If you think I sound harsh, just you sign a contract for extending your workshop space or refurbishing your dining room. Then wait and see.
Pa did eventually report the corpse to the Prefect of the Urban Cohorts. They wandered out to his house and first tried their usual trick: since the victims and presumed suspects were Romans, Pa should pass the problem to the city vigiles Pa stamped on that idea, and Petronius was there to state the case with real authority. Authority was a new concept to the Urbans, who caved in and borrowed lights. Inspecting the burial after nightfall was a great help.
Acting as if they had never seen a corpse before, they took note of the fact that a man (even they could tell that) had croaked and been dumped under a new mosaic floor. Petronius steered them into working out that someone stove in his head with a building tool. 'That might be a spade,' he explained rudely. 'Or a heavy pick, maybe.' The Urbans nodded wisely.
Their corpse was of average age, height, weight and appearance. As far as they knew, there were no missing persons reported with that description. They thought themselves very clever for noticing the dead man had been bearded and was barefoot.
'Someone stole his boots after they topped him,' suggested my father (it was the kind of thing he would have done).
The Urbans then stumbled about the garden in the dark, looking for clues. Surprise! They found nothing. The contractors had been gone a couple of weeks now. One thing they had done really well was to sweep clean the site before they left. 'That must have surprised you!' I commented to Pa. He laughed grimly. We knew now why they were so careful.
The dumb cohort boys caused themselves a lot of confusion when they discovered the tools Pa and I had been using earlier in his garden. After a bit of arguing, we managed to deflect them from that little byway, then they lost interest. They convinced themselves they knew who had killed the man. I pointed out that while somebody working on the bath house might be responsible, there was no proof. They saw me as a troublemaker, and ignored that. They sauntered off into the night, believing this one was easy.
Two days later a sad officer called on Pa at the Saepta Julia. By now the Urbans were greatly miffed that no solution had been dropped into their laps by the gods. All they knew was that Gloccus and Cotta had both left Rome. While this seemed to confirm their guilt, it meant no arrest. Were we surprised? What do you think?
The Urban Prefect wanted to clear up the case and the situation was even worse for me. Pa expected me to take over when the real investigators feebly dropped out.
Well, at least it could be a training exercise for my bright young assistants.
Young, yes; bright, perhaps. Assisting – no chance. I got more help from Nux. The lads were an unlikely pair for informing. Friends of mine thought they would quickly tire of me. I reckoned I would soon be dumping them.
Helena Justina had two well-brought-up patrician brothers: Aulus Camillus Aelianus and Quintus Camillus Justinus. When I first knew her, both had looked promising citizens, Justinus, the younger, especially. He and I shared some foreign adventures; I liked him and although he could behave like an idiot, I was impressed by his abilities. I never expected to work much with him because he seemed cut out for higher things.
Aelianus, two years the elder, had been on the verge of standing for the Senate. To look respectable, he became betrothed to an heiress from Baetica, Claudia Rufina. A nice enough girl, with extremely nice financial assets. Then Justinus stupidly eloped with Claudia. They were in love when they ran off, though probably not now.
The abandoned Aelianus felt a fool and refused to go through with the Senate election. He had a point. The family had already survived a political crisis when an uncle tried some dangerous plotting. Now public scandal gathered again. All the chalk-white robes in Rome could not really make Aelianus look a pristine candidate, one with illustrious ancestors and blameless modern relatives.
Deprived of his expectations and in retaliation, while Justinus was away marrying the heiress in Spain, Aelianus wormed his way in with me. He knew Justinus was planning to come home to work with me, and hoped to steal the position. (What position? sceptics might well ask.)
Justinus reappeared in Rome early that spring, not long after my daughter Sosia Favonia was born. Claudia had married him. We had all thought she might lose interest (mainly because Justinus already had), but they were both too stubborn to admit their mistake. Her rich grandparents had bestowed some money on the pair, though Justinus told me privately it was not enough. He appealed to me for support, and since he had always been my favourite, I was stuck.
