

  Investigations acquire their own momentum when they start going well. Discover enough, and new connections then quickly become apparent. It may even help to surround yourself with well-chosen, intelligent assistants.

  First Gaius softened up enough to try ingratiating himself. 'How's the tooth, Falco?'

  'It was all right until you just mentioned it.'

  'Sorry!'

  'I tried to tweeze it out myself, but it's too deep. Have to ask Alexas to recommend a painiree puller.'

  'There's a new sign up showing a dogtooth, down by the Nemesis. It must be a barber-surgeon, Falco. Just what you want.'

  'Could you hear any screams?' I shuddered. 'Is the Nemesis a drinking dive?'

  'Owner with a sense of humour,' Gaius grinned.

  I had lost mine. 'Informers are famous for their irony - but I don't want my gnasher wrenched out next door to a hovel called after the goddess of inescapable retribution!'

  'Her wrath is averted by spitting,' he assured me. 'That should be easy during deep gum dentistry.'

  'Spare me, Gaius!'

  I carried on scratching away with my stylus. I was using a tablet that had a rather thin wax sheet. I must remember that my words might show up on the backboard. However lucid and elegantly phrased, I did not want them being read by the wrong people; my discarded tablets must be burned after use, not tipped into a rubbish pit.

  'About that other problem of yours, Falco,' said Gaius after a while.

  'Which of many?'

  'The two men you want to find.'

  I looked up. 'Gloccus and bloody Cotta?' I set down my stylus in a neat north--south line on the table. Gaius looked nervous. 'Speak, oracle!'

  'I just wondered about that uncle Alexas has-' I stared. 'Well, he might know them, Falco.'

  'Oh is that all. Know them? I thought you were about to say he was one of them! Anyway, Alexas has always said he's never heard of Gloccus and Cotta.'

  'Oh well, then!' There was a small silence. 'He could be lying,' offered Gaius.

  'Now you sound as cynical as me.'

  'Must be contagious.'

  'His uncle is called Lobullus.'

  'Oh that's what Alexas says, is it, Falco?'

  'He does. However,' I said, with a wry smile, 'Alexas could be lying about that too!'

  'For instance-' Gaius made a great point of proffering the reasonable solution 'his uncle may be a citizen, with more than one name.'

  'If he builds bath houses, I bet his clients call him a few choice ones. Or he might be using an alias to avoid lawsuits...' I put down my stylus, considering the proposition. 'Do you know Alexas? Apart from his own job, is he from a medical family?'

  'No idea, Falco.'

  'And you don't know what part of the Empire he hails from?'

  'No.' Gaius looked crestfallen. It was temporary. 'I know! I could ask my pal who keeps the personnel lists. Alexas should have filled in a next-of-kin record. That would give his home city.'

  'Yes, and it will say who wants his funeral ashes, if I find out he has fibbed to me!'

  By an odd quirk, in an earlier conversation with Alexas about deaths on site, I might even have nudged him into supplying these details myself.

  LI

  Camillus Justinus stuck his head into the office at about midmorning. I introduced him to Gaius; they acknowledged each other suspiciously.

  'Falco, I've just seen a man I recognise,' Justinus informed me. 'I've come to tell you immediately this time. Larius says he is the King's project representative.'

  'Verovolcus? What about him?'

  'Thought you might like to know I've seen him before he was drinking with Mandumerus,' Justinus explained.

  'Oh, those two have always been thick as ticks,' Gaius contributed. He looked smug until I tore into him for not mentioning their alliance earlier.

  'Mandumerus and Verovolcus are best friends?'

  'From the cradle, Falco.'

  'Is it a lead?' asked Justinus meekly.

  'It is - but I'm not thanking you!'

  I ran both hands through my hair, feeling the curls coarsened and sticky after exposure to the salty coastal air. I wanted a three-hour bath, with a full technical massage, in a first-class establishment in Rome. One with manicure girls who looked like haughty princesses, and three kinds of pastry-seller. I wanted to exit onto travertine marble steps, in early evening, when hot sun still ripped off the paving slabs. Then I wanted to go home for dinner: in my own house on the Aventine.

  'Hades, Quintus. This is tricky. Suppose Verovolcus and Mandumerus murdered Pomponius.'

  'Why would they?'

  'Well, because Verovolcus is loyal to his royal master. He knows all about the King's design rages with Pomponius. He probably thought the King preferred working with Marcellinus. It's even possible there was some exchange of benefits between Verovolcus and Marcellinus. Unaware that someone else was planning to kill Marcellinus, let's say Verovolcus decided to eliminate Pomponius, remove the new incumbent so the old one can be brought back. His crony Mandumerus would be happy to help; he had just lost a lucrative post on site, and Pomponius had wanted to crucify him. No doubt about it, Mandumerus would be after revenge.'

