Graveyard of the Hesperides (3 page)

This was just as well. We had no chance of keeping the discovery private. A small crowd of sightseers had already gathered in the street.

*   *   *

Faustus used his authority as an aedile to order these ghouls to disperse. They were not impressed, freely ignoring him, and there was a danger that others would join them. He made the best of it with an announcement: “I presume you have heard that human remains have been found. I am aware of the rumored disappearance of a waitress some years ago. There may be no connection. But anyone who knows anything pertinent should come to see one of us.” He indicated that I was included, though I was his wife now, so he didn't bother with introductions. I smoldered like an appendage who would cause trouble at home later. “Now please, go about your business quietly.”

Had the Hesperides been open for business, he would have stood no chance of moving people on. As it was, some shuffled off but many simply shifted themselves to the Medusa or the Romulus along the street, then stared across from there.

Because of the public interest, we went back and, helped by our watchman, reopened the passageway indoors so we could fetch the bones safely away with us.

After that, since too many people already knew, we set off to inform the landlord after all.

 

IV

Pedantic people will probably wonder where these events took place. Extremely pedantic bods with fixed-narrative ideas will ask why I have not mentioned it before. Look here, you write things your way, Legate. I shall draft my case notes just how I want.

So! The Garden of the Hesperides stood in the city's Sixth District, the Alta Semita, or High Footpath. The bar occupied a corner on the Vicus Longus, which is an extension of the famous Argiletum, the main road north from our fine new imperial fora. The latest, Domitian's Forum Transitorium, would add some lustre when it was finished, but the Argiletum's reputation had always been unsavory, especially the area called the Subura. It was allegedly famous for booksellers and cobblers, but in the Subura trade of all kinds flourished, and I do mean
all
.

The Hesperides, Medusa and Romulus stood in a dirty enclave called the Ten Traders. There certainly were shops, as
Decem Tabernae
implied, but bars and eateries abounded, some keeping so quiet about the brothel upstairs it looked as if they only sold wine and stuffed cabbage leaves. No one was fooled. This area had no temples to virgin goddesses.

The Garden of the Hesperides seemed popular, though not quite as lively as its immediate neighbors, the deafening Four Limpets, the raucous Soldier's Rest and the utterly appalling Brown Toad, where bisexual prostitutes openly solicited from front benches. The Ten Traders sits on the southern end of the Viminal Hill, the smallest of the ancient Seven Hills of Rome. It is a dull ridge that is mostly passed by, with roads on either side taking people to more interesting places.

The landlord lived in Crab-apple Alley, in a rented apartment above a potter's, just around the corner from his bar. He could go home for lunch. From what I guessed about the Hesperides and its daily menu, he would probably want to. His proximity meant we could not expect to keep anything quiet; in fact, highly excited neighbors must already have rushed around to burble what had happened. Luckily for us, he had been out—we met him as he fiddled with his latch-lifter on his way back in. Nobody had spoken to him yet, giving us the theoretical advantage of surprise.

I felt that if he knew anything at all about Rufia, his surprise would be slight. Surely he must have suspected the workmen would find something? Since the skeleton seemed incomplete, a curious informer was bound to wonder whether he had actually made an attempt to find and remove evidence before any work started. I asked Faustus; he knew of no prior digging, but he had not been in charge of the project at its start. I told him to question his foreman. He meekly promised to do so.

The landlord was one Publius Julius Liberalis, as we knew from the building contract. Three names, all Latinate—a free citizen. Rome's finest, and somewhat typical: a short man with a large head. On it was robust silver hair, which he parted in the middle. That suits nobody. Two silver horns of hair sat over his temples with matching sideburn points. He enhanced the four horns by twiddling them when he was nervous. I tried not to dismiss him as a wrong 'un just because he had a bad hairstyle. But it set the tone for me.

He looked between thirty and forty. That mattered, because according to my impression of the timescale, he would have been young when Rufia vanished. Possibly even too young to go into bars, though boys start young in the Subura. Drinking is not the only thing they start early, either.

