Jail Bait (11 page)

She remembered the clearing. Him standing there, veiled by his hair, and her nearly naked, and despite the warmth of the evening, a shudder ran through her body. ‘How long have you lived here?’ she asked, gulping the heavy red wine.

He spread expressive hands and shrugged. ‘I lose track of time,’ he replied, and Claudia could believe him. Was this what happened to Odysseus, when he stopped on Circe’s island? Perhaps time stood still for him also? But then Circe, she recalled, was an enchantress…

Inside her chest, a blacksmith hammered on the anvil of her ribs. ‘Where were you before that?’ she asked.

‘Iberia, you mean?’

Whatever.

‘From the hills above the coast on the east.’ His mouth twitched downwards briefly and, she felt, involuntarily. ‘I was slave originally. Prisoner of war.’

‘What happened?’

‘You,’ he grinned and picked up a lyre, ‘talk too much.’ Softly Tarraco began to strum. ‘Just lie back. Listen to the music and the night.’

Sod it, why not? There were demons enough waiting when she returned! Thus Claudia abandoned herself to the marriage of chords which she never imagined existed. Haunting, aching melodies of sun-drenched Spanish hills filled the air, wordless songs of broken hearts and unrequited love, and they echoed across the terrace and far into the night. The level in the wine jug dropped, and the scent of the roses and the lilies intensified in the heat of the torches.

‘Now,’ he said at length, laying down his lyre, ‘let us eat honeycombs fresh from the hive.’

‘What is this?’ She laughed. ‘Like our festival of Beating the Bounds, have you laid on a moveable feast?’

Tarraco made no reply, but silently ushered her through an atrium resplendent with golden rafters and redolent of myrrh, past a fountain chattering in a diamond pool. Finally he pulled aside a heavy tapestry curtain, the entrance to a small office, from which a large door opened inwards.

‘I think,’ Claudia said slowly, ‘I’ve eaten enough for one meal.’

‘You do not like honeycomb?’ He was mortified. ‘I fetch candied fruits, yes? Maybe nuts.’

Damn right I am.

Claudia cast an appreciative eye over the bronze lamps guzzling up the finest olive oil, the painted stucco ceiling, the gaily patterned frescoes. On a tapestry which covered the far wall, Jason and his Argonauts searched for an embroidered golden fleece. So much, she thought, for breathing space…

Tarraco placed the flat of his hands together. ‘You think I take liberties, serving honey in my bed? That I move too fast?’ He strained a grin. ‘I-I thought—’

‘A bolt of blue cotton could buy me?’

‘No, no. Claudia, no. You and
I…I thought…
there was—’ The frown on his face was like pain. ‘Claudia, there is something between us.’

Claudia leaned close enough to catch the familiar scent of pine. ‘How right you are, Tarraco. It’s your ego.’

XIII

Around Atlantis, torches burned low and Claudia’s footsteps echoed down the wooden jetty. Three men, she thought, each with a single objective. One younger than her, full of fun, full of life, with his corn-coloured hair and his secrets, who believed he could cartwheel her into his bed. The second the same age as herself, a dark horse according to Dorcan, believing he could charm her into his bed with his gifts and his magical lyre. And a third, considerably older—and this one didn’t even imagine he’d have to work for results, the fact that he’d turned rock into gold quite sufficient.

Three men. One objective.

One dead.

The lights might be low, but they weren’t muted enough to conceal a figure flitting back into the shadows. Claudia frowned. Not Tarraco, he was already halfway back to his island and, since the gates were locked at dusk, this could be no common criminal creeping around. Orbilio, of course, would never give himself away, he’d learn to walk on water before he allowed a trace of himself to be seen, besides this shadow seemed taller, broader, of far greater bulk. So who, then? Who might wish to spy on her?

Silly bitch. Claudia swept up the steep, stone steps.

Imagine you’re the only one keeping late hours? They don’t all come here for Carya’s healing waters and to listen to the choirs. Your problem, she told herself, watching bats forage for insects on the wing, is an overactive imagination. Cal has been murdered, his killer walks free—and what’s driving you daft is that despite a list of curious characters lurking in the background, there’s no tangible suspect and not so much as a whiff of a motive.

I have a solution, squeaked a little horseshoe bat. You could enlist the help of Supersnoop. (Whatever his motives for fetching her here, he’d never turn away a chance to solve a killing.)

No way, piped a pipistrelle. His involvement would mean him tucking his feet under the table indefinitely.

Quite right, said a noctule, its mouth full of moth. She needs to get rid of Orbilio fast.

