A Dying Light In Corduba Part 3

'Anacrites?' I laughed briefly, though not at the spy's misfortune. 'Then the first question you should be asking is whether I did it!'

'I did consider that,' Laeta shot back.

'Next, the attack may be connected to his work. Maybe, unknown to you, I'm already involved.'

'I understood that after he landed you in trouble on your Eastern trip, the last thing you would ever do is work with him.'

I let that pa.s.s. 'How did he get himself beaten up?' 'He must have gone out for some reason.'

'He wasn't going home? He actually lives at the Palace?'

'It's understandable, Falco. He's a free man, but he holds a sensitive senior position. There must be considerations of security.' Laeta had clearly given much thought to the luxury Anacrites had fixed up for himself: inter-service jealousies were seething again. 'I believe he has invested in a large villa at Baiae, but it's for holidays - which he rarely takes - and no doubt his retirement eventually -'

Laeta's obsession with his rival's private life intrigued me - as did the amazing thought that Anacrites could somehow afford a villa at ultra-fashionable Baiae. 'How badly is he hurt?' I b.u.t.ted in.

'The message said he might not live.'

'Message?'

'Apparently he was discovered and rescued by a householder who sent a slave to the Palatine this morning.' 'This man identified Anacrites how?'

'That I don't know.'

'Who has checked Anacrites' condition? You have not seen him?'

'No!' Laeta seemed surprised.

I restrained myself. This was looking like a mess. 'Is he still with the charitable private citizen?' Silence confirmed it. So! You believe Anacrites has been knocked about, and possibly murdered, by somebody or some group he was investigating. Official panic ensues. You, as Chief of Correspondence - a quite separate bureau - become involved.' Or he involved himself, more likely. 'Yet the Chief Spy himself has been left all day, perhaps without medical attention, and in a place where either he or the helpful citizen may be attacked again. Meanwhile n.o.body from the official side has bothered to find out how badly Anacrites is hurt, or whether he can speak about what happened?'

Laeta made no attempt to excuse the stupidity. He linked the fingertips of both hands. 'Put like that,' he said, with all the reasonableness of an important official who had been caught on the hop, 'it sounds as if you and I should go straight there now, Falco.'

I glanced across at Helena. She shrugged, resigned to it. She knew I hated Anacrites; she also knew that any wounded man needs help from someone sensible. One day the body bleeding in the gutter might be mine.

I had a further question: 'Anacrites runs a full complement of agents; why are they not being asked to see to this?' Laeta looked shifty; I dropped in the real point: 'Does the Emperor know what has occurred?'

'He knows.' I could not decide whether to believe the clerk or not.

At least Laeta had brought an address. It took us to a medium apartment on the south end of the Esquiline - a once notorious district, now prettied up. A famous graveyard which had once possessed a filthy reputation had been developed into five or six public gardens. These still provided a venue for fornication and robbery, so the streets were littered with broken wine jugs and the locals walked about with their heads down, avoiding eye contact. Near the aqueducts some pleasant private homes braved it out.

On the first level of living quarters in a four-storey block, up a cleanly swept stair which was guarded by standard bay trees, lived a fusspot bachelor architect called Calisthenus. He had been trapped at home all day, unwilling to leave a mugging victim who might suddenly revive and make off with his rescuer's collection of Campanian cameos.

Laeta, with unnecessary caution, refused to identify himself. I did the talking: 'I'm Didius Falco.' I knew how to imbue that with authority; there was no need to specify what post I held. 'We've come to carry off the mugging victim you so kindly took in - a.s.suming he is still alive.'

'Just about, but unconscious still.' Calisthenus looked as if he thought he deserved our official attention. I contained my distaste. He was a thin, pale weeping willow who spoke in a tired drawl. He implied he had great ideas preoccupying him, as if he were a grand temple designer; in reality he probably built rows of little cobblers' shops.

'How did you come across him?'

'Impossible to avoid: he was blocking my exit.' 'Had you heard any disturbance last night?'

Not specially. We get a lot of noise around here. You learn to sleep through it.' And to ignore trouble until they could not step over it.

