Time to Depart (19 page)

XXXVIII

Scythax came quickly. Porcius had made it to the station house in one piece. I had warned him to keep his eyes peeled when he hit street level. He must have told his story with some urgency, for the physician was with us by retutn. Porcius came back with him, to show him the right house. Petro had sent two members of the foot patrol as guards too. He had recognised the danger I was in.

Scythax was a brusque Oriental freedman who seemed to suspect malingering. This was understandable. The vigiles patrol-men were always trying to dodge off sick; given the dangers of their work, no one could blame them. Scythax expected people to cry ouch as soon as he entered a room; he viewed 'headaches', 'bad backs' and 'old knee trouble' with little patience. He had heard it all before, To get sympathy from Scythax you had to produce a bright red rash or a hernia: something visible or proddable.

He did concede that my shoulder and arm were genuinely out of action. He was delighted to inform me the shoulder joint was merely dislocated. His treatment would be to manipulate it back into place.

He did this. 'Manipulate' had sounded a gentle enough word. In fact the manoeuvre involved working on me with a brute force that the Miller would have been proud of. I should have realised that when Scythax told Helena and Ma to grip my feet so I couldn't kick out, while Porcius was to throw himself on my chest with all his weight. Scythax immediately attacked me, bracing his foot against the wall as he leaned back and pulled.

It worked. It hurt. It hurt a lot. Even Ma had to sit down fanning herself, and Helena was openly in tears.

'There's no fee,' Soythax condescended amiably.

My mother and my girlfriend both made comments that seemed to surprise him.

To smooth over the angry atmosphere (since he really had mended my shoulder), I managed to gasp, 'Did you see the body the patrol brought in this morning?'

'Nonnius Albius?'

'You know of him?'

Scythax peered at me rather wryly, packing away his equipment. 'I keep abreast of the cohort's work.'

'So what did you think?'

'What Petronius Longus suggested: the man had been tormented, mostly while he was still alive. Many of the wounds were not fatal in themselves. Somebody had inflicted them to cause pain - it looked like punishment. That fits his position as a squealer who had betrayed his chief.'

And it called for the same list of suspects as the people who might have taken over afterwards: the Balbinus women, the other gang members, and Lalage.

'He was very ill,' I mentioned, as the doctor reached the door. 'Were you able to tell what might have been wrong with him?'

Scythax reacted oddly. An expression that could almost have been amusement crossed his face, then he said, 'Nothing much.'

'He was supposed to be dying!' Helena exclaimed in surprise. 'That was the whole reason Petronius was able to persuade him to give evidence.'

'Really?' The freedman was dry. 'His doctor must have been mistaken.'

'His doctors called Alexander.' I was already growing suspicious. met him at the house. He seemed as competent as any other Aesculapius.'

'Oh, Alexander is an excellent doctor,' Scythax assured me gravely.

'Do you know him, Scythax?'

I was prepared for rivalry, or professional solidarity, but not for what I learned instead: 'He is my brother,' said Scythax.

Then he smiled at us like a man who was far too long in the tooth to comment, and left.

I caught the eye of Petro's impressionable recruit. His mouth had dropped open as he worked out, slightly slower than I did, the implication of the cohort doctor's last remark. I said softly, 'That's a lesson to you, Porcius. You're working for a man who is not what he seems. I'm talking about Petronius Longus. He has a mild-mannered reputation - behind which lurks the most devious, evil-minded investigation officer anywhere in Rome!'

Maia was the kind of organiser generals love. She had put terror into the men of our family. Their response to her instructions to converge on Fountain Court to search for little Tertulla was mindless obedience; even Marius, the dedicated scholar, had abandoned his grammar homework. I was impressed. My brothers-in-law arrived all at once - all except the water boatman, Collius. He was the missing child's father. It was too much to expect that creep to take an interest. Not even Galla, his wife, ever expected any support from Collins.