But since the bats could not come up with a strategy for disposing of this hotshot investigator, Claudia left them to their supper and slipped through the doors of the Great Hall. Hello, hello, hello. She paused on the threshold. What’s old Kamar up to, then, canoodling behind a statue? And him a married man with a disfigured wife, who everybody talks about, poor bitch. Claudia allowed the door to close silently behind her as Lavinia’s voice echoed down the corridor of her memory. ‘I’ll bet you’ve heard my daughter-in-law playing whisper-whisper-whisper with that sourpuss physician…
’

That could not, of course, be Lavinia’s daughter-in-law. Despite hair curled to within an inch of its life and a face pancaked with cosmetics, this woman would be close to the olive grower’s age. And now Claudia peered closer, she could see they weren’t actually canoodling, but all the same, Lavinia had Kamar to a T. Amongst his own sex it was hail-fellow-well-met, a man among men, whereas with women he employed subtler tactics, conspiring in secret to add a frisson of excitement to their phantom ailments. Watching a small phial pass between them, Claudia couldn’t decide which was worse: society women who gorged on pandering or physicians who were little more than gigolos, servicing their needs in exchange for a coin.

They broke off when they became aware of her presence, exchanged glances, and Claudia recognized the woman as the stony-faced old boiler she’d bumped into earlier, after her countdown with Orbilio. Worse, the harridan was bearing down like a trireme in full sail.

‘Forgive my impertinence.’ Stoneyface daren’t smile for fear of cracking the mask and the voice went with the eyes. ‘But that robe is simply sublime. Might I trouble you for the name of your seamstress?’

Her hair had been dyed with the juice of walnuts, her complexion was not holding up well, yet, despite rising to every cosmetic challenge with her plucked and painted eyebrows and the plethora of moleskin patches plastered over her liver spots, she still played up her little snub nose as though it were some girlish attribute by sticking it high in the air. Sad, really. Deluded cow thought she turned heads, but in practice it was stomachs she turned.

‘Oh, you know Atlantis,’ Claudia quipped, speeding up to escape the frightful creature. ‘Everything’s done for you round here.’

‘Off the peg?’ A variety of expressions skated across the plasterwork of her face, and hard eyes narrowed to
slits. ‘Then I’d be obliged if you’d point out the shop.’

Behind her, Kamar was hopping from one foot to the other. Cramp? Or agitation?

‘First on the left past the basilica,’ Claudia invented. Anything to break free of this ghastly woman’s clutches. What a horror. In the corridor, her mind skipped back to Cal’s funeral, to the freckle-faced girl rolling the hoop. Would she, one day, become a hard-eyed ravaged harpy, hankering for her old salad days? Skulking round at night to consult a physician? Perish the thought! But the point was, that child should have the choice.

Within the dark seclusion of her bedroom, Claudia kicked off her sandals. First she must establish the motive for Cal’s murder. Only through that could she unmask the killer, and then maybe—just maybe—she’d have something to trade with Orbilio when it came (as it would) to discussing Sabbio Tullus…

Outside frogs croaked to one another and an owl hooted far across the lake as she collapsed on the bed. Somewhere, just before sleep and exhaustion overwhelmed her, she thought she heard a woman scream.

*

Dawn was casting silver shadows on the bath house’s limestone walls and a coil of blue woodsmoke writhed up from its vent as the agent of Sabbio Tullus pursed his lips and estimated that any time within the next half-hour his message would be arriving in Rome. Dispatch runners cared not a jot that they travelled through the night, money was money, and let me see, ten miles per runner, ten runners—yup, the last one should be arriving very soon. Very soon. Delving into his satchel, to deliver a sealed and secret letter to Rome.
A letter which read:
‘The jewel that you are seeking, master, has been discovered in Atlantis.’

Now that, thought Tullus’ agent, rubbing his hands with satisfaction, should earn a fat reward.

One which would not, however, come from the treasure chests of Sabbio Tullus.

The letter was winging its way to the nephew.

*

Claudia was whistling when she waltzed into breakfast, though since the hour was late, only a few diehards remained at the trough. That loudmouthed general, for one, the chap whose paunch stuck out like a packmule, and the woman who walked like a camel, right now gulping down the general’s raisin troops the instant he’d positioned them on the flank. Lounging on a couch in the corner, a famous wrestler—a dapper dandy with the body of an ox—recounted exploits to a dull-eyed nymphet, who’d patently prefer just to go to his room and get it over with. It was a screw he was paying for, not a bore.

Which left one other individual in the banqueting hall. And Claudia had a feeling he’d been there some time.

Sweeping past, she plumped down on a couch close to the sun porch with a fine view of the lake. Almost immediately, the opