A dying light in Corduba mdf-8

by Lindsey Davis

  Suddenly I felt a surge of defiance. I could see when I was being set up as the booby. Laeta loathed the spy, and his motives towards me were ambiguous. I didn't trust Laeta any more than Anacrites, but whatever was going on, Anacrites was in deep trouble. I had never liked him, or what he represented, but I understood how he worked: knee deep in the same middenheap as me.

  Laeta, Titus is right. This needs to be kept quiet until we know what it's about. And you know how rumours fly at the Palace. The best solution is to put Anacrites somewhere else where he can die in peace when he decides to go; then we can choose whether or not to announce it in the Daily Gozette. Leave everything to me. I'll carry him to the Temple of Aesculapius on Tiber Island, swear them to secrecy, but give them your name to inform you of developments.'

  Laeta thought hard, but submitted himself to my plan.

  Telling him that I had a few ideas of my own to pursue, I waved him off.

  I then examined the doorway where Anacrites had been found. It was easy to see where and how he had been hurt; I discovered an ugly clump of blood and hair on the house wall. It was below chest height; the spy must have been bent over for some reason, though he carried no marks of any blow that would have doubled him up. I looked around, covering some distance, but found nothing significant.

  The wounded man had been propped in a chair long enough; I told the bearers to come along with him. I did walk them to Tiber Island where I unloaded Anacrites and dismissed the chair. Then, instead of depositing the sick man amongst the clapped-out abandoned slaves who were being cared for at the hospital, I hired another chair. I led this one further west along the riverbank in the shadow of the Aventine. Then I took the unconscious spy to a private apartment where I could be sure of his good treatment.

  He might yet die of last night's wound, but no one would be allowed to help him into Hades by other means.

  VIII

  Though I was a man on a charitable mission, my greeting was not promising. I had dragged Anacrites up three flights of stairs. Even unconscious he made trouble, buckling me under his weight and tangling his lifeless hands in the handrail just when I had got a good rhythm going. By the time I arrived upstairs I had no breath to curse him. I used my shoulder to knock open the door, a worn item that had once been red, now a faded pink.

  A furious old biddy accosted us. 'Who's that? Don't drag him in here. This is a peaceful neighbourhood!'

  'Hello, Mother.'

  Her companion was less blunt and more witty. 'Jove, it's Falco! The little lost boy who needs a tablet round his neck to tell people where he lives! A tablet he can consult himself too, when he's sober enough to read it -'

  'Shut up, Petro. I'm giving myself a hernia. Help me lie him down somewhere.'

  'Don't tell me!' raged my mother. 'One of your friends has got himself in trouble and you expect me to look after him. It's time you grew up, Marcus. I'm an old woman. I deserve a rest.'

  'You're an old woman who needs an interest in life. This is just the thing. He's not a drunk who fell under a cart, Ma. He's an official who has been cruelly attacked and until we discover the reason he has to be kept out of sight. I'd take him home but people may look for him there.'

  'Take him home? That poor girl you live with doesn't want to be bothered with this!' I winked at the unconscious Anacrites; he had just found himself a refuge. The best in Rome.

  Petronius Longus, my big grinning friend, had been lounging in my mother's kitchen with a handful of almonds while he regaled Ma with the now famous finish of my big night out. Seeing my burden his mood quietened, then when he helped me shove Anacrites on a bed and he glimpsed the damage to the spy's head, Petro's face set. I thought he was going to say something but he buttoned his lip.

  Ma stood in the doorway, arms folded; a small, still energetic woman who had spent her life nurturing people who didn't deserve it. Olive black eyes flicked over the spy with flashes like signal torches announcing an international disaster. 'Well, this one won't be a lot of trouble. He's not going to be here long!'

  'Do your best for the poor fellow, Ma.'

  'Don't I know him?' Petronius mumbled in a low voice to me.

  'Speak up!' snapped Ma. 'I'm not deaf and I'm not an idiot.'

  Petronius was frightened of my mother. He replied meekly, 'It's Anacrites, the Chief Spy.'

