Nemesis - Falco 20

by Lindsey Davis

  She vouched for him being Virtus not Pius. I said he had to come with us. He reluctantly complied. His wife did not rush to pack him a travelling bag. We searched his home before we left, but found nothing, not even weapons. If he really was Virtus, he had left his armoury in the Transtiberina apartment, so it was now secured at the Fourth Cohort’s station house. The woman stayed behind with their children.

  We asked about his brother Probus. Virtus said men had come and arrested him - - Silvius and the Urban Cohorts, presumably. ‘Why didn’t they get you at the same time?’

  ‘I heard them coming.’

  We took him with us to Antium, where we joined up with Silvius. Silvius confirmed he had Probus in custody. Probus seemed to be breaking ranks and denouncing Nobilis, though it was too early to say if he would distance himself enough to give us evidence. When Silvius wanted to question Virtus, I had had enough with the other twin, so I gave him the prisoner without quibbling. Justinus and I sat in. I insisted on that.

  In two days of hard questioning, Virtus said little useful. His line now was that he had never had anything to do with any of his brothers’ cruel practices - - and, as he knew well, we had nothing to tie him to the murders.

  ‘None of us ever knew what Nobilis was up to.’ That tired cliché. ‘These things you are saying about him and Pius are terrible. Thank the gods our father will never know about it.’

  ‘Aristocles was no moralist! Look at the disgusting rabble he and Casta produced. Strong family bonds, have you?’ asked Silvius, insinuating,

  ‘Oh I see your game! I repudiate my brother. I reject Nobilis. If he and Pius did those things, I dissociate them from our family. They shame us. They are blackening the family name.’

  ‘What family name? Don’t make me spew.’

  Virtus just stared at Silvius. He was not a clod. None of them were. That was how those of them who committed the crimes had covered up their tracks for so many decades.

  ‘We’ll get the truth,’ sneered Silvius. ‘Probus is here in custody, you know that. Your Probus seems a fellow with a conscience. Probus has begun telling us a lot of helpful things - all about his perverted brothers.’

  ‘Probus is just as bad as them,’ scoffed Virtus.

  When Silvius needed a break, I was given a go. ‘Tell me about your connection with Anacrites, Virtus.’

  ‘Nothing to say.’

  ‘When did you find out about him?’

  ‘Around two years back. We went up to Rome and asked him for work. He thought he could use us, so it was fixed up. I know when it was, because our mother had just died.’

  ‘Casta? Was her death something to do with you going to see Anacrites?’

  ‘Yes and no. When we lost her, we felt cast adrift.’

  ‘Oh you poor little orphans!’

  ‘Have a heart, Falco!’ Justinus broke in, grinning. Silvius let out a short laugh too. He had bad teeth, not many left.

  I had remembered something someone told us about Casta. Unexpectedly, I strode up, grabbed the prisoner by his hair, then turned his head to demonstrate he had part of an ear missing. ‘Did your mother do that to you?’ I yelled.

  ‘I deserved it,’ said Virtus, immediately and without blinking.

  We had to stop then, because news came in about the discovery of more bodies.

  Justinus and I went with Silvius to inspect the site. On the way, Silvius owned up that the Urbans had been using Claudius Probus for the past few days to help them identify places where his brother Nobilis might have buried corpses. ‘We believe Probus is himself implicated in the abductions, though not as the principal.’

  ‘How did you make him talk?’

  ‘We had to provide immunity. The way it works, Probus suggests places that Nobilis liked - secret lairs he had, on his own or with Pius.’

  ‘Pius was the one who lured the victims; he brought them to Nobilis?’

  ‘Seems so. These spots are difficult to access, so Probus takes us and points out where to look.’

  ‘He knows too much about it to be innocent.’

  ‘He admits that. He says he was young, and coerced by his brothers. He claims he became too horrified and stopped joining in.’

