The Ides of April (15 page)

I told Junillus to take a breather. I would sit there and look after the place. They had an old waiter called Apollonius who would turn up eventually but in the meantime I knew how things were run. I needed a quiet place to think.

My cousin gave me a small tot of wine in a big beaker and a large jug of water. He indicated that if I was hungry I could help myself to food. I gestured back that I chose not to live dangerously. I kissed his cheek and let him go off for a stroll.

Before I sat down I sloshed copious amounts of water into my wine cup, then fetched the herb pot to add some flavouring. At the Stargazer, any flavour was better than the wine itself. Perching at a table, I took one sip, then sat with my head in my hands, studying my notes. Whatever clue I was searching for failed to leap out.

What did happen, infuriated me. Someone came in and sat down opposite me. It was the aedile’s runner, Tiberius.

He was sturdy, a man of unobtrusive movements, subtly confident. I had recognised his shape and approach from the corner of my eye. I did not bother to look up. ‘We are closed.’

‘I am not here for refreshments. I’ve come to see you.’ He pulled his bench closer in to the table.

I raised my head and scowled at him. Every aspect of this meeting annoyed me. He had broken into my quiet time. He was hounding me on a daily basis; he had disturbed my tryst with Andronicus; his master had had me taken in by the vigiles and pathetic attempts made to bamboozle me. ‘I don’t want to see you, Tiberius – is that your name?’

‘Shut up and listen.’

‘Get lost.’

The man had seen my note tablet. Without warning he reached across and took it. I was enraged, though I made no move to retrieve it, confident that what I had written would make no sense to him. I always used shorthand. On a sensitive case, I would write up the notes in a cypher.

For a man of the streets, he looked oddly studious while he read. ‘Impressive!’ I reckon he meant to be patronising. The fact that he could read what I had written – and indeed had read it, taking his time and not skipping – increased my irritation. ‘Were you not told to abandon all this?’

I snatched back the tablet. ‘Listen!’ I was seriously angry. ‘Don’t tell me there is no silent killer. Don’t tell me nobody has died in peculiar circumstances. There is, they have, and I will carry on looking into this until I prove what has been going on. I have just interviewed members of a stricken family in need of assistance – assistance the authorities, including your filthy master the aedile, have refused to give to victims because they are too busy fabricating a farcical cover-up using stale pastries.’

There was a change in his face which in a better man would have been amusement about the vigiles’ hospitality. But he made no comment.

‘Stuff you,’ I said. ‘I will not talk to you. Get out of this caupona while you still have legs to walk on.’

Tiberius leaned back, hands linked behind his head, observing me.

He said, in a measured tone that did not impress me, ‘Let us agree there appears to be a silent killer. More perhaps. If so, you, Flavia Albia, had a connection with at least two of the victims. I am considering the possibility that you are one of the perpetrators.’

I don’t know what came over me. When the moron said that, I jumped up. I think I intended to storm out of the eating-place. He stood up too. His move was quiet, but deliberate. He clearly intended to block me, even if it meant physical intervention. He was solid. I was slight. If we grappled it would be an unequal contest.

‘I am not listening to this!’

‘You will do what I tell you.’

When I came here this morning I had brought back the metal skewer from my aborted supper with Andronicus. I snatched it. After Tiberius swung himself upright, for a moment he was leaning with one hand on the table while he moved the bench to climb out. I was very, very angry. I lifted the skewer and stabbed it down hard. I speared his hand, right through the palm, pinning him to the wooden table.

A
s soon as the runner tried to move, pain kicked in and blood welled out. At that point he yelled. I thought I had probably missed damaging tendons, by sheer luck, but the situation was now tricky. He was still stuck to the table, for one thing. If I left him, my aunt would have something to say about that.

I switched moods. ‘Stand still,’ I ordered, adopting a sympathetic tone. ‘Don’t worry. I got you into this, I’ll get you out of it.’

Tiberius had had time to react; he became incandescent. ‘Don’t come any closer. Flavia Albia, go for a doctor, go fast, bring the nearest you can find. Otherwise, if you come within range, I will bite through your spinal column so you drop and die in this hole with me.’