  'Well, he looks like a nasty dumpling that should have been eaten up yesterday,' she sneered.

  I shook my head. 'He's a spy; that's his natural attitude.' 'Well, I hope I'm not expected to work some miracle and save him.'

  'Ma, spare us the quaint plebeian cheerfulness!' 'Who's going to pay for the funeral?'

  'The Palace will. Just take him in while he's dying. Give him some peace from whoever is trying to get him.' 'Well; I can do that,' she conceded grumpily.

  I come from a large feckless family, who rarely permit themselves to perform deeds of kindness. When they do, any sensible conscious man wants to run a fast marathon in the other direction. It gave me a grim pleasure to leave Anacrites there. I hoped he came round and got thoroughly lectured – and I hoped that when it happened I would be present to watch.

  I had known Petronius Longus since we were both eighteen. I could tell he was holding back like a nervous bride. As soon as we could, we edged to the door, then bidding Ma a fast farewell we were out of the apartment like the naughty schoolboys she reckoned we both still were. Her derogatory cries followed us downstairs.

  Petronius knew I realised there was something he was bursting to say. In his usual aggravating way he kept it to himself as long as possible. I clamped my teeth and pretended not to be wanting to knock him into the copper shop opposite for keeping me on tenterhooks.

  'Falco, everyone's talking about a body the Second Cohort found this morning.' Petro was in the Fourth Cohort of vigiles, lording it over the Aventine. The Second were his counterparts who covered the Esquiline district.

  'Whose body's that?'

  'Looked like a street attack; happened last night. Man had his head stove in, in a remarkably violent manner.' 'Rammed against a wall, perhaps?'

  Petro appraised my suggestion. 'Sounds as if it could have been.'

  'Know anybody friendly in the Second?'

  'I thought you'd ask that,' Petro replied. We were already making headway on the long route back to the Esquiline.

  The Second Cohort's guardhouse lies on the way out to the Tiburtina Gate, close to the old Embankment which carries the Julian Aqueduct. It is situated between the Gardens of Pallentian and the Gardens of Lamia and Maia. A bosky spot – much frequented by elderly grubby prostitutes and persons trying to sell love potions and fake spells. We burrowed in our cloaks, walked quickly, and discussed the races loudly to reassure ourselves.

  The Second Cohort were in charge of the Third and Fifth regions: some routine squalor, but also several large mansions with tricky owners who thought that the vigiles existed solely to protect them while they annoyed everyone else. The Second patrolled steep hills, run-down gardens, a big chunk of palace (Nero's Golden House) and a prestigious public building site (Vespasian's huge new amphitheatre). They faced some headaches, but were bearing up like Stoics. Their enquiry team were a group of relaxed layabouts whom we found sitting on a bench working out their night-shift bonus pay. They had plenty of time to tell us about their interesting murder case, though perhaps less energy for actually solving it.

  'Jo! He took a knock all right!'

  'Bang on the knob?' Petro was doing the talking. 'Cracked open like a nut.'

  'Know who he is?'

  'Bit of a mystery man. Want a look at him?'

  Lindsey Davis

  A Dying Light in Corduba

  'Maybe.' Petronius preferred not to be that kind of sightseer, until it was unavoidable. 'Can you show us the scene of the mugging?'

  'Sure! Come and see the happy fellow first…' Neither of us wanted to. Blood is bad enough. Spilt brains we avoid.

  Luckily the Second Cohort turned out to
be an outfit with caring methods. While they waited for someone to come forward and claim the victim, they had slung his body in a sheet between two laundry poles, in the shed where they normally kept their fire engine. The pumping machine had been dragged out to the street where it was being admired by a large group of elderly men and small boys. Indoors, the corpse lay in a dim light. He had been neatly arranged and had his head in a bucket to contain leakage. The scene was one of respectful privacy.

  I did not enjoy looking at the body. I hate becoming introspective. Life's bad enough without upsetting yourself drawing filthy parallels.