We reached a small closet where a slave normally dossed down. Anacrites was lying on the meagre pallet, while the slave watched him from a stool, looking annoyed that his blanket was being bled on. The spy was indeed unconscious. He was so ill that for a second I found him unrecognisable.

I spoke his name: no response.

There was a cloth in a bowl of cold water; I wiped his face. His skin was completely drained of colour and felt idly moist. The pulse in his neck took careful finding. He had gone somewhere very far away, probably on a journey that would have no return.

I lifted the cloak covering him, his own garment presumably. He still wore last night's reddish tunic held togetner along all its seams with padded braid in dark berry colours. Anacrites always sw.a.n.ked in good stuff, though he avoided garish shades; he knew how to mix comfort with un.o.btrusiveness.

There were no bloodstains on the tunic. I found no stabbing wounds nor general signs of beating, though he did have identical bad bruises on both his upper arms as if he had been fiercely grabbed. The side of one shin had a small cut, new and about a digit long, from which ran a dried trickle of blood, thin and straight as a dead worm. No serious wounds accounted for his desperate condition until I drew back another cloth. It had been placed at the top of his head, where it formed a wad pressed against his skull.

I peeled it off gently. This explained everything. Someone with unpleasant manners had used Anacrites as a pestle in a very rough mortar, half scalping him. Through the mess of blood and hair I could see to the bone. The spy's cranium had been crushed in a way that had probably damaged his brain.

Calisthenus, the droopy architect, had reappeared in the doorway. He was holding Anacrites' belt; I recognised it from last night. 'He was not robbed. There is a purse here.' I heard it clink. Laeta grabbed the belt and searched the purse, finding just small change in normal quant.i.ties. I didn't bother. If he hoped to discover clues there, Laeta had never dealt with spies. I knew Anacrites would carry no doc.u.ments, not even a picture of his girlfriend if he had one. If he ever carried a note-tablet he would have been too close even to scratch out a shopping list.

'How did you know he belonged in the Palace, Calisthenus?'

Calisthenus handed me a bone tablet, the kind many officials wear to impress innkeepers when they want a free drink. It gave Anacrites a false name which I had heard him use, and claimed he was a palace secretary; I knew that disguise too, and presumably so did whoever at the Palace received the architect's message.

Was anything else with him?'

'No.'

I lifted the Chief Spy's lifeless left wrist, splaying the cold fingers on mine. 'What about his seal ring?' I knew he wore one; he used it to stamp pa.s.ses and other doc.u.ments. It was a large chalcedony oval engraved with two elephants entwining trunks. Calisthenus again shook his head. 'Sure?' He was growing indignant as only an architect can (all that practice blufling out overspent estimates and expressing disbelief that clients expect a house that looks like what they asked for ...) 'No disrespect, Calisthenus, but you might have thought the ring would cover any costs you incurred in tending the victim?'

I can a.s.sure you -'

'All right. Settle down. You have rescued an important state servant; if it does impose any financial burden, send your invoice to the Palace. If the ring turns up it should be returned straight away. Now if your boy can run out for a litter, my colleague here will take this poor fellow away.'

Laeta looked put out that I a.s.signed him to babyminding, but as we watched Anacrites being loaded into a hired chair for what could be his last journey anywhere, I explained that if I was being asked to work on the problem I had best nip off and start. 'So what is required, Laeta? You want me to arrest whoever bopped him?'

'Well, that would be interesting, Falco.' In fact Laeta sounded as if apprehending the villain was his least concern. I began to wonder if it was wise to let him escort the wounded spy back to the Palatine. 'But what investigation do you think Anacrites was working on?'

'Ask the Emperor,' I instructed.

'Vespasian is unaware of any major exercise that could be relevant.' Did that mean the Emperor was being kept in ignorance - or simply that the intelligence network had no work? No wonder Anacrites always gave the impression he feared compulsory retirement was lurking just around the corner.

'Have you tried t.i.tus?' The Emperor's elder son shared the business of government. He happily involved himself in secrets.

't.i.tus Caesar had nothing to add. However, it was he who suggested bringing in your good self.'

