Ode To A Banker Part 16

'That's hard.'

'Fate, Falco. It was bound to happen one day. Successful poets gather together a pension, leave Rome, and retire to be famous men in their hometowns where - touched by the Golden City's magic - they will shine out among the rural dross. They go while they can still enjoy it; by my age, a successful man has left. An unsuccessful one can only hope to offend the Emperor by some s.e.xual scandal, then be exiled to prison on the edge of the Empire where they keep him alive with daily porridge just so his whimpering letters home will demonstrate the triumph of morality... Vespasian's womenfolk have yet to start having rampant affairs with poets.' He flexed an arthritic knuckle. 'I'll be beyond servicing the b.i.t.c.hes if they hang about much longer.'

'I'll put the word out at the Golden House that here's a love poet who wants to be part of a salon scandal ...' To be left without funding at his age could be no joke. 'How will your finances stand up?' I asked.

He knew why I was asking. A man plunged into sudden abject poverty could well have turned violent when the unsympathetic patron sat in his elegant Greek library telling him the news. Constrictus enjoyed informing me he was reprieved from that suspicion: 'I have a small legacy from my grandmother to live on, actually.'

'Nice.'

'Such a relief!'

'Absolves you from suspicion too.'

'And it's so convenient!' he agreed.

Too convenient?

When I pressed him about timings, he was the first person to tell me that when he left the library yesterday, he saw the lunch tray waiting for Chrysippus, in the Latin room's lobby. It seemed he might well have been the last to visit before the murderer. Honest of him to admit it. Honest - or just blatant?

I made him look at the side table with the Phrygian Purple upstands. 'When did you last taste nettle flan?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Did you go up to that buffet table, Constrictus? Did you help yourself from the tray?'

'No, I did not!' He laughed. 'I would have been afraid somebody sensible had poisoned his food. Anyway, there's a decent popina in the Clivus outside. I went out for air, and had a bite there.'

'See any of the others?'

'Not the morning he died.' He stared at me, much more daring than the rest. 'Naturally most of us met up in the afternoon, after we heard what had happened, and discussed what we would say to you!'

'Yes; I had already worked out that you did that,' I answered quietly.

I let him go. He wanted to be too clever. I had liked him, which was more than I could say for the historian, the ideal republican, or the satirist - yet I trusted none of them.

There was now only one remaining on my list of visitors, Urba.n.u.s, the dramatist. Time was running out; I couldn't wait on his convenience. I took the address Pa.s.sus had obtained for me and went to his apartment. He was not in. At the theatre probably, or in some drinking-house full of actors and understudies. I could not be bothered to try searching, or to wait for him to wander home.

XXVI.

THE CONVERSATION I had held earlier with Pa about keeping daybooks had stayed with me. I decided I would call in the records of the Aurelian Bank Big ideas! I then decided it might be asking for trouble. That did not stop me. Since I was working for the vigiles and they would be held accountable for my excesses of enthusiasm, I reckoned it could be done officially.

In July and August in Rome when you have a major project on, you must accomplish all you can in the evening. Daytime is too hot for work like mine. Even if I decided to endure the sun, n.o.body else would be available. So that evening, although I had every excuse to toddle home to Helena, I put in one more effort and went to see Petronius at the vigiles' patrol-house, to discuss banking.

It happened that Petro was there. When I arrived he and Sergius, the punishment man, were teasing a statement out of a recalcitrant victim by the subtle technique of bawling fast questions while flicking him insistently with the end of a hard whip. I winced, and sat out on a bench in the warm evening sun until they tired and shoved their victim into the holding-cell.

'What's he done?'

'He doesn't want to tell us.' That had been obvious.

'What do you think he's done?'

'Run a tunic-stealing racket at the Baths of Calliope.'

'Surely that's too routine to justify the heavy hand?'

'And he poisoned the dog Calliope had brought in to stand guard over the clothes pegs in the changing room.'

'Killed a doggie? Now that's wicked.'

'She bought the dog from my sister,' Sergius broke in angrily. 'My sister took a lot of back-chat for supplying a sick animal.' He went back inside to shout insults through the cell door. I told Petro I still thought they were being too rough on the suspect.

'No, he's lucky,' Petronius a.s.sured me. 'Being beaten by Sergius isnothing. The alternative was letting Sergius' sister get to him. She is twice as big' - that must be quite a size, I thought - 'and she's horrible.'

'Oh, fair enough'

I discussed a plan I had for demanding sight of the banker's records, or at least the most recent. Petro raised objections initially, then his natural impulse to be awkward with financiers took charge. He agreed to make available a couple of lads in red tunics, to be my official escort, and with the provision of a suitable docket from his clerk I could approach the bank and see what happened. The vigiles clerk was a creative type. He devised a grand doc.u.ment, written in peculiar and extravagant language, which served as a warrant to impound the goods.

