Jail Bait

by Marilyn Todd

  ‘There’s no problem with regards to identification,’ he was saying, and Pylades and Mosul were nodding sadly with him. ‘We knew her well, up here.’ He glanced across at Tarraco. ‘This poor bitch is Lais.’

  XXIV

  The army, when it clanked to a halt beside the lake, consisted of one junior tribune flanked by two legionaries, though what it lacked in strength, it more than made up for in enthusiasm. Within seconds of its arrival, spectators had been moved back and out of earshot, grumbling at being short-changed, while the wheelwright’s son pestered for a decision on whether two runners dropping out of the race meant he had won.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ the tribune hammered for silence amongst the little group which remained clustered round the corpse, ‘I am Cyrus, the Emperor’s representative in Spesium. Now we have, as you all know, a new town rising on imperial soil, our reputation stands on our results. This applies to all of us and if we are to play our part in the evolving political climate, an ethic based on peace and on loyalty and trust, if Spesium is to take its rightful place among commercial centres, it is essential we get to the truth of this heinous crime and you have my assurance, ladies and gentlemen, my word that I shall not rest until the murderer of this poor woman is brought to justice. It is, of course, and I need not remind you, a capital offence—’

  ‘That man,’ Orbilio whispered to Claudia, ‘blows more hot air than Vesuvius. Thank you.’ The latter words were addressed to the small boy he’d sent to fetch his clothes. He flipped a copper to the child and pulled on his long, patrician tunic, and he had time to buckle it as well before the tribune’s speech was finished.

  ‘The victim has not only been strangled,’ Kamar was telling Cyrus, ‘she has been brutally battered around the head. These lesions here…’

  Claudia blocked out the grisly anatomical details, leaving them to Cyrus to jot down on a wax tablet. Patrician, like Orbilio, and young, of course—this was a stepping stone in many an aristocrat’s career, be it the army or civilian life—but a certain podginess was beginning to show, a puffiness around the cheekbones suggestive of indulgences on quite a grand scale.

  ‘When,’ he asked the Spaniard, ‘did you last see your wife?’

  Tarraco buffed his fingernails against the palm of his hand. ‘Why?’

  Claudia rolled her eyes to heaven. You idiot, Tarraco. Won’t you ever learn?

  ‘Remorse is not your strong point, is it?’ Cyrus sneered. ‘Well, let’s see what other little weaknesses you have.’ After each question that he fired off, he scratched another annotation on his hinged tablet. ‘Right,’ he said eventually. ‘Let’s see if I have this straight.’ He read back over his notes. ‘The last time you saw Lais was Wednesday, correct?’

  Tarraco made no response and the chubby tribune’s hackles began to rise in earnest.

  ‘Moreover, you say she walked out on you after a row?’

  This time he received an imperceptible shrug and, stung, the tribune jerked his thumb at his legionaries. ‘Row out to the island. See whether anyone can corroborate that story.’

  For the first time, Tarraco looked Cyrus in the eye. ‘No need for the army to start straining itself at this late stage,’ he said. ‘My staff come today to watch the race. You may interrogate them here, if you wish.’

  ‘Don’t get cocky with me, you money-grubbing dago,’ Cyrus snarled, jabbing a finger into Tarraco’s muscled chest. ‘I know your game. First it was Virginia, now Lais. What happened, eh? Laughed in your face, did she, gigolo? Told you she was cutting you out of her will?’

  A dark flash of anger sparked Tarraco’s brooding eyes, and Claudia realized that Cyrus had hit a raw nerve. The Spaniard’s mouth clamped tighter and the knuckles of his bunched fists turned whiter.

  ‘In a fit of rage, you strangled her—but that wasn’t enough for you, was it? Consumed at what you considered her betrayal, you rained blow after blow—’

  Claudia could not listen. She stared up at a pair of hawks, wheeling overhead, and remembered Tarraco as she had seen him this morning, strutting like a peacock with his gold torque and fancy embroidery. Dressed to kill.

  ‘Admit it, you snapped and you killed her. You put your dirty hands round her throat and you squeezed—’ Dammit, Cyrus, that’s no way to elicit a confession from a man like Tarraco. And without one, there can be no true justice.

  Claudia cleared her throat. ‘Tarraco did not murder Lais,’ she said. ‘He was with me.’

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Orbilio’s head shoot up

  The Spaniard, too, was taken by surprise, except in his case you’d have to know him well to recognize that sideways tilt of the head.

