Ode To A Banker

by Lindsey Davis

  I walked down to the corner. At the popina the spindly young waiter was opening an amphora, balancing it on the point while he removed the waxed bung. He had worked here long enough to become well practised. The amphora was propped safely against his left knee whilehe whipped out the stopper one-handed, then he flicked his cloth around the rim to brush off stray shreds of the sealing wax. He had his back to me.

  ‘Philomelus!’

  At once, he turned round. Our eyes met. The waiter made no attempt to deny that he was Pisarchus’ youngest son.

  Well, why should he? He was just a would-be writer who had found a job to pay the rent while he scribbled, a job that enabled him to hang about longingly, conveniently close to the Golden Horse scriptorium.

  LII

  AT HOME, Petronius Longus was looking more himself today, though he seemed quiet. Helena and I dragged him with us viamy sister Maia’s house. I wanted Helena to be at the case confrontation, in the role of my expert witness on literature; she could hardly have our daughter toddling about there in her walking-frame. We were intending to ask Maia to look after baby Julia, but when we arrived we found her out in the street seeing off her own children for their trip to the seaside with my other sister Junia.

  They were all being loaded up with bundles, prior to a long walk out to the Ostia Gate where Gaius Baebius would be waiting for them with an ox-cart. Maia’s four looked surly, all rightly suspicious that this ‘treat’ had been arranged with an ulterior motive. Marius and Cloelia, the elder two, took Ancus and Rhea by the hand, as if assuming responsibility for poor little souls who were being sent to Ostia to be drowned, thus freeing their feckless mother for dancing and debauchery.

  She was being freed for Anacrites. He knew it, and was on the spot, helping to send off her brood. The way he was fastening satchels around them almost looked competent. The spy had probably learned how to supervise children while torturing innocents into betraying their parents to Nero, but Maia and Helena seemed impressed. Petronius and I stood aside, watching the situation grimly.

  ‘I took some leave for the festival of Vertumnus,’ Anacrites told me, almost apologetically. There was no mention of Pa hitting him, but I was pleased to see his ear had swollen like a cabbage leaf. In fact, once any of us noticed, it was hard to avoid staring at his lug. I wondered how he would explain it to Maia, currently waving the children off. Marius and Cloelia stubbornly refused to wave back. Marius even refused to acknowledge me when I winked at him. I felt like a traitor, as he meant me to.

  ‘Vertumnus? That’s not until tomorrow.’ Hades. It implied my sister and the spy would be spending all the intervening time together - in bed, for instance.

  ‘I am very fond of gardening!’ Maia chirruped brightly.

  When we asked if it would be convenient for her to have Julia for the next few hours, she replied with unusual force, ‘Not really, Marcus!’

  Undoubtedly, Maia and Anacrites were not laying plans to dig out a shrubbery with hand trowels. I cursed Vertumnus. Garden festivals and regrettable behaviour have always gone together. People only have to put a prickly wreath of leaves and apples round their necks and they start to think about life surging in all the wrong places. The idea of Anacrites making offerings to the spirit of change and renewal was too ghastly to contemplate.

  We had to take Julia to my mother’s instead. Helena went in to beg the favour. It was too soon after I had upset Ma for me to show my face.

  Petronius and I stayed out in the street, watching a group of slaves carrying out bundles from Ma’s apartment and loading a short mule train. I enquired who was leaving and they told me Anacrites. I had had enough of him today - but I could bear this. I wondered privately where they would be transporting his chattels; Petro asked straight out: to the Palatine.

  ‘He has a house up there,’ Petronius told me in a sombre voice. ‘Swank place. Old republican mansion. Goes with his job.’

  That was news. I only knew about Anacrites’ office on the Palatine and his Campanian villa. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘He has been living on my ground,’ said Petronius, like a heavy professional. His eyes narrowed with loathing. The vigiles hated the intelligence service. I keep an eye on local spies.’

  Helena came out, this time minus the baby. She flashed me a look of relief that the arrangement had been conducted peacefully, then she too glanced at the slaves who were packing up the spy’s belongings. Now it was Helena’s turn to wink - at Petronius and me.

