The lad looked round in all directions to make sure he wasn't overheard.
'After the women, isn't he?' replied Titus, showing off with special knowledge of his own.
LIII
But we knew we were probably not looking for a ladies' man. Especially not a married one, or the rural slave equivalent. Petronius Longus agreed with me: Damon wanted to get away from the cook because she knew he couldn't drive a straight marital course, so she nagged him. I gave Petro a look. This was a situation he knew all about. He accepted the look with a filthy scowl, and we gave up mending fountains for the day.
We gave up in Tibur altogether, in fact, since time was against us. The next morning we packed up and started back to Rome. It seemed as if we had made no progress, though I felt sure we had improved on our background information to the point where if the killer made a move he would be lucky not to give himself away. And, although Damon was not an ideal suspect, he might just fit the bill. I had acquired a farm too. It would be the bane of my life, but now I could call myself a man of property.
The first person we saw when we struggled home to the Aventine was my nephew, the real Gaius. He was in a fine bate. 'Well, you've really let me down!' he raged. Gaius could lather himself up like a dying horse. I had no idea what he was on about. 'You're a fine friend, Uncle Marcus -'
Helena had gone indoors to feed the baby while I was still unpacking the donkey that had brought our luggage. 'Calm down and stop yelling. Hold this -'
'I'm not doing your dirty work!'
'Suit yourself.'
He calmed down, seeing me unmoved. He had the family trait of never wasting effort, so subsided into a typical dark, Didius sulk. He looked like my father; I hardened my heart. 'I've got a lot to do here, Gaius: if you shut up and help, I'll hear your complaint afterwards. If not, trot off and annoy someone else.'
Reluctantly Gaius stood still while I loaded him up with baggage until he could hardly stagger up the steps to our apartment. Under the strut and bluster lurked a good little worker. Not for the first time I realised I would have to do something about him, and soon. Thinking about my Tibur nettle patch suggested a possible answer. What he needed was to be plucked from the wild streetlife he led. Maybe I could send him to the family farm. Great-Auntie Phoebe had a long history of mollifying daft young boys, and I could trust Gaius to stand up staunchly to the vagaries of my Peculiar uncles, Fabius and Junius. I said nothing at this stage. His mother, my ridiculous sister Galla, would have to be allowed to vent her disgust at any sensible plan I put up. Then there was Lollius, of course; well, I looked forward to running rings around Lollius.
As I followed Gaius into the house I sighed. I had only been home five minutes, yet the burdens of domesticity already had me feeling cornered.
'Will you give me some money to take your donkey back to the stable, Uncle Marcus?'
'No, I won't.'
'Yes, he will,' said Helena. 'What's upsetting you, Gaius?'
'I was promised a job here,' stated my nephew indignantly. 'I was going to earn some money looking after the baby. I'll be sent back to school soon.'
'Don't worry,' I told him glumly. 'The school holidays have another two weeks to run yet.' Gaius never had any real idea of time.
'Anyway, I'm not going any more when I'm fourteen.' 'Fine. Tell your grandma not to waste any more money on the fees.'
'I'm leaving on my birthday.'
'Whatever you say, Gaius.'
'Why aren't you arguing?'
'I'm tired. Now listen, the Augustales are about to start and I have a lot of hard night-observation coming up. Helena will be glad to have your help with the baby. I dare say she would welcome company during the day too, but you'll have to be quiet if I've come home to sleep.'
'Are you going to explain to your baby that she's not to cry?' As a prospective nursemaid, Gaius had a nice sarcastic attitude. 'What's the observations for?'
'To catch this maniac who's putting bits of women in the water supply.'
'How will you do that, then?' Like all my relatives Gaius viewed my work with incredulity, astounded that anyone was crazy enough to employ me, or that the tasks I undertook could ever furnish real results.
'I have to stand outside the Circus Max until he comes along and nabs one.' Put like that, my family's mockery seemed reasonable. How could I ever expect this to work?
'Then what?'
'Then I'll nab him.'