  'Do you believe the King connived at this, Falco?' Justinus was shocked. For one thing, he could see it was a stupid thing for anyone to have done. For another, the whimsical boy liked to believe in the nobility of barbarians.

  'Of course not!' I snarled. 'My thoughts are strictly diplomatic.'

  Well, that could be true.

  'So killing Pomponius was an unsophisticated manoeuvre by two misguided henchmen that was doomed to exposure?' Justinus demanded.

  'Not quite,' I told him sadly. 'If the surmise is correct only idiots would go ahead and expose it.'

  A short time later I made a formal request for a private interview with the Great King.

  LII

  Time for a professional statement. A problem arises when working with clients who demand confidentiality clauses: the investigator is required to keep silent for ever about his cases. Many a private informer could write titillating memoirs, full of slime and scandal, were this not the case. Many an imperial agent could produce a riveting autobiography, in which celebrated names would jiggle in shocking juxtaposition with those of vicious mobsters and persons with filthy morals of both sexes. We do not do it. Why? They do not let us.

  I cannot say I ever heard of a sensitive client calling up a court injunction to protect his reputation. That's no surprise. Faced with public exposure by me, many of my own clients would take action privately. A father of young children cannot risk being found lying in an alley with his brains spread around his head. And working for the Emperor involved even more constraints. This subtlety was not spelled out in my contract because it did not need to be. Vespasian used me because I was known to be discreet. Anyway, I never managed to obtain a contract.

  Want to hear about the Vestal, the hermaphrodite, and the Superintendent of Riverbanks? You won't get a sniff of it from me. Is a nasty rumour running around that horses' wet-weather shoes, all left-footed, were once ludicrously over-provisioned by the army at enormous cost? Sorry; I cannot comment. As for whether one of the imperial princes had a forbidden liaison with... No, no. Not even to be condemned as tasteless speculation! (But I do know which of the Caesars...) I myself will never reveal who really fathered the baker's twins, the current location of that girl with the massive bust, which cousin is due to inherit from your feeble uncle in Formiae, or the true size of your brother-in-law's gambling debts. Well, not unless you hire me and pay me: fee, plus costs, plus full indemnity against nuisance claims and libel suits.

  I mention these points because if there wer
e any scandals involving the building scheme, I was there specifically to suppress those scandals. One day the great palace at Noviomagus Regnensis would stand proud, every gracious wing of it fulfilling the vision of which Pomponius had dreamed. My role was not simply to get the monstrosity built, within a realistic margin of its completion date and budget, but to ensure it never became notorious. Magnus, Cyprianus, the craftsmen and labourers could all move on to other projects, where they might well curse the palace as an old bugbear, but their moans would soon be lost amid new troubles. Otherwise, its sorry design history would die, leaving only sheer scale and magnificence to excite admirers.

  Here would be the palace of Togidubnus, Great King of the Britons: an astounding private home, a tremendous public monument. It would dominate its insignificant landscape in this forlorn district of a desolate province, possibly for centuries. Rulers would come and go. Further refurbishments would succeed one another, according to Fate and funding. Inevitably its fortunes would wane. Decay would triumph. It roofs would fall and its walls crumble. The marsh birds would reclaim the nearby inlets, then call and cry over nothing but waterlogged hummocks and tussocks, with all grandeur forgotten.

  All the more reason for me to sit one day in some gimcrack villa of my own, to gaze across a low river valley, while rowdy descendants of Nux barked at shrieking infants in some struggling provincial garden where my ancient wife was reading on a sunny bench, intermittently asking her companions to keep quiet because the old fellow was writing his memoirs.

  Pointless. There would be no scroll-seller willing to copy such a story.

  I could take the private route. Any head of household hopes to become someone's interesting ancestor. I could write it all out and shove the scroll in a casket, to keep under a spare bed. My children were bound to minimise my role. But maybe there would be grandchildren with greater curiosity. I might even feel the need to limit their noble pretensions by reminding the rumbustuous little beggars that their background had some low, livery moments...

  Impossible again, due to that invariable brake: client confidentiality.

  You can see the problem. When I reported home on these events, the Noviomagus file was swiftly closed. Anyone who claims to know what happened must have heard it from someone other than me. Claudius Lacta, that most secretive of bureaucrats, made it clear that I was forbidden ever to reveal what Togi and I discussed...

  Mind you, I never had any time for Lacta. Listen, then (but don't repeat it, and I mean that).

  I had asked to see the King in private. He honoured this, not even producing Verovolcus: a nice courtesy. More useful than he knew or was supposed to realise.

  I myself had more stringent rules; I took back-up. 'Clean, smart, shaved,' I told the Camillus brothers. 'No togas. I want this off the record but I want you as witnesses.'

  'Aren't you being too obvious?' asked Aelianus.

  'That's the point,' Justinus snapped.

