She sneezed, breaking us out of it. Dried, dressed and clutching hot drinks in my study, we discussed what would come next.
‘You know you have to come to the council tomorrow?’ I hated pulling her into this; she was only a kid. She’d have to talk to a load of old people, all sad and pompous, some genuinely upset about Aurelia, some curious, some jockeying for position in the changeover.
‘I know, Mama. It’s fine. Really.’ Her father’s hazel eyes looked out of her strangely worldly-wise but soft, unformed face and she laid her hand on mine. ‘I know what to do. Helena’s been going over it all with me. I’m going to help you with everything. Don’t worry.’
Juno! She was comforting me. She’d been raised as a Roma Novan, of course. She knew this stuff far better than I did.
At lunch in the nursery, I let Allegra explain it all to the others. Gil and Tonia cried. She let them carry on for a few minutes, then told them to shut up and get a grip. Great Nonna would be embarrassed if she could see them.
‘But, Legra, it’s horrible. Why does she have to go?’
I wanted to intervene, but Helena shook her head at me. Allegra was doing just fine.
‘C’mon, Gil, you know that’s how it is,’ she said. She looked at them sternly. ‘If you want to go and see her this afternoon, you have to wash your faces and behave with dignity. The last thing Great Nonna wants to see is cry babies. We’re supposed to cheer her up and make her proud of us.’
I had to look away. Where had I got this strong daughter from?
*
I woke with a start, a loud trill ringing in my right ear. It was the house intercom.
‘DJ custodes for you, lady,’ came Junia’s voice. ‘Do you want to take it, or shall I say you’re unavailable?’
‘No, no, I’ll take it.’ I sat up on my bed, the papers I’d fallen asleep over falling off my chest.
‘Mitela. Salve.’
‘What’s the matter with you, Bruna? Slacking again?’ Lurio’s sarcastic tone woke me up instantly.
‘Go screw yourself, Lurio. What do you want? It’s the weekend, for Juno’s sake.’
‘Oh, sorry, I forgot you PGSF lot only work weekdays.’
‘Don’t be a smartass. I’ve done ten solid days. Conradus’s on shift all weekend, until Tuesday, in fact.’
‘That’s why I’m calling you at home.’
‘What do you mean?’ I heard the suppressed excitement in his voice.
‘I thought I’d tell you first.’
‘What?’
‘We’ve trapped your little bird.’
*
‘She was on the Italian border in a hire car when some bright spark in the border guard spotted her.’ He consulted the screen. ‘Fake passport. Turns out to be a Brit called Sandbrook, ex-armed forces.’
He turned from his screen and fixed me with a stern eye. ‘Now suppose you tell me what’s going on here, Colonel?’
I glanced at the investigator, Pelonia, who was running the case. ‘Would you excuse us for a few minutes, Inspector?’
Lurio nodded and she left, none too happy by the look on her face to be thrown out of her own office.
‘Well?’
‘Have you done all the prelims?’
‘Yes. And?’
‘Including DNA?’
‘Well, she’s a foreigner. She’s hardly likely to match up, is she?’
‘You may be surprised. Can you run it discreetly?’
‘Why? Who is she?’ He smirked. ‘Not your long-lost sister?’
‘No, but she may be Conradus’s daughter.’
*
I was on my thousandth cup of tea when Lurio came back.
‘You’re right. We ran it against Tella DNA. It’s a match with very little deviation in the markers.’
Hades.
He glanced down at me. ‘How do you want to play this? Will you bail her?’
‘No way. What did you detain her on?’
‘Acting suspiciously on a public highway.’
‘Well, draw up a formal charge of misdirection of minors and corruption of youth. I’ll sign the papers now.’ I could hear the hard tone in my voice. It was only a glimmer of what I was feeling inside. The seriousness of the charge would ensure she’d be held in custody for the whole twenty-eight days pre-trial – the same period Allegra had to serve as her punishment.
‘Jupiter, that’s hard, Bruna. Are you sure?’
‘Oh yes. The formal complainant is Allegra, of course.’