The other four were bad enough. What a gang! In order of my sisters' seniority, they were:

Mico. The unemployed, unemployable plasterer. Pasty-faced and eternally perky. He was bringing up five children on his own, now his wife Victorina had died. He was doing it badly. Everyone felt obliged to say at least he was trying. The children would have stood more chance of surviving if he sailed off to Sicily and never came back. But Mico defended his useless role like a fighter. He would never give up.

Verontius. Allia's treasure. A shifty, untrustworthy road contractor who smelt of fish pickle and unwashed armpits. You would think he had been heaving shovels all day long when all he really did was cadge together contacts. No wonder he sweated. The lengths he went to to defraud the government were tortuous. A glance at Verontius looking half-asleep and guilty was enough to explain all the potholes in the Via Appia.

Gaius Backus. Utter tedium. A ponderous customs-clerk organiser who thought he knew it all. He knew nothing, especially about home improvements, a subject on which he liked to expound for hours. Gaius Baebius had brought Ajax, his and Junia's spoiled, uncontrollable watchdog. Apparently some clown had decided Ajax could sniff one of Tertulla's shoes, then trace her movements. Gaius and Ajax arrived in a lather of paws and untidy black fur, then we had to lock Nux in my bedroom to stop Ajax attacking her (he already had a history of violence).

Famia. Maia's darling was the best of the bunch, though I have to report Famia was a slit-eyed, red-nosed drunk who would have regularly cheated on Maia if he could have found the energy. While she brought up their children, he whiled away his life as a chariot-horse vet. He worked for the Greens. I support the Blues. Our relationship could not and did not flourish.

Everyone milled around noisily to start with. Some of the brothers-in-law looked as if they had hoped we would give up the idea of a search and all sit down with an amphora. Helena disabused them crisply. Then we had the inevitable jokes about the skip baby, mostly suggesting he was some unfortunate relic of my bachelor past. I dealt with that one. There was one good side to my male relations. Since they were married to my sisters, they had all learned to be swiftly subdued by sarcasm.

As there was no one else at home to look after the children (except his old mother, who had gone to play dice tonight at a caupona by the Temple of Isis), Mico had brought his three youngest. These unpleasant mites had to be kept amused, given copious drinks, and protected from Gaius and Junia's dog.

'He loves children!' protested Gaius Baebius, as Ajax strained at the flimsy string on his collar and tried to reduce Mico's family to something he could bury under Gaius' home-built sun-yourself pilastered breakfast patio. Then Ajax was offered a shoe, so he could do his stuff as a tracker. He just worried the shoe, thinking it was a dead rat. Gaius Baebius blustered about, looking embarrassed and blaming everyone else.

Helena took charge, supported by young Marius. They gave each brother-in-law a sector to search, and ordered them to question shopkeepers and locals whether anyone had seen Tertulla earlier that day; then they organised my various nephews to act as runners if any information were found.

'You coming, Falco?'

'Marcus has been gated.' Helena made out that I had been seriously wounded that day. I know how to look pale in a crisis; I had been in the army for seven years. The mob dispersed without me. Gaius took his watchdog. Mico's children clung to their father and left with him. Silence descended. Helena started spooning porridge into the skip baby. It would be a long, messy process. I went into my bedroom for a quiet lie-down. I wanted to think about the interesting information that the physician who had told Nonnius Albius he was dying had lied to him, and that that physician just happened to have a brother working in the public sector - alongside Petronius.

As soon as I stretched out, easing my sore arm, Nux jumped straight on the end and settled as if she thought it was her role in life to sleep on her master's bed.

'Stop warming my feet. I'm not your master!'

Nux opened one eye, put out a long pink tongue, and wagged her tail enthusiastically.

XXXIX

The brothers-in-law took their time. They had probably all met around the corner and gone into a wine shop to relax.

It gave me an opportunity to walk over to the new apartment and carry on with its clearance. My sore arm made work diflicult but Helena had come to help. Even with a couple of guards loitering on the stairs, there was no way I intended leaving her alone. Not now the vicious Balbinus mob knew where we were.