'I'd like to see that! Can I help?'
'No, it's far too dangerous,' said Helena firmly.
'Oh, Uncle Marcus!'
'If you want to earn some pocket money, you'll do what Helena tells you. She holds the keys here, and she does the accounts.'
'She's a woman.'
'She can add up.' I grinned at her.
'In more ways than one,' she commented. 'Come and eat, you pair of rascals.'
Grudgingly, Gaius agreed to sit down at the table and tuck in. Seduced by the unusual experience of a family dinner, something Galla and Lollius had never been known to provide for their children, he finally remembered he had a message to deliver to Helena: 'Your brother came to see you yesterday.'
'Quintus? The tall friendly one? Camillus Justinus?' 'Probably. He said to tell you he's been sent away for his health.'
Helena looked alarmed. 'What does that mean? Is he ill?'
Gaius shrugged his thin shoulders under his dirty tunic. 'I think it was a kind of joke. I was kipping on your porch, waiting for you to come home again.'
At the thought of the unloved scallywag hanging around our house pathetically, Helena winced. 'Did you talk to my brother?'
'He sat down with me on the steps and we had a nice chat. He's not bad. But he was very depressed.'
Tired after the journey, Helena rubbed her eyes and then gazed at my nephew with her chin in both hands. 'What made him depressed, Gaius?'
'He was talking to me in private-' Catching Helena's eye, my nephew writhed uncomfortably. But he owned up, looking embarrassed. 'Well, love, and all that stuff.'
I laughed. 'Well there's a lesson for you. That's what happens to young men who foolishly dally with actresses.'
Helena Justina filled a new food bowl for my nephew, looking thoughtful. Then, since she knew how to prevent squabbling, she filled another bowl for me.
The Games in honour of the late Emperor Augustus begin on the third day in October. Two days later is a mythical date for the opening of the gates to Hades; I was hoping that by then we would have a villain caught and ready to send down there. Immediately before the Games came a black day in the calendar, the traditional bad luck day following the Kalends, the first of the month. We had reasoned that the superstitious would avoid travelling on a black day so they would come to Rome for the festival on the Kalends instead. To be absolutely sure we were in place in time, we actually set up our watch the day before.
We were observing the city gates. Hoping our theories were correct, we concentrated on the eastern side. Petro and I took turns on the Tiburtine and Praenestine gates, where we stationed ourselves every evening just as the vehicle ban was lifted and the carts came into Rome; we remained until the traffic dispersed at dawn. Thanks to Julius Frontinus, the Prefect of Vigiles had given us help from his local men; for additional cover they were also on watch at the two gates to the north of the Praetorian Camp and two more further south.
'I hope you're prepared to be the one,' said Petro, 'who tells the vigiles they have to look for a ginger-haired midget with a beard and a wonky leg.'
'They'll think it's a big joke.'
'Falco, I've come to the conclusion anything you're involved in is a joke!' he retorted, rather bitterly I thought.
The Porta Tiburtina was where we expected the killer to drive in, whether he was our gingery suspect Damon, or somebody else. Both the Via Tiburtina and the Via Collatina enter Rome that way. There, and also at the Porta Praenestina where a road came in from the same general area of the Campagna, the vigiles were stopping and
listing every vehicle.
It caused a stir, to put it mildly. We called it a traffic census, ordered by the Emperor. Each driver was asked where he had come from and 'to assist with forward planning' where he was travelling to in Rome. Quite a few hated telling us, and some probably lied on principle. When they were asked the reason for their journey, and how often they came up for festivals, some of the middle- and upper-class occupants of carriages said they would rush straight home to write complaining petitions to Vespasian. Naturally we fell back on 'Sorry, sir; it's orders from the top' and 'Don't blame me, tribune; I'm just doing my job' – and naturally that enraged them more. When they screeched off with sparks flying from their wheels, at least they were too busy fuming to stop and consider what our real motive might have been.