‘Very well.’
He called Pelonia in and she did the paperwork, her dark head bending over the print-outs. She fixed me with a steady gaze from her grey eyes as she passed the file over to me for signing.
‘I must offer you my apologies for asking you to step out, Inspector. I didn’t mean to undermine your authority. But I think you understand why.’
‘Yes. I see now. We’ll keep it confidential until it becomes critical to the investigation. Of course, it’ll come out when it goes to court.’
‘Thank you. Here’s the direct number for Senior Centurion Flavius who led the surveillance operation. He’ll clue you in and make the team available for you to interview. You’ll get full cooperation, I assure you. My daughter will be available when convenient to you. Just call me.’
Pelonia thanked me and took herself off, presumably to begin questioning.
‘Do you want to see her?’ Lurio asked as we walked down the corridor.
‘No, thanks. I want as little to do with her as possible.’
Lurio gave me one of his ‘don’t bullshit me’ looks.
‘Look, I don’t want to, okay?’
‘Chicken?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ I glanced up at him. Hades’ teeth, he was right. I flicked my hand backwards to hide my embarrassment. ‘Oh, very well, let’s go stare at her if it’ll make you happy,’ I grumped, but now I was curious.
In the custody suite, I watched Nicola through the observation window as she answered the DJ interrogator’s questions. Her hair was loose now, straggling, darker than I remembered but her eyes were exactly the colour of Conrad’s. Why hadn’t I spotted that in England? Because I hadn’t been looking. She wore the standard bright yellow prison tunic; one wrist was cuffed to the plastic-topped table. I felt a fleeting wave of sympathy. It didn’t last when I heard her tell the DJ interrogator sitting opposite her to go fuck a sheep. He gave a contemptuous laugh back.
Pelonia was relaxed, shoulders glued to the back wall, one leg bent at the knee so her foot was flat to the wall. She looked bored and was examining the nails on her left hand with intense interest. Lurio and I listened in for around ten minutes. Pelonia and the other DJ custos swapped and she turned into the bad cop now, quite frightening when she got going. But they weren’t getting anywhere. It didn’t help that they were forced to do it all in English.
‘Do you want to go in?’
I was sorely tempted; I wanted to beat Nicola to a pulp for what she’d done to Allegra and what she was doing to Conrad.
‘No, it’ll contaminate the process. I’m only here as parens per procurationem for Allegra. Some smartass lawyer would use it to throw it out. I want this little bitch to go down.’
More importantly I wanted Conrad to see what she was.
Lurio walked me back to my car. I’d thrown it in the nearest space at an angle.
‘Lurio, promise me you’ll keep her in custody for the statutory twenty-eight. She’s a crafty tough egg and’ll try to find some way to slide her way out.’
‘And suppose your husband turns up armed with a fancy lawyer?’
‘You know what the law says. Tell him no.’
IX
I reached home only to find regular Praetorians on the gate and more in the courtyard. The guard saluted correctly, but didn’t risk a single muscle on his face by smiling. A slightly anxious Galienus greeted me with news that the imperatrix was here.
‘Yeah, I got that, Gally, from the toy soldiers outsid
e.’ But I smiled at him to take the sting out of my tone. I made my way through the vestibule into the atrium. Another one. Juno, how dangerous did they think our house was? I waved her aside and went upstairs, but she trailed up behind me. I arrived just as Silvia came out of Aurelia’s bedroom. She looked pale, her eyes glistening, but she was keeping it together. Aurelia wasn’t only her senior cousin, but her counsellor of many years, back to the time of the rebellion.
‘Silvia.’
‘Oh, gods, Carina. It’s so wrong.’ She held out both hands which I gripped and squeezed in sympathy.
‘Hey, come and sit down for a minute.’ I drew her down on to the day couch and, ignoring the damn guard, fixed her a fruit juice. She rarely drank alcohol during the day.
‘Aurelia will have been so pleased to see you.’