  I hated him being given immunity. Sometimes you have to compromise, but if Probus was directly involved in the deaths, immunity was wrong. Silvius just shrugged. ‘When you see the terrain, you will understand. There is no other way we could ever find the bodies. My seniors conferred. It’s worth it, to clear up the old disappearances.’

  Silvius was quite right about the dreadful terrain. The first place we went was a forest, a few miles out of Antium. A thick canopy of slim-trunked scented pines, intermingled with stunted cork oaks, filled this thickly wooded area. At ground level, dense brushwood impeded movement. Nobilis must have used a narrow track. A slightly wider access had been bashed down by the Urbans. Following a guide, we struggled along it to a dell. We went in silence. When we reached the activity, the shocked hush continued, broken only by rustles and chopping spades as work went on slowly at the sordid scene.

  Bodies had been excavated and placed on flattened underbrush. There were eight or nine, of different ages; their poor condition prevented an exact tally. Most were now collected in proper array, but the bones of one or two could only be hopelessly jumbled on a sack. The troops had lifted most remains from their resting places and laid them in a row - except one. One body lay apart and they had not touched it. One was new.

  The men stood back. Silvius, Justinus and I went to look. While the workers waited, watching us, we surveyed the remains, pretending to be experts.

  Most of the recovered bodies had been found in the ritual position, face down and with outstretched arms - the mark of the Modestus killers. There were no more severed hands. Petronius must have been right that this was the letter-writer’s particular punishment for making appeals to the Emperor.

  We had all seen dead men. Dead women too. We had seen flesh battered and bones treated disrespectfully. Even Justinus, the youngest here, must already know the swift sag of the stomach that comes in the presence of unnatural death. That smell. The mocking way skulls grin. The shock at the way human skeletons can hang together even when entirely stripped of meat and organs. The worse shock, when long-dead bones suddenly fall apart.

  What lay here was in one sense no longer human; yet these bodies were still part of the wider tribe we belonged to. Most had died years ago. Many would never be identified. But they called on us as family. They imposed responsibilities. I cannot have been the only one who silently promised them justice.

  The newest corpse was a woman.

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Two days, at most.’

  Her killer must have been fleeing from the forest almost as the first troops approached. Perhaps the noise of them stomping down thickets had disturbed him. Perhaps he even glimpsed them through the trees.

  She lay on her own, not with the others. Those who found her had felt she was different - - still close enough to living to count as a person, not simply anonymous ‘remains’. Indeed, it would have been possible to recognise her face - - had her killer not battered her badly. She had suffered; large areas of her skin were discoloured by bruising. Someone suggested much of the beating was inflicted after death; we preferred to think so. Either her trunk was swollen because of what had happened internally during the violence, or she had been pregnant. Unlike the other bodies, which were deposited face down in scraped graves, this one had been left unburied and looking at the sky. She had not been ripped open. He had not finished with her corpse.

  Around her neck still lay a gold chain that must have been the means by which Nobilis managed to get close to her again. The expensive granulation looked like the hanging loop on the Dioscurides cameo. I could see the fastening. I forced myself to bend down over the body, unhook it, and remove the chain. It had dug into the flesh, but I pulled on it as gently as I could.

  ‘I know who this is.’

 
I recognised her dress. I remembered that sad rag from when she was brought to see Helena and me in the inn at Satricum. It was Demetria, daft daughter of the morose baker Vexus, obedient lover of the foolish grain seller Costus - and one-time wife of Claudius Nobilis, the pernicious freedman who so relentlessly refused to release her from his possession, that he finally came after her and slaughtered her.

  LVI

  Word of the grisly discoveries in the forest had inevitably spread. The bodies were carried out on hurdles; we left a small group of men still searching. When we came back to the road, a crowd had gathered. A few, who must have lost friends or relatives in the past, rushed forwards as the cortege emerged from the woods, and had to be held back by troops. Also there, though keeping to themselves in a tight knot, was a group of women I was told were from the Claudius family: three sisters, plus the sisters-in-law, Plotia and Byrta.