  I had seen him before. I had met him briefly. I had talked to him – too briefly, perhaps. He was the cheerful lad at the dinner last night, the one in the oatmeal tunic who kept his own council in a diffident manner while watching the dancer Attractus had hired. He and I had later shared a joke, one I could not even now remember, as he helped me round up some slaves to shoulder my amphora of fish- pickle.

  The victim was about my own age, build and body- weight. Before some thug split his skull apart he had been intelligent and pleasant; I had had the impression he lived in the same world as me. Although Anacrites had pretended not to know who he was, I wondered if that had been a lie. An uneasy feeling warned me the dead man's presence at the dinner would turn out to be relevant. He left the Palatine at the same time as me. He must have been killed very soon afterwards. Whoever attacked him may well have followed us both from the Palace. He went off alone; I had been escorted by two hefty slaves with my amphora.

  A nagging premonition suggested that had I also been unaccompanied, the body in the firefighters' shed could well have been mine.

  IX

  Petronius and I made a cursory survey of the corpse, trying to ignore the head damage. Once again we found no other significant wounds. But a stain on the sheet which was cradling the body made me lift his right leg. Behind the knee I discovered a torn flap of skin – little more than a scratch, though it had bled freely because of its location, and it must have stung when he acquired it.

  'Petro, what do you make of that?'

  'Snagged himself on something?'

  'I don't know… Anacrites also had a cut leg for some reason.'

  'You're scavenging, Falco. It's nothing.'

  'You're the expert!' That always worried him.

  The Second Cohort had ascertained that the dead man's name was Valentinus. It had only taken a few moments of asking around locally. He had rented lodgings on the Esquiline, just ten strides from where somebody had battered him to death.

  The neighbour who identified the body had told the Second that Valentinus had lived alone. His occupation was unknown. He had gone out and about at different hours and quite often received callers of various kinds. He went to the baths, but avoided temples. He had never been any trouble to his neighbours. He gave no signs of enjoying himself much, nor had he ever been arrested by the vigiles. Until the night he died, he had always taken care of himself.

  The Second led us to his apartment, which they had previously searched. It was a two-room fourth-floor lease in a dark tenement. Its furnishings were sparse but neat. The inner room held his bed, a couple of tunics dumped on a bench, his spare boots, and a few unrevealing personal items. The outer room contained a table, his smart red gloss food bowl, his winecup with a jocular message, his stylus and string-bound note tablet (clean of useful information), and a hook with his cloak and hat. Each room was lit by one high window, too far away to see out.

  Petronius and I took a sombre look around while the Second Cohort members tried not to show that they resented us checking their work. We found nothing remarkable, nothing to identify the man or his occupation. Even so, to me the style of his living quarters was depressingly familiar.

  Then, as we were all trooping out again, I stopped. Light from our lantern happened to fall on the doorpost outside the apartment. There, somebody some years ago had drawn a neat pictogram of a single human eye. I knew the faded symbol. It's a sign informers use.

  Petro and I stared at each other. Looking more keenly for clues, I noticed that although the doorlock appeared innocuous its fine bronze lion-headed key, which the Second had taken from the body, showed that instead of the common pin-tumbler fastener that most people use, Valentinus had invested in a devious iron rotary lock, which would be difficult to pick or force without the proper key. Then, crouching near ground level, Petro spotted two tiny metal tacks, one knocked into the door itself, one in the frame. A classic tell-tale: tied between the tacks had been a human hair. It had been broken, presumably when the Second first entered.

  'No offence, lads, but we'd better think about this again,' said Petro, looking virtuous.

  He and I went back inside. Quietly and carefully we searched the room afresh, as if Valentinus had been a pal of ours. This time the Second watched us in fascination while we took the place apart.

  Under the bed, lashed to its frame, we found a sword capable of quick release by pulling one end of a knot.