The fat-bodied, four-wheeled, bronze-embellished raeda lurched through the Porta Tiburtina on the Kalends. At the time I was on duty there. I had arrived in position as soon as the first vehicles were permitted to enter that night. The grand carriage was drawn by four horses but was being driven at the pace of a funeral bier. Its slow drag had already caused a traffic tail a mile long. It was easy to spot. Not just because of the irritated yells from the frustrated drivers behind it, but because up on the front was the ginger-haired small man all of us were looking for.
I stepped back and let one of the vigiles raise a baton to stop the carriage. I could see the elderly Aurelia Maesia peering out short-sightedly. She was the only passenger. Damon, the driver, was in his late forties, freckled, fair-skinned and red-haired all over, right down to ginger eyebrows and lashes. As a ladies' man he looked nothing. For some strange reason that's often the case.
As the vigiles approached with their list of questions, I watched from the shadow of the inner gate, close enough to listen in. Details were taken of Aurelia Maesia's plans to stay in Rome with her sister, whose name she gave as Aurelia Grata, at an address on the Via Lata. She stated that she was visiting for the length of the Augustales and gave her reason as a family reunion. Damon provided the name of a stable outside the Porta Metrovia where he said he would be staying with the horses and carriage, then he drove off into the regular traffic jam that was Rome at night. A member of the vigiles who had been primed in advance set off to follow on foot. He was to stick with Damon all the way to the stable, then lean on a broom there for the duration of the Games, tailing the man if he went anywhere.
Damon did not meet our criteria for the killer. If he really did stay at these stables throughout the Games, he failed to match our pattern of a man who went to Tibur to carry out each murder and returned later to dispose of his victim's torso and head. Still, if there did turn out to be some connection with Damon, I could feel a sense of quiet satisfaction: the Porta Metrovia was at the end of Cyclops Street. It was only minutes from the area where Asinia for one had disappeared, being the nearest city gate to the Circus Maximus.
LIV
There were two Roman festivals named for Augustus. Eight days before October had been his birthday, on which formal Games were celebrated in the Circus; we had managed to miss that during our jaunt to Tibur. Now the main ten-day series was inaugurated, working up to splendid shows for the anniversary of the old Emperor's return from abroad after pacifying the foreign provinces. Still regularly bankrupting towns throughout the Empire, this was the kind of junket I tried to avoid. I didn't flatter Emperors when they were alive, so I certainly wanted no part in their deification once Rome was rid of them.
On the day of the opening ceremony, Petro and I were as keyed up as Brutus and Cassius having bad dreams the night before the Battle of Philippi. If he stayed true to form, come the evening our killer would be out looking for his next victim. Julius Frontinus had held long consultations with the tribunes of the Fifth and Sixth Cohorts of vigiles, who patrolled the Circus area; they were to have men out in force, with particular orders to protect the safety of unaccompanied women. Every time I thought about the amount of ground to be covered and the number of people who would be flocking to and fro, I went cold. It was an enormous task.
We had toyed with the idea of putting up notices warning people to beware. Frontinus forbade it. It cost us all some heart-searching but he took the final responsibility. We had to be hard. Everything had to appear normal. We wanted the killer to strike – though to strike when we were watching and could intervene.
My sister Maia came round that first afternoon. She was a bright, curly-haired spirit, smartly turned out, ready for anything, and quite uncontrollable. 'We should go, Helena!' she cried. 'You and I are the sort who can keep our eyes open; I bet if he's there we could spot him.'
'Please don't go anywhere near the Circus.' I was terrified. I was Maia's older brother and Helena's chosen partner. According to the ancient laws of Rome, my word should be law: fat chance. These were women of character, and I was just the poor duffer who tried to do his best for them. I had no jurisdiction over either.
They were close friends, and both argumentative. 'Maia's right.' Helena knew how wound up I was, but was turning against me over this. 'Maia and I could walk about near the Circus acting as decoys.'
'Dear gods!'
'We'd be brilliant. You've got to try something,' cajoled Maia. From what she knew about the investigation, I could tell they had already been conspiring while I was out. 'You missed him at the Ludi Romani, and you're going to miss him again.'
