Nemesis - Falco 20

by Lindsey Davis

  Silvius was pecking at snacks now, undeterred by the subject under discussion. ‘The sites were too old. I wouldn’t even say for sure that the deaths occurred where we found the graves. Two were in a lonely spot. It’s a deep ravine, a place with a real sense of evil. We hated being there.’

  ‘A ravine?’

  ‘Water channel scoured out by a river at flood time. Dry in summer.’

  Petro pushed back from the table, arms braced. ‘So - this is the question: what makes you decide your very old corpses, discovered close to Antium, are linked to the Claudius family who live - insofar as we can call what they do living - away across the marshes.’

  Silvius paused. He liked to milk a situation. We all waited.

  ‘Petronius Longus, this is what I need your help for. There is a witness.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Somewhere in Rome, we hope. Ten years ago, a young man fell into a street bar near Antium. He was hysterical and claimed he had been led off the road and nearly murdered by two villains. One man who seemed friendly and helpful had lured him, then suddenly jumped him and took him to an accomplice, an extremely sinister presence. He was obviously planning to commit terrible acts. The intended victim somehow escaped their clutches.’

  Silvius himself shuddered, while the rest of us moved in our seats and variously reacted.

  ‘Nobody took much notice at the time. If there was any kind of enquiry, it dwindled away fast. All the locals now think it was a couple of Claudii - Nobilis and one of his brothers. They were never interviewed, nor put in front of the victim for identification. They must reckon they got away with it. But we know the young man came from Rome - which of course wouldn’t have helped him get attention in Latium. He is believed to have returned home after his ordeal. So, highly recommended Watch Captain with the interesting friends -’ Silvius raised his beaker to the Camilli and me. ‘You are requested to help me find him.’

  XLVII

  All they knew was that the young man with the narrow escape was called Volusius. He was thought to be a teacher. Silvius had no details of his address in Rome. Petro had already tried the teachers’ guild. A pompous official, possibly detecting that Lucius Petronius despised formal education, said he would ask his members but it would probably take time.

  Petronius had cursed him for a piece of offal - - but he managed to reserve this view until he was alone. Perhaps the guild master would come good. Wrong. It took him no time to ‘consult his members’ - in other words, he had not bothered. He said he had no member of that name on his current list and nobody had ever heard of Volusius. He declared the lad must have been an impostor. Petronius asked why would anyone ever lower themselves to claim fraudulently that they thrashed schoolchildren for a living? The guild master offered to demonstrate his big stick technique. Petro left, not hastily but without lingering.

  The vigiles cohorts keep lists of certain undesirable professions (mine, for instance), though teachers are excluded. Impersonating a teacher, as the master had suggested, ought to be illegal but there were no lists for that either: probably because the pay was so low, fraud was in fact so unlikely.

  Rubella still refused to allow Petronius to leave Rome. So by the time our meeting broke up, I had volunteered for another trip to Antium, to re-interview people at the bar where the escaped Volusius had turned up screaming for help ten years ago. If the bar was still there, which Petronius doubted, someone surely would remember a hysterical youth falling on the counter while screaming he had been abducted and scared witless. Even in the country, that must be more unusual than calves being run over by hay wagons.

  The bar was there. It had been sold to a new owner who knew nothing about the incident. His clientele had changed. They knew nothing either.

  Or so the bastards told me.

  I pointed out quietly that if they left these killers on the loose, one of them could be a body in a shallow grave one day.

  ‘Never!’ a wall-eyed sheep-stealer assured me. ‘All of us know better than to accept an invitation from Claudius Pius to go for a little walk down a marsh track to see his brother’s spear collection.’

  ‘Who mentioned Claudius Pius?’ I asked in a level tone.

  He rethought rapidly. ‘You did!’ he snapped. ‘Didn’t he?’

  They all agreed that I had done so, despite it being obvious I had not. So against expectations I had discovered who lured away the victims - though this feeble conversation would not count as proof.

  ‘Anyone seen Pius around here recently?’

