AURELIA (Roma Nova Book 4)

by Alison Morton

  Doors slamming in the house, running footsteps.

  I shuffled along to the old stone pillar, nearly losing my grip as my broken foot slipped. Straining with the last strength my arm muscles had left, I hoisted myself up on to the top of the wall. Sobbing to get my breath back, I squatted there for a few seconds. I looked down. It wasn’t that high, but I’d have to jump. No, I couldn’t. Not in a million years. I turned on to my stomach and slithered down, scraping the skin on my thighs and arms, falling the last metre on to the grass verge.

  I dragged myself up. In the silence of the night came the burst of a car engine starting back near the house. As I hobbled along the road, every step brought a new and intense jab of pure agony. I heard dogs barking. I limped along and looked round desperately. Speed sign pole. Grabbed it. Hung on to it. Dizzy, shook head to clear it, but the world wobbled even more in front of me.

  There was nothing. No sign of the backup vehicle. Where in Hades was Fabia? I dropped to my knees and fell into the ditch by the road. Bliss. No longer standing on my foot.

  I fought against closing my eyes. If I did, I’d pass out. Caius would drive through those gates any minute now and kill me. Mars help me now, if ever you were going to! I started shivering and my foot throbbed so painfully, I gasped at each pulse. Just a few seconds’ rest to gather my strength. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

  *

  The smell was the first thing that hit me: antiseptic, thin, drenching. The dull ache in the back of my hand followed. A catheter and drip line led up to a bag of transparent liquid. I was in a hospital room, blind down over the window, but daylight fighting its way in. A weight around my foot; it pulled my ankle sideways. The bedding around it resembled a small igloo, lifted by a cage in the bed. But no pain.

  The sound of a page flipping over. A figure in a dark purple suit was sitting on a chair by my bed and flicking through a magazine.

  ‘Fabia.’

  She leapt up and brought me a drink. ‘How do you feel, Major?’

  ‘Pretty well.’

  She smiled to herself.

  ‘Where are we?’ I said.

  ‘At the Unfallkrankenhaus.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We heard nothing after Grosschenk made that dirty comment about your daughter. Neither did the legation signals office when I checked with them, so we broke out from our cover position.’

  ‘Disobeying my orders, Fabia?’ But I smiled at her.

  She returned it.

  ‘The next thing we heard were two shots from the house. I was about to order the detail over the wall to come in after you when I saw you fall down by the gate and roll into the ditch. You were unconscious by the time I reached you. I was checking you over when two men ran out of the gates and started shooting at us. We returned warning fire. They, er, retreated.’

  I could imagine Grosschenk running away panicking like the Furies were after him as the rounds flew over his head, and Caius, cursing at him for a coward, following him.

  ‘Then we brought you here.’

  ‘Thank you, Fabia.’

  She frowned. ‘Something odd, though…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘As we drove away, I spotted a tall man on a horse among the trees. Getting you medical attention was the priority, but I looked back and he watched us until I could no longer see him.’

  The rider. The same mysterious rider who had stopped Grosschenk’s car, the one who had looked into my soul. Who the hell was he? I knew one thing – I had to find him again.

  ‘Odd indeed,’ I said, attempting to sound more composed than I was. I cleared my throat. ‘Must have been the rider in the forest on the way to Grosschenk’s. Strange. Never mind, get Huber in here.’

  *

  Joachim strode into the room an hour later and came to a halt by my bed. He bent over and kissed my forehead, then flopped down on the chair Fabia vacated. She withdrew to the wall by the door.

  ‘You have no idea how relieved I am you’re okay,’ Joachim said. ‘The best thing is I won’t have Plico breathing down my neck every half-hour.’ He smiled at me. ‘He’s a grumpy old sod, but seems to have some kind of heart under all that toughness.’

  ‘Grosschenk?’ I said. ‘Caius Tellus? You’ve got them?’

  I wasn’t optimistic. As soon as they realised I’d disappeared, they must have known their game was finished and fled.

  ‘We’ve got Tellus, but no sign of Grosschenk.’