That was lively. I paused as if to admire his bravado, then exclaimed, ‘No doctor worth trusting will come to the Stargazer. And I’m certainly not carrying you to a surgery, stapled to the table . . . Oh no! Look!’ As I pointed to a spot on the wall behind him, instinct betrayed him and he turned his head. I dragged out the skewer. He yowked with pain again. I grabbed a sponge Junillus used to mop up spills and pressed it hard on one side of his wound.

While Tiberius jerked away from me and jammed the sponge against the upper side of his hand, I found what looked like a clean drying-cloth to staunch the blood from his palm. I seized his wrist. He protested again, but I pressed against both the skewer’s exit holes, with his hand caught between the pair of mine. It was not like the touch of lovers, believe me.

He had gone very white. With one elbow, I pushed him back onto the bench. He was pressing the wounds for himself now. ‘Sit down. Don’t faint on me. Don’t tell me you can’t stand the sight of blood.’

‘There was no need to be vicious. I had to ask the question.’

‘Then you took your chance of a bad reaction.’

‘I am getting the feeling you dislike me, Albia.’

I ignored that. ‘You need to get this cleaned.’

‘What has been on the skewer?’

‘Pork nuggets. Lovely honey glaze with rosemary. Don’t worry; I washed up. Anyway, they were thoroughly cooked; this caupona specialises in charring . . .’

The runner shoved himself back to his feet. He tossed away the sponge and cloth; he would regret that, as blood continued flowing. He was leaving. I let him go.

I sat down on my own bench, feeling squeamish myself, frankly. It was years since I had inflicted that kind of damage on anyone. Years since I had had to. Suddenly I was back in that dark period, a waif on the streets, fighting for her life. At the time, it was just the way I lived. In retrospect, I went weak with the misery of it.

I wanted to be respectable. I wanted to come from a nice Roman family, and lead a decent life.

I was still reminiscing bleakly, when the runner lurched back. Leaning on one of the counters, he stared down at me with an odd look as if he saw I had dark thoughts. If he knew, he made no attempt to discover them. ‘So answer the damned question, Albia. I don’t want to be skewered a second time. Are you, or are you not one of the killers?’

‘Logic, man! Why would I admit it, if I was?’ Facing him down, I growled, ‘I am not.’

‘Keep saying that,’ he replied coldly. ‘Believe me, you want me to think you are innocent.’ He turned and disappeared again. I did walk out to the street in case there was a blood trail I could follow to check he was all right, but he must have stopped dripping.

I thought, I can’t wait to tell Andronicus about this! Then something changed my eagerness so I knew I would not mention it. Too much of my past would have to be explained. Andronicus was not ready to hear what kind of woman I could be. I was not ready to tell him. Maybe I never would be. I was too used to concealing my old background.

I was shaken by what I did to Tiberius. I had not been filled with that much aggression since the old days, not since I came here to Rome to be civilised. Such violence belonged in the history that I wanted to forget. I hated this man for making me go back there.

I
was too disturbed to work any more that day. I took my notes home, went up to the office, tossed aside the tablet and lay on the visitors’ couch with a rug on my legs. The grazes I acquired when climbing out of the window at Prisca’s had now become raw weals; I had soothed them somewhat with an olive oil balm that had a lot of use in my life, but I was still stiff and sore. I rested, feeling sorry for myself. I almost drifted off to sleep.

The runner came after me again.

I had hoped to hear Andronicus mounting the six flights, but I was not surprised it was only Tiberius. I had the door partly open, with the balcony leaf ajar too, so a breeze wafted through the room. It was a mild day and this was my effort at spring-cleaning.

Tiberius now sported a huge, padded white bandage on his left hand and wrist for which some medico must have charged the earth; he had even been given a sling. Even though he had open access, this time he did knock first, tapping the doorpost sombrely. From my couch I just looked at him.

I watched him walk across to look out at the balcony; I was willing him to step outside and make the whole thing crash off the building, taking him with it, but sadly he could see it was dangerous. My father and Uncle Lucius had fixed up ropes to stop anyone opening the door fully, and I had been instructed never to go out there again. Tiberius surveyed the safety measures, tugging a rope in a desultory way to test its hold, then turned back into the office. He strode across to look in the second room. He was one of those men who never asked permission, just nosed where he wanted as if he had every right.

