'Wasn't it you I saw talking to the trug-seller?' Lenia asked me. You couldn't squeeze a pimple in Fountain Court without three people telling you to leave yourself alone. 'I'm going to help him clear out his upper floor.' 'Why's that?' demanded Smaractus suspiciously. 'Because I'm a kind-hearted fellow.'
I waited until he was about to explode with curiosity, then I told him what I had just agreed with the cane-weaver. I would clear out the apartment and in return live there rent-free. Once we moved in I would keep an eye on the lockup when it was closed, allowing the weaver greater freedom to buzz off to his family.
Smaractus was nonplussed by this news. The word 'rent- free' was not in a landlord's vocabulary. I explained what it meant. He then used some phrases that proved what I had always suspected: he had been brought up by runaway trireme slaves in an unlicensed abattoir.
'I'm glad you approve,' I told him. Then I left, while he was still choking on his wine.
XV
Next morning I presented myself at the Aventine Watch. The Fourth Cohort had its tribunal headquarters in the Twelfth region, the Piscina Publics, which most people deemed more salubrious. Alongside the HQ was a station house for the foot patrols, where their fire-fighting equipment was stored. To cover their other patch, the Thirteenth region, they had a second station house, to which Petronius bunked off whenever possible. That was where he kept an office staffed by his casework team of plain-clothes enquiry agents and scribes. They had a lockup for people who were caught in the act by the foot patrols or who sensibly chose to confess as soon as challenged, plus a room for more detailed questioning. It was small, but had interesting iron devices hung on all the walls. And there was just space to get a good swing with a boot.
Fusculus was outside the office, helping an old woman compose a petition. They had a bench in the portico for local people who came with complaints. The duty clerk, a lanky youth who never said much, leaned down and worked grit out of his left sandal while Fusculus very patiently went through the procedure for the crone: 'I can't write it for you. Only you know the facts. You want to start off: To Lucius Petronius Longus, chief enquirer of the Thirteenth region… Don't worry. The scribes will put that bit automatically. From… Then say who you are, and tell us details of your loss. On St Ides of October, or whenever it was -'
'Yesterday.'
Fusculus kicked the clerk into action. 'The day after the Ides, there was stolen from me.
'A bedcover.' The woman had caught on rapidly, as they do when they have persuaded some handsome young fellow to work for them. '..a street gang who removed it from my balcony. In Conch Court, off Armilustrum Street.'
'Worth?' Fusculus managed to squeeze in.
'A denarius!' She was probably guessing.
'How long had you had it?' demanded Fusculus suspiciously. 'What was this treasure made of?'
'Wool! The most serviceable wool. I'd had it twenty years – '
'Put: worth a dupondius! Then the usual formula: I therefore request that you give instructions for an enquiry into the matter.'
As the clerk began to write, Fusculus nodded me indoors. He was a round, happy fellow, about thirty-five years and a hundred and eighty pounds. Balding on top, the rest of his hair ran around his skull in horizontal ridges. It had remained dark, and he had almost black eyes. Though rotund, he looked extremely fit.
'If you're after Petro, he'll be in later. He went out with the night patrol,' Fusculus announced. 'He's convinced there will be another gigantic raid. Martinus is on duty. He's gone back to the Emporium to check on some things.'
'I can wait.' Fusculus grinned slightly. Most people didn't bother with Martinus. 'So what's on, Fusculus?'
'Seems pretty quiet. The day patrol is out looking into a possible theft from the Temple of Ceres. We've got scratchers doing statues at the Library of Asinius – '
'Scratchers?'
'Lifting off the gilding. Then a tanner's allegedly poisoning the air by the Aqua Marcia. Normally it's poisoning the water… Anyway, we can get him for noxious smells and shift his workshop to the Transtiberina, but somebody's got to go there and actually sniff the air while he's working. Street fight by the Trigemlnal Gate -be over by the time the lads can get down the Clivus Publicus. Three apparently responsible citizens have laid separate reports of seeing a Wolf by the Temple of Luna.'
'Probably a large cat,' I suggested.