  ‘That’s odd. What was Caius up to, hanging around Grosschenk’s house? What was he doing when you caught him?’

  ‘Burning paper. Looked like a load of transaction records for international trading. We recouped a stack he hadn’t started on. Scholz and Hahn are going through it all at the moment. So, plenty of good circumstantial evidence to go with what was on your recording.’

  ‘Have you listened to it all?’

  ‘Plico had the tape sent round this morning. What kind of transmitter were you using?’

  I asked Fabia to fetch my purse. Half the sequins were torn off, but the reinforced canvas underneath was intact. I opened it and showed him the silver and black plastic recorder, encased in protective rubber. Six by four centimetres and multi-band, it recorded and transmitted up to eight kilometres. The end of the long thin aerial that ran up through the strap had snapped when the bag and I had hit the ground. It had cut the transmission, but the recording had carried on.

  ‘Himmel! Is that what was transmitting? It’s tiny.’ He stretched his hand out, an acquisitive look in his eyes. ‘I’ll have to take it as evidence.’

  ‘No. It’s imperial state property. You have your recording.’

  He bent his fingers, beckoning impatiently.

  ‘Sorry, no.’ I glanced up at him. ‘Anyway,’ I said, trying not to sound smug, ‘you don’t have the hardware to transcribe it.’

  For all their famous technological expertise, the Prussians weren’t a patch on us. We kept our secrets to ourselves. As a tiny country, we had to use every advantage and our technology was one of the most important. Possibly more than the silver.

  For a moment, I thought he was going to pounce. I shoved the recorder under the bedclothes, regretting I’d showed it to him. He looked as disappointed as if he’d thrown a dog at knucklebones.

  ‘Your people will have to surrender their weapons for forensic examination,’ he said, ‘and they will then be confiscated. We do not allow discharge of firearms by foreign powers within the Germanic Federation.’

  ‘For Mars’ sake, don’t be so prissy, Achim. They were used in defence only.’

  ‘They shouldn’t have been carrying, anyway,’ he grumped.

  ‘Well, perhaps they could use a gladius and scutum shield next time. We’ve used them very effectively against Germanic aggressors in the past.’

  ‘Apart from Varus,’ he retorted.

  ‘Never mind that,’ I said. ‘I’ve got something far more important to discuss. Well, two things. First, that evening Prisca and I were snatched by Grosschenk’s thug. How did he know who we were? Nobody knew I was anything but a junior diplomat. Prisca was a more likely target. But criminals at Grosschenk’s level know we don’t pay ransoms, so there was no point. And you only had vague suspicions about me.’ I looked at him, square in the face. ‘Unless you shared those suspicions with anybody?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Not even Scholz and Hahn?’

  ‘Even if I did, my team doesn’t gossip. They’re rigorously selected for incorruptibility, before you ask.’

  ‘Everybody’s incorruptible until you find their price, Achim.’

  He looked around the room. Apart from the door to the shower room, there was nothing to see but a chocolate-box picture on the wall, an over-bed table pushed against the beige wall, a bedside cabinet and another plastic padded chair. He glanced over at Fabia and frowned.

  ‘Don’t worry about her – she’s paid to be incorruptible.’ Apart from knowing they were the military
elite, Praetorians had an advanced sense of duty, as well as the pay and good perks.

  ‘Secondly, how did Grosschenk know I was investigating the silver smuggling?’ I pulled him back to our conversation. ‘After the kidnap, only you, Tertullius Plico and your director knew. Oh, and your incorruptibles. And none of them would leak, would they?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  The muscles on his face didn’t move, but he blinked. That was enough for me.

  ‘Talk to anyone at home about your day at work?’

  I didn’t like Joachim’s partner, Hasi Wolff, cruelly named Hartiman by his parents at birth. He’d latched on to Joachim in the second semester at university and hadn’t let go. He hadn’t liked me either. Jealousy, I supposed, but there was nothing to be jealous about.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘So what are the other possibilities? Your Director of Organised Crime?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Thought so.’

  ‘Christ, Aurelia, Hasi and I have been together since uni. He wouldn’t.’