  ‘How was Ma?’ I ventured to ask nervously; I would have to go in and see her when we came back to collect the child later.

  ‘Seemed all right.’ Helena waved at someone cheerily; she had spotted the old neighbour, Aristagoras. He had joined a group of sightseers gawping at the removal gang. ‘Of course,’ she then told Petro and me in a strange voice, ‘there is always a possibility that while Anacrites thought he was two-timing your mother with Maia, the excellent and spirited Junilla Tacita may have been two-timing him.’

  Too much imagination. She read too many sensational love stories; I told her so.

  Miffed, Helena chose to ignore me on the short walk to the Clivus Publicius. She tucked her arm through that of Petronius Longus. ‘Lucius, I have been meaning to ask you about the other night. If you had been asleep in bed, that giant would have killed you before you could raise the alarm. But you threw the bench and the flowerpots into the street. Were you out on the balcony when he burst in?’

  ‘With a drink!’ I snorted. If so, and if he had been there until nearly dawn, I did not care to know. I had enough worries. I wanted a best friend with a casual attitude, but not one who was an outright mess.

  He had definitely not been drunk, though. If he had been, he would he dead now.

  ‘I’m on night shift this week,’ he explained, ‘I had only just come home.’

  ‘So what were you doing?’ Helena pried.

  ‘Thinking. Looking at the stars.’

  ‘Good gods,’ I muttered. ‘Everybody must be at it - you really have got a new woman you’re mooning about.’

  ‘Not me,’ he said. We were squeezing down an alley, so he was able to concentrate on avoiding broken paving-slabs.

  ‘Liar. Can I remind you, I told you all about it, when I fell in love.’

  ‘Every time it happened!’ he groaned. I ignored the slander.

  He was still too quiet. I started to wonder if it had been a bad mistake letting him see Maia’s children going off to Ostia. His own three young daughters lived there these days; his wife had taken them there with her lover, the potted salad-seller, who was trying to build up a business selling snacks on the harbour quays. Now I felt guilty. If I had finished the Chrysippus case earlier, Petronius could have gone with Junia and Gaius Baebius in their ox-cart, and could have visited his own children.

  Something in his expression warned me not to mention that, not even to apologise.

  Fusculus and Passus, with a few vigiles in red tunics, were waiting for us outside the house in the Clivus Publicius. Helena’s brother Aelianus was talking to them. I had sent for him. This had little to do with his enquiries into the bank’s clients, but it would be good experience.

  We all went indoors together. Passus and Helena immediatelystarted conferring on the sidelines about the scrolls they had read. I checked with Fusculus that he had managed to contact the shipper, Pisarchus, and ordered him to join us here.

  Petronius was walking slowly around a large handcart that was standing in the first great reception hall. Everyone was moving from their lodgings today: this, we were told as we sniffed at it like curious street mongrels, was the removal cart Diomedes had brought to take away his property. He was stripping out the room he used to have here.

  Aelianus looked over the cartload with some envy. Boyhood, a spoiled adolescence, and an idle young manhood could be catalogued from this high-piled clutter. Rugs, tunics, cloaks, sandalwood boxes, half-empty wine flagons, a folding chair, a set of spears, candelabra, a double fl
ute, a tangled horse harness, soft furnishings - and since his late father had been a rich scroll-seller, a couple of score of highly decorated silver scroll-cases. The conveyance was dangerously laden, but would probably not tip over. It was the kind of pedestrian trolley that is just too small to count as a ‘wheeled vehicle’ and so avoids the curfew laws. A slave would push and pull it, mounded higher than he was, at an inching pace, annoying residents all the way he went.

  ‘Where is Diomedes?’ I asked one of the slaves. He was upstairs, supervising the retrieval of his things. ‘Ask him to come down right now and join me in the Greek library, please.’

  I wondered too where Vibia was, though not for long: she minced downstairs in an extremely attractive summer gown of suitable flimsiness to withstand the August heat. The curtain that normally disguised the stairs had been fastened back to facilitate the removal of Diomedes’ stuff. We men watched Vibia Merulla walk all the way down, while she enjoyed pretending not to notice us. Helena looked up from her discussion with Passus, and assumed a faint but obvious sneer.