'On the usual form it will turn out to be a small, timid tabby!' chortled Fusculus. 'Escaped bears and panthers we pass straight on to the Urban Cohorts – well, at least those bastards are armed. And we let them catch senators' sons' pet crocodiles that have escaped from the rainwater tank. But a "wolf" we usually have a look at. Just in case it's suckling heroic twins, you know.'
'Oh, you'd want to be in on the action then!'
'Right! More boringly, we have an abandoned dead horse in the Cattle Market forum which will have to be cleared with fire-breaking tackle. Meanwhile we've got a bunch of runaway slaves in the lockup waiting for owners to collect them. There are also two careless householders for me to interview. They were picked up by the fire-watchers last night for allowing fires or smoke in their premises. The first-timer will be let off with a warning; another has been dragged in before, so he has to prove it was an accident or he'll be thrashed.'
'Who does that?'
'Sergius!' said Fusculus gleefully. I had met Sergius. He enjoyed his work. 'Then we've a third would-be arsonist in the cell who is definitely on his way.'
'On his way?'
'To the Prefect. He's a stupid sod of a jeweller who constantly leaves unattended lamps swinging in the breeze in his colonnade.
'So what'll he get?'
'A hefty fine. I'm taking him over to headquarters to be processed. Maybe you'd better come with me. Rubella wants a welcoming word.' Rubella was the Fourth's tribune.
I grinned. 'Am I going to enjoy this?'
'What do you think?' twinkled Fusculus. As he collected his cudgel, the arsonist and some official notes about the prisoner's misdemeanours, he continued filling me in. Obviously he was a thoughtful type, and one who enjoyed lecturing. 'Apart from all that, it's work as normal – which means not doing it because of more urgent priorities. We have an ongoing investigation of a secret religion that will have to be delayed again because of the new task, as will our long-term granary fire-protection programme, our anti-toga theft campaign at the baths, and keeping up the lists of undesirables.'
'What undesirables are these?' I asked, curious about what kind of degenerate earned a formal state record.
Fusculus looked rather shy. 'Oh well, you know we have to assist the aediles with their registers. Bars and brothels.'
'Somehow, Fusculus, I don't think bars and brothels were what you meant!'
'Mathematicians and astrologers,' he confessed. He looked faintly surprised. 'Anyone who leans towards the occult or magic has a question mark over them in the public-order stakes. Philosophers especially.'
'Oh, flagrantly seditious!'
'So I'm told. I'm not saying we believe the principle, Falco, but we like to be ready in case the Emperor demands a purge. Under Nero it was Christians. That's eased off lately, so we can go back to actors.'
'Disgusting degenerates!' I did not reveal that I had just spent three months working with a theatrical troupe. 'Who else?'
'Greek shopkeepers.'
'Now that's a new one. What's wrong with them?'
'They keep their booths open night and day. It's reckoned unfair on the locals. That can lead to trouble, so we keep lists to tell us quickly who to lock up when a row flares and dung starts being hurled about.'
Somehow I didn't suppose he kept matching details of the local businessmen who complained.
'I'm sure it's a relief to all honest citizens to know you stay vigilant!' Sarcasm was breaking through as I sensed there was more. 'And is there anybody else who threatens public order so badly you keep them under surveillance and maintain their names on secret lists?'
'Informers,' Fusculus admitted, looking resigned.
XVI
Rubella was still eating sunflower seeds.
He looked about fifty. Must have been, to have put in a full stint in the legions. He had been a chief centurion; that takes sticking power as well as a clean nose. Once he would have been about my level socially. Twenty years had pushed him on: promotion the whole way in the legions, discharge with honour, and buying himself into the middle rank. Now he commanded a thousand men; poor quality, it's true – the vigiles were ex-slaves for the most part – but if he continued to dodge disasters he could aspire to the Urban Cohorts, and maybe even the Praetorian Guard. Rubella was made – though he had spent his whole useful life getting there.
He was big physically; quiet; not tired by life. His grey hair was still close-cropped in the military manner, giving him a tough appearance. His strength was enough to move an ox aside merely by leaning on it. The knowledge soothed him. Rubella took the world at his own pace. He was utterly composed.