  ‘And you are?’ With slow deliberation Cyrus crossed to where Claudia was standing, and her scowl defied him to comment on the mass of tumbling curls which no self-respecting Roman lady would be seen dead with out of doors in daylight hours, let alone with a flaming swelling on her cheek.

  ‘Claudia, widow of Gaius Seferius, wine merchant in Rome.’

  ‘Widow? I see.’

  No, you do not, you dirty-minded bastard, she wanted to shout, and bit her lip instead.

  ‘And you were with Tarraco—er, when exactly would that be?’

  ‘Claudia,’ Orbilio warned under his breath.

  She tasted blood in her mouth. ‘Last night,’ she said, adding a forceful toss of her head.

  ‘Ah.’ Purposefully, the tribune walked back to stand over the corpse, nodding to himself and flipping open his hinged notebook.

  Claudia stole a glance at the grotesque creature at his feet. Once a tall and slender socialite, wealthy—ah, but lonely with it—she had married a man for his prowess in bed and… And what?

  ‘Would that be all night?’

  The bastard was relishing her public humiliation. ‘Yes, Cyrus, all bloody night, if you must know.’

  Tarraco had looped his thumbs into the waistband of his loincloth and was staring out across the lake as though it was a picnic he was attending. From the side, Claudia felt angry patrician eyes burn into her head.

  ‘Much depends,’ Cyrus said, ‘upon the testimony of the slaves, but then again,’ he gave a brittle laugh, ‘much doesn’t.’ He walked back and forth across the grass, finally stopping in front of Claudia. By now the little group had fallen silent, and you could have cut the atmosphere with a carving knife and served it up with mustard sauce. ‘Nevertheless you are giving Tarraco an alibi, is that correct?’

  ‘The message appears to be getting through at last.’

  ‘Then as I see it, Mistress Seferius, this makes you an accomplice to the crime.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You imbecile.’ Tarraco sprang forward like a lion on a chain. ‘She is no accomplice, because I am no killer.’

  ‘It doesn’t really matter,’ Orbilio said, stepping forward, ‘where this lady spent the night.’ He shot a fiery glance at Tarraco. ‘Lais has been dead for several days, is that not correct, Kamar?’

  Goddammit, why didn’t someone say so before?

  ‘Undoubtedly.’ The bald Etruscan nodded. ‘It’s hard to be precise, considering the damage done to tissue by the fish, but my professional opinion is that she’s been dead four days and that, I’m afraid, is the minimum.’

  The tribune’s nose wrinkled at the mangled corpse. ‘It’s the lovely widow who is labouring under the impression that Lais died last night,’ he said, ‘not I. I merely make the point that she has, by her own admission, admitted aiding and abetting in a murder.’

  Not so much blood and thunder, you silly bitch, as thud and blunder. What were you thinking of?

  ‘Speaking from experience.’ Smoothly Orbilio took hold of Cyrus’ arm and murmured in his ear. ‘We’re invariably inundated with oddballs either confessing to the crime or else providing cast iron alibis for suspects. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it turns out the little lady,’ he flashed a patronizing smile, ‘also suffers from some type of attention-seeking disorder. Ouch.’ H
e leaned down to rub the place where the little lady’s sandal had connected to an attention-seeking shin.

  The tribune was not won over. ‘And you, sir? Who might you be?’ He was even less impressed with the answer. ‘Do you have official jurisdiction to interfere in this investigation?’

  ‘None whatsoever,’ Marcus said cheerfully.

  ‘Oh, yes, he does,’ Claudia piped up. ‘I intercepted a letter from his boss, empowering him—’

  Cyrus smiled a tight smile. ‘And where is this official authorization?’

  ‘Stolen by the man who gave me this, of course.’ She pointed to her bruise. ‘He’s an assassin sent to retrieve a certain document, except I palmed him off with…’ Her voice trailed off, as it became clear that everyone, not just the tribune, felt that the heat had finally got to her.

  ‘Quite.’ Cyrus turned to address the group as a whole. ‘I suppose I have to follow through with this charade.’ He sighed. ‘So can we please clear up the question as to whether or not an intimate relationship exists between these two which might implicate her in the crime?’

  ‘I fear Marcus Cornelius may be right,’ Pylades said, flashing a sad smile at Claudia. ‘You see, she did not arrive in Atlantis until Thursday, I can vouch for that personally.’