  Of course not.

  ‘So tell me about “seeing the spear collection”. How do you know that was the lure?’

  ‘It’s what the teacher said.’

  ‘I thought you knew nothing about the teacher?’

  ‘Oh no, but that’s what people around here all reckon.’

  ‘Anything else people around here know? Which brother’s spears were on offer, for instance?’

  ‘Oh Nobilis, bound to be. Probus has some, but nothing by comparison.’

  ‘Any recent sightings of Nobilis?’

  No. They said anyone who saw Claudius Nobilis would quickly look the other way.

  ‘So what exactly are you scared of?’

  They looked at me as though I was demented if I had to ask.

  I was ready to give up. This bar might seem a safe haven to a young man escaping two murderers, but as a watering hole it was deadly. If this was the best place to buy a drink where I lived, I would emigrate to Chersonesis Taurica, die in exile like Ovid at the back of beyond, yet still think I had the best of it.

  Preparing to leave, I glanced around the dismal place, then had one last try: ‘I just can’t work out what a teacher from Rome would have been doing on this road in the first place. None of them earn enough for a summer villa on the coast. I don’t suppose “people around here” know why he came, do they?’

  ‘He was coming to Antium to be interviewed for a holiday job.’

  ‘Is that right!’

  To my amazement, it turned out to be well known in those parts just which wealthy villa owner had summoned him. Incredibly, the rich man still had the same villa.

  I never met the prospective employer, but it was unnecessary. He was the type who, faced with a potential hire who had come to grief, insisted that full details of the man’s experience must be written down; in case Volusius tried to sue for compensation, presumably. A transcript still existed. I was shown it. They would not let me take it off the premises, but a scribe sat down and copied out the ten-year-old statement for me.

  Volusius described meeting the man everyone now thought was Claudius Pius, who made friends and lured him off the road to meet his brother. Despite having no interest in weapons, the naive young teacher found himself agreeing to accompany Pius. They went further than he expected, down extremely remote tracks, and he was already worried when they encountered the promised brother. This man was sinister. They met him in a clearing, as though he had been waiting. It made Volusius realise he had been deliberately stalked. He knew he had been brought here for evil reasons.

  Volusius had made a terrible mistake. Although he felt he was about to be murdered, he managed not to show he understood his danger. Perhaps because there were two of them and they thought they could easily control him, the brothers were careless. Volusius broke away and managed to run off. Shaking with fear, he hid in a thicket for hours, overhearing a discussion about fetching a dog to track him down. As soon as he thought the men were out of earshot, he made a break for it, and ran until he reached the road and found the bar. The barkeeper at the time took him to safety at the villa where he had originally been heading.

  The villa owner had clout. A search was conducted, though nobody was found. No one then made a link with the Claudii. Volusius gave a description of the two men, but it was too vague. If he had heard names, he could not remember them. He went into shock, too jittery to be of use as a witness. Some people even doubted his story. There was not a scratc
h on him. Nobody had seen him with the strangers. His fear might not be caused by trauma, but a pre-existing mental problem that made him imagine things. Enquiries petered out.

  ‘And did he get the job?’ I asked the slave I was talking to.

  ‘Out of the question. He was a gibbering wreck. A man in that state could not be allowed to give lessons to respectable boys. He never even met them.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He went back to Rome.’

  ‘Was he fit to travel? After such an ordeal, didn’t he panic at the prospect?’

  ‘We kept him here a few days. He was allowed to write a letter and his mother came for him.’

  ‘Got her address by any chance?’

  ‘Afraid not, Falco.’

  ‘We’ve lost him then

  ‘Why do you need to find him? It’s all here.’

  ‘And it’s invaluable, thank you. But we now believe the two men existed all right and there is an idea who they are. Volusius, as the only known survivor, might be able to identify them.’

  ‘I bet he’d still panic, even after all these years.’