Silvia looked strained, the white amongst her glorious red-brown hair was gaining more ground. She was only in her mid-fifties, but the loss of her husband all those years ago had been a savage blow. She’d married Andrea Luca, when she was barely twenty, only two years after returning to Roma Nova. Nonna had reckoned Silvia needed stability and kindness after forcible exile following the terror of Caius’s rebellion. Andrea was an Italian academic who’d led the team clearing and restoring buildings damaged during the rebellion and the take-back. He’d loved Silvia deeply and supported her through the tough years when although still young, she had to rule a ruined country attempting to re-establish itself. On their sixth anniversary, he was diagnosed with cancer. He’d been in remission for a year when the cancer had come back suddenly like Nemesis herself. How bitter that her beloved cousin was being hunted down by the same killer.
‘When Andrea was dying, he faded a little bit each day in front of me. I felt so helpless. It’s the same now.’ She shivered. ‘What a colder place the world will be soon.’
‘I know, darling, I know.’
When the imperial circus had left, I stripped off and showered, sloughing off the grubby smell of the custodes stationhouse as well as Silvia’s despair. I played around making a big production about what to change into; in the end, I chose a simple tunic and laced leather belt and dried my hair in the most time-consuming way. But habit wouldn’t let me drag it out for more than thirty minutes. I sighed. I had to get it over.
‘Senior Legate’s office. Salve.’
‘Good evening, Prisca Rusonia. Is the legate available?’
‘He’s down in the watch office, ma’am. Shall I patch you through?’
Crap. Had he seen the joint watch report already?
‘Mitelus.’
He’d seen it.
‘Hi. Can we have a private talk?’
‘I’m working. I don’t have time for personal matters.’ And, unbelievably, he cut the connection. I couldn’t have been more stunned if Juno herself had materialised in front of me and slapped my face.
Well, screw him.
*
‘Gather you had a visitation this afternoon.’ Daniel smiled at me across the supper table. We’d chosen to eat together, Helena, children and Michael included. Was it some kind of tribal pulling together in a time of crisis?
‘Yes. Silvia was so upset. It brought Andrea’s death back.’
We ate on in silence, cowed by events. Once finished, I kissed the children good night, smiled at Helena and Michael and took Daniel into my study and updated him.
‘Well, catching that little tart’s one bit of good news, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but Conrad’s taken it badly.’ I told him about our non-conversation.
‘Maybe he’s a bit pressured or was in the middle of something important.’
‘Right. And catching the person responsible for nearly killing our daughter isn’t important?’
‘You know I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘No, sorry.’ I gave him a tight smile. And tried to catch my mental breath. ‘He just won’t talk to me.’
‘Do you think it’s that bad between you two?’ he said.
‘Nonna thinks it’s some kind of emotional crisis. Apparently, my grandfather went through something like it.’
‘I haven’t noticed anything different about him at work. A little pre-occupied, perhaps. But if you’re right, now is not the time, not with everything else you’ve got to deal with. Daniel snorted. ‘This bloody girl is just on the make. Why can’t he see it?’
‘I wonder if it goes back to his own bad childhood. Caius Tellus used to beat the crap out of him. That’s why Conrad went for the low-life beating up on that kid just before his accident. That’s why he’s desperately protective of his own children. ’
‘Yeah, but that was forty years ago. He’s a mature adult now, in a very responsible position. And you need all the support you can get.’
*
At eleven o’ clock precisely the following day, I sat down in Nonna’s place at the head of the long oak table that Junia’s staff had set up in the atrium. Allegra at my right side and twenty-five of my senior blood relatives occupied the remaining seats. More cousins perched in a line of chairs along the side. They gazed at me expectantly. I felt numb; I couldn’t think what to say. I’d completely forgotten how Nonna started these councils. Gods. I’d sat through enough at her right side. A movement at my left broke my trance; Dalina Mitela, Lucy’s mother, handed me a sheet of paper. Of course, she was the family recorder. She’d have the protocol ready. I threw her a grateful look, read the sheet and got a grip.
‘Thank you all for coming at short notice. I’ve called the council meeting to advise you of Aurelia Mitela’s condition. My grandmother is very seriously ill; the doctors don’t think she will live beyond the week.’ I swallowed hard. ‘I know some of you have visited her in the last week or two and this has given her a good deal of pleasure.’