  ‘As can I,’ put in the constipated tortoise.

  ‘I’ve a good mind to throw you in jail for wasting time and perverting the course of justice,’ Cyrus snarled in Claudia’s ear, ‘but I need to get this enquiry moving. Ah, the servants.’ With a smile of encouragement, Cyrus beckoned the contingent from Tuder’s island forward. ‘I presume you’ve heard about the tragedy?’

  Dumbly they nodded.

  ‘Good, because I have a few questions to ask concerning your late mistress.’

  Shuffling from foot to foot, the servants stared at the ground, at their hands, at anything except Tarraco or the tribune, but the answer from each slave was the same. Yes, they recalled the row on Wednesday.

  No, they had not seen Lais leave the island.

  ‘You are certain of these facts?’ Cyrus pressed. ‘None of you rowed Lais ashore that night, or perhaps the following morning? Think very carefully about this.’

  Weights shifted from foot to foot, hands were wrung, noses sniffed, but the reply remained in the negative.

  ‘None of the rowing boats was missing? You’re positive?’

  They nodded in glum unison.

  ‘It couldn’t be possible, perhaps, that Lais took a boat, rowed over to Atlantis—’

  ‘Lais could not row,’ one voice put in. ‘She was not strong enough, not for that distance.’ Incredibly, the voice was Tarraco’s. ‘Someone must have come for her.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’ Cyrus said patiently. ‘Well, then, did any of you see a boat come ashore on the island either that night or during the following day?’

  Downcast heads shook as one.

  ‘No one saw Lais leave?’ He gestured to his legionaries, who each took one step closer to the Spaniard. ‘So what do we conclude from this?’ Cyrus pretended to consult his notes. ‘Lais was alive on Wednesday. She had a flaming row with her husband—’

  ‘I did not kill her,’ Tarraco said. ‘You get that through your thick skull.’

  ‘—has not been sighted for three days until, on the fourth day, she turns up, floating in the lake, having been strangled and battered in a brutal and vicious attack which, funnily enough, also took place three to four days ago and where robbery, clearly, was not the motive. Look at her rings, the amber pendant.’

  Cyrus clapped shut his wax tablet and snapped his fingers.

  ‘Arrest the bastard,’ he said. ‘But don’t harm him more than necessary.’ He smiled a lizard smile at Tarraco. ‘I want this specimen in prime condition for our first public execution.’

  XXV

  ‘Feeling better, master?’

  The dwarf’s face was twisted in concern as the nephew of Sabbio Tullus staggered out of the latrines.

  ‘Much,’ he croaked, rubbing his belly. And better still, when this fucking mess was sorted out, it was making him ill. That, and the rasping dry air from the marble merchant’s warehouse next door.

  ‘While you were…indisposed,’ the servant spoke with a faint lisp, ‘your well-built friend dropped by, the one who seems so attached to cardamom pods.’ They could be used medicinally, as a stimulant, or to ease flatulence, or maybe he just liked the smell. ‘He said to tell you the situation in Atlantis is under control and—’

  The weasel nose twitched visibly. ‘Under control? Either he’s carried out my instructions or he hasn’t, what the hell does he mean, under control?’

  The dwarf spread his hands in helplessness. ‘Alas, he did not confide in me, sir, merely asked me to pass on the information that he is embarking upon the next phase of his mission and will report back when it’s complete.’

  ‘And the—’ the nephew stopped short. ‘My…property,’ he said carefully. ‘Did the fat man mention my missing property?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  *

  Sabbio Tullus followed his silhouette through the hucksters in the Forum where, despite the ferocious heat, a man could still purchase anything from buskins to buckles, oysters to ointments. The moneylenders’ stalls outside the Aemilian Basilica were doing brisk trade, their balances glinting in the sunshine, and the red roofs of the temples and the public buildings shimmered like wine in a palsied hand.

  Tempted to loiter by a dazzling display of Parthian skill, warriors leaping high in knee-length tunics with great swirling moustaches and even greater broadswords, in order to advertise a fuller display later this evening, Tullus decided better of it. He’d already booked his seat, there’d be time enough to appreciate their talents then. Right now his secretary was waiting with quill and ink at the ready, because Tullus had something to tell his wife…what was it? Oh, yes. That he’d not be in Frascati by Tuesday after all.