  ‘Maybe. We have to hope seeing them in custody will reassure him … Tell me, what was the point of offering him a job here? Don’t boys in a wealthy family have their own private tutor? Were they so dumb, they needed extra cramming in the summer holidays?’

  ‘Excuse me! Quite the opposite. My master’s sons had an all-round education in which they both excelled. This was to give them special lessons, because they were so gifted and mentally demanding.’ It was to keep them occupied, I guessed, to stop them groping the maids and setting the house on fire. ‘Volusius had a sideline - - expertise in algebra.’

  Now we were getting somewhere. The vigiles do not keep track of the miserable, half-starved souls who teach urchins the alphabet under street corner awnings, not unless there is a very large number of reports of sexual abuse; or, better still, complaints about noise. But in Rome, playing about with numbers carries dark undertones of magic. Like prostitutes, Christians and informers, therefore, mathematicians are classified by the vigiles as social undesirables. Their details are kept on lists.

  XLVIII

  I had one more task before I left Antium. I went to the workshop which had once belonged to the famous cameo-cutter, Dioscurides. He was long gone but an atelier still existed, where high-class craftsmen made every kind of cameo, not just from gems and from coral brought up from the Bay of Neapolis, but wondrous pieces carved from two-tone layered glass. I bought a small vase for Helena, an exquisite design in white and dark blue which I could either save for her birthday in October or hand over now to win her round if she was still being distant with me.

  Remembering that I owned an auction house, I even made enquiries about bulk purchase - - but the snooty salesmen sneered at that; they wanted only to deal direct with customers and take all the profits. Pa would have wangled some deal, I knew. I wasn’t my father; I refused to become his ghost.

  Exclusivity did help, however. When I asked about the jewel found at Anacrites’ house, I was told they would have records of who made it, who bought it and when. I described it. They professed admiration for my eloquent detail. They sent me out for lunch. When I returned, a small piece of parchment was handed over, which they insisted ‘was in confidence. The cameo had been made a long time ago for an emperor who died before it was finished; it had remained at the workshop, awaiting the right buyer, until very recently.

  Sadly, the eventual purchaser was not Modestus or his wife Livia Primilla, but a man in Rome called Arrius Persicus, who must have oodles of bullion, from the price he paid. It was not written down, though proudly whispered to me. The gem left the workshop only a few weeks ago. That too ruled out Modestus and Primilla. It also left no obvious link to Anacrites. Unless Persicus had disappeared mysteriously in the past month, the agent’s claim to Petro and me that the cameo was found ‘in undergrowth on the marshes’ became suspect.

  It was possible Persicus had been done in on his way back to Rome with his expensive new bijou. Petronius would have to check if he had been reported missing.

  ‘Is he a collector of precious objects, or do you know who he bought it for?’

  ‘Confidential, Falco.’

  ‘Girlfriend, you mean?’

  ‘We rather thought so.’

  ‘I’m sure you get a smell for it … Is he married?’

  ‘Presumably. He bought a second piece that day - very much cheaper.’

  How sad life could be.

  I returned to Rome, passing straight through and making my way to the Janiculan. Communicating with my own sweet wife Helena Justina was now an urgent issue.

  I dumped my luggage in the porch. Times had changed: I knew people would take it in for me. I could hear my little ones romping in the gardens, with Nux barking. Instinct drew me down a path away from them. I found Helena seated on a bench that had been set up close to where we held my father’s funeral. A new memorial stood there, with an inscription to Pa and a sad last line naming our lost baby son. Also Marcus Didius Justinianus, beloved of his parents: may the earth lie lightly upon him. I had not been able to ask Helena anything about this; I had to arrange it myself. I had not even seen it since the mason set it up.

  Helena’s attitude suggested that she came here regularly. She was not weeping, though I thought I detected tears on her cheeks. If she was managing to mourn, that was an improvement on her previous tight, tense refusal to acknowledge what had happened.

  After I met her gaze, I sat beside her in silence, then we looked at the memorial together. After a time, Helena of her own accord placed her hand on mine.