't.i.tus knows I won't want to tangle with this!' I growled. 'I told you: interview Anacrites' staff. If he was on to something, he will have had agents out in the field.'

Laeta was frowning. 'I have been trying, Falco. I cannot identify auy agent he was using. He was very secretive. His record-keeping was eccentric to say the least. All the named employees on his bureau's roll seem very low-grade runners and messengers.'

I laughed. 'No operative who worked for Anacrites would be high cla.s.s!'

'You mean he couldn't choose good people?' Laeta seemed pleased to hear it.

Suddenly I felt angry on the d.a.m.ned spy's behalf. 'No, I mean that he was never given any money to pay for quality!' It did raise the question of how his own villa at Baiae had been acquired, but Laeta failed to spot the discrepancy. I calmed down. 'Look, he was bound to be secretive; it comes with the job. Olympus! We're talking about him as if he were dead, but that's not so, not yet -'

'Well, no indeed!' Laeta muttered. The litter-bearers were maintaining their normal impa.s.sive stare straight ahead. We both knew they were listening in. 't.i.tus Caesar suggests we ensure no news of this attack leaks out.' Good old t.i.tus. Famous for flair - especially, in my experience, when organising cover-ups. I had helped him fix a few of those.

I looked Laeta firmly in the eye. 'This could have something to do with the dinner last night.'

Reluctantly he admitted, 'I was wondering about that.'

'Why was it you invited me? I had the feeling there was something you wanted to discuss?' He pursed his lips. 'Why were you keen to have me meet that senator?'

'Only my own general impression that Quinctius Attractus is getting above himself.'

'Might Anacrites have been investigating Attractus?'

'What reason could he have?' Laeta would not even admit that Anacrites might have noticed the man's behaviour just as he did.

'Spies don't have to have legitimate reasons; that's why they are dangerous.'

'Well, somebody has made this one quite a lot less dangerous, Falco.'

'Perhaps,' I suggested nastily, 'I should be asking whether you got on with him badly.' Since I knew better than to expect a sensible answer, I turned my attention back to the spy himself.

I wondered whether it would have been better to leave Anacrites discreetly at the house of Calisthenus, paying the architect to have the sick man nursed and to keep quiet about it. But if someone really dangerous was about, the Palace would be safer. Well, it ought to be. Anacrites could be the victim of a straightforward palace plot. I was sending him home to be looked after - that nasty ambiguous phrase. Maybe I was sending him home to be finished off.

Suddenly I felt a surge of defiance. I could see when I was being set up as the b.o.o.by. Laeta loathed the spy, and his motives towards me were ambiguous. I didn't trust Laeta any more than Anacrites, but whatever was going on, Anacrites was in deep trouble. I had never liked him, or what he represented, but I understood how he worked: knee deep in the same middenheap as me.

Laeta, t.i.tus is right. This needs to be kept quiet until we know what it's about. And you know how rumours fly at the Palace. The best solution is to put Anacrites somewhere else where he can die in peace when he decides to go; then we can choose whether or not to announce it in the Daily Gozette. Leave everything to me. I'll carry him to the Temple of Aesculapius on Tiber Island, swear them to secrecy, but give them your name to inform you of developments.'

Laeta thought hard, but submitted himself to my plan.

Telling him that I had a few ideas of my own to pursue, I waved him off.

I then examined the doorway where Anacrites had been found. It was easy to see where and how he had been hurt; I discovered an ugly clump of blood and hair on the house wall. It was below chest height; the spy must have been bent over for some reason, though he carried no marks of any blow that would have doubled him up. I looked around, covering some distance, but found nothing significant.

The wounded man had been propped in a chair long enough; I told the bearers to come along with him. I did walk them to Tiber Island where I unloaded Anacrites and dismissed the chair. Then, instead of depositing the sick man amongst the clapped-out abandoned slaves who were being cared for at the hospital, I hired another chair. I led this one further west along the riverbank in the shadow of the Aventine. Then I took the unconscious spy to a private apartment where I could be sure of his good treatment.