  Clad in that epitome of rank, the mighty toga, Tullus feared he might poach to death in his own perspiration, but that, he supposed, was the price a man paid for success. He squinted up at the merciless sky and thought, by Croesus, if he’d only left his mucking silver in the repository, he’d already be in the country by now. Amongst the green and rolling hills, dining with his neighbours, making babies with his wife. Instead he was up to his armpits in shit, and still wasn’t making any bloody headway.

  Tullus felt a vice-like crush within his chest. He couldn’t breathe. Jupiter, he couldn’t bloody breathe—

  ‘Drink this,’ a soothing voice said. ‘You’ll feel better soon.’

  Accepting the proffered cup of water from the warden who attended Juturna’s holy spring, he slumped over the rail. Calm down, old man, calm down. Take it easy, take it easy… That’s better. In, out, in, out, deep breaths. De-ee-ep breaths. He saw his pale reflection in the pool. Chubbykins, his wife nicknamed him and suggested he lose a bit of weight. Well, maybe he just might—why not when this mess was over. Gradually the claw around his heart released its grip, and with a grateful nod to the warden and a coin flipped into the pool, Tullus set off once more across the Forum.

  Originally a boggy valley full of bulrushes and reeds and surrounded by a straggle of thatched huts on each of the famous seven hills, Rome had been transformed into the seat of an empire stretching thousands of miles in every direction. With a swelling sense of pride, Tullus’ eyes flickered down the streets which led from this small and bustling oblong and thought, incredible! From these few roads are linked even the darkest of our outposts. Every single navigational passage in the world ends up here in Rome.

  Now that bastard of a nephew plans to undermine it…

  Janus, what a mess, what a stupid, mucking mess he’d got sucked into, but it was unavoidable. Family was family, and it never occurred to Tullus to refuse a request to deposit a small casket in his newly constructed strongroom. Why should it?

  Why? You sad, moronic oaf, I’ll tell
you why! When have you ever taken anybody’s word at face value, tell me that. Especially where business is involved? What imbecilic madness inspired you not to check? Not to demand a look at the contents? The boy would have refused your request and this whole ghastly situation would have been averted. Or would it?

  The puff of self-castigation burst. No man who entrusts safe keeping of his records expects them to be read over by the trustee.

  Muck!

  Still, no use moping; the theft had taken place, the question was how to limit the damage. Or more accurately, how to reunite his nephew with that bloody piece of parchment and after that, the problem was no longer Tullus’, it was his nephew’s headache and best of bloody luck, the little prick would get no more help from him.

  Tullus turned right past the Senate House and sighed. That’s another thing. Rumour had it, Augustus was about to propose his stepson, Tiberius, as his heir. Well, the lad had proved himself on campaign, heaven knows he’d be a popular enough choice. Intelligent, courageous, happily married to a wife swelling with child, the people would be right behind him…were it not for the problem that Tiberius was unconnected to Augustus by blood! As a result, much debating would be required in the Senate House, which, goddammit, was in unofficial recess until the end of the month.

  Tullus resolved to make a sacrifice to Apollo, because the gods must be against him. If only the Senate had been sitting, there’d have been no problem over that bloody scrap of paper…

  Away from the hawklike eyes of his peers, Tullus slipped off his toga and instantly felt half a ton lighter and five years younger. Mopping the sweat from his forehead, he turned right again, through the crush of armour makers and glassblowers, pitchsellers and potters. He rolled the toga into a ball and bundled it under his arm. Funny thing about that stolen document. Because of his widespread business connections, Tullus had agents in virtually every commercial centre for two hundred miles and yet no word had come back regarding the whereabouts of Claudia Seferius. Very odd, that, very odd indeed. Especially considering she was such a hot-headed creature. A filly born from Impulse out of Recklessness, Tullus would never have imagined her hanging on to such a thing. Surely she’d be asking a four-figure sum for its safe return by now? Tullus stuffed the woollen ball under the other arm as he turned left and away from the main thoroughfare. Jupiter alone knew how deeply he’d delved into that girl’s affairs, and whilst much of her private life remained a mystery, it hadn’t been too difficult for a rich man with contacts to see how the land lay with the business she was trying so desperately to run. With a full appraisal of her financial status, Tullus could understand the theft—hell, given the girl’s audacity, he might even have had a few words of advice to offer her about how to handle the merchants she was up against. But as to that scroll… Something of a conundrum, what?