I did escape one hairy proposal: Helena had talked about Justinus and Claudia coming to live with us. But their first visit on their return to Rome coincided with one of our nursemaid's days off. While Hyspale was gallivanting on yet another shopping trip, Julia was racing about our new home's corridors with Nux. My dog thought being 'good with children' meant pretending to savage them, so that was noisy. Nux smelt too. Mico's Valentinianus must have rubbed bits of gherkin into her fur. At the same time, the baby – who picked up tricks very quickly – had just learned how to turn herself blue with hysteria. Dear Favonia was well tended, but an unkind father might say babies produce as many smells as dogs. So our newly-weds backed out of sharing accommodation rapidly. I'm sure I would have begged them to reconsider, if I had thought of it.
Over the job, however, Justinus refused to give way to his brother. So now I had both lads at my tunic tails. It was a misery to their parents, who had already lost their daughter to the low-life Didius Falco; now both their noble boys were coming to play in the gutter as well. Meanwhile, I had to keep the jealous pair apart.
I gave them the bath house incident to experiment with. They had been hoping for more impressive clients than Pa. For instance, ones who would pay fees.
'Wrong,' I explained harshly. 'This man is excellent to start with. Why? Now you learn about clients. As informers, you must always out-manoeuvre the devious crook who commissions you: weigh him up first!
'My father, whom you know as Didius Geminus, is really called Didius Favonius – so right from scratch, you're tracing a fake name. With a client, this is typical. He has led a double life; he runs a shady business; you can't believe a word he says; and he'll try to duck out of paying you.'
My two runners gazed at me. They were in their mid-twenties. Both had dark hair, which like aristocrats they left to flop annoyingly. Once a few derisive barmaids had pulled it, they would learn.
Aelianus was thicker set, a little more untidy, a lot more truculent. Justinus, finer featured and better mannered, had more of a look of Helena. They were entitled to wear white tunics with purple bands to show their rank, but they came to work, as I had instructed, in subdued clothes and nothing fancier than signet rings. They still sounded so well-spoken I winced, yet Justinus at least had an ear for languages, so we could work on that. Unobtrusive behaviour would help. If ever they got in deep trouble, they had both been through army training; even as junior staff officers, they knew how to put in the boot. I was now sending them to Glaucus, the trainer at my gym; I had told him to slaughter them.
'So,' Aelianus condescended to address his younger brother. 'We have learned today that our mentor, Marcus Didius, holds his papa in traditional respect!'
'It sounds,' Justinus said to me, grinning, 'as if we should look at your father as the most likely killer.'
Even I had never thought of that. But with Pa, yes: it was a possibility.
VII
'Aulus,' I instructed, addressing Aelianus by his personal name in in attempt to make him feel inferior. Pointless. If one thing had qualified that blighter for the Senate, it was his inborn sense of divinity. 'Your job is to root out background on our suspects. We have a couple of leads: Pa gave me an address for the yard out of which they are supposed to operate, also a name for the winery where they were regulars. That's where he used to meet up to commission them for 'work', work being a euphemism with these fellows. Then here's a
possible home address for Cotta. It's an apartment by a food shop called the Aquarius at the side of Livia's Portico.'
'Where's that?' asked Aulus.
'On the Clivus Suburanus.'
A silence.
'That runs into town from the Esquiline Gate,' I said calmly. Senators' sons were bound to be ignorant. This pair would have to start drawing themselves street maps. 'If the apartment location is right, someone there should be able to send you on to Gloccus.'
'So if I find them -'
'Not likely. Unless they are very stupid,' which was a possibility, 'they will have fled as soon as their man died. That's whether they topped him personally, or merely had the killer on their payroll.'
'What would they be afraid of if they are innocent?' Innocent, that was a sweet word. Was our thickset, sullen Aulus a closet romantic?
'They would fear being tortured by the vigiles.' I corrected him. 'The dead man had been deliberately hidden under their floor so they are at least accessories.'