  The King received us in a lightly furnished reception room, which had a dado with sinuous tendrils of foliage, its colouring and form exactly like one at the Marcellinus villa. I admired the painting, then pointed out the similarity. I began by discussing diplomatically whether this use of labour and materials could be coincidence then mentioned that we were retrieving the building supplies that were currently stored at the villa. Togidubnus could work out why.

  'I had every confidence in Marcellinus,' commented the King in a neutral tone.

  'You must have been quite unaware of the nature and scale of what went on.' Togidubnus was a friend and colleague of Vespasian. He might be mired in fraud up to his regal neck, but I formally accepted his innocence. I knew how to survive. Informers sometimes have to forget their principles. 'You are the figurehead for all the British tribes. A corrupt site regime could have damaged your standing. For Marcellinus to place you unwittingly in that position was inexcusable.'

  The King wryly acknowledged how delicately I had expressed it.

  I acknowledged the acknowledgement. 'Nothing should ever take away the fact that Marcellinus designed you a worthy home, in splendid style, where you were comfortable for a long period.'

  'He was a superb designer,' agreed Togidubnus solemnly. 'An architect with a major talent and exquisite taste. A warm and gracious host, he will be much missed by his family and friends.'

  This showed that the tribal chief of the Atrebates was fully Romanised: he had mastered the great forum art of providing an obituary for a corrupt bastard.

  And how would he record Pomponius, loathed by everyone except his fleeting boyfriend Plancus? A superb designer... major talent... exquisite taste... A private man, whose loss will greatly affect close associates and colleagues.

  We discussed Poniponius and his affecting loss.

  'There have been some rather feeble attempts to implicate innocent parties. So many people disliked him, it has complicated matters. I have some leads,' I told the King. 'I am prepared to spend time and effort on these lines of enquiry. There will be evidence; witnesses may come forward. That would mean a murder trial, unsavoury publicity, and if convicted, the killers would face capital punishment.'

  The King was watching me. He did not ask for names. That could mean he knew already. Or that he saw the truth and stood aloof.

  'I hate ambivalence,' I said. 'But I was not sent here to push crude solutions. My role is two-fold: deciding what has happened then recommending the best action. 'Best' can mean the most practical, or least damaging.'

  'Are you giving me a choice?' The King was ahead of me.

  'Two men were involved in the death of Pomponius. I'd say one is very close to you, and the other his known associate. Shall I name the suspects?'

  'No,' said the King. After a while he added, 'So what is to be done about them?'

  I shrugged. 'You rule this kingdom; what do you suggest?'

  'Perhaps you want them dead in a bog?' asked Togidubnus severely.

  'I am a Roman. We deplore barbarian cruelty - we prefer to invent our own.'

  'So, Didius Falco, what do you want?'

  'This: to know that nobody else working on this project is at risk. Then to shun domestic violence and to show respect for dead men and their families. In wild moments of idealism, maybe I want to prevent more crime.'

  'The Roman punishment for the base-born would be degrading death.' The Emperor's judicial teachers must already have begun work. The King knew Roman law. If he was brought up in Rome, he would have seen condemned men torn apart by arena beasts. 'And for a man of status?' he asked.

  'Nothing so decently final. Exile.'

  'From Rome,' said Togidubnus.

  'Exile from the Empire.' I corrected gently. 'But if your culprits here are not formally tried, exile from Britain would be a good compromise.'

  'For ever?' the King rasped.

  'For the duration of the new build, I suggest.'

  'Five years!'

  'You think I strike a hard bargain? I saw the corpse, sir. Pomponius' death was premeditated and there was mutilation afterwards. He was a Roman official. Wars have been started for less.'

  We sat in silence.

  The King moved to practical suggestion: 'It can be given out that Pomponius was killed by a chance intruder, who had entered the bath house hoping for sex or robbery...' He was displeased, but he was working with me. 'What of the other death? Who killed Marcellinus?' he challenged.

  I told him a hired dancer, her credentials insufficiently checked. The motive, I said with a slight smile, must be robbery or sex.

  'My people will search for her,' the King stated. It was not an offer but a warning. He might not know Perella worked for Anacrites specifically, but he had realised she had significance. And if the King found Perella, he would expect some kind of trade.

  Since I was sure she would have left the area by now, I did not care.

  I was uneasy. Aelianus and Justinus purred happily, thinking our mission accomplished. I had a dark sense of unfinished business waiting
to disrupt my life.

  The site was too quiet. Never trust a workplace where absolutely nobody is standing around aimlessly.

  It was now the second half of the afternoon.

  Even this early, many of the labourers went tramping off the site, heading towards town. Soon it seemed as if they had all gone to the canabae. None of the project team were visible, so while no one wanted me to officiate, I retired to my suite to invest in the project manager's privilege: thinking time, paid for by the client. Not long afterwards there was a clatter of horses and most of the King's male retainers mounted up then swept off at a canter in the direction of Noviomagus too. Verovolcus was leading them. I assumed they had instructions from the King to search for Perella.