Graveyard of the Hesperides (14 page)

While the workmen started to reinstate the ground, I took Liberalis over to the Romulus for a private talk about our discoveries. The bar opposite was empty. The morning shift seemed startled to find customers, but the atmosphere was perfectly pleasant. They even brought us an olive saucer. I personally view four olives between two as miserly, but they saw it as a wildly hospitable gesture.

At this hour the Romulus was seemingly a quiet haven of refreshments. A mother could have stopped there for a drink of water with two toddlers and never realized she had chosen a place that served as a brothel at night.

*   *   *

“Publius Julius Liberalis!” I gave him a long thoughtful gaze. He started to speak but I carried on in a somber tone, implying that he was in trouble. “Six corpses—five males and a female—have been found buried on your premises. What do you have to say about that?”

“I know nothing about it! This has nothing to do with me!”

“Well I warn you, you may have to prove your innocence to a very senior magistrate. I'm sure you heard, the vigiles came down to view the crime scene. They went away to consult their superiors, but you know how they operate. They will look for somebody to blame, and as the owner now, you fit their suspect profile.”

Liberalis exhibited a mix of bafflement and self-defense. It can characterize the genuinely innocent—or else it's how the guilty try to bluff. “Surely I cannot be held responsible for things that happened before I owned the bar?” That may have seemed common sense to him, but the vigiles were not renowned for logical thinking.

I smiled, acting more sympathetic. I had been to Egypt. I could shed crocodile tears. “Yes, I am so sorry they are crude. It makes life awful for the innocent. You know what they do, of course…” He had no idea. I would enjoy telling him. “They pinpoint someone they can say looks likely to have done it, then they beat him up until he confesses.”

“What if he hasn't done it?” gasped Liberalis. “He's not going to confess then, is he?”

“Oh he is! They use a torturer, you know.”

He had not known. He was so naïve, definitely a mother's boy. I wondered what his mother had been like. Sometimes those who mollycoddle are as dim as their offspring; other times they are needle-sharp. That can especially apply when an inheritance is looming. Mothers of unworldly only sons so often know how to get their hands on the legacy. “You are not serious!” he quavered.

“Afraid so. If someone says he is not guilty, the vigiles only take more time to make him own up. His pain lasts longer. They like that.” I smiled again, in fact I giggled. “Listen to me! I sound as if I've spent my life in a station house … Well, an old uncle of mine was an inquiry chief for many years. I grew up with this kind of thing. I don't want to shock you, but it taught me a lot, Liberalis. Lucius Petronius is a lovely man in a family situation, but dear gods, I would never have wanted to meet him at work! In fact, one of the officers who came to look at your bar is his replacement, Titus Morellus. Definitely woven on the same loom. He's Fourth Cohort, but very thick with the Third over this. It's a multi-cohort initiative now, in view of the number of corpses and the gravity of the case.”

Oh come, Flavia Albia. That's a fine way to describe the multi-cohort drinking bout for which the Third and Fourth found occasion yesterday. I doubted that those two would ever be back. It would not even be “case closed” because I knew neither of them even intended for a file to be opened.

Liberalis appeared to be shitting roof tiles. He fell back on pompously asserting, “I am not talking to you. I will only speak to a magistrate!”

I had learned never to argue with a man who tried to go over my head. I led him quietly back over the road to see the aedile.

*   *   *

Manlius Faustus had not yet left. He leaned against a door frame, listening to me explain how our witness was feeling demoralized. “Darling, he doesn't believe I, as a mere woman, can know all the ins and outs; he will only trust your judgment.”

“Fair enough!” said Faustus to the anxious landlord, briefly calming him but causing me momentary trepidation. As Liberalis relaxed, Faustus then turned back to me. “So what do you want to ask him?”

“Oh, you are just acting in concert!” Liberalis complained.

Smiling, Faustus reached over; he took my right hand in his own for a moment, the traditional pose of married couples. “We speak as one, my friend. Well, Flavia Albia? The floor is yours.”