  They neither spoke to us, nor we to them. They stared, blank-faced, as we removed the dead. It seemed to me they would never speak, never assist with any knowledge they had of the crimes, never even defend themselves. Others kept away from them; who could believe these women were truly innocent of the crimes their men perpetrated? How could they really have known nothing? They would be ostracised. They and their children were further casualties. A grim cycle would repeat itself. The children would grow up angry and isolated. Already none of them knew anything except neglect and violence. Which descendants of Aristocles and Casta could ever escape the stigma of this bleak family? To start a new life would be too hard; to learn new behaviour impossible.

  I knew Plotia and Byrta had been friendly with Demetria, but her corpse was well covered; we kept her identity secret until we informed her family. Silvius and I did that. First, we sought out her father, Vexus. From what he told us, we were partly prepared when we visited the cottage where Demetria had lived with Costus. Costus had been taken in by his mother two days ago. Our news would not surprise him; he must count his lover already dead. Two days ago he had come home from his work to find Demetria gone. Their home had been trashed. Every pitiful stick of furniture they owned was wrecked. Vegetables and grain were scattered in the road outside. Pottery, skillets, brooms, rush lights, and a few personal possessions, were all stamped on, thwacked to pieces, shattered and smashed, the quiet means of domestic life pointlessly desecrated. And on the street door, we found a crude symbol: fixed with a long nail through its head was a doll.

  A shiver ran through me. I recognised this savage witchcraft.

  I knew now who came and destroyed my darling sister’s treasured home on the Aventine two years ago. Anacrites must have sent some of the Claudius brothers to frighten Maia and her children; his messengers included the depraved Nobilis.

  LVII

  Despite the long summer days, it was nearly dark when we turned in at our inn that night. Silvius had still not finished; he had gone to report to the magistrate.

  The finds in the wood were only the start. Painstaking work would now begin on the few scraps of material from the graves which might provide clues, with attempts to work out physical details of the human remains - height, body-weight, sex - if it were possible. Only that way might at least some of the bones be identified, to close missing-person cases and give release to distraught survivors.

  From one comparatively recent body, which had boots a local cobbler recognised, we knew the troops had uncovered Macer; he was the overseer who worked for Modestus and Primilla - the man who was beaten up when he remonstrated with the Claudii about the broken boundary fence and who accompanied Primilla when she went to challenge them about her missing husband. We knew we had not found Livia Primilla. I can say now that nothing of her ever was discovered. Her nephew would only ever be able to guess what must have happened.

  I was ready for bed, though my head was thrumming with today’s experiences. I would not sleep. I sat up with Justinus, neither drinking nor talking. We were staying near the beach; most places at Antium fringed the coast so not only rich men’s villas but even ordinary homes and business premises had good views. Stars and a slim moon rose over the motionless Tyrrhenian Sea. The beauty of the scene was both calming and subtly disturbing. My young brother-in-law and I, experienced in dark adventures together, remained silent. Our terrible experiences today removed any need to communicate.

  Suddenly we heard familiar voices. One was Lentullus. The piping tones of that nincompoop split the night with cries of mundane bewilderment as he tried to find us. Justinus smiled at me ruefully in the feeble outdoor lamplight; he half rose and called out. My secretary Katutis burst on the scene with Lentullus. They joined us, excitedly. Food and drink had to be supplied. There was a minor commotion, soon reduced as the hungry travellers ate.

  While Justinus organised, I demanded, ‘Has Albia been found?’

  ‘Oh she’s all right!’ Lentullus assured me, ripping into bread ravenously.

  Katutis had burrowed under his long tunic to produce a letter from Helena. ‘She wrote it herself!’ He was annoyed at this breach of etiquette. I felt off-kilter because letters between Helena and me were rare. We were infrequently apart for long.

  I took the sealed document aside, taking a lamp so I could read in privacy.

  Helena wrote to tell me a lively story.

