The Ides of April (14 page)

‘Did Scaurus say that?’ asked the enquirer warily.

‘Of course. You don’t think I would work a flanker on you − especially over something this important? Just when Scaurus has impressed on me the need to do things right?’

‘I suppose so . . . not that I have been told much.’

I took pity and seeded him with starter-facts: ‘Let’s begin with, there seems to be an outbreak of strange, unexplained deaths. People arrive home from some perfectly ordinary local expedition, but they feel odd, have a lie down, then shortly afterwards are found dead. No explanation, and no marks on them.’

Morellus nodded. We walked on.

‘Are all the victims women, Morellus, and all middle-aged or elderly?’

‘I don’t know. That would be peculiar. Normally, the trend is for us to be chasing killers of young girls. The perps do it for . . .’ Morellus paused awkwardly.

‘Sexual excitement.’ I was brisk with him. The man was a vigiles investigator. He must know what serial killers did. ‘Sad bastards spewing their seed on corpses, who can’t answer them back. Or, if these perverts can actually manage to operate their pricks, actual sex.’

‘Rape,’ he agreed, boot-faced. ‘Whether before or after death.’

‘Nobody raped Salvidia or Celendina. As far as we know, there was no attempt to so much as get their attention. No robbery occurred. No assault at all, in fact . . . And if nobody realises there has been a murder, there can’t be any excitement for the killer in waiting for the news to get out. No, Morellus, it won’t do.’

‘It’s a real puzzle, Albia.’

‘Is he merely thrilled by the fact he gets away with it?’

‘He could be the type who enjoys thinking he is
so
clever, he completely fools the authorities.’

‘No anonymous notes thrown through the gates saying,
“I’ve done it again, you idiots!”
’

‘Oh plenty of those!’ Morellus grinned. ‘All from Nonnius, about him stealing little girls’ loincloths off washing lines.’

‘Are these deaths just happening here?’ I asked, staying serious. ‘In our district? Or on a wider scale?’

‘All across Rome,’ Morellus admitted. ‘If it’s real.’

‘So what is being done to find out?’

‘Hard to say. Where can we start? It seems to be completely random. Not just an invisible killer, but invisible deaths too. How are we to keep decent records, if nobody notices trouble and makes a complaint?’

‘No, that is very inconsiderate of the public!
Is
anybody keeping records? What are the figures?’

‘I’ve just been told to start.’ He sounded troubled by the instruction, and I didn’t blame him. It would be tedious, probably pointless work.

‘How will you go about it?’

‘Check with funeral directors.’ He indicated a tablet stuck in his belt. ‘Scaurus presented me with a dirty great list.’

‘Oh,’ I said. I wish I was ashamed of my tactics when I went on innocently: ‘That must be the list Cassius Scaurus mentioned when he was burbling about cooperation – hand it here for a moment, and then I’ll know which ones you are meant to be covering.’

He handed it over. The man was so malleable. His wife must be having the time of her life. I bet she owned more snake rings and triple pearl earrings than any other woman on the Aventine, and when she wanted him to drive her bad-tempered mother to the country for a holiday, he just did it.

There were too many names and addresses to memorise, so I told Morellus the easiest procedure would be if I took the tablet home with me, made a fair copy then sent back his original. You guessed. The dumbo fell for it.

I did not bother writing out the tablet, but used it neat. I spent the rest of that day going round the funeral directors, to get at them ahead of the vigiles.

By dinnertime, my clothes reeked of myrrh and funeral cake but otherwise I had little to show. I talked to them all, pretending I had been hired to assist because the vigiles were overworked and also needed to disguise these enquiries by using a civilian. Calling myself an undercover consultant, I quoted Cassius Scaurus on the need to maintain public confidence. ‘He means, prevent panic and riots.’

Everyone wants to avoid that. Funeral directors hate behaviour that interferes with their processions through the streets. The only riots they like are glorious ones that end with the Urban Cohorts rushing in to calm things down by beating people up, and doing it so hard they produce massed corpses. Even in Domitian’s Rome such riots were rare.

