‘You asked me to consider how human hands and such could enter the water supply. From where they end up in Rome, I decided they must come via the four major systems that start above Tibur. That’s the Claudia, Marcia, Anio Vetus and Anio Novus aqueducts. The Anio Vetus, the oldest of all, and the Marcia both run mainly underground. Another point: the Marca and Claudia are both fed by several springs, connected to the aqueducts by tunnels. But the Anio Vetus and Anio Novus are drawn direct from the river whose name they both bear.’
We gazed down at the damned river running far below us.
‘Relevant?’ prodded Frontinus.
‘I think so.’
‘You always believed the remains were first thrown into the river,’ I said. ‘You suggested that when we first talked.’
‘Good memory!’ He beamed.
A bad thought struck. ‘You think they are thrown in here!’
We glanced at one another, then once more looked down over the dam. I immediately saw problems; anyone up here on the bridge tossing things off the top would be visible for miles. The dam had a vertical face on its reservoir side, but a long sloped bank on the river side. Hurling limbs far enough to ensure they landed in the Anio would be impossible, and for the killer entailed a risk of throwing himself off with them. It would be particularly dangerous if there was more wind; even today, when the valley itself was full of birdsong and wild flowers, warm, humid and still, up here constant blusters threatened to make us lose our step.
I explained my doubts. ‘Picturesque thought – but think again!’
Bolanus shrugged. ‘Then you have to look at the river between here and the Via Valeria.’
All I wanted was to walk very carefully back to the firm ground at the end of the dam.
L
MY COMPANIONS EAGERLY consigned to me the task of surveying the relevant estates. We lodged that night at Sublaqueum and I spent the rest of the afternoon ascertaining that most of the cultivated land at the head of the valley and on the lower slopes of Mount Livata now formed part of the huge Imperial estate. Any Emperor planning a pleasure park is wise to ensure that he will only be overlooked by the flatterers he brings along to help him enjoy his isolation. Gossipmongers are never off duty.
Now the villa had passed to Vespasian. It lay almost deserted and could well remain so. Our new ruler and his two sons had a distaste for the flamboyant trappings of power which Nero revelled in. When they wanted to visit the Sabine Hills – as they frequently did, in fact – they went north: to Reate, Vespasian’s birthplace, where the family owned several estates and spent their summers in old-fashioned peace and quiet, like clean-living country boys.
None of the Imperial slaves who nowadays tended Nero’s spread, or the ordinary folk in its associated village, would be able to afford to make a habit of visits to Rome for entertainment. We still needed to look for a private villa, owned by people with the leisure, the money, and the social inclination to honour the major festivals year after year.
Next day we returned as far as the Via Valeria, looking out for that kind of estate. Frontinus and Bolanus went ahead to install us in overnight lodgings again, while I stopped to make enquiries at one private villa that looked sufficiently substantial.
‘Over to you. I did my share at Tibur,’ Frontinus cheerfully informed me.
‘Yes, sir. What about you, Bolanus? Want to help out at an interview?’
‘No, Falco. I just contribute technical expertise.’
Thanks, friends.
This villa was owned by the Fulvius brothers, a jolly trio of bachelors. They were all in their forties, and happily admitted they liked going to Rome for the Games. I asked if their driver returned here after delivering them: oh no, because the Fulvii did not bother with an extra hand; they took it in turns to drive themselves. They were fat, curious, bursting with funny stories, and quite uninhibited. I quickly acquired a picture of a riotous group, merry on wine and squabbling gently, trundling up to Rome and back when the fancy took. They said they went often, though were not slavish attenders and sometimes missed a festival. Although none of them had ever married, they seemed too fun-loving (and too much in each other’s pockets) for one of them to be a secret, brooding murderer of the kind I sought.
‘By the way – did you happen to go to the city for the last Ludi Romani?’
‘Actually, no.’ Well, that absolved them from the murder of Asinia.