  For a couple of days back in Rome, much activity had revolved around my foster-daughter. Helena now knew Albia had betaken herself to the spy’s house, convinced she could discover for us whether he was harbouring Claudius Nobilis. It began well. At first Anacrites kept up the pretence that he and Albia had some kind of special relationship. Once she wheedled her way in, she used the age-old excuse of needing a lavatory; then she hastily explored the corridor of utility rooms where I had seen Pius and Virtus playing draughts. She found the room with a third bed. Baggage was still there. Unfortunately, so was the occupant. Albia came face to face with Nobilis. She knew it must be him from the sinister way he turned on her; Albia was terrified.

  Luckily for her, Anacrites appeared. She wondered if he had actually been watching her progress. He sent Albia back to the main part of the house. Being her, she disobeyed and dawdled. She heard Anacrites quarrel with the man. He shouted that now Nobilis had been seen by Albia, he had to leave; the only safe course was to go home to Antium. Anacrites said he would deal with the girl.

  Albia did not wait to see what that meant. She ordered a little slave boy to tell his master she would seek sanctuary in the House of the Vestal Virgins - - the one place in Rome, she said, that not even the Chief Spy could invade. Then, although the spy’s house was always heavily secured, our streetwise Albia found a way out.

  Now she had to decide where to hide for safety. Coming home that night was out of the question; Anacrites would follow her. Helena did not tell me in the letter where Albia was, although she said she knew. Her mother, friend of a retired Vestal, had obtained curious inside information. The spy had turned up at the Vestals’ House in the Forum, mob-handed with Praetorian Guards. The idiot tried to enter this sacred place that was barred to men. He outraged the Vestals, those revered women whose sanctum had been inviolable since the foundation of Rome six centuries ago (and just when, chortled Helena, they had settled down for the night with hot mulsum and dunking biscuits). When they caustically denied any knowledge of Albia, Anacrites refused to believe them. It was horrible to contemplate how severely the Vestals slapped him down in return. Only he would have taken on a group of vicious professional virgins who had six hundred years of training in how to reduce men to shreds. He retreated ignominiously.

  All this had taken place before Helena and I realised Albia was missing. Next day - very soon after I left for Latium - Anacrites turned up at our house, alone, pretending to be concerned about her. Of course she was not there either. Helena showed him the door.

  He tried my mother’s house. This was another bad mistake and as a result he had now lost her previously unshakable goodwill. Ma was dozing in her chair - - anyone of sense would have tiptoe
d out again. He woke her. He was so het up, Ma could see he intended Albia no good. Despite her devotion to this worm whose life she had saved, Ma rallied; she might have been lukewarm about having Albia in the family, but in a crisis Ma always defended her grandchildren. Furious, she ordered Anacrites to leave, threatening to upend an onion casserole over his sleek head. Even he had to see their cosy relationship had ended.

  Anacrites next convinced himself Albia must have run to Helena’s father, to ask the senator to intercede with the Emperor. This was the spy’s worst mistake. She was not there - never had been - but my winsome father-in-law became incensed when Anacrites forced a house search on him. Camillus Verus called for his litter and immediately had himself carried off to complain to Vespasian.

  Not content with jumping into this vat of steaming dung, Anacrites stormed next door to the house where Aelianus now lived with his wife and the professor. Minas of Karystos was ecstatic at the outrage. Wielding a wineflask in one hand and a bread roll in the other, he rushed from a late breakfast to pronounce loudly on the rights of a citizen to live without interference. Unbeknown to us previously, he was a populist democrat, fiery on the subject. Even with omelette in his curly beard, he was good. He bounced outside into the street, seeing his big chance to advertise his hireable expertise to all the well-heeled inhabitants of that fine patrician quarter. Before a rapidly expanding crowd, Minas had already quoted Solon, Pericles, Thrasybulus the defeater of the Thirty Tyrants, Aristotle of course, and several extremely obscure Greek jurists, when aediles turned up to investigate the street disturbance. The aediles did nothing; they were so impressed by his luminary erudition and the interesting points he was making, they brought him half a barrel to stand on.