“I want a neutral questioner!”

“Of course you do, Liberalis.” Faustus remained unmoved. Annoyingly, he agreed with the landlord's protest while not allowing it. Classic Roman justice. “That is the bonus of you having two of us. Checks and balances. I am happy to be present, if you request it. You gain the benefit of a witness—while afterward, when I discuss you with my wise young wife, we shall have a double perspective as we evaluate your answers.”

Once more, he signaled for me to begin. Liberalis resigned himself.

*   *   *

I didn't gloat; it never helps. I remained grave.

“When we interviewed you previously, Julius Liberalis, we were considerate. You happened to be the unlucky owner of premises where a woman had met an untimely end. She died long before you took over. You gave the impression you were too young at the time to know anything about it, while perhaps not even being in the bar that night.”

I saw Liberalis lick dry lips. He followed up with that nervous twining he did with his silvered hair. I was not making eye contact with Faustus. This was my interrogation. He stood very still and let me proceed alone.

“Now we know there were many corpses. If Rufia is one of them, her death appears to be associated with the murder and concealment of the others. So, the conclusion has to be, that night a terrible event happened. A big fight went down, Liberalis. This was no private altercation between the landlord and a staff member. Not a domestic incident at all. It was planned. It would have been loud, crude and highly organized, and it could only have been carried off with helpers. At the time you were practically family—you told us you and Old Thales were related.” He had said “distantly,” but also that he was the obvious heir from a long time back. “I want to know now, with no more prevarication, what you have to say about this.”

“I can't change my answer. I won't. I know nothing.”

I grew much tougher. “I think you were there.”

“Not me.”

“I believe you were in on it.” He was only intending to repeat his denial so I cut straight across him: “Who were the ‘salesmen' I have been told were in the bar that night?”

“I have no idea.”

“Were they trying to sell specific goods to Thales, or was their presence coincidental? They just happened to seek their evening entertainment here?”

“I don't know. I don't know who they were or what they wanted. I was not party to management at that time. Sometimes I came in for a drink because I lived nearby, but Old Thales did everything his own way and kept it all to himself. How the bar ran was never my business.”

“Well, if that's true, you can help me find people who
were
taking notice! I want names. Who were the other customers that night?”

“I don't even remember which night!”

“Don't lie. This was a major event for the Hesperides. Even if the bar was a den of criminal violence in those days, this deed would have stood out as extraordinary. Anyone close to Thales—as you admit you were—would know all about this drama. Six people died. Six people were then stripped and buried, very efficiently. Six graves were raked smooth by somebody with nerves of iron, then tables were set out upon them so it all looked innocent. To anybody who was there, the night must be unforgettable.”

Liberalis shook his head. He was highly distressed.

“You know who those bodies are.”

Another head shake. He could not even bring himself to speak the lie out loud.

“You know who killed them.”

This shake was smaller and tighter, barely visible.

“You know why.”

Almost nothing this time. He was holding on and holding in, but I could see him shaking. I saw panic. I saw fear. He could not bear to remember. Whatever had happened here was a horror from which he had hidden for years. He still dreaded to think about it.

Now I was certain: I was not the only sleeper in the Ten Traders district who had suffered nightmares after we found Rufia.

 

XXII

Sometimes you have to back away and leave them with their anxiety for a time. Of course you then risk finding them hanging from a beam in a barn. That way they will never answer your questions.

Since we were in the barn-free city, I hardened my heart. I sent Julius Liberalis off, advising him to think about his responsibilities. Faustus said dourly that he would ask Macer if the Third Cohort had an empty cell. I played the kindly one, for once. Pretending to intercede with my brusque fiancé, I told the landlord to go home, quickly. “You're not under arrest yet. Come and see us when you are ready to talk.”

This established that
he
knew that
we
knew he did have something to say.

He left.