  ‘Been closeted with the boyfriend?’ I asked.

  ‘If you are referring to Diomedes,’ replied Vibia coldly ‘I have not seen him or spoken to him for weeks.’

  Her eyes flickered over Aelianus. Judging Vibia only by her expensive home and clothes, he smiled politely. I had my work cut out. Twenty-five, and he could not yet tell when a woman was a common piece. But she could see that he was young, bored, and much better bred than the vigiles.

  Helena had moved towards her brother protectively. Vibia stared at Helena, not expecting a woman in our party. A brief moment of hostility passed between the two women.

  I waited until Vibia made her way out of earshot, then gestured to the laden cart and murmured to Fusculus, ‘That first day, you searched all the upstairs rooms, of course?’

  ‘We did.’ Fusculus looked annoyed with me for checking, but then added honestly, ‘We would not have known Diomedes was significant at that stage.’

  ‘Right. Let the slaves finish loading - then keep the handcart here, please.’

  ‘And once we’re out of the way, get this lot checked over!’ Petronius quietly added. Fusculus gleamed with excitement, then signalled a ranker to lean casually against a pillar, keeping the cart well observed.

  We walked through the small lobby to the Latin library. My various minor witnesses had assembled. I briefed Passus in an undertone on statements he could take now, then left him in charge of them. Helena, Aelianus, Petronius, Fusculus and I went through to the Greek library where the main suspects were self-consciously milling around.

  LIII

  I HAD ARRANGED the room in an open square with seats of all kinds, which I had borrowed from other rooms; they lined the four sides and faced in centrally.

  Petronius, Fusculus and I clustered together at the equivalent of the throne end of this audience chamber, throwing down on spare chairs an impressive collection of note-tablets (most irrelevant, but they looked sinister). Helena positioned herself to our far right, withdrawn from us slightly in a modest way. She placed various scrolls beside her, in two large piles and a smaller set. The benches directly opposite to us had been left free, to be used later when witnesses were called in from the other library. Aelianus, in his crisp white tunic, was stationed by the dividing door, ready to tell Passus when I wanted someone sent in.

  Round the corner from Helena, on the right-hand side, I sat the parties who had family connections to the dead man. Lysa and Vibia, his two wives, embraced each other with muffled sobs and clung together, ostentatiously at one in bereavement. With them were Diomedes, at his mother’s side, and Lucrio, who plotted himself on the other side of Vibia as if he could not bear to sit by Lysa’s tiresome son. Diomedes stared into space, as usual looking spare, like the pennanent understudy at a play. At first, Lucrio sat with his arms folded grimly, but he soon relaxed and became himself, cleaning out his dental crannies surreptitiously with a gold toothpick.

  Down the left-hand side were the authors: Turius, Scrutator, Constrictus and Urbanus. I eyed them up when they were not looking: Turius, looking flash in yet another brand new tunic and snappy sandals; Scrutator, at the ready to catch anyone’s eye and regale them with boring stories; Constrictus, trying to avoid talking to Scrutator and already haunted by the need for a lunchtime drink; Urbanus, simply sitting quiet so he could take mental notes. With them sat the scroll-shop manager, Euschemon, who had just shambled in unobtrusively from the corridor that led to the scriptorium.

  Even when I had managed to nudge everyone to their seats, the lofty Greek library still seemed quite empty, despite the crowd. As it started gently warming up, this cool, quiet room had probably never been so well populated. The three graded tiers of white marble columns reached high above us amidst the crammed sets of documents in their endless pigeonholes. Sunlight filtered in gently from the ceiling-height windows, motes constantly drifting in the beams of light. In the centre of the elegantly tiled floor lay the circular mosaic where Chrysippus had been found dead, its tesserae and grout still bearing faint traces of his blood after inexpert cleaning. Without comment, I fetched a striped woollen floor rug, which I flung down across the main motif, hiding the stains.

  People had been talking; the murmurs abruptly died down. For a mad moment, I was reminded of the last time I addressed an invited audience - in the Auditorium of Maecenas at my recital with Rutilius Gallicus. For some reason, this time I felt much more in command. I was the professional here. Petronius, still resting his voice after Bos nearly strangled him, had given me the lead role. I did not need a script. And I dominated people’s attention as soon as I was ready to speak.

  ‘Friends, Romans, Greeks - and Briton - thank you all for coming. Sadly, I am reminded of an evening last month when I met Aurelius Chrysippus for the first time. He performed the introductions on that occasion, but today I have to do the honours. My name is Didius Falco; I am investigating Chrysippus’ violent death. I am doing this as a consultant to the vigiles’ - I made a polite gesture - ‘in the hope of finding consolation and certainty for his desolate family ‘ Vibia, Lysa and Diomedes bit their lips and stared at the floor bravely. Lucrio, the dead man’s freed slave, remained impassive. ‘Chrysippus spent his last moments in this library. Perhaps by assembling in the same location today, we can jog someone’s memory.’

  ‘Does the killer feel his spine crawling?’ asked Petronius, in a loud aside. While I continued to play the mild-mannered type, he glared around and tried to make everyone feel uncomfortable. His remark presumed the killer was already here, of course.

  I took up the thread again. ‘There are in fact two recent deaths in the scriptorium circle. Avienus, who was a respected historian, had the misfortune to be found hanged on the Probus Bridge. I am going to talk about that first.’

  ‘Do we have to be here for that?’ Vibia burst out, jumping to her feet. ‘He is not a relation. Anyway, I was told he committed suicide.’

  ‘Please be patient.’ I raised my hand gently and waited until she sank back onto her chair again, her fingers plucking obsessively at the fancy fabric of her gown. ‘I want you all here for the entire examination. One person’s evidence could spark a forgotten clue from someone else. To go back to Avienus: two deaths within a small circle of acquaintances may be a coincidence. Yet they may be connected.’

  ‘You mean, the historian killed my husband?’

  I pursed my lips. ‘It is a possibility.’

  ‘Well, you can’t ask Avienus to confess!’ As a joke, this crack of Vibia’s was not only in bad taste, but rather hysterical. Vibia Merulla seemed nicely overwrought. That was good; I had hardly started yet.

  I turned to the row of authors.

  ‘Let’s talk about your unhappy colleague. When Chrysippus died, Avienus was the first person to present himself to me for interview. In my experience that can mean various things: he was innocent and wanted to get back to normal life; or he was guilty, and seeking to put u
p a smokescreen. Maybe he was trying to find out just how much I knew. Equally I am conscious, here in the company of writers, that he could even have wanted to experience a murder enquiry for professional reasons - because he saw it as intriguing research.’

  Behind me, Fusculus let out a hollow laugh.

  ‘Our first interview was bland,’ I continued. ‘I lost the chance to put further questions to him later.’ If Avienus was a murder victim, that lost chance might be significant. Someone had shut him up. ‘He and I talked mostly about his work. He had a “block”, he told me.’ I looked straight at Turius, the other fellow who had somehow extended his deadlines. ‘Avienus had missed his delivery date; do you happen to know how late he was?’

  Turius sniffled, unabashed, and shook his head.

  I looked along to the playwright Urbanus, who replied briefly, ‘Years!’

  Scrutator joined in more rudely: ‘Bloody years, yes!’

  ‘I gathered these “blocks” were regular,’ I commented. ‘Chrysippus seems to have been generous about them. Was the same lenience extended to the rest of you, Pacuvius?’

  ‘Never,’ scoffed the big, rangy satirist. ‘He expected us to hand in the goods.’

  Most of the group was sitting passive but wary. Only Urbanus seemed relaxed: ‘Were there some curious features of Avienus’ supposed suicide, Falco?’

  I glanced at Petronius Longus. ‘Curious features? Noted!’ he replied, as if the suggestion that these curiosities might matter was new to him.

  I avoided discussing the manner of the historian’s death: ‘I won’t go into details. I don’t want to prejudice a future court case,’ I said ominously. ‘But why might Avienus commit suicide? We thought he had money worries. In truth, he had recently paid off his debt. So where did the cash come from? Not payment for finally handing in his manuscript?’ I looked at Euschemon, who shook his head.