See Delphi And Die (21 page)

XLIV

Lampon looked queasy but he agreed to follow orders. He gave me one more suggestion. According to him, Statianus not only ran at the gym; he liked to climb up to the official stadium. The stadium lay about as high as could be, above the sanctuary of Apollo, where the air was even more refined and the views were breathtaking. Statianus had been heard to say that he went there to be alone and to think.

With directions from the poet (which, since he was a poet, I checked with passers-by at intervals, I made my way along the track, back to the Kastalian Spring, then into the sanctum and up past the theatre on a route I had never yet taken. A narrow path led upwards. The climb was steep, the situation remote. A man who had suffered a great calamity might well be drawn here. After the bustle of the sanctuary and the businesslike hum of the gym, this was a solitary walk where the sun and the scents of wild flowers would act on a tortured mind like a soothing drug. I suspected that when Statianus reached the stadium, he generally lay down on the grass and lost himself. You can think as you walk but, in my experience, not when you run.

I myself was thinking as I went, mainly about what Lampon had told me. Turcianus Opimus, the travel group's invalid, had learned more about Valeria's killer than the killer would have liked. From the poet's description, he may even have recognised who the killer was. Whom had he told about this? Was he ever sufficiently free of his pain-killing medicine to realise what information he held? Perhaps something he said or did about it led to his death at Epidaurus. Or perhaps he really died naturally - but someone believed he could have passed on the poet's story to Cleonymus.

I wondered if the poet himself was in danger. Damn. Still, as far as I knew, the killer was in Corinth.

I consoled myself with the thought that he was probably a bad poet anyway.

I took my time. If Statianus was up here, well and good. If not, I knew we had properly lost him. I held off blaming myself until I was sure. It would come. Every step I took convinced me he had run away from me. If he left Delphi altogether, I would have no idea where to look for him.

I was so certain that I was completely alone, I peed on the grey rocks, not even moving from the path. A gecko watched me, tolerantly.

I wished Helena was here. I wanted to share the glorious view with her. I wanted to hold and caress her, enjoying the silence and sunshine in this isolated spot. I wanted to stop thinking about deaths that seemed unsolvable, griefs we could never assuage, brutality, fear, and loss. I wanted to find Statianus at the stadium. I wanted to convince him to have faith. The misery he revealed to us yesterday had affected me. Standing alone with the gecko and the faraway wheeling buzzards made me aware how much.

As I slowly resumed walking, I transferred all my thoughts to Helena. I lost myself in memories of her warmth and sanity. I filled my head with dreams of making love to her. Yes, I wished she were here.

When I came upon the woman, I was so surprised I nearly jumped off the path, over the edge into oblivion. That was before I realised I had met her before at the top of a crag - in Corinth. It was the middle-aged dipsy nymph I had treated like a prostitute, who called herself Philomela.

XLV

She was standing on the narrow path, gazing out at the vista with extravagant enjoyment. She wore a many-pleated white Greek dress, folded over on the shoulders in the classical manner - a style which modern matrons had abandoned decades ago, instead copying Roman imperial fashion. Once again, her hair was bundled up in a scarf, which she had wrapped around her head in a couple of turns and tied in a small knot above her forehead. The classical look. This lady had gazed at a lot of old statues.

Now she was looking at me. Her wistful air was immediately familiar; that kind of wide-eyed wonderment seriously annoys me. She too was startled by our sudden confrontation. She stopped the blissful reverie, and became nervous.

'Well, fancy!' I made it avuncular. Not much choice but to gulp and be cheerful. Maybe she had forgotten how crassly I had insulted her. No. I could see she remembered me all too well. 'I'm Falco and you are Philomela, the Hellenophile nightingale.' She had dark eyes and had spent hours with hot tongs making herself a fringe of curly hair, but she was not Greek. I remembered she had spoken perfectly good Latin. I spoke in Latin automatically.

She continued staring.

I continued the jocularity. 'Your pseudonym comes from a savage myth! You know it? Tereus, King of Thrace or some other place with hideous habits, lusts for his sister-in-law, rapes her, and cuts her tongue out so she cannot tell on him. She alerts her sister Procne by weaving the tale into a tapestry - then the sisters plot against Tereus. They serve up his son in his dinner.' That charmless Greek cannibalism yet again! Having dinner at home in classical times must have taken a lot of nerve. 'Then the gods turn everyone into birds. Philomela is the swallow, in the Greek poems. She's lost her tongue. Swallows don't cheep. Roman poets changed the birds around, for reasons which defy logic. If you think she's the nightingale, that shows that you're Roman.'