  I said nothing. Joachim’s shoulders didn’t slump, he didn’t wave his hands around in protest. He sat rock still. But the flesh under his eyes sagged and his cheeks sank as if the bones underneath had turned to wet paper.

  He stood up, nodded at me and left.

  *

  I stayed in the hospital for three days then moved back to the legation. The first afternoon, I insisted on booking a call on the videolink. I had to speak to my daughter, to make sure she was well and safe. The logical half of my brain said of course she was – she was in the imperial home with her cousins, and guarded by Praetorians. The other half of my head couldn’t forget Grosschenk’s revolting remarks. I’d seen Caius’s eyes linger on Marina before I’d left. He wasn’t the only pervert.

  Marina smiled at me, then told me in a very serious voice about the new palla and stola she had sewn for her best doll, and the honey cakes she had been making and eating in the nursery kitchen. I nearly choked with pleasure. I spoke to Aemilia, the nursery maid, who hefted Marina on to her knee while she gave me her report. Marina smiled up at the girl, and put her hand in hers. Envy ripped through me. I wanted to be in that soft protected world with my daughter. The problem was I knew I couldn’t live in it and not go insane.

  **

  Fabia tried to find out who the horse rider was, but neither the police nor any public service knew him. She went round stables and riding schools throughout Berlin and Brandenburg with a zero result.

  For the next week I lay on the sofa, frustrated by my broken toes, hardly able to totter to the bathroom even with a walking frame. Joachim hadn’t been in contact. Plico had sent a terse acknowledgement of my report and told me to wait for the Berlin court to take my deposition. I passed my time writing letters to my business manager, to Milo and the farm steward and expanding my to-do list to a ridiculous length. I sent Marina cards and some toys Fabia bought on my behalf, including one of the bears from Steiff am Kurfürstendamm. Even my annoyance at losing one of my antique sapphire earrings at Grosschenk’s during my flight had faded.

  Bored out of my mind and almost dozing off from the painkillers, I woke abruptly one afternoon at the sound of a knock on the door. A steward opened it and admitted Scholz from Joachim’s police team. He was frowning as he entered the room, his spare frame tense. The bristle cut of his hair still reminded me of a nightclub bouncer, but as he stood there he shifted the weight from one foot to the other and glanced around the room. His expression tightened as he spotted my bandaged foot.

  ‘The chief’s on suspension. I’ve been tasked to come to take your statement. I’ve only got an hour, so we need to hurry up.’

  ‘You’re not the only one with a to-do list, Scholz. I’ll check if a lawyer is available,’ I said and flicked the switch on the intercom to call the consultor’s department. I wasn’t going to make any statement to Scholz without a lawyer present. If it had been anybody else, I might not have hesitated, but I didn’t trust him.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked, after I’d had confirmation a lawyer was on her way. He looked down at the floor, then back at me.

  ‘We still haven’t found Grosschenk. Before he was suspended, the chief said he thought he’d done a runner – the Helvetian Confederation, possibly the EUS. His passport’s still in his drawer, though. But Forensics have started taking the whole house apart.’ He crossed his arms and stuck his hands firmly under the opposite armpits.

  ‘For Juno’s sake, grab a chair and sit down.’ I was fed up with him fidgeting around in front of me.

  ‘He told us to pull his “friend” in for questioning and eventually Wolff admitted he’d been taking payments from Grosschenk for nearly two years.’ He looked away for a few seconds. ‘The chief was watching from the obs room. The worst was when I popped out for a moment from the interrogation while Hahn continued. I had to clear a point with the chief. I was there watching through the window with him when that little turd said he was fed up with the chief’s self-righteousness and fancied taking up with that effing Roman we’ve got in the next cell. I didn’t know whether Huber was going to break down or smash his way through the two-way mirror. He turned pale, didn’t move but seemed to shake on the spot. Then he turned to me, far too calm, and told me to process him.’

  Joachim would be so hurt, bleeding inside with that Brandenburg uprightness holding it all in. In truth, I was desperately sorry he’d been betrayed by Hasi, whatever I thought of the little rat.