Fusculus introduced me. Rubella forced himself to pause between the seeds. 'Thanks for coming over. I like to induct new attachments personally. Welcome to the squad, Falco.'
The tribune's welcome was deceptive. Like Petro, he didn't want me near the squad. He seemed friendly, but it was a barely concealed front. I was an outsider. Uninvited. Liable to uncover private grief.
Some officials would have made me talk about my work for the Emperor. Rubella must have been told of my past career. He might have picked it over, full of prejudice and seeking to belittle me. Instead he ignored that side completely: a worse insult.
'You're an old colleague of Petronius'.'
'We go back ten years.'
'Same legion?'
'Second Augusta. Britain.'
'A good man,' said Rubella. 'Absolutely straight…' His mind seemed somewhere else. 'I've been having a talk with Petro about this task with the gangsters. He suggested I assign you to looking up some past history.'
I noticed the subtle way Rubella had put himself in charge of allocating duties. Clearly it wouldn't just be Petro and me haggling over the booty. Rubella wanted in. Any moment I expected the Prefect of the Vigiles to put an oar in the stream too. Then there was probably the Fourth Cohort's interrogation officer – Petro's immediate superior – to contend with. And no doubt each of the seven cohort centurions thought himself top man on the Aventine. If I wanted work, I would have to grapple for it.
'Past history?' I asked, giving nothing away. If a client paid I would look up birth certificates or wills, but it was not my favourite activity.
'You have skills we should be using.' I noticed his dismissive tone. I had plenty of skills available. Informing needs rugged persistence, intelligence, intuition and hard feet. 'Attention to detail,' Rubella selected.
'Oh dear. I feel like a rather plain barmaid when offered as a chat-up line, "I like you, you're different from the other girls…" '
Rubella stared at me. Apparently he had as much sense of humour as a centipede. He couldn't take an interruption either. 'Petro doesn't agree, but I think we should send you to meet Nonnius.'
'The nark who used to work with Balbinus? The rent-collector whose testimony put the big rissole away?'
'We have an excuse to intervene. The man is involved with tracing Balbinus' assets – '
'Oh I'm thrilled!' I was annoyed. I let it show. 'So while there's juicy work on the streets, I'm to be sitting with an abacus playing at audits!'
'No. There already is an auditor.' He had failed to notice I was ready to explode. 'A priest from the Temple of Saturn is representing the state's interest.'
He could represent the Establishment on this enquiry too, if blinking at profit-and-loss columns was supposed to be my fate. 'I can contribute something more useful than spotting a few dodgy figures on a balance sheet!'
'I hope so! You were assigned to us with a reputation, Falco. You'll want to sustain the myth.' Rubella was kniling now. He could. All he had to do was munch endless seeds in his oflicial throne of office while minions scurried in the dust. He knew he had riled me; he was openly enjoying it. 'Do I detect a problem with rank? I bet when you were in the army you hated your centurion!'
'I don't expect he liked me much either.' Aware of the goad, I came under control at once. Maybe he was trying to pack me back to the Palace with a complaint that I was uncooperative. If he imagined he could shed me before we had started, tough. I wasn't intending to play.
Rubella walked away from the fight. Barely pausing, he reiterated, 'Past history, yes. If we believe that the gangsters who robbed the Emporium have dropped into a hole that formed after Balbinus was removed, maybe we should have a look at what existed before the hole.'
The man made sense. My mind leapt, and I threw in quickly: 'Whoever ploughed the Emporium was lined up and waiting to go. Balbinus had only taken ship the night before. Someone could hardly wait to announce there was a new criminal regime.'
'They were effective,' Rubella commented. His manner was restrained. He looked like a cook who hopes the pudding will get stirred if he just stands gazing at the bowl.
'They knew how to get things done,' I agreed. 'Maybe it is someone from the Balbinus organisation – maybe even Nonnius himself.'
'That's an interesting suggestion,' Rubella murmured, apparently taking no interest at all.
Suddenly I quite liked being given Nonnius to tackle. I said I would visit him at once; Fusculus offered to come with me and effect the introductions.