'Oh.'
'Just pump their associates for clues about where they have run off to, and physical descriptions would help.'
Aelianus looked less than impressed with his task. Tough.
Both brothers were beginning to feel that working with me was not glamorous. For starters, we were gathered at my new house on the riverbank eating a very rapid breakfast. A bread roll and a beaker of warm water each came as a shock. They had expected tour-hour dalliances in wine shops.
'What can I do?' nagged Justinus plaintively.
'Plenty. Solve the identity of the corpse. Go to the contractors' yard with your brother. Hang about after he leaves and talk to the other workmen.' I knew Aelianus would be rude to the men; then Justinus would be more friendly. 'Make them list whoever was on site during Pa's bath house job. Again, obtain descriptions. If they cooperate -'
'Which you don't expect?'
'Oh, I expect the goddess Iris to glide down in a rainbow and tell us everything! Seriously, find out who is missing. If you get a clue, visit wherever the missing man lived and take things on from there.'
'If nobody tells us who he was,' Justinus said, frowning, 'how can we proceed, Falco?'
'Well, you're big boys,' I said unhelpfully.
'Oh go on!' scoffed Aelianus. 'Don't throw us in and leave us to sink.'
'All right. Try this: Gloccus and Cotta were the main contractors. But half the fancy fittings were supplied, and sometimes fixed, by other firms. See the marble-bowl supplier, the mosaicist, the plumber who laid the water-pipes. They don't want to be blamed. So they may be less inclined to conceal the truth. Ask Helena which importer sold her that monster splash basin in the tepidarium. Ask my father's slaves for names of men who tramped mud through the kitchen fetching water for their mortar mix.'
'Were workmen allowed in the main house?'
'No.'
'That wouldn't have stopped them?'
'Right. If you want a really irritating experience, try talking to Pa himself.'
'Then what?'
'Just do the jobs I have suggested. Then we'll reconvene and pool ideas.'
They looked sulky. I kept them back a moment. 'Get this straight. No one forced you to come in with me. No anxious parent begged me to find you a position. I could use someone street-smart instead of you two amateurs. Never forget, I have a queue of my own relatives who need the work.' The Camillus brothers were naive; they had no idea how much my relations despised me and my work – nor how crudely I loathed the feckless Didii. 'You both wanted this. I'm allowing it as an idealist. When you bunk back to the high life, I'll just know that two pampered patricians have acquired practical knowledge through me.'
'Oh, noble Roman!' Justinus said, smiling, though he had lost his rebellious attitude.
I ignored it. 'Campaign orders: you accept that I am in charge. Then we work as a team. There is to be no showing off on solo escapades. We meet up every morning here, and each man turns in full details of what he has found out so far. We discuss the next course of action together – and in the case of disagreement, my plan takes precedence.'
'And what,' demanded Aelianus caustically, 'are you intending to do on this case, Falco?'
I assured him I would be hard at work. True. My new house had a wonderful roof terrace, where I could waste hours playing. When I grew tired of planning herb troughs and realigning rose trellises, then the kind of dalliance in a wine shop that I had denied to the boys would suit me fine. If they guessed, neither knew me well enough to complain.
Taking both into the business brought me the benefit of their competitiveness. Each was determined to better his brother. Come to that, both would have been happy to put me in the wrong.
They played at being diligent. I amused myself wondering what the hair-plastered labourers made of them. Eventually we summed up progress: 'Quintus, shoot the first spear.'
Justinus had learned in the legions how to give intelligence reports to brusque commanding officers. He was relaxed. Looking deceptively casual, he surprised me with some useful gen: 'Gloccus and Cotta have been partners for a couple of decades. Everyone speaks of them as famously unreliable – yet they are somehow accepted and still given work.'
'Custom of the trade,' I said gloomily. 'A standard building contract contains a clause that says it shall be the contractor's responsibility to destroy the Premises, abandon the agreed Drawings and delay the Works until at least three Festivals of Compitalia have passed.'