The undertakers all swore it was impossible to identify for certain any victims of the random killer. However, all agreed there were increasing rumours. Those in the trade generally believed that people were dying of some undetectable malady, most times without even suspecting that something odd had happened to them. Some did wonder if foul play might be involved.

Undetectable maladies meant magic or poison in Rome. Both, possibly. I refused to believe in magic, but I might be dealing with people who did. I knew that according to vigiles lore, poison invariably meant any killer must be a woman, though I did not suggest that to anyone I spoke to. Male enquiry agents would seize on the idea, but I was cautious. There was no evidence. I prefer to make deductions based on material fact, not bend the facts to fit some pre-formed forensic theory. Especially when rather conservative paramilitary men had first devised the theory.

I ended up with just two likely-sounding cases. One was a lad, the other some rich woman’s maid. Both died in March. I obtained addresses. It was really too late to turn up and ask questions, but I tried the mansion anyway.

A door porter who thought his job called for awkwardness refused me admittance. I accepted it quietly, knowing the best tactic was to turn up here again in daylight, when the staff would have changed. If I insisted now on making a fuss, this intransigent swine would mention my visit to his relief when they swapped places; if I held back, I stood more chance of charming my way past the relief slave tomorrow.

I took back the tablet to Morellus, who had gone off duty anyway. I respect ‘liaison’. Considerately, I drew stars beside the undertakers who had been helpful.

I went home, hoping perhaps the archivist would visit again. Rodan said he had not seen him. I decided Andronicus was being heavily supervised by Faustus, the spoilsport magistrate.

I had picked up bread as I came home. I ate a simple supper, with the cheese Metellus Nepos gave me. I liked it. There were two kinds, both piquant and sustaining.

As my exhaustion faded, I began mulling. Sitting quietly at home, I reviewed what I knew and whether it was worth continuing. I was now sure a random street killer was on the loose, possibly with accomplices who ranged over a wide area. News was being censored from the sensational parts of the
Daily Gazette.
The aedile and the tribune had put their heads together and decided to keep me out of this. Scaurus had been deputed to warn me off, with orders to keep it civil: no open threats or violence. Hence he ridiculously tried olives and cake. Could I owe that courtesy to the aedile? It failed to make me like him.

Did these men really imagine a millefeuille and a fingerbowl of mint tea would buy my obedience? They were ridiculous. All they had done was to tell me that there really was something wrong. That instantly made me determined to plunge right in there, exploring.

Since my love life, though still promising, had lurched to a halt, I wrapped myself in a dark stole and took out food to leave for the fox I called Robigo. I did not see him or any of the others when I visited the Armilustrium. But later that night when the city grew quiet, I noticed an animal calling. The cry came from somewhere over towards the river. This time it was not screaming, but a single bark, repeated several times. Most people would have taken it for a domestic dog, but I could tell it was hoarser. I knew it was one of the foxes.

N
ext day I pursued the other possible case.

Lupus had been a fishmonger’s boy working at a busy stall at the Trigeminal Porticus, down where you could hear the boats and smell the Tiber. He was fifteen, very fit, a little cheeky, the middle one of five brothers; his job was shucking oysters. According to his father, he was loveable and popular; everyone had liked him. That might be true. On the basis that no one was angrily pointing the finger of blame at anybody else, it seemed reasonable to believe the boy had had no enemies.

The father also reckoned Lupus had had no girlfriends. Since I noticed how the father’s eyes followed, each time a woman passed the stall on her way to a nearby fountain, I did wonder if the allegedly pure Lupus had inherited any lustful tendencies, but I was prepared to accept that his life held no amours that might have caused a slighted girl to have it in for him.

The father seemed a shifty type; he and his clothes stank irretrievably of fish. Lupus himself may possibly have looked like a gilded demigod when viewed from the end of an alley by a girl who was optimistic, but I guessed that the dead boy had had a hard time attracting anyone to squeeze in close. He had probably died a virgin; the father was the kind who would regret that on his son’s behalf.

People do surprise you though. The father had somehow persuaded some woman to bear him at least five children. The surviving four brothers, who all worked at the stall, looked alike, as if they shared one mother. I decided that poor soul must be a slave, who was not allowed to say no.