At the door I paused. Rubella was busy opening a new cone of sunflower seeds. 'Tribune, a question. How much am I allowed to say to Nonnius?'
He looked back at me almost dreamily. 'Anything you like.'
'He turned state evidence. Doesn't that mean he gets treated with circumspection?'
'He's a hardened criminal,' said Rubella. 'He knows the numbers on the dice. Balbinus has been safely put away. Nonnius is no use to the state now, not unless he comes up with further evidence. If he helps you, you may feel it is appropriate to behave respectfully. If not, feel free to trample his toes.'
'Fine.' I could trample toes. I could even be respectful if the situation really warranted. I had one more question. It concerned mother sensitive area. 'Does Petronius know that I'm being given a wider brief than he suggested?'
'You can tell him when you see him,' said Marcus Rubella, like a man who really did not know he had just put the lid down on a very old friendship. He was still smiling benignly as I shut the door.
He could be one of those dark types who like to pretend they never lift a digit, while all the time they have a swift comprehension of events, a warm grasp of human relationships, and an incisive grip on their duties in public life. He could be loyal, trustwotthy and intelligent.
On the other hand, he could be just as he appeared: a lazy, carefree, overpromoted swine.
XVII
Nonnius lived in the Twelfth region – about two streets from Helena Justina's father. Which proves that money can buy you respectable neighbours – or a house next door to criminals. It was no better than where I lived. The criminals in the Capena Gate sector just happened to be richer and more vicious than the ones in Fountain Court.
The senator was a millionaire; he had to be. This was the rough-and-ready qualification for the job. Well, nobody needs exorbitant talents like judgement, or even a sense of honour, to vote in an assembly three times a month. But possessing a million is useful, I'm told, and the Camillus family lived comfortable lives. Helena's mother wore her semiprecious jasper necklace just to visit her manicurist.
Nonnius Albius had been chief rent-runner for a master criminal. The qualifications for his job were simple: persistence and a brutal temperament. For employing these over thirty years of violent activity he had earned the right to live in the Capena Gate area, just like a senator, and to own his own freehold, which in fact many a senator has mortgaged away. His house, which looked modest but was nothing of t
he kind, had a subdued portico, which carefully refrained from drawing attention to itself, where callers had to wait while a growling porter who had only peered at them through a fierce iron grille took news of their arrival indoors.
'It's like visiting a consul!' I marvelled.
Fusculus looked wry. 'Except that Nonnius' bodyguards are better groomed and more polite than consuls' lictors tend to be.'
There were stone urns with well-watered laurel bushes just like those at Helena's father's abode. Clearly the topiary-tub supplier at the Capena Gate didn't care who his customers were.
'What did you make of Rubella?' queried Fusculus as we still tapped our boot heels in the unobtrusive portico while the porter went off to vet us. 'A bit of a complicated character?'
'He has a secret sorrow.'
'Oh! What's that, Falco?'
'How would I know? It's a secret.'
Petro's team had investigated too many inarticulate inadequates. None of his lads could spot a joke coming. 'Oh, I thought you were in on something.'
'No,' I explained gently. 'I just get a deep sexual thrill from speculating wildly about people I have only just met.' Fusculus gave me a nervous look.
Nonnius was, as everybody knew, a dying man. We could tell it was true because when we were let in we found him lying on a reading couch -but not reading- while he slowly ate a bowl of exquisite purple-bloomed plums. These were the handpicked fruits, weeping unctuous amber, that are sent to console invalids by their deeply anxious friends. Perhaps thinking of your friends laying out silver by the purseload takes your mind off the pain.
The bowl they were in was a cracker too: a wide bronze comport two feet across, with three linked dolphins forming a handsome foot and with sea-horse handles. The bowl was far too heavy for a sick man to lift, so it was held for Nonnius by an even-featured eight-year-old Mauretanian slave-boy in a very short, topless tunic with gold fringes all around the hem. The child had gilded nipples, and his eyes were elongated with kohl like a god on an Egyptian scarab. My mother wouldn't have taken him on even to strut turnips.
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