  It was some weeks to Helena’s birthday, but when we returned to the house I gave her the blue glass vase anyway. She was worth it. I told her that; she told me I was a hound, but she still loved me. ‘I would have been just as pleased at your return without a gift.’ A man in my line of work has to be cynical, but I believed her.

  ‘Just so long as you don’t see it as a bribe.’ This would be our only mention of Petro and me keeping that man at our house.

  ‘Even you can’t afford the size of bribe you would have needed.’ ‘Oh I know. At least, unlike the wife of Arrius Persicus, you know I haven’t bought a bigger present for some secret mistress.’

  ‘No, darling. Spending even this much money must have been enough of a shock.’

  ‘I’ll get used to doing it. For you.’

  ‘Well,’ said Helena graciously. ‘You had better go and tell Petronius Longus what you found out.’

  ‘You’re giving me a pass out of barracks! - Not tonight, though, honeycake. I’m staying in with you.’

  ‘Don’t overdo it, Falco - or I will think you have something to hide.’ Helena Justina was almost her old self again.

  I really felt too travel-weary to seek out Petro but sent a message to him with news of Volusius being a mathematician and Arrius Persicus buying the cameo. He would follow up these leads. I suggested we meet up for breakfast at Flora’s next day. I burrowed back into domesticity -patted the children, tickled the dog, played mental tug of war with Albia about nothing much, bathed, dined, slept.

  ‘Anyway,’ Albia had demanded, ‘what did you do with that scraggy bit of rope you took away from Nux? We spent hours searching for it while you were away.’

  ‘I burned it. You don’t need to know why - - nor does the dog.’

  ‘That was a waste. She loved her tugging rope.’

  Nux was a scamp but I liked to think even she had standards. She might not have loved the rope if she knew what it was. Besides, with Anacrites repeatedly dropping in on us like an annoying uncle, the dog’s toy had to be sacrificed.

  While I was in Antium, he had even come up to the villa, Helena said. She told him I had gone to Praeneste for a client. She claimed it was a very attractive ‘widow for whom I carried out unspeakable personal services; Anacrites had commiserated with her in apparent shock and sorrow.

&
nbsp; ‘He said, This is a new side to Falco. So I snapped, You are not a very good spy if you think that! Don’t relax,’ Helena warned me. ‘The man is not stupid. He didn’t believe a word of it. Marcus, he will be wondering where you really did go.’

  Next morning Helena arranged to bring the family back to our house. I had the impression she had been pretty well ready to do it even if I had not arrived to fetch them. I left the villa earlier. Even up here, I checked carefully that I was not followed. The spy was a man. down now, though; perhaps he would stop haunting me.

  Flora’s Caupona was a decrepit drinks place in my family’s part of the Aventine, run by my sister Junia. Luckily she had not yet arrived, since her mornings were occupied with the needs of her son, who was profoundly deaf. Junia had proved an inventive, devoted mother who spent hours coaxing him into basic communication. She had already had plenty of practice with her supremely dull husband, so perhaps her patience with little Marcus was not all that surprising.

  In her absence the waiter Apollonius produced what the workers who formed the caupona’s early passing trade had to endure as stamina food: stale bread and weak posca, the vinegary drink that is given to slaves and soldiers. Nobody who hoped for a sociable outdoor breakfast would ever come here. The tuck had one advantage, though; it was better, and safer, than what Flora’s served for lunch.

  Apollonius had once taught geometry at an infant school; he taught Maia and me. It would have been a neat coincidence if he had known the victim Volusius - - a coincidence to find only in a Greek adventure yarn. In real life it never happens. ‘Can’t say I’ve heard of him, Falco.’

  While I waited for Petro to show, I wondered glumly if the stricken young teacher half dead of fright at Antium could also have left his job and become a wine waiter. If so, in this city with hundreds of thousands of street bars, we would never find him.

  I could tell by the jaunty way Petro approached that he had made progress. During the night shift, he said, the new facts I brought from Antium turned into excellent leads.