When I pressed them, it turned out they had probably not been to Rome since the Apolline Games, which take place in July – and they confessed rather shamefacedly they meant the July of the previous year. So much for these men of the world. The jolly bachelors were positively home-loving.
In the end I told the Fulvii the reason for my enquiries, and asked whether they knew of any of their neighbours who habitually travelled to Rome for festivals. Did they, for instance, on their own noisy journeys ever pass another local vehicle on the same errand? They said no. They glanced at one another afterwards, and looked as if they might be sharing a private joke of some kind, but I took them at their word.
That could be a mistake. The Anio flowed right through their estate. They let me look round. Their grounds were full of huts, stables, animal pens, storage barns, and even a gazebo in the form of a mock-temple on the sunny riverbank, in any of which abducted females might be held, tortured, killed and hacked to bits. I was well aware that the Fulvii might look like happy, open-natured souls, yet could well harbour dark jealousies and indulge long-held hates through vicious acts.
I was a Roman. I had a deep-seated suspicion of anyone who chose to live in the countryside.
Moving on down the valley, I reached another private entrance, not far above where water was diverted from the river into the conduit of the Anio Novus. This estate looked subtly different from the flourishing groves of the Fulvii. There were olive trees, though as on so many hillsides these looked as if nobody owned them; it rarely means they are abandoned in fact. The owner here probably turned up to harvest them. Still, the trees had a tangled, unpruned look which would have made my olive-growing friends in Baetica eye them askance. Too much vegetation grew around the trunks. Tame rabbits sat and looked at me instead of scampering for their lives.
I nearly rode on, but duty compelled me to turn off and investigate. I followed an overgrown track, buried in a tangled wood. Before I had gone any distance I met a man. He was standing by a pile of logs at the side of the track, doing nothing in particular. If he had had an axe or any other sharp tool with him I might have felt nervous, but he was just looking as if he hoped nobody would come along and ask him to do any work. Since this was private land I had to stop.
‘Hello!’
His answer was a fathomless country stare. He was a slave, probably: tanned and sturdy from outdoor work. Hair unstyled, several teeth missing, coarse skin. Age indeterminate, but fifty maybe. Neither over-tall nor dwarfish. Badly dressed rather than ugly. Wearing a rough brown tunic, belt and boots. Hardly a god, yet no worse than scores of thousands of other lowborns who cluttered up the Empire, reminding the rest of us just how fortunate we were to have schooling, character, and the energy to look out for ourselves.
‘I was just riding to the house. Can you tell me who lives here?’
‘The old man.’ A reluctant country voice came from a wide-cheeked, not-exactly-hostile face. He was answering, though. Since I had not introduced myself, that was more than I would have expected in Rome. He was probably under orders to discourage strangers who might be livestock thieves. I put aside my prejudice.
‘You work for him?’
‘That’s my task in life.’ I had met the type before. He blamed the world for all his misfortunes. A slave his age might have expected to gain his freedom one way or another. Maybe he lacked the opportunity to earn his price through fiddling, or to demonstrate the right kind of loyalty. He certainly lacked the cheek and charm of most sophisticated slaves in Rome.
‘I need to know if anyone from here ever g
oes to Rome for the Circus Maximus Games?’
‘Not the old man. He’s eighty-six!’
We laughed a little. That explained the faint air of neglect on the estate. ‘Does he treat you well?’
‘Couldn’t ask for better.’ With the joke, the slave had become more approachable.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Rosius Gratus.’
‘Does he live here alone?’
‘He does.’
‘No relatives?’
‘Up in Rome.’
‘Can I go and see him?’ The slave shrugged agreement. I gathered I might not gain much from the experience, but I had been wrong in my judgement earlier; there was no opposition to my request. ‘Thanks – and what’s your name?’
He gazed at me with the slight trace of arrogance some people show: as if they expect everybody to know who they are. ‘Thurius.’
I nodded, and rode on.