He might yet die of last night's wound, but no one would be allowed to help him into Hades by other means.

VIII

Though I was a man on a charitable mission, my greeting was not promising. I had dragged Anacrites up three flights of stairs. Even unconscious he made trouble, buckling me under his weight and tangling his lifeless hands in the handrail just when I had got a good rhythm going. By the time I arrived upstairs I had no breath to curse him. I used my shoulder to knock open the door, a worn item that had once been red, now a faded pink.

A furious old biddy accosted us. 'Who's that? Don't drag him in here. This is a peaceful neighbourhood!'

'h.e.l.lo, Mother.'

Her companion was less blunt and more witty. 'Jove, it's Falco! The little lost boy who needs a tablet round his neck to tell people where he lives! A tablet he can consult himself too, when he's sober enough to read it -'

'Shut up, Petro. I'm giving myself a hernia. Help me lie him down somewhere.'

'Don't tell me!' raged my mother. 'One of your friends has got himself in trouble and you expect me to look after him. It's time you grew up, Marcus. I'm an old woman. I deserve a rest.'

'You're an old woman who needs an interest in life. This is just the thing. He's not a drunk who fell under a cart, Ma. He's an official who has been cruelly attacked and until we discover the reason he has to be kept out of sight. I'd take him home but people may look for him there.'

'Take him home? That poor girl you live with doesn't want to be bothered with this!' I winked at the unconscious Anacrites; he had just found himself a refuge. The best in Rome.

Petronius Longus, my big grinning friend, had been lounging in my mother's kitchen with a handful of almonds while he regaled Ma with the now famous finish of my big night out. Seeing my burden his mood quietened, then when he helped me shove Anacrites on a bed and he glimpsed the damage to the spy's head, Petro's face set. I thought he was going to say something but he b.u.t.toned his lip.

Ma stood in the doorway, arms folded; a small, still energetic woman who had spent her life nurturing people who didn't deserve it. Olive black eyes flicked over the spy with flashes like signal torches announcing an international disaster. 'Well, this one won't be a lot of trouble. He's not going to be here long!'

'Do your best for the poor fellow, Ma.'

'Don't I know him?' Petronius mumbled in a low voice to me.

'Speak up!' snapped Ma. 'I'm not deaf and I'm not an idiot.'

Petronius was frightened of my mother. He replied meekly, 'It's Anacrites, the Chief Spy.'

'Well, he looks like a nasty dumpling that should have been eaten up yesterday,' she sneered.

I shook my head. 'He's a spy; that's his natural att.i.tude.' 'Well, I hope I'm not expected to work some miracle and save him.'

'Ma, spare us the quaint plebeian cheerfulness!' 'Who's going to pay for the funeral?'

'The Palace will. Just take him in while he's dying. Give him some peace from whoever is trying to get him.' 'Well; I can do that,' she conceded grumpily.

I come from a large f.e.c.kless family, who rarely permit themselves to perform deeds of kindness. When they do, any sensible conscious man wants to run a fast marathon in the other direction. It gave me a grim pleasure to leave Anacrites there. I hoped he came round and got thoroughly lectured - and I hoped that when it happened I would be present to watch.

I had known Petronius Longus since we were both eighteen. I could tell he was holding back like a nervous bride. As soon as we could, we edged to the door, then bidding Ma a fast farewell we were out of the apartment like the naughty schoolboys she reckoned we both still were. Her derogatory cries followed us downstairs.

Petronius knew I realised there was something he was bursting to say. In his usual aggravating way he kept it to himself as long as possible. I clamped my teeth and pretended not to be wanting to knock him into the copper shop opposite for keeping me on tenterhooks.

'Falco, everyone's talking about a body the Second Cohort found this morning.' Petro was in the Fourth Cohort of vigiles, lording it over the Aventine. The Second were his counterparts who covered the Esquiline district.

'Whose body's that?'

'Looked like a street attack; happened last night. Man had his head stove in, in a remarkably violent manner.' 'Rammed against a wall, perhaps?'

Petro appraised my suggestion. 'Sounds as if it could have been.'

'Know anybody friendly in the Second?'