He grinned. 'They do cheap house extensions, incompetent remodelling, occasional contract work for professional landlords. Presumably the landlords' fees are larger, so the incentive to turn up on site is greater.'
'And landlords employ project managers who flay slackers,' Aelianus suggested. I said nothing.
'Half their clients are in dispute with them for years afterwards,' Justinus continued. 'They seem to live with it. When it looks like becoming a court case, Gloccus and Cotta cave in; they will sometimes bodge repairs, or a favourite trick is to hand over a free statue plinth as supposed compensation.'
'Offering a half-price rude statue that the client doesn't want?'
'And thus squeezing even more cash from him! How did you know, Falco?'
'Instinct, my dear Quintus. Aulus -contribute?'
Aelianus squared up slightly. He was slapdash by nature, but a generous superior would say he might repay the effort of training him. I was not sure I called him a worthwhile investment. 'Gloccus lives by the Portico of Livia with a skinny drab who yelled at me. Her hysteria seemed genuine – she hasn't seen him for some weeks.'
'He left without warning and without paying the rent?'
'Astute, Falco!' Could I bear this patronising swine? 'She described him rather colourfully as a fat, half-bald slob spawned by a rat on a stormy night. Other people agreed he's paunchy and untidy, but he has a secret charm that no one could quite identify. They 'can't see how he gets away with it', seems the consensus.'
'Cotta?'
'Cotta lives – or lived alone in a third-floor set of rooms over a street-market. He's not there now. No one locally ever saw much of him, and no one knows where he's gone.'
'What's he like?'
'Skinny and secretive. Regarded as a bit of an odd case. Never really wanted to be a builder – who can blame him? and rarely seemed happy with his lot. A woman who sold him cheese sometimes on his way home in the evening, said his older brother is something in the medical line – an apothecary perhaps? Cotta grew up in his shadow and always envied him.'
'Ah, a thwarted-ambition story!' That sort of tale always makes me sarcastic. 'Doesn't your heart bleed? 'My brother saves lives, so I'll smash in people's heads to show I'm a big rissole too…' How do their workmen view these princes?'
'The labourers were surprisingly slow to insult them,' marvelled Justinus. Perhaps it was his first experience of the mindless loyalty of men in trade men who know they may have to work with the same bastards again.
'Subcontractors and su
ppliers?'
'Buttoned up.' They, too, stick with their own.
'Nobody would even tell us who's missing,' Aelianus said, scowling.
'Hmm.' I gave them a mysterious half smile. 'Try this: The dead man is a tile-grouter called Stephanus.' Aelianus started to glance at Justinus, then remembered they were on bad terms. I paused, to show I had noticed the reaction. 'He was thirty-four, bearded, no distinguishing features; had a two-year-old son by a waitress; was known for his hot temper. He thought Gloccus was a turd who had diddled his previous week's wages. On the day he disappeared, Stephanus had gone to work wearing a worn, but still respectable, pair of site boots which had black thongs, one with a newly stitched repair.'
They were silent for only a moment. Justinus got there first. 'The waitress found out that you were working on the murder, and came to ask about the missing father of her son?'
'Smart boy. To celebrate, it's your turn to buy the drinks.'
'Forget it!'Justinus exclaimed with a laugh. 'I've a bride who thinks it's time we stopped living with my parents – and I've no savings.'
The senator's house at the Capena Gate was a spacious spread, but having many rooms to flounce off to only created more opportunities for quarrels. I knew Aelianus thought it was time that his brother and Claudia moved out. Well, he would. 'We are not going to earn much on this, are we, Falco?' He wanted Justinus to suffer.
'No.'
'I see it as an orientation exercise,' Aelianus philosophised.
'Aulus,' snarled his brother, 'you are so pompous, you really should be in the Senate.'
I stepped in fast. 'Informing is about days of nuisance work, while you long for a big enquiry. Don't despair,' I chaffed them cheerily. 'I had one once.'
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