Rosius Gratus was sitting in a long chair under a portico, lost in dreams of events sixty years ago. It was obvious that this was how he spent hours every day. He was covered with a rug, but I could see a shrunken, hook-shouldered figure, white-haired and watery-eyed. He seemed well cared for and, considering his age, pretty fit. But he was not exactly ready to take seven turns around a running stadium. He certainly was no murderer.
A housekeeper had let me in and left me to talk to him unsupervised. I asked him a few simple questions, which he answered with an air of great courtesy. He looked to me as if he were pretending to be dafter than he was, but most old men enjoy doing that for their private amusement. I was looking forward to doing it myself one day.
I told him, by way of conversation, that I had come here from Tibur.
‘Did you see my daughter?’
‘I thought your family were in Rome, sir?’
‘Oh . . .’ The poor old stick looked confused. ‘Yes, that may be so. Yes, yes; I do have a daughter in Rome –’
‘When did you last see your daughter, sir?’ I deduced he had been abandoned out here for so long he had forgotten what family he had.
‘Oh . . . I saw her not long ago,’ he assured me, though somehow it sounded as if it happened a long time back. He was so vague it could just as well have been two days ago. As a witness, the old chap managed to seem wickedly unreliable. His deep-set eyes suggested that he knew it too, and didn’t care if he misled me.
‘You don’t visit Rome a lot, nowadays?’
‘Do you know, I’m eighty-six!’
‘That’s wonderful!’ I assured him. He had already told me twice.
He seemed eager for company, though he had little of interest to say to anyone. I managed to extricate myself fairly gently. Something about Rosius Gratus suggested he could well be up to mischief, but once I knew he could not be the murderer I needed to be on my way.
I cantered back to the road, this time seeing nobody along the track.
LI
THE PLACE WHERE we would be staying lay near the various springs which fed the Aqua Marcia. Bolanus had suggested their underground position would make access for the killer both difficult and unlikely. That was not how the dismembered hands entered the supply.
But Bolanus reckoned he could provide our answer. He and Frontinus were waiting for me as arranged, at the forty-second milestone: beside a large mud reservoir where the Anio Novus began. The valley was full of birdsong. It was a bright country afternoon, in grim contrast to the dark conversations we were about to hold.
A dam with a sluice in the bed of the river helped steer part of the current into this basin. It formed a huge settling tank which filtered out impurities before the start of the aqueduct. Now for the first time in years it had been drained and cleaned out. Banks of dredged-up mud were drying all around it. Slow-moving public slaves were unloading their breakfast from a donkey, leaving their tools in his pack: a typical scene. The donkey turned his head suddenly and grabbed a bit to eat himself; he knew how to get the better of the water board.
‘With aqueducts,’ Bolanus explained to us, ‘it’s difficult and unnecessary to design a filtration system along the whole run. We tend to make a big effort at the start, then have extra tanks at the end, just before distribution starts. But that means anything which gets past the first filter can go all the way to Rome.’
‘Arriving as little as a day later,’ I reminded him, remembering what he had told me in an earlier discussion.
‘My star pupil! Anyway, as soon as I came up here I could see we had problems. This basin had never been cleared since Caligula inaugurated the channel. You can imagine what we found in the mud.’
‘That was when you uncovered more remains?’ Frontinus prompted.
Bolanus looked sick. ‘I found a leg.’
‘Was that all?’ Frontinus and I exchanged a glance. The message that had reached us previously had implied limbs of all sorts and sizes.
‘That was enough for me! It was horrendously decayed; we had to bury it.’ Bolanus, who had seemed so sanguine, had become appalled now he had actually seen the gruesome relics involved. ‘I can’t describe what it was like clearing out the mud. There were a few loose bones we could not identify.’
A foreman produced them for us. Workmen like to keep a jar of interesting finds. All the better if it includes parts of old skeletons.
‘I’ll ask somebody who hunts,’ suggested Frontinus, ever practical, as he fearlessly handled the pieces of knuckle and leg bone. ‘But even if we decide they are human, they won’t help identification.’
‘No, but these might.’ Bolanus himself was unpacking his knapsack.
