I, Claudia (3 page)

A smile twitched at the side of Orbilio’s mouth. ‘Something like that, yes. Did you know where his body was found?’

‘I heard a rumour.’ She thrust a glass of wine in his hand. ‘I heard it was in some ghastly slum.’

‘Then you heard right. It was one of the buildings owned by Ventidius Balbus. You know him, I presume?’

‘Everyone knows him,’ Claudia said, making a great show of helping herself to raisins. ‘What’s this got to do with my husband and myself?’

Orbilio leaned back to rest his spine against the bark of the tree. ‘Now who said this has anything to do with Gaius ?’

Had the sun gone in? It seemed rather chilly all of a sudden.

‘Come to the point, Orbilio.’

He fished in his pouch and came out with a torn scrap of apple-green cotton. ‘This is the point,’ he said quietly. ‘It was found on the door of the room where poor old Crassus was killed. Looks like you caught it in your hurry to leave.’

Claudia took the proffered scrap. ‘It’s not mine,’ she said, tossing it over her shoulder where it landed to adorn a rosemary bush.

‘Oh, but it is.’

‘Rubbish. I wouldn’t be seen dead in that colour.’

‘I rather thought it would suit you,’ Orbilio replied, smoothly retrieving his evidence. ‘It would complement the tints in your hair.’

Claudia narrowed her eyes. ‘Then perhaps I should order some,’ she said sharply.

Orbilio smiled. ‘But you already have, remember? I know, because I spent all yesterday traipsing round mercer after mercer to see who sold this particular cotton in this particular colour and Gratidius, now—Gratidius remembers quite clearly it was the wife of Gaius Seferius who was so taken by the subtlety of the shade.’

‘Gratidius is old and he’s a fool with it. I’ll have you know, I’m not in the habit of visiting malodorous slums, Marcus Orbilio—’

‘Then you won’t mind if I have a look around, will you?’

Claudia jumped to her feet. ‘Yes, I bloody well would! How dare you come in here, you jumped-up little mongrel, and presume to search my house!’

Orbilio studied his thumbnail. ‘Would you prefer someone with higher status?’ he asked indifferently. ‘Someone, say, like Callisunus, who would bring his soldiers with him?’

‘That sounds suspiciously like blackmail, Orbilio, and I don’t like blackmailers.’

Orbilio sighed. ‘Sit down, Claudia, and try to remember I’m investigating the brutal murders of four of our most prominent citizens. Just to refresh your memory, that’s one prefect, one aedile, one retired senator and a jurist.’

‘Which you assume gives you the right to trample over decent folk in the process.’

‘For pity’s sake, woman! I’m busting my baldrics in the hope of reaching this lunatic before another unfortunate sod has his eyes gouged out and if that offends your sweet sensibilities, I couldn’t give a stuff!’

Realizing one of the slaves might be watching, Claudia seated herself with a show of indifference and nibbled an olive. He was whistling in the dark, she decided. He couldn’t prove she’d bought the fabric, and besides, if push came to shove, she could always slip Gratidius’s assistant a spot of silver—between them, they could manage to persuade the old mercer his memory was at fault here and she’d done nothing more than simply admire the colour.

No. What really irritated her was the fact that she’d slipped up. By heaven, she’d chop that wretched Melissa into pieces for not checking the stola was intact!

‘I’ll be discreet,’ he added, reaching up and plucking a sour apple.

‘Young man,’ she said. It sounded so pompous when he was virtually the same age as herself. ‘There’s no way in the world I’m having your greasy little fingers poking around in my underwear
and that’s final.’

‘Would you mind, then, if I requested your husband’s permission?’

He was up to something, the bastard. She could smell it. He knew damn well she didn’t want Gaius involved.

‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Junius!’

A muscular young slave appeared as if by magic.

‘Junius, fetch my husband, will you?’

‘I’m sorry, madam, but the master’s already left for the baths.’

She shot Orbilio a glance. ‘How long ago?’

‘About an hour,’ the boy replied.