The woman heard me out, then said curtly, 'You don't look like a man who knows the myths.'

'Correct. I asked my wife.'

'You don't look like a man with a wife.'

'Incorrect! I mentioned her. Currently she is looking at art.'

'She's sensible. When her man travels, she goes too, to keep him chaste.'

'Depends on the man, lady. Or more to the point, it depends on the wife.' I was dealing with a man-hater, apparently. 'Knowing her virtues is what keeps me chaste. As for myths, I am an informer.' Time to get that straight. 'I deal with adultery, rape, and jealousy - but in the real world and with undeniably human killers... Where are you from, Philomela?'

'Tusculum,' she admitted reluctantly. Close to Rome. My mother's family, who grew vegetables on the Campagna, would sneer. This glassy-eyed mystic would not surprise them. My uncles thought people from Tusculum were all pod and no bean. (Though coming from my crazy Uncles Fabius and Junius, that was rich!)

'And what's your real name, your Roman name?' To that there came no answer. Perhaps it did not matter, I thought - mistakenly, as usual.

Philomela must already have been up to see the stadium. She was now looking past me, yearning to squeeze by and make her way downhill. The path was narrow; I was blocking it.

'You travel alone?' She nodded. For a woman of any status that was unusual, and I let my surprise show.

'I went with a group once!' Her tone was caustic.

'Oh, bad choice!' My own tone was sour too, yet we shared no sense of complicity.

Who was she? Her accent seemed aristocratic. Her neat hands had never done hard labour. I wondered if she had money; she must have. She should have been married once, given her age (she looked menopausal, which could explain her crazy air. Were there children? If so, they despaired of her, for sure. I bet she was divorced. Under the fey manner, I saw a stubborn trace of oddness. She knew people thought she was crazy - and she damn well did not care.

I knew her type. You could call her independent - or a social menace. Many would find her irritating - Helena for one. I bet Philomela blamed men for her misfortunes, and I bet the men she had known all said it was her own fault. One thing was sure: innkeepers, waiters, and muleteers would think she was fair game. Maybe she was, too. Maybe this woman stayed in Greece for free love with menials, thinking Greece was far enough from Rome not to cause a scandal.

She had watched my mental summing up; perhaps she saw it as disparaging. Now she chose to give more explanation, making it sound mundane. 'I live in Greece these days. I have a house in Athens, but I like to revisit sacred sites.'

'You enjoy fending off bad guides?'

'I ignore them. I commune with the gods.' I managed not to groan.

'You must be a woman without ties.' Relatives would lock her away.

'I like to be alone.' Dear gods, she really had gone native. No doubt she only ate honey if it came from Hymettus, and she harboured obsessive theories on the ingredients for home-made ambrosia...

'A convert to Achaea?' I gestured to the scenery. 'If it were all as beautiful as this, we would all emigrate...'

Abruptly she was through with me. 'I don't enjoy small talk, Falco.'

'Good.' I was bored with her anyway. 'Straight question: if you have just been right up to the stadium, did you see a man running on the track? A bereaved man taking solace there, grappling with his grief?'

'I saw no one... May I pass, please?'

'Just a moment more. I met you before in Corinth; now you are here. Have your recent travels taken you to Olympia?'

'I dislike Olympia. I have not been there.' Never? She must have been, to decide she disliked the place.

Instinct made me persist. 'The man I want lost his young wife there - murdered in terrible circumstances. They were very recently married; she was just nineteen. The experience has destroyed him too.'

Philomela frowned. She lowered her voice and spoke less dreamily than usual. 'You must be worried for him.' Almost without pausing she added, 'I cannot help you with this.'

I made a gesture of regret then courteously stepped off the path, leaving her way free. She passed me in a rattle of cheap bead bangles and a haze of simple rosemary oil.

She looked back, chin up as if she intended to say something significant. Then she seemed to change her mind. She could see I was still going up to the stadium; she chided me. 'I told you I saw nobody. There is no one up there.'

I shrugged. 'Thank you. I have to check everything for myself.' I stepped back on to the path, then saluted quietly. 'Until we meet again.'

Her eyes hardened as she decided, not if I can help it. But I was sure it would happen. I don't believe in coincidence.