He produced a small fold of material; it looked like a napkin from one of his excellent lunch hampers. Carefully unfolding it, he revealed a gold earring. It was of good workmanship, crescent-shaped and covered with handsome granulation, with five dangling chains, each ending in a fine gold ball. Bolanus held it up between his fingers in silence, as if to imagine it hanging gracefully on a female ear.
Accompanying the earring was a string of jewellery, probably part of a longer necklace, since there was no clasp. Bright blue glass beads – lapis, or something very similar – had metal caps which joined them to small squares of delicate patterns cut from sheet gold.
‘It’s very unusual to find items like this up here,’ Bolanus said. ‘In the sewers, yes. They could have been lost in the street or anything. Coins and all kinds of gems turn up there – one work gang even discovered half a silver dinner service once.’
‘It looks as though somebody threw them into the water to get rid of them,’ I said. ‘What girl goes tripping along a remote riverbank in her big city finery?’ My companions were silent, leaving it to me to comment on girls.
Depressed by the conversation, Frontinus walked back towards the river. ‘Should I have the bed of the Anio dragged?’ he asked glumly as I followed him, sharing his low mood. ‘I could send my allocation of public slaves; may as well use them for something.’
‘In due course, maybe. But for now we should avoid any obvious official activity. Everything should look normal. We don’t want to scare off the killer. We need to lure him out – and then grab him.’
‘Before he kills again,’ Frontinus sighed. ‘I don’t like this, Falco. We must be close to him now – but it could go badly wrong.’
Bolanus had joined us. For a moment we all watched the water rushing into a diversion pipe that currently fed the aqueduct. I turned round and scanned the woods, almost as if I suspected the killer might be lurking up there watching us.
‘I’ll tell you what I think happens,’ said Bolanus in a sombre voice. Then he paused.
He was upset. The isolated spot had worked on him; in his imagination he was sharing the last moments of the women who had been brought so far from home to a terrible fate, possibly killed, mutilated and dismembered very near to where we stood.
I helped him out. ‘The killer lives somewhere locally. He abducts his victims in Rome, probably because he is not known there an
d he hopes he won’t be traced. Then he brings them forty miles back here.’
Bolanus found his voice again. ‘After he has finished whatever he does to these girls, he drives back to Rome to dispose of their heads and torsos in the river and the Cloaca – probably to minimise the chance of anything pointing to him locally. But first he cuts off their limbs and throws them into the river –’
‘Why doesn’t he just throw all the parts into the Anio, or else take everything to Rome?’ Frontinus asked.
‘I imagine,’ I said slowly, ‘he wants the large pieces as far away as possible because they look like identifiable human remains for longer. So he takes them back to Rome – but while he’s disposing of them in the sewer or the river he’s vulnerable. He wants just a couple of large parcels which will sink out of sight quickly if he’s being observed. But he thinks he’s safe chucking the smaller limbs away here because they will quickly deteriorate beyond being recognised. Thrown into the stream, they could be eaten by carrion birds or animals, either here in the hills or down on the Campagna. And anything that went over the cascade at Tibur would be well smashed up.’
‘Right, Falco,’ said Bolanus. ‘I don’t think he ever intends that they should turn up in the water supply in Rome. But sometimes smaller and lighter parts – hands, for instance – find their way into the Novus basin, and then on into the channel. The killer may still be unaware that this happens. If they happen to float out of the filtration system, the body parts will travel on to Rome. At the end of the run, two aqueducts join on one arcade; the Novus is carried above the Aqua Claudia, with switching shafts. And the Claudia also has an interchange with the Marcia, as I showed you both –’
Frontinus and I nodded, remembering how we saw the torrent crashing from one aqueduct to the other.
‘So we can see how these small relics might move around once they reach Rome. The only puzzle,’ said Bolanus slowly, ‘is the first hand, the one that Falco found, which was supposed to have been pulled out on the Aventine, in a castellum of the Aqua Appia.’
Three Hands in the Fountain Page 26