We took this to the Forum, to the Aurelian change-table. Petronius in fact came along with us. Eager for a field trip, so did the clerk. Impressed by our own bravado, we carried the day: the cashier reluctantly agreed to show us where the freedman Lucrio lived. Lucrio possessed all the relevant records, apparently. At his apartment, a discreet but obviously s.p.a.cious ground-floor spread, we were told he had gone out to dinner. We could sense resistance but without their master to give orders, the household staff caved in. A slave reluctantly showed us where the records were kept, and we carried off in a handcart the tablets and sewn-together codices that looked the most up to date. We left a nice note to say we had removed them, naturally.

We towed the material back to the patrol-house. It had to be kept secure, for all sorts of reasons. Since Rubella, the tribune, was still on leave in Campania, we dumped everything in his office. Then I went out and thanked the escort. They shambled off, grinning. Ex-slaves, each doing a six-year stint in fire-fighting as a route to respectability, they were glad of some fun, especially if they could achieve it without any headb.u.t.ts, bruises or burns.

'I'll have a quick squint now, then I'll be along tomorrow to start scrutiny in detail,' I said to Petro, who was himself preparing for a night out on the streets of the Thirteenth District (the patrol-house was in the Twelfth).

Having glanced quickly at the unfathomable tablets, Petronius now looked at me as though I were mad. 'Are you sure about this?'

'A doddle,' I a.s.sured him breezily.

'Whatever you say, Falco.'

'No option.' I decided on honesty: 'We're getting stuck.'

'You mean, you are.'

I ignored that. 'Once the alarm was raised after the murder, the vigiles were on the spot within minutes. We checked everyone in the household for bloodstains. His relations all have alibis. The scriptorium manager is exonerated by absence. There are no links to the literary visitors. I won't yet say for certain that the bank holds the motive, but it looks increasingly likely. I needed to swoop. We did not want chests to be cleared or items destroyed.'

'You know what you're doing,' Petronius said dryly.

Not quite, perhaps. But I was running out of leads at the Chrysippus house. The staff were in the clear. The authors all blamed each other, but none of them seemed capable of the sustained violence inflicted on the dead man. The wife and the ex-wife were too devious to a.s.sist me. Trouble at the bank was all I had left to investigate.

We gossiped for a while. I told Petro what had been happening about Maia working for Pa. He grimaced at the idea of Junia in charge of Flora's Caupona; still, plenty of wineries are run by folk who seem to loathe the notion of being hospitable. Junia could not cook; that fitted the profile of most caupona managers. Petro's one concern for Maia was how, if she needed to take herself half across Rome working at the Saepta Julia, she would manage to look after her children.

'While she's with our father, they will probably be at Ma's.'

'Oh right!' said Petronius, quick to forecast trouble. 'So every time Maia goes there to deliver or collect them, she will risk meeting Anacrites.'

'That had not escaped me. The older ones are big enough to find their way back and forth without a chaperone, but the youngest is only three or four. And you're right. Maia will not like them wandering the streets, so she will be at Ma's more now than she was before.'

We stood outside the patrol-house in silence for a moment. I had an odd feeling that Petronius was about to share a confidence. I waited, but he said nothing.

He went off on enquiries and I wandered back inside. Night was falling, so the place emptied. The clerk went off duty; he worked day shifts. 'I'll bar the main door, Falco. We have to deter maniacs with grudges from getting in while the boys are all away. You can use the side exit in the equipment store.'

The vigiles were now on active duty. Their primary role was to patrol the streets during the hours of darkness watching for fires, arresting any criminals they happened to encounter while they were out on foot patrol. Later, groups would return with their haul of naughty nightlife; until then I was sitting alone with an oil-lamp in the tribune's office, with only the man banged-up in the cell for company. He had been shouting in a desultory way, but he fell silent, pondering his fate perhaps. I had not bothered to answer him, so he probably thought he was all alone.

Rubella, the tribune whose upstairs room I had taken over, was an ex-centurion who l.u.s.ted after joining the Praetorian Guard, so he kept up military neatness like a religion. I soon dealt with that, sweeping his carefully placed desk equipment to one side and moving all his furniture. He would hate it. I chuckled to myself. I had a hunt around in case he had stowed a wine flask anywhere, but he was too ascetic to indulge - or else he had taken the comforter home when he went on leave. Some tribunes are human. Being on holiday can be very stressful.