I carried on up to the stadium, which I found lay just ahead.

Anyone who liked running would enjoy running here. The stadium at Delphi seemed to lie on the doorstep of the gods. The bastards were up in the blue heavens, all lying on their elbows, smiling at the fraught actions of tiny mortal men... I could not help myself. I made a rude gesture skywards.

A standard track had been carved out of the hillside, with crude earth stands and one long stone bench for the judges. Stone starting-lines were at the end, like those Glaucus had demonstrated at Olympia. The place was crying out for a big Roman benefactor to install proper seating, but with Delphi so run-down nowadays that would need to be someone brave enough to love Greece and the Greek ideal very much indeed. Vespasian was a generous emperor, but he had been dragged along on Nero's embarrassing Greek tour and would have bad memories.

Nobody was visible. Up here on the tops, eagles or buzzards were languidly circling, but they made useless witnesses. There was nowhere to hide. Statianus was not here and I guessed he had probably not been here today. He had broken our appointment and become a fugitive. That was bad enough. But if he was really innocent, then somebody else was guilty. Phineus was locked up in Corinth, but maybe some other killer was still out on the loose. Tullius Statianus could be a target now. I had to find out where he had gone - and I had to reach him first.

XLVI

It took us three days to find any useful information. It was three days too long.

After I had checked out the stadium, I returned to the sanctuary fast. I found Helena in the building they called the clubhouse where she had gone to look at the art. Without a glance at the famous wall-paintings, I fetched her out of there. She saw from my face that something was amiss. I explained as we set off back to the town.

We made straight for the inn where Statianus had been staying. I. tackled the landlord angrily; he still insisted Statianus was in residence. He even showed us the room. True enough, luggage remained. For the landlord that was enough; so long as he held property he could sell, he did not care if a lodger ran out on him. We tried to believe he was right, Statianus would reappear.

With no other clue, we spent the next three days searching the town and the sanctuary. We asked questions of everyone; some even bothered to answer. Nobody had seen Statianus leaving Delphi - if he did so. He had certainly not hired a mule or donkey from any of the normal hire stables. I went down to the sea, but as far as I could tell, no boats had left with him. In those few days, he never went back to the gymnasium - and he never returned to his lodgings. He must have gone somewhere, travelling very light, on foot.

We lost those three days, and I knew at the time it could be a crucial error. Then a messenger came across the Gulf from Aquillius Macer. almost as soon as we left Corinth, Phineus had escaped from custody.

I toughened up. I marched back to that dismal inn where Statianus had spent weeks in misery. I let the landlord know he was in trouble, trouble which could affect his business and his health. I laid it on thick, mentioning the governor, the quaestor, and the Emperor; I described Vespasian as taking a personal interest. That was stretching it, but a Roman citizen in a foreign province ought to be able to hope his fate matters. Vespasian would sympathise with Statianus - in principle.

At last my urgency infected the landlord. Apart from gasping at my heavy-duty contacts, it turned out Statianus owed him rent. On inspection, the luggage he was holding hostage had a lower value than he thought. He knew what days without sighting a lodger normally meant. Suddenly he wanted to help me.

He let me in and I searched the room again. From the few things here, I reckoned Statianus must have left a load of stuff at Corinth. A man travelling on his wedding tour would have brought much more baggage than this. For Delphi he had packed only necessities, and now he had shed even those. There was no money, nor other valuables. I had hoped for a travel journal, but he kept none. Apart from the cloak I had seen him wearing, the landlord reckoned everything the young man brought with him in the first place was still here. That looked bad. If Statianus had skipped, he no longer cared about comfort or appearance. He was desperate. He was almost certainly doing something stupid.

He had abandoned even his mementoes: folded in cloth, I found a woman's finger-ring. Valeria's, no doubt. It was a decent piece, gold, probably bought in Greece, since it had a squared-off Greek meander pattern. Maybe he gave it to her.

Then I found something else. Flat against the bottom of his leather pack, where it would be safest from knocks, lay a modest square of parchment. At first I thought it was scrap; there was half an old inventory inked on one side. But I should have known better. When I was a struggling informer, in my grim rented apartment at Fountain Court, I used everything from old fish wrappers to my own poetry drafts as writing material. This inventory had been re-used on its good side by some ten-minute sketch artist.