I had met him casually on-site, though he showed no recollection of it. This time, Faustus gave me a proper introduction, as if he might have caught my frosty glance just now at the bar. “Flavia Albia is an informer who works with me when something needs special investigation. We are about to be married, I am delighted to say, so I'll have even better access to her expertise. There is a problem at your bar. We need to talk to you.”

Liberalis had at first assumed Faustus needed a decision from him on something to do with the renovation. Faced with the unexpected threat of special inquiries, he grew flustered, gabbling that he never had visitors so had left his apartment in a terrible mess. I just reached in and helped him with his latch-lifter while Faustus pushed the door. When somebody is reluctant to admit an informer, it only makes us more determined to get in. Did he have an ulterior motive?

Actually, no. When we pushed past the quavering Liberalis and stormed his citadel, it was indeed stupendously untidy. Tangles of clothes and old wine flagons covered every surface, no rubbish had been emptied for weeks, sandals lived on the windowsill, lopsided pictures dangled off bent nails, and if you wanted to sit down you had to forage for a stool and then offload armfuls of detritus. Whatever you moved had to be added to teetering piles of other stuff. He probably claimed he knew where everything was, as idiots do, but that would be impossible.

“Well done!” I exclaimed, since there was no point pretending not to notice. “I've known adolescent boys who would envy what you have achieved here.”

“An old biddy comes and does, since my mother passed away, but she's been off color…” I saw her point. This was clearly not a man whose mother had taught him he must tidy up before the cleaner came.

There was no wife. So long as this remained his bolt-hole, there would never be. To me he had a distinct mother's-boy air, old-fashioned, innocent, probably selfish, ill at ease in company. Like many people who hanker to run a bar, he was poorly equipped for it. Perhaps the Hesperides had been there so long it would run itself despite him. He wanted success and was not tight with his money, as we knew from the work he was having done. I presumed he could afford it because he had no social life and no other calls on his cash.

Since refreshments would never be forthcoming, Faustus and I sat ourselves down, waited a moment in a friendly fashion for Liberalis' nerves to settle, then waded in.

“The workmen have found a human skeleton, or parts of it. I had to stop them working so we can investigate. Fortunately Flavia Albia has a talent for this, so if I don't have time, she will conduct some checks. People have mentioned a disappearing barmaid, someone called Rufia?”

Faustus had begun, while I watched the way Liberalis received the news. He took it like any householder with a project: “Will this hold up the job?”

Faustus ignored that, as if waiting for our news to sink in and Liberalis to speak more decently. “Is the barmaid story familiar?” he asked sternly.

Liberalis became more guarded. “I may have heard rumors.”

“Do you know when she is supposed to have vanished?”

“Oh, I'm not sure. Many years ago.”

“You knew her?”

“Yes.” So going by his age, her disappearance could not have been quite as long ago as the rumors suggested.

“And people believe somebody killed her?”

“Hazard of her job.”

“It didn't put you off taking on the bar?”

“Not at all.”

“You thought it was merely a rumor?”

“I am not afraid of ghosts.”

I leaned forward as I suggested gently, “I think you ought to tell us more about your connection with the Hesperides, Liberalis. Were you waiting for your predecessor to pass on so you could take over? I have the impression you had been planning how to renovate, once you obtained the premises. Is that correct?”

“We were distant cousins. He was older. He had no one else to leave it to. We always knew it would come to me one day. Yes, he'd had the place a long time so he probably lost interest in change, while I sometimes thought about better ways to run the place. I used to have dinner there. I would look around and imagine what I could do with it; that's natural.”

“No animosity?”

“I wouldn't have wanted to upset him. It was harmless daydreaming that I don't suppose he even noticed. I think he was glad to know his place would stay in the family. But we rarely spoke about it.”

“What was his name?” Faustus interjected.

“Thales. Everyone always called him ‘Old Thales.'”