  ‘I have to go to him,’ I said.

  ‘You can’t do anything for him. You’re a woman and the one who triggered the worst loss of his life.’

  XII

  Scholz was right – Joachim refused to see me. I wrote him a long letter that wasn’t returned. I saw him across the courtroom when Caius Tellus and Hasi Wolff were arraigned, but he didn’t or wouldn’t look in my direction. I learned via Plico that he had been suspended, pending reassignment elsewhere. In the meantime, neither the local Kripo nor the national Germanic Federated States organised crime bureau could trace Grosschenk. He’d vanished into thin air.

  I was able to walk with a stick after another week, hobbling around the legation garden but ending up with an aching foot each night. After another week, it was merely stiff and I ventured out one day to the Tiergarten Park, near the zoo. The paths were full of nice, ordinary people, strolling along with their children or on the lookout for friends, students bantering, lovers hand in hand, grandmothers exchanging secrets. A typical picture postcard idea the Berlin Tourist Board loved to project.

  Only I overdid it. I limped back to the main road, desperately regretting I’d been too proud to take a stick with me. At the kiosk about twenty metres from the gate, I clutched one of the ribbed metal posts supporting the narrow roof overhang. I was debating whether to call the legation to send a car or try to hail a taxi on the main road when I saw a movement at the edge of my vision. A figure riding a chocolate brown horse was heading for me.

  He moved with his horse as if the animal was a part of him, swaying in perfect rhythm to the horse’s clip-clop walk. Neither horse nor rider seemed to be making any kind of strenuous effort, but they were closing in on me at a rapid pace. It was the mystery rider who had stopped Grosschenk’s car.

  They stopped so close to me that I had to take a step back, nearly stumbling off balance. The horse’s muscles were smooth under the glossy coat. I put my hand out and patted its shoulder and was a little surprised when it turned its head to me, ears alert. Grosschenk had called the rider a gypsy but the horse was no feather-legged cob. I didn’t know a great deal about horse breeding, but I recognised Arab and Hungarian when I saw it. Our estate manager would have paid a lot of solidi to secure an animal like this.

  I looked up at the rider. He bent forward, gave me a half-bow. His black curly hair touched the collar of his beige shirt, but not the neck of the leather waistcoat he wore over it. Dark, slightly worn moleskin breeches were tucked in
to black scuffed boots. As I stared at him, warmth rushed up my neck. He smiled, knowingly. Pluto, was I so obvious? The warmth spread into my face. The only time I’d had anything near this sensation since I’d met Marina’s father was two weeks ago when this same man had looked down from this same horse at me in Grosschenk’s car. This was ridiculous; for all his self-assurance, he could only have been twenty-three or -four, my junior by at least five years.

  I looked away, embarrassed. He swung his leg over the saddle and was standing in front of me in a second’s fluid movement.

  ‘Wie geht’s, gnädige Frau?’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ I replied in Germanic. ‘But, you, where have you come from? Are you allowed in here with your horse?’ I gabbled.

  I didn’t poke his chest with my finger, but I wanted to. Why? He didn’t have to account to me. But somehow I felt proprietorial. I swallowed. ‘Why did you and your friend here stop Grosschenk’s car? Wasn’t that dangerous? The chauffeur might have been armed for all you knew.’ I waved in the direction of his horse. To my complete surprise, the rider caught my hand and kissed the back of my fingers. I snatched my hand back at the shock of it. What cheek!

  ‘Do you care about what happens to me?’ he said, and grinned.

  ‘No, of course not,’ I retorted.

  He glanced down at my foot.

  ‘Would you like a lift back to the legation?’

  ‘How do you know I live there?’

  ‘I heard that a girl with a Latin accent had been asking round for me—’

  Fabia.

  ‘—so I made some enquiries of my own.’ He paused. ‘I knew it wasn’t you – your Germanic is nearly perfect. I had to go away on some business of my own, but tracked her down when I came back. She’s careful, but not quite careful enough. And she led me to you.’

  ‘And who are you to say that? Some kind of policeman or security?’

  He flicked the tip of my nose with his index finger and chuckled.