I knew it was the father who had raised with the undertaker the strange way Lupus died. I asked what had brought him to question his son’s death.

Until that point the father alone had dealt with my enquiries, but now the four boys all left what they were doing and gathered round as well. I guessed this had been the subject of many family conversations. Their mood now was quiet; none of them clamoured stridently for justice, as some bereaved relatives would do. I quickly gained the impression they had never expected anyone to take the issue seriously. They had discussed their suspicions with the undertaker, but had not reported a crime to the vigiles. That was worrying. It could mean there were other cases which despondent families who distrusted the authorities were keeping to themselves.

I surveyed all members of the family while we were talking, in case one behaved differently from the rest, indicating he had harboured a reason to attack his brother. I saw no such behaviour.

The day Lupus died had seemed like any other day. He had been squatting on his low wooden stool, head bent over a bucket, shucking. He let out a yell and said something had nicked him. His brothers told me he was right because, being a close-knit, affectionate family, they all converged to take a look; they had seen a big bright bead of blood welling up on the back of his neck. He had been wearing a tunic with a wide, loose opening. I was shown this very garment. His younger brother Titus was now wearing it. There was even a rusty mark on the facing that they all said was a bloodstain. There seemed more blood than would normally happen after, say, an insect bite.

My young sisters would not take over a tunic worn by somebody who died, let alone wear it unwashed for the next three weeks, but when your skin, hair, sandals and every other thing about you stinks of your trade, I dare say you are not fastidious. I myself would now be carrying the odour of fishscales on my shoes for days, just from crossing the street to get here.

‘So what happened next?’

Lupus carried on with his work for a short time. He complained of feeling dizzy. He was told to rest in the shade. When they closed up the stall that evening and called him, his family found him dead.

That was the whole story, really. They all always ate the same meals together, and no one else had been affected by illness. They assured me that if Lupus had swallowed a bad oyster, distinct symptoms would have followed, symptoms he had definitely not shown. There were no links any of them knew of to either Salvidia or Celendina. On the day, people had been passing who would have been close enough to touch Lupus, as he squatted on his stool by the stall, right on the street. No one had appeared to stop or speak to him, however; the father had been serving one customer, but a good six feet away. There had been no reason for the others to notice or remember any particular passers-by.

Reliving events, the father and sons all became upset. This was the first time they let themselves see the full implications of their previous vague unease about what happened: the first time someone directly put into words the possibility that Lupus had been murdered – and murdered right there in front of them. Anything I asked, they answered. They were open, all concerned to have justice for Lupus. I let them see me gravely writing notes, hoping to reassure them that now someone
was
taking their boy’s death seriously and that, if possible, whoever killed him would eventually be found and apprehended.

After I took my leave, I glanced back. Titus, the brother in the inherited tunic, had turned away and was obviously weeping at the back of the stall; one of the others was comforting him. The father was simply standing still, lost, helpless in his misery. Another brother occupied himself kicking pebbles into the gutter angrily.

They had said little to me of their grief, yet their private poses and gestures told me everything. It was three weeks since their loss. They were still swamped by unhappiness. Whoever killed their lad had broken all their hearts. Lupus the oyster-shucker would not easily be forgotten; I thought never.

The fish stall was down on the Embankment, close to the salt warehouses, en route to the Trigeminal Gate. When I left, it would have been an easy stroll along on the flat to my family home, but I was too depressed to socialise. I had just witnessed another good family overwhelmed by sorrow. It seemed wrong to enjoy myself with mine.

I climbed the Hill, slowly flogging up the steep Stairs of Cassius, my usual route home. I returned to the apartment, felt restless, wandered out again. I knew where I was going. I called out to Rodan, but don’t know if he heard. My steps took me to the Stargazer. It was mid-morning so there were no customers, and would be none for at least another hour when the lunch crowd began trickling in. ‘Crowd’ was over-gilding the anticipated scenario. They had about four daytime regulars, of whom two were occasional and one could only come if his son was not using the false leg that day. Assume I’m joking, if that comforts you.