Curiously enough, it was shortly after that when Marcus Cornelius Orbilio came to call. Well, well! What a coincidence. She dismissed Junius with a curt nod. When she first thought this man would make a formidable adversary, she hadn’t expected him to be hers. No matter, she could be as sharp as a wagonload of monkeys when she chose. Four and a half years of easy living might have softened her physically, but Claudia Seferius had never once afforded herself the luxury of letting her guard drop. She picked a pink, sniffed deeply, then gave Orbilio her sunniest smile.

‘Why don’t we compromise?’

That seemed to shake him.

‘MELISSA!’ As did the pitch of her voice. ‘Ah, Melissa. See this,’ she pointed to the snippet of green cotton, ‘do I have anything in this colour?’

‘No, madam.’

The investigator frowned and pressed the fragment into the girl’s palm. ‘Look carefully,’ he said, his eyes darting from slave to mistress for signs of hidden communications. ‘It’s very important.’ Claudia studied her onyx brooch, careful that her eyes never once met Melissa’s.

‘Madam has nothing in this colour,’ the girl said, looking him coolly in the face before turning back to the house.

Claudia let her breath out slowly. ‘Anything else, Orbilio? I mean, you don’t want to turn the house upside down to see whether we’re concealing a chest full of eyes as well, do you?’

Orbilio pursed his lips sullenly. ‘No. That’s all for the moment, thank you.’

‘Good.’ Claudia swept to her feet and flounced along the shaded colonnade. ‘Then you can see yourself out,’ she called over her shoulder.

IV

Orbilio heaved himself off the naked, glistening body of the girl beneath him and rolled on to his back. Mother of Tarquin, he had difficulty remembering who was who these days! Was this Vera, the Sardinian fish-trader’s daughter or Petronella from the locksmith’s place? He wiped his brow with the back of his hand and wondered whether the locksmith either knew or cared who his woman slept with. He reached for the flagon, but it was empty.

‘Damn.’

He slumped back on to the bed, his hair falling across his eyes. He couldn’t go on like this much longer, he was burning himself out. Eighteen hours a day, seven days a week for the past six months he’d searched for clues that would bring him closer to trapping a demented killer, seeking solace at night in wine and women—and finding it in neither.

If only he could get a break, and, Juno’s skirts, it wasn’t for the want of trying. There had to be a connection between the four men. There
had
to be. That foul-mouthed, sour-faced boss of his didn’t think there was, but then again, Callisunus hadn’t exactly risen through the ranks because of his brains, had he, the oily bastard? A propensity to take full credit for his officers’
findin
gs if they were successful and to swiftly disown them if they fell short had secured his position as Head of the Security Police. That his men might despise him mattered not a jot to Callisunus. Small and squat with pug-like features, he sat like a spider in his web of complacency knowing that even if Orbilio’s theory happened to prove sound, he could still come up smelling of lavender. Except in this instance, Callisunus was convinced the killings were random, leaving Orbilio to follow his nose…providing it was during his own free time. No matter. There was a link, he was sure of it—but what?

His mind ranged back over the information to date, but so far he hadn’t found one single shred of evidence to link any of the men with the others, particularly Crassus who, having retired from the Senate, had recently completed a long stint in Isauria. He’d driven himself into the ground, delving into every business transaction they’d ever entered into, and so far he’d found bugger all.

Of course, there were plenty more leads to follow, but assuming there was no professional connection, what other motives were there? Someone with a grievance? Crassus had been a miserable old curmudgeon with a reputation for cheeseparing, but Tigellinus, the man responsible for the metropolitan water supply? Horatius, organizer of the Megalesian Games? Such occupations attracted laurels rather than grudges. Fabianus the jurist might have been a possibility, had he not been widely respected for his sense of balance and perspective. Nevertheless, he might have offended someone—a man with a twisted sense of justice… Orbilio groaned and rubbed his eyes at the thought of the enormous number of trails still left to follow. And why were there no witnesses to any of these crimes?

‘Mother of Tarquin, is the man invisible?’

How much simpler if he could have unearthed (as he’d hoped) a conspiracy to assassinate the Emperor. Now that would have sent him winging up his ladder of ambition faster than a bolting steed—and the kudos, oh, the kudos! Unfortunately, the conspiracy theory held as much water as a leaky sieve and he was left without a single suspect and the barest minimum of clues.

Regardless of the amount of effort he’d put in, hadn’t Callisunus remarked that very morning, in his inimical silver-tongued fashion, that if Orbilio didn’t stop farting around with dead-end theories he’d put Metellus on the case instead? The worst part was he’d follow through, dammit, because if Callisunus suspected this dissent was halfway contagious he’d ditch him at the earliest opportunity.

‘I want evidence!’ he’d stormed at the briefing. ‘Concrete fucking evidence, not pansified piffle: The Emperor would kick my butt from here to Hades if I trotted out your far-fetched farrago, so I suggest you get your arse back to work before I lose patience completely.’

‘Well screw you, Callisunus,’ Orbilio said aloud. ‘You’ll see I’m right, you just wait.’

‘Huh?’ Petronella—or was it Vera?—lifted her head. ‘Did you say something?’

‘No. Go back to sleep.’

Cupid’s darts, what was he doing here, night after night? It was like when he was a kid. No matter how many of those saffron yellow honey cakes you ate, they never filled you up. Well, this is pretty much the same thing, isn’t it? He turned his face to the window and stared at the silver semicircle of the moon. I ought to marry again, he thought. Start a family. Work is work, but at the end of it a man needs something good to go home to. I want to be surrounded by laughter and squabbling. I want to be getting involved in my boys’ schooling, my wife’s family and my own duties as a senator. Because I
will
make the Senate, make no mistake, I’ll be there! Being born into the nobility helps, but it’s by no means a foregone conclusion. You still need to apply yourself—and Marcus Orbilio had certainly done that. Two years’ legal duties, two years as a tribune and eighteen months working in criminal justice. Six more months and I’ll be eligible to put myself up for a quaestorship, with automatic admission to the Senate—just the right amount of time to ensure people wouldn’t forget.

‘Orbilio? Fine fellow. Solved those gruesome murders, you know.’

‘Oh, yes. First-class work.’

‘In a matter of months, too, and he had virtually nothing to go on.’

Orbilio tugged on his lower lip. That would remain the stuff of dreams unless he could get to the bottom of this nasty business. Motive! If he could only find a motive! Having exhausted the obvious possibilities, his mind had turned to the less obvious. Tigellinus’s murder suggested a lunatic, literally, since he was killed two days before the moon was full, but Horatius was murdered when it was in the first quarter, Fabianus when it was waxing and Crassus halfway. Cross that off.

Then he realized Tigellinus was killed on the Festival of Juturna, Horatius at the start of the Megalesian Games. Could that be a connection? Both had been heavily involved in their respective ceremonies—Tigellinus because the festival was celebrated by men whose business was connected with sacred water and since the pool of Juturna was the source for all official sacrifices and seeing as how Tigellinus was responsible for the city’s water in general and this shrine in particular how much deeper could you be? The same with Horatius, responsible for organizing the games from start to finish. Unfortunately neither Fabianus nor Crassus fell even remotely close to the ceremonies and this theory had fallen by the wayside. Supposing he checked again? No, no. He’d gone over this, time and again, it was pointless running down the same blind alleys.

The thing that kept nagging at him was: why the eyes? Each man had been killed by an expert, with one savage, upward thrust into the heart. Oh, that makes it easy! He punched his pillow. That narrows it down! Dammit, there should have been witnesses…

It was odd, thinking about it, Tigellinus being lured away from so important a date in his calendar. The temple was right in the Forum, too, yet not only had he slipped away, he’d gone home and sent his servants, slaves and family packing. Horatius, too, had been killed at home, having dismissed the entire household and again, despite the density of people at the start of the games, no one had seen or heard anything. Fabianus was a different kettle of fish altogether. Unlike the other two, he was a man of low profile and equestrian, rather than patrician. He lived meagrely, ran a small household, yet he too was killed, some time between going to bed and waking up.