For one wild moment I thought the bridegroom had left clues. This drawing was nothing so helpful - yet it wrenched my heart. The couple must have succumbed to one of those scribble-you-quick cartoonists who hang around on quaysides and embankments, trying to earn the fare back to their home village after their career fails. The youngsters had bought a drawing of themselves. leaning against one another but looking out at spectators, right hands intertwined to show their married status. It was not bad. I recognised him. Now I was seeing her. Valeria Ventidia was wearing the meander ring that I held in my hand. a fearless, impertinent kind of girl, with small, pretty features, a complex set of ringlets, and a direct stare that made my heart lurch. She was not my type now, but when I was much younger, her self-confidence might have made me call after her saucily.

I knew she was dead, and I knew how terribly she died. Meeting her fresh gaze, so sure of herself and so full of life, I could see why Statianus wanted to find the man who killed her.

I left the room and gave Helena the portrait. She groaned quietly. Then a tear dashed down her cheek.

I faced up to the landlord. I was certain he was holding something back. I did not touch him. I did not need to. My mood now was obvious. He realised he should be afraid.

'I want to know everything. Everything your lodger said, everyone he spoke to.'

'You want to know about his friend, then?'

'Another young man was with him when he first arrived,' Helena interrupted impatiently. Her thumb moved gently on the double portrait. 'He left Delphi for Athens. I can tell you everything about him - he's my brother!'

'I meant the other one,' the landlord quavered.

Ah!

'Statianus had another friend here?'

'He came three nights ago, Falco.'

The landlord gave us a rough description. a man in middle life, in business, ordinary-looking, used to inns. It could have been anyone. It could have been Phineus, but the landlord said not. It could simply have been someone Statianus met, with whom that lonely young man just fell into conversation, some stranger he would never see again. Irrelevant.

'Would you call this man expensively dressed?'

'No.' Not the killer from Corinth, therefore - unless he had dressed down for travelling.

'Did he look like an ex-boxer or ex-wrestler?'

'He was a lightweight. Run to seed a bit, big belly.' Not the killer from Olympia either - unless different witnesses saw him differently. As they so often do.

The landlord could be lying. The landlord could be unobservant (as Helena put it) or blind (as I said.)

'Did he ask for Statianus?'

'Yes.'

Not a passing stranger, then.

At first, the landlord pretended he had not heard any conversation between the two men. He admitted they had eaten together at the inn. It was Helena who demanded swiftly, 'Do you use a waiter to serve food?'

There was a moment of bluster.

'Get him!' I roared.

It was the waiter who mentioned Lebadeia.

'I reckon he's gone to Lebadeia.'

'What's at Lebadeia?'

'Nothing much.'

Wrong. Something bad. Something very bad.

This waiter had heard Statianus say the name to his companion, who seemed to reply with encouragement. As the waiter told us at first, Lebadeia was a town on the way to other places.

'So why do you think Statianus would go there?'

This weary tray-carrier was a plump, acne-disfigured fellow with slanty eyes, varicose veins, and a visible yearning to be paid for his information. His employer had lost him any hopes of a bribe; I was too angry. I screwed out of him that Statianus had talked excitedly to his visitor, and the name of Lebadeia had been overheard.

'Did you know the second man?'

'No, but Statianus did. I thought he had come from the travel firm.'

'What? Was it Phineus? Do you know Phineus?'

'No, it wasn't him. I know Phineus.' Everyone knew Phineus. He knew everyone - and everywhere too; if Ledabeia boasted any feature of interest, Phineus would have it on his list of visitable sites. 'I assumed,' whined the waiter beseeching us to agree with him, 'this one might be Polystratus.'

This was the second time recently his name had come up. Helena Justina raised her eyebrows. I straightened up and told her, 'That's right. The Seven Sights 'facilitator.' The man you didn't like in Rome. The man Phineus is supposed to have sent over here to persuade Statianus to return to the group.'

'So do we think Statianus has gone back to Corinth, Marcus?'

'No, we don't. Why has he abandoned his luggage, in that case?'

'He was very worked up,' murmured the waiter, now anxious that he might have got into trouble. 'People heard him pacing his room that night, and in the morning he was just gone.'

'There's nothing to say he went to Lebadeia, though.'

'Only,' admitted the waiter nervously, ' the fact that he had asked me the way.'

I gripped him by the shoulders of his greasy grey tunic. 'So what's he gone there for? He must have had a reason. I can tell by your shifty eyes that you know what it was!'

'I suppose,' said the waiter, squirming, 'he must have gone to try the oracle.'