*   *   *

Still maintaining his austere persona, Tiberius Manlius now set off for the Aventine. With the manner of a particularly pompous consul, all he gave me was a nod, no kiss. I blew him one, exaggerating the gesture. Unless he softened up, his paint-supplier was in for a sharp meeting with snap decisions. I ran after them and called out to Dromo to make sure his master had a midday snack to relax him, because I didn't want us ending up with myrtle when oyster shell would be a better foil for the oxblood features. The slave looked at me as if I were even crazier than normal; Tiberius kept walking but raised an arm in salute. Even though he had his back to me, I knew he was grinning.

I stood behind the counter of the Hesperides, watching them go, feeling intense. Once before, I had sent off a husband for an ordinary morning walk, then had him returned to me, dead before lunchtime. I would never entirely recover.

“Take care,” I whispered, though Tiberius could not hear me. It was a charm for myself. What's the point of supposedly being a druid if you cannot chant magic to protect those who are dear to you?
Take care, my love. Dromo, take care of him. Come back to me …

I stayed where I was for a time, thinking. Life is uncertain. Tragedy can strike unexpectedly. Five wives, if the victims were all married men, once lost their husbands forever in this bar. Five women somewhere must by now have accepted they were widows.

I turned around, looking back toward the courtyard while I imagined it previously. The workmen were out there now, reinstating the garden area; I was able to erase them mentally, taking myself back to that night ten years ago.

The garden was most likely where the trap was sprung. Outside in the street beside the marble-topped counter would have been too visible and too risky—the intended victims might break away and escape. Inside would muffle any noise, though shouts and screams were probably routine around here. Subduing five men would be a difficult prospect, even if the attackers could rely on surprise. The aim must have been to take them out fast, before they could react. Whoever planned the attack would have wanted to prevent a real fight ever starting. That would cause too much damage, damage that would be obvious to customers the next day—wounds on the attackers, breakages that would need to be replaced before the bar could operate.

The Garden of the Hesperides had opened as usual the following morning, that was clear from statements. Everything had looked fine. No one, no ordinary member of the public, had realized anything had happened there.

Five men disappeared, but it would seem that nobody ever came looking for them.

Strangers? Up from the country or, more likely, foreigners. Men who had never been here before? Or men who had been before, yet nobody at home, wherever that was, knew of their links to the Ten Traders district in Rome, let alone their connection to this specific bar.

Had it been too far to come looking, too expensive to make the journey, had any chance of finding out what had happened been too uncertain?

Alternatively, perhaps these men's deaths had served as a warning. No one came searching because people were too scared of the same fate befalling them.

That seemed unlikely. Old Thales sounded like a social menace, but not particularly scary. If I thought someone like him had murdered five people I knew, I would not hesitate to wreak revenge.

Not everyone was like me. Just as well, you may say.

All right, if you were a peace-loving, timid type yourself, you could at least report the crime to the authorities. This was Rome, city of ancient justice. Well, it was Rome, city of interminable legal wrangling. You could hire a barrister to sue all Hades out of Thales. If you had the money, you could demand justice.

If not, you would have to make a complaint to the vigiles. That was not entirely pointless. The Third Cohort were shirkers, but for sudden disappearances and presumed killings, they might at least prepare a scroll so as not to be caught out if anything else happened later. Cover your backs, my uncle Lucius would say. Write up some notes, so you have notes to consult, notes to present if and when your case is raised again by busybodies.

Macer had apparently known nothing about a past crime until he came and saw the bodies. Possibly he had now gone back to his station house to hunt up old reports, though I wasn't confident.

If the five men could afford to travel here, their associates at home probably had access to funds too, so ought to have been able to follow them. I reckoned the associates could not have known where to come.

And what of the woman? If it was Rufia, she had lived here. When trouble started, did she get in the way? Did one of the aggressors kill her accidentally? Or was she deliberately punished by someone for being too friendly with the victims? More likely, with one victim in particular? This was harsh, but it would by no means be the first time a jealous man had lashed out and murdered a woman on those grounds. Come to that, it wouldn't be the first time a man had planned it in advance.