Yeah, especially when afterwards she whispered clever ironic comments to me about the more pompous ones in the hoarse tones of what was left of her voice.
‘The imperatrix was gracious enough to visit yesterday and sends us her support and love in such a difficult time. If you wish to say your farewells to Aurelia, please liaise with Marcella. But please keep your visits to a few minutes only. I will not have Aurelia’s last breaths spent fending off crowds.’
Some looked shocked. Tough.
‘I apologise if you are upset by my plain talking. She is really very frail.’
Allegra laid her hand on mine. Encouragement shone out of her eyes. I closed mine for a few seconds, before looking at them all again through a blur.
‘I will advise you immediately of any further developments. In the meantime, I will continue to act as de facto head of the family. Does the council support my decision?’
For once it was unanimous. Nobody said anything further; they just sat there like parallel rows of stuffed movie extras. I brought the meeting to an end. Dalina handed me the record and I signed it off. I drew my hand across my mouth and brought it around to support my jaw. How in Hades was I going to carry on with this?
Dalina gathered up the folders and el-pad, zipping them up in a soft brown leather case. When she’d finished, she stood there, waiting. A little uncomfortable, but waiting.
‘Dalina? What is it?
Allegra saved me. ‘Dalina Mitela will be staying with us now, Mama. Shall I ask Junia to sort out a room for her?’
‘Yes. Yes, thank you, Allegra.’ She jumped up and trotted off on her mission.
‘Sorry, Dalina, I’m a bit lost in all this,’ I said. I looked at Allegra’s retreating figure. ‘But luckily I have some expert help.’
‘Please don’t worry, Countess Carina. I should have realised you wouldn’t know. I’m here to help you, not cause you any worry. My recording activities will keep me in the background anyway, so please try to forget I’m here.’ That made me smile. Even her formal black suit and solemn expression didn’t subdue her striking appearance and personal attraction. In a family with some reasonable lookers, her dazzling eyes and luxuriant waving chestnut hair
made her outstanding.
‘Thanks. Appreciated.’
I watched the fifty or so who’d fallen on the light lunch Junia’s staff had set up. I gave Dalina a tight smile and we headed for the crowd. People darted out of our way as if afraid of catching an electric shock.
Galienus appeared out of nowhere with a tray of glasses full of Castra Lucillan white. Nonna’s favourite, from our own vineyards. I grabbed one, and took a good swig. Fortified, I turned to go talk with the horde of cousins, with a smile on my face and a nagging ache in my heart.
*
I went into work as scheduled next morning. In one of her waking periods, Nonna had told me to stop moping around the house as it didn’t do anybody any good. Once I’d got there, I agreed. But Sergius had everything under control. I’d really have to get him promoted; it was woefully overdue. If anything I said had any weight any more.
At the senior staff meeting first thing, Conrad had all but ignored me, calling for my report almost as an afterthought. He hadn’t picked over it, but had given the impression it was pretty irrelevant. Daniel gave me a sympathetic look and even Sepunia, the Intelligence director, known for her cool detachment, looked puzzled.
‘Everything okay, Carina? Anything I should know about?’ she asked as we walked back afterwards.
‘No, nothing for you, just a personal matter.’
‘I heard your grandmother was very ill. How is she?’
‘We’ve got about a week, the doctors think.’
‘I’m very sorry.’ She laid her hand on my arm and fixed her green eyes on me. ‘Let me know if I can do anything. Please.’
Predictably, I couldn’t get a slot in Conrad’s schedule. I don’t know why I tried; he was freezing me out and taking advantage of his position to do so. Rusonia said he was taking personal time again that afternoon. What in Hades was going on? I paced up and down my office, trying to think it through. Sure, it didn’t take a genius to work out he was pissed at me about Nicola. Why wouldn’t he see me and talk, okay, have an honest fight, about it? But why was he ignoring Allegra and giving even a second to thinking about Nicola?
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