When he pulled open the curtain, the sight beyond startled him. What had once been a bedroom was now unfurnished, its battered floorboards graced only by an artistic installation of bowls and buckets. These caught any rain that dripped through missing roof tiles, which were numerous. The walls, being dry except in cataclysmic downpours, had been equipped for me some years ago with big wooden pigeonholes. Nets slung across the ceiling kept out real pigeons. The shelves housed my extensive library – my reference books and old case notes. One benefit of writing up investigations on waxed tablets was that they were cheaper than papyrus and much more durable. Damp did not affect them.

Tiberius blinked. He put the curtain back where it had been, twitching it quite tidily into place again.

I stayed put. He therefore took my usual throne. He pulled out the cushion from the small of his back and held it on his lap instead, resting his wounded arm on it.

‘Flavia Albia, you are not a nice young lady!’

Tiberius wagged one finger slowly, a finger sticking out of his bandages. He was older than me, though not enough to behave so paternally. Ticking me off was not my father’s style, in any case. He never wasted energy. He would call me an idiot then leave me to reform myself, assuming we both felt reform was called for.

‘Thanks for the “young”. I’m twenty-nine next week. It’s just a puncture, stop whining. Take my advice – peel off the fancy wraps and let the wounds breathe in the air every day. The wadding looks good, but if you don’t do that, you will fester underneath.’

The hole I had made might be small, but the way he was nursing his arm suggested his hand was burning. He kept up the pompous rebuke: ‘Maybe you should remember, Flavia Albia, that Manlius Faustus could have your aunt’s bar closed down.’

‘Oh − on what grounds?’

‘Unruly behaviour. Attacking an aedile’s servant—’

I scoffed quietly. ‘Magnificent! I’ll have my day in court on that. Your aedile has had me harassed by paramilitaries, and you, his nasty servant, have been following me about. Imagine how a good defence lawyer would work that up –
“Members of the jury, this poor woman, a respectable widow of fragile build and honest background, still grieving for her husband, has been subjected to appalling indecencies”
—’ I folded my hands, gazed down at my lap, and played the part of a demure matron, silent in a court of law while clever men talked about her. ‘—
“The man Tiberius, a rough creature of the streets, even burst in on her when she was undressed in the private massage room of an all-female bathhouse! How would you react if this was your noble niece or daughter?”
— Oh just take me to the judge, Tiberius!’

He went red when I referred to him seeing me nude. I was pleased to make him uncomfortable, but dropped the reference, since I felt a little awkward at the memory myself. After a moment, he demanded unexpectedly, ‘
Are
you still grieving your husband? I thought he died some time ago.’

I was startled. ‘Eight years. Nine, I suppose. Yes, I miss him. We had a good marriage.’

‘That’s rare.’ The runner seemed intrigued, though he spoke ruefully.

‘Cassius Scaurus must have been ridiculously detailed when he reported on me to your master. Do I assume you were present when Faustus grilled him?’

He looked shifty. ‘I was there, yes.’

‘Have you any idea how unpleasant it is for a woman to have men clustered together, picking through her life?’

‘Yes, I see that,’ Tiberius agreed briefly.

‘I have a right to dignity.’

‘You keep your dignity very well, in the circumstances.’ I was startled. It didn’t even sound as if he was scoffing. ‘I apologise.’ I wondered if that was on his own behalf, or included the aediles, the tribune, Morellus and all the other members of the vigiles who had tried to unnerve me. The runner had become subdued. ‘Shall we have a truce?’

‘Suits me.’ I was not vindictive. ‘Anyway, I want to know why you keep chasing after me.’

We had a short pause for readjustment. I bestirred myself to serve refreshments. Basics. Just two sturdy beakers, my green Syrian glass ones, and a water jug. Tiberius weighed his glass in his unhurt right hand, still looking around at the room and its trappings, as if my set-up appeared unusual. He noticed the shelf of sculptures. I saw his eyebrows rise. Maybe he had heard that informers inhabit sordid surroundings, full of empty wine amphorae, cockroaches and the smell of old sandals.