Thales was a Greek name. So the barkeeper may have been Greek. Or more likely not. The Greeks are famous for traveling abroad to resettle for economic reasons, yet I could not imagine they would come to a notorious part of Rome and buy a dingy bar. Immigrant Greeks were either slaves who became very high-class secretaries or financiers in high-end trade or banking.

“Thales was a well-known local character?” I asked, concealing how much I despise such types.

“Oh yes.” Liberalis looked a little jealous. “Everyone knew Old Thales. He had a great reputation.”

“What as?” asked Faustus, keeping it light.

“Oh, you know.”

We sat quietly, with raised eyebrows, implying that we did not know. The truth would emerge if I started asking around, but it would have been useful to know first how Liberalis assessed his predecessor. They must have been opposite types.

“A rather colorful landlord?” I hinted eventually, determined to extract more.

“Larger than life,” agreed Liberalis with another tinge of envy. I tried not to groan.

“So what exactly is this story about his missing barmaid?”

Liberalis shrugged. Faustus and I again waited for him to elaborate. Finally he caved in, though he was sparing with real facts: “Rufia was a waitress at the Hesperides. Everyone who went there knew her. One day she suddenly disappeared, without any warning. Nothing more was ever heard of her. Old Thales was the owner at the time. That is all I know.”

“So people thought the landlord did her in?” I demanded bluntly.

Liberalis shrugged again.

“Unfounded rumors or grain of truth?” Faustus tried, but it still took him nowhere. “How long ago was it? Did you know Rufia yourself?”

“I told you, everyone who patronized the Hesperides knew Rufia.”

“Including you? You weren't too young?”

“Including me.”

“But you wouldn't describe your relationship with her as close?”

“That's right. She was a barmaid. She put my dinner on the table; she didn't bother to chat. She knew me as one of the family but she treated me as a customer, a young one, too, in those days.”

“What kind of barmaid?” I put in.

“The normal kind,” answered Liberalis calmly.

“She gave the full range of services?”

“She was a barmaid,” he insisted, not even blinking.

We all knew what he meant.

 

V

Consulting each other with a glance, Faustus and I stopped the interview. We would find out more from other people before, if necessary, pressing Liberalis harder. So far, he had only confirmed the vague rumor that had hung around the Hesperides for years. It could be all he knew. It could be all anybody knew nowadays. But instinctively I felt he was holding back.

The person to question next, were it possible, would be the previous landlord, but Old Thales, colorful character and chief suspect, was inconveniently dead. I decided not to question his successor about him any more at this stage, since Liberalis might feel too much gratitude to be honest, after the bequest of his coveted bar. I would ask around locally, starting soon, before there was daft gossip and people were lured into “knowing” that mere supposition was fact. That crowd who had headed off to the Romulus would now be standing there deciding Rufia's history. Loudmouths with their elbows on the counter would be telling how it was, on the flimsiest evidence. I had seen it too often. The wilder their stories, the more the rest swore they had personally seen it all happen—and they would soon genuinely believe they had. Then I would never shake them.

Before we left, Faustus reminded Liberalis he was a magistrate. As well as general responsibility for neighborhood order, aediles had a particular remit for the good behavior of bars. The Sixth District was not in his formal jurisdiction, though of course Faustus worked closely with the relevant colleague. There would be consultation. The colleague would take an interest, though he might leave the problem to Faustus. (Bound to, I thought.) The local vigiles would also be informed. Faustus himself felt obliged to tell them, though they would obviously hear about the bones anyway; he hoped they would be reassured by his presence on the spot and would leave him to deal with the problem.

Liberalis took this well. He was assuming a helpful manner now. He started to express shock at the grisly finds today. He wanted things to be sorted out as painlessly as possible and would be all too ready to cooperate if anyone told him how. He even thanked Faustus for taking charge.

More fool Liberalis.

In reality he must have thought most builders would quietly parcel up the skeleton and scatter the bits in another district. It was his bad luck to be employing a firm that had been taken over midway by a magistrate—and that rarity, one who had scruples.