Nux trotted happily after us. I shut her out, but we could hear her lying right outside the door, snuffling under it as she waited for me to re-emerge.

'She adores you!' Helena laughed.

'It won't do her any good.'

'The hardhearted hero! Still,' Helena was smiling, 'you once took that defensive attitude with me.'

'Nonsense. I was the one slavering outside doors, begging you to let me in.'

'I was frightened of what might happen if I did.'

'So was I, lady!'

I was grinning at her. I had never quite lost that quick thump of the heart whenever I thought where our relationship might be taking us.

We had to open the door to carry out the last of the rubbish, so then the dog got in. I was forced to whistle her after me, rather than leave an untried animal alone with the skip babe. Between the two of them they had me in knots.

As we worked I discussed with Helena my theory about Nonnius being set up by Petronius.

'Was that illegal, Marcus?'

'Doubt it.'

'Entrapment?'

'Nonnius was the fool to believe his physician, that's all.' 

'What if he had found out? Presumably when he failed to die of his "fatal" disease, he would eventually have realised the diagnosis was at fault.'

'He couldn't complain. Had he lived, he would have been enjoying his share of the Balbinus estate as a direct result' 

'He's a clever man, your friend Petronius.'

'The quiet ones are the worst,' I said.

While we were still in our new lodging Petro himself turned up to inspect how much damage the Miller and Icarus had wreaked on me. He started out anxious, but once he had looked me over his broad face became happier. 'So you're off our necks for a while, Falco? How will long will the convalescence be?'

'Forget it! Here, lug down this bale to the skip for me.' He complied obligingly while I enjoyed myself playing the man in charge. 'What your investigation needs is brainwork; there's nothing wrong with my head.'

Trotting down to the skip he pulled a face as if he was questioning that so when he passed me I thumped him with my good arm to prove I could still be active; then I laid into him with jibes about how he had put one over on Nonnius. He merely smiled in his annoying way.

'Has Silvia come home again yet?' Helena called down after us.

'Oh yes.'

He seemed surprised she asked. I could imagine how he had talked himself out of trouble and won Silvia round. Petronius had had years of practice in softening up his angry wife.

Returning upstairs for more rubbish, Petro changed the subject. 'Was Porcius any use in the scrap?'

'Perfectly adequate. A sound one, I'd say.'

'Bit raw.' Petro rarely complimented his men until he had thoroughly tested them. Though he wanted to hear good news about the lad, his voice carried a doubtful tone.

'He seems impressed by his senior officer's deviousness!'

Once again Petronius carried on as if he had no idea what I meant. He glanced around the apartment, which was now almost clear. 'This place is better than your usual standard but it's filthy, Falco. Helena can't live here.'

'All it needs is a good scrub,' Helena demurred loyally.

I dug Petro in the ribs. 'As a friend, you might offer the foot patrols to help bring the water up.'

Petro barked with scornful laughter. 'If you want a favour from the bloody fire-fighters, you'll have to ask them yourself!'

He had found the stuff that I had salvaged from Smaractus' workmen, and dived in with a whoop. Immediately he started sorting out wood nails and pieces of good timber. When it came to carpentry, he was a worse-scavenger than I was.

'Just take anything you want!' I snorted, grabbing back a pair of metal pincers.

'Thanks, Falco!'

'Petro, did Porcius tell you about Marcus' missing niece?' Helena broke in as we rummaged on the floor. 'We are having to think she may have been abducted. Is it true this has happened other times?'

'We've had a spate. I thought there was something in it because they were all from wealthy families.' Petro grinned. 'With due respect to the Didius clan, this must be unconnected!'

'Pa has cash,' I pointed out tersely.

'Your father's not exactly known for family loyalty. I wouldn't hold out any chances for the kidnapper who tried squeezing Geminus. Be fair. Can you see him coughing up a ransom for one of your sisters' horrors?'