  Although the windows looked out of reach, if you dragged the table to one, or climbed on the upended bench below the other, you could stretch outside and discover that somebody had banged in a couple of useful hooks. One had an amphora of good Setinum red wine hung up to warm in the sunlight; the other, through which a lithe man might just wriggle, had a stout rope neatly rolled up but long enough to reach a balcony roof on the storey below. Under most of the floorboards lurked nothing of interest, though we did find some letters from his family (parents and a cousin, who lived a few miles from Rome). We discovered no money. Like me, Valentinus probably kept a bankbox in the Forum, with its access number stored securely in his head.

  One floorboard in the bedroom actually had nails with false heads. It came up quite smoothly when you pulled it up by way of a knot, waggled your fingers underneath the wood and released a specially constructed bar that pivoted aside. Built under the board was a small, locked wooden compartment. Eventually I located the key, concealed in a hollow carved under the seat of the stool in the outer room. In his secret box the dead man had kept spare, succinct notes about his work. He was a neat, regular record-keeper. We already knew that: Valentinus' hat had been double lined; inside it Petronius had found expense sheets of a type I knew all too well.

  Some work that the dead man did, probably from necessity, was just the kind of dreary intrigue I often had to carry out myself for private clients. The rest was different. Valentinus had been more than an informer, he was a spy. He was claiming for many hours spent on surveillance. And although there were no names for the people he had been recently watching, the latest entries on his claim sheet were all codenamed 'Corduba'. Corduba is the capital of Romanised Baetica.

  We reckoned we knew who had commissioned this work. One of the expense claims from his hat had already been stamped and approved for payment. The stamp was a large oval, featuring two elephants with entwined trunks: Anacrites' chalcedony seal.

  Petronius left me in the Forum. The task was mine now. Facing up to it with my usual compulsion and stamina, I went home to bed.

  Next day, striking while some impetus was with me, I walked back to the Forum, up through the Cryptoporticus where the scoffing Praetorians knew me well enough to admit me after a few threats and jeers, then into the old Palace. I had no need of Claudius Laeta to advise me who to interview or to smooth the way. I possessed other contacts. Mine were probably no more reliable than the devious correspondence chief, but I was attached to them on the usual perverse grounds that make you trust men you have known for some time even when you suspect that they lie, cheat and steal.

  Momus was a slave overseer. He looked as healthy as a side of condemned beef and as dangerous as an escaped gladiator on the run. His eyes were moist with some infection, his body was scarred, his face was a fascinating grey shade as if he had not been outside for the past decade. Being an overseer was something he no longer worked at very hard; he left the rituals of slave market, placem
ent, whipping and bribe-taking to others.

  Momus now held some nebulous position at the Palace; in effect, he was another spy. He did not work for Anacrites. He did not care for Anacrites either. But in a bureaucracy every employee has to have another officer who reports on him to his superiors. Anacrites was attached to the Praetorian Guard but worked directly to the Emperor, so he was judged by Vespasian himself when it came to matters of reprimand or reward. Both Anacrites and I believed Momus to be the nark who told the Emperor what he should think of the Chief Spy's work. That meant Anacrites despised and loathed him, but it made Momus a friend of mine.

  I told him the Chief Spy had been seriously hurt. It was supposed to be a secret but Momus already knew. I guessed he had also heard that Anacrites was supposed to be hidden away at the Temple of Aesculapius on Tiber Island – but maybe he had not yet found out that the victim was really laid up on the Aventine with Ma.

  'Something funny's going on, Momus.'

  'What's new, Falco?'

  'This attack is supposed to relate to intelligence work. Nobody even knows what Anacrites was investigating. I'm trying to track down his agents, or records of what he's been involved with -'

  'You'll have a job.' Momus enjoyed disheartening me. 'Anacrites is like an Athenian vote machine.'

  'That's a bit subtle for me.'

  'You know; it's a gadget to prevent nobbling. When they used open jars fistfuls of votes used to go astray. So now the voters put balls in the top of a closed box; they wiggle down inside and then the election results pop out at the bottom. No fraud – and no fun, either. Trust the bloody Greeks.'

  'What's this to do with Anacrites?'

  'People pile information into his brain and if he's in the right mood he farts out a report. In between, everything is locked up.'