'Oh, don't be so encouraging. You might build up my confidence.'
'You don't even really know how this piece of scum operates.'
True. We had no evidence, apart from one sighting by Pia and her ghastly boyfriend Mundus, of Asinia being spoken to by someone on foot. The man they saw might be totally unconnected with the murders. Asinia could have been picked up later, by a cart, chariot, carriage, a man with a donkey – or for all I knew Perseus swooping down on his winged horse. 'The nearest we have to a suspect is a driver.'
Maia tossed her head. 'Some hunch you and Lucius Petronius dreamed up!'
'Trust us.'
'Pardon me, Marcus. How can I do that? I know you and Petro!'
'Then you know we have had our successes.' I was trying to keep my temper. Faced with girls with wild theories, always appear open to suggestion.
'What I know is you're a pair of loons.'
I appealed to Helena Justina. She had been listening with the downcast air of a woman who knows it will be her task to be sensible, whatever her heart says. 'Ours is a good idea, Marcus, but I can see why you're nervous -'
It's far too dangerous.'
'You would be there to protect us.'
'I appreciate the offer. You both mean too much to me, and I don't want you to do it. I can't lock you in -'
'You'd better not try!' interrupted Maia.
All I could do was to ask them to assure me they would listen to my warning and not try anything stupid after I was gone. They heard me with pitying expressions, then gave promises of good behaviour so solemnly that it was obvious they would do whatever they liked.
It was time to sharpen my knife and attune my mind to danger. I had no time to deal with these two when they were trying to annoy me.
There are men who would let the women they love take a risk in a desperate cause. Helena and Maia were courageous and clever; if we ever did use decoys they would be an excellent choice. But using decoys was far too dangerous. Something unexpected was bound to happen. A mistake or a trick would leave them exposed. It takes only a second for a man to grab a girl, then cut her throat and silence her for ever.
'Stay at home, please,' I begged them as I went off on my watch that night. Maybe they had been holding further discussions while I was preparing myself for action, because they both kissed me quietly, like well-behaved sweethearts. My heart sank.
They seemed far too amenable. Were they planning to try out their crazy scheme without telling me? Dear gods, I was in enough trouble.
LV
We watched outside the Circus all night. Once again I was p
atrolling the Street of the Three Altars; Petro set up camp at the Temple of the Sun and Moon. It was mild, clear-skied and humid. Not too hot, yet enough to generate an exciting atmosphere. Girls were floating about the streets in flimsy dresses, their shoulder brooches half unpinned and their sideseams agape while they burrowed happily in their packets of nuts and sweetmeats, hardly looking around to see who might be ogling and following them. Bare-armed, bare-necked, bare-headed: open invitations to lust. I had never seen so many carefree and confident Roman women, all apparently oblivious of their physical insecurity.
I was losing heart. There were far too many people, far too few of us on duty, far too many exits from the Circus, far too many streets where unwary home-goers might be picked up in the dark.
We stayed there until we were dropping. Our concentration was stretched unendurably, not least because we were so unsure who we were looking for amongst the throng. The Games had ended, the litters and chairs had come and gone, the prostitutes and drunks had taken over the district, and then even they went home. As first light began to show, I walked along to the Temple. Petro and I stood together for a few minutes, looking around.
The streets and temple steps were strewn with litter. Stray dogs and huddled vagrants rooted among the debris. A few lamps dwindled. There was silence at last, broken only by occasional disturbing noises from dark alleyways.
'If he was here, then we missed him,' said Petronius in a low voice. 'He may have got someone.'
'What do you think?'
'I hope not.'
'But what do you think, partner?'
'Don't ask, Falco.'
We walked home together wearily to Fountain Court.
LVI
Helena woke me around midday. She brought me a drink, put the baby in my arms, then snuggled up on the bed at my side while I slowly came to.
I freed a strand of her hair which had become trapped under my elbow. 'Thanks for being here when I came in.' I was pretending to joke about the threats she and Maia had made. Did I wake you?'
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