'Maybe.' Or maybe not.

'Most of the other lost sprats were sweet little moppets. Parents would gladly pay to get them back. Plus one baby lifted from a very exalted cradle, finally said to have been merely taken by a nurse to show to a friend.'

'Believe it?'

'No.'

'Were you allowed to interview the nurse?'

'Of course not. We might have actually learnt something!' 

'And every single child turned up?'

'Apparently.'

'Were there any leads we could follow?'

'Only that the cases were all south of the Circus. I checked, but none of the other cohorts were having the same stuff happening. I tried working out a theory that somebody who normally hangs around the Aventine and wouldn't be noticed was snatching. The parents refused to co-operate, so I was in the dark and let it slide. I have enough to do.'

Helena murmured thoughtfully, 'Would you be prepared to tell me some of the parents' names?'

'You're not intending to see them!' Petro waited for a denial, but received none. 'Are you going to allow this, Falco?' His attitude to women was as traditional as mine was relaxed. The odd thing was, his surly paternalism had always done him more good - at least until I met Helena. Petro couldn't compete with that.

I grinned. 'I draw the line at her questioning suspects.' This overlooked the fact that I had taken her with me to assist that very afternoon. A dangerous gleam lit Helena's soft eyes. 'But there's no harm in her visiting respectable victims.'

'Oh thanks!' muttered Helena. Definitely not a traditionalist.

'It's highly irregular,' complained Petronius.

He was weakening. Helena Justina had one great advantage over us: she could approach snooty families on equal terms; she was probably superior to most of them. We could see how her mind was working, but she politely told us anyway: 'I can say I begged their addresses because we are desperate about our own missing child. If they believe I am asking as a private individual, they may just confide more than they were prepared to tell the vigiles.'

Petro abandoned resistance. 'Going to play the distraught mother?'

Helena gave him a straight look. 'Good practice, Petro. I'll be hysterical for real reasons soon enough.'

He glanced at me. I shrugged. 'Yes, it's true. I would have told you.'

'Oh really? What you actually told me was some lie about this not happening!' He made as if to leave in a huff, but at the last moment picked up the skip baby, who had been reclining like a pharaoh on a sack of old rags. Petro, the dedicated father of three, leant against the outside doorframe, showing off his expertise. The babe, tolerant as ever, accepted that big tough men are full of soppy talk. 'Hello, cheeky fellow, what are you doing with these two eccentrics?'

I was just explaining that when I wasn't being thumped by desperadoes I was tying to find the babe's guardians for him when Martinus arrived in Fountain Court. From our first-floor landing we saw him before he spotted us. Initially Petronius ducked back indoors, pretending to hide. Across the lane Martinus started jabbering something to Lenia. Seeing the slowcoach Martinus in a hurry changed Petro's mind.

He went out onto the steps and whistled. Nux barked at him loudly. Lenia shouted abuse across the street. Heads shot out of windows to gape. Passers-by stopped in their tracks. Casual shoppers listened brazenly. This was the Fourth Cohort at its discreet, efficient best; soon the whole Aventine would know what was up. Any chance of solving the problem by using an element of surprise was lost before we even heard what the problem was.

Martinus turned towards us. Excitedly the deputy shouted his message: there had just been a heavy raid - in broad daylight - by a gang who had ransacked the goldsmiths in the Saepta Julia. The size of the haul, the speed of the attack, and the efficiency of the robbers bore marked similarities to the raid at the Emporium. The Seventh Cohort were in charge, but Petronius was expected to attend.

Petro had run down almost to the street before he cursed and remembered he was still holding the skip baby. He leapt back three steps at a time with his long, spider's legs, shoved the child into my arms, then hared off again. I passed the baby to Helena, instructed Nux to stay and guard them, then set off after Petronius.

I was wearing the wrong boots for hurrying, but I had no intention of missing this.