I was having trouble finding my way about the bank's figurework. Loans were hardly distinguished from deposits, and I could not tell whether interest was included in the amounts. Eventually I worked out that I had an itemised tally of day-to-day debts and credits for the bank, but no running totals for individual client accounts. Well, that was no surprise. I myself had never been sent a summary of my affairs by Nothokleptes; I relied on notes I had jotted down for myself, and had to tot up the transactions on my own waxed tablet if I wanted to be certain where I stood at any time. Similar practices seemed to be inflicted on those who had dealings at the sign of the Golden Horse.

It seemed an invitation to mislead, at best. Any of these names could have been cheated of cash. If I told them it had happened, they would be enraged. Normally, they probably never found out. In fact, the material failed to throw up a suspect. From the figures I had here, I could not really identify who should be feeling aggrieved.

Somebody was upset. I was about to find out how badly.

I had stayed later than I intended. Other people's finances are deeply absorbing. As full darkness descended and the city cooled down after the long, hot day, I came to, suddenly aware that I should be leaving. Aware also, of distant sounds from time to time. I vaguely a.s.sumed some of the vigiles were returning, or that an extremely rowdy tavern nearby must be throwing out customers. I left Rubella's office, locked it behind me and placed the c.u.mbersome key up high on the door lintel (its place when he was absent; when he was there he guarded the key in his arm-purse, lest anyone should pinch his lunch). Everywhere was dark and felt unfamiliar to me. Unmanned, the place was eerie.

The upstairs office was an innovation Rubella devised when he was posted here, to give himself extra status. He thought discipline was best imposed by distance. n.o.body argued; it kept him out of their way. The lads had always lived on the outer porch; there they could sn.i.g.g.e.r about Rubella while he could not reappear within earshot without clattering down a flight of steps. I was about to regret how noisy they were.

The lower level of the patrol-house consisted of interrogation rooms, which I knew were hung with ghastly manipulative screws and weights; it had a few cells and one barrack room, where on rare occasions the troops sheltered and slept. None of those was lit tonight. Alongside this building lay the fire-fighting equipment store, one of two run by the Fourth Cohort in each of the districts they looked after. The communicating door stood open as I loafed downstairs with my half-extinguished oil lamp. Other lamps were sometimes left flickering in the store, to aid fast access in emergencies, but tonight no one seemed to have bothered. Well, it saved the embarra.s.sment of having the fire-fighters' building set ablaze accidentally while n.o.body was here.

My boots were soft on the stair treads, but by no means silent. I called goodnight to the man locked in the cell. No answer.

As soon as I turned into the store, which lay in pitch darkness, I smelt and sensed people waiting. I was alone in a strange building - tired, unarmed, and unprepared for this. Someone knocked up my arm. The lamp went out. The door slammed shut behind me. Dear G.o.ds: I was in deep trouble.

XXVII.

THEY MUST have been able to see my outline in the open doorway before before the lamp failed. They had certainly heard me coming. I had been careless. Nowhere was safe, not even the patrol-house of a cohort of law and order boys.

The moment my arm was jarred, I dropped to the floor and rolled. Not much use. I crashed into somebody's ankles; he shouted. Either he or someone else hauled at my tunic, found an arm, towed me one way, then kicked me in the body so I was sent in another direction.

I skewed round and crawled away crabwise, but they were on me. I grappled a torso, kneeing soft tissue. Teeth found my hand, but I was able to make it into a fist and heard the man gagging as I punched his mouth. My other hand fell on the still-warm lamp, so I flung it where I thought there was an attacker near the door; he cursed, as the pottery cracked and hot oil sprayed him. Some of them must have banged into each other, judging by their grunts of annoyance. Otherwise they did not speak. Come to that, neither did I.

The store was full of equipment; I could barely remember the layout. A pile of metal buckets had crashed over. My worst fear was the grappling hooks, but whoever these intruders were, they did not try anything so dangerous - well, not in the dark, where they might gouge the flesh or tear out the eyes of their own group. When they next found me though, at least two of them made contact at the same time. I was bucking madly; even so, I ended up pinned to what I realised was the side of the siphon wagon - the engine that could be rushed out on wheels to pump water onto large-scale fires. Metal was sticking into me painfully; I had no idea what. A hand squashed my face; I used my own teeth. Then I jerked my head away hard, knowing I would be pummelled in retaliation. I heard the fist smash into the wagon, and I bent double, despite the grip of those holding me, so the next blow went above me and missed as well.

These were determined people, but not as well trained as they could have been. Not professional heavies. Still, somebody had told them they could rough up anyone they found.

They had dragged me down on the floor. Then something scratchy and enormously heavy was thrown on top of me. Those holding me let go of my legs and arms; as they slid away, more of the scratchy stuff landed around me. Beneath it, I was unable to move and had trouble breathing. I could smell charred material. Grit and coa.r.s.e strands were in my mouth and nose. Dear G.o.ds; I knew what was happening. They had dumped me under one of the esparto mats - the big thick squares of woven Spanish gra.s.s that the vigiles used for smothering fires. I was stuck under it, while my attackers had fun dancing on top, stumbling to and fro, playing at clumsy grape-pressing all over me. The esparto mat, which from the charred smell had been used a few times for its real purpose, might protect me from bruising - but at the cost of smothering me as successfully as it put out fires.

Immobile and choking, I braced myself and waited for the worst.

XXVIII.

THE SITUATION changed. The agony decreased a little. They had stopped jumping about.

For a period most went away, although one large body remained sitting right upon my midriff, keeping me stuck securely under the weight of the mat. I heard voices sometimes. I could feel vibrations in the floor. People were moving about. They may have relit some lamps, though no trace of light was reaching me through the thick esparto matting.

I had managed to get my mouth and nose into a small air pocket. My ribs were compressed, which constricted my breathing, but I was alive. I could stay like this for a little while, though not for long.

At some point tonight either Petronius and his enquiry team or the rankers would return. How soon would that be? Not soon enough, from what I knew of them. If it was a quiet night, with few prisoners to process, they would be tempted to drop into a caupona. Flexing my dry tongue against the roof of my mouth, tasting old smoke and charcoal, I blamed none of them for lingering but I prayed for them to home in here.

Summer. Would anyone in this neighbourhood let a flaming candelabrum topple over? A night-light catch on a curtain? A skillet of hot oil set itself on fire? A furnace explode at a bathhouse? A log-store smoulder? The sources of disaster in normal life were many, though life was less dangerous in summer than in winter. Still, even if the whole Twelfth District had eaten salad and was slumbering by starlight, surely there was some friendly arsonist who would feel a mad impulse to watch the vigiles racing back to their store for the wherewithal to douse his efforts? I would stand him bail and compose a character witness statement, if he would hurry up and kindle just a small fire, so the alarm would be raised and I would be found...

Typical. Never a villain when you want one. All Rome must be lying peaceful tonight.

I tried groaning. The ballast merchant just dug his backside into the mat above me more heavily. Whether by accident or on purpose, he moved his weight onto my head.

This was going to finish me.

Perhaps I did pa.s.s out. But eventually, some of the pain lifted. Even the mat was pulled off me, rasping roughly across my body and legs. I was dazzled by light, temporarily blinding.

I lay still. That was easy. Pretending to be dead comes naturally when you are halfway there. Around me, the air was cool, a desperately pleasant change. I breathed in gently while I could, trying to revive my strength before they tackled me again - as I knew they soon would.

Squinting through relaxed eyelids, I glimpsed various crude shoes and sandals. Dirty feet, with black, unpedicured toenails, misshapen bones and flea-bitten ankles: slaves' feet. I heard shuffling, and a silence falling as if order was being imposed.

A man's voice asked, with only a trace of concern, 'What have you done to him?'

Someone lifted the neck of my tunic, dragging up my head. I kept my eyes shut. He let go. My head banged down on the stone floor.

Then there was a clank. Cold water brought me round, yelling. Someone had chucked a whole fire-bucket over me. This was not my favourite way to spend a balmy July night. Soaked through, I sat up, shaking my hair and wiping my eyes. I coughed up sputum. As if not caring who was here, I gripped my knees and laid my head down, gasping.

'You are Didius Falco?' enquired the same voice. I had its position now. He was the stuffed sheepgut in charge. That would be his mistake. 'Answer me!' He came nearer, so he could nudge me with his foot.

Then I rolled, and in one movement retrieved my knife from my boot. I wrenched myself upright, grabbed him, spun him with his back to me, pulled his head up by the hair, pressed an arm across his throat so he was choking, and held my knife to his throat. I backed myself into a safe position against the siphon trailer, using him as my shield.

'n.o.body move - or I kill him!'

I yanked harder at the hair. His eyes must have been rolling, and he was no doubt grimacing. He had the sense not to struggle.

'All of you,' I told them grimly, 'go back now slowly to the wall opposite.'

When they hesitated, I made a brutal jerk with my arm on my captive's throat. He let out a wild croak of terror, trying to make them obey me. He was red in the face. They edged away. There were five. Slaves in plain tunics, unarmed of course. None seemed properly accustomed to violence. I was alone, but I knew what I was doing. Well, I thought I did.

'What's your name?' My prisoner gurgled. I wrenched at his throat viciously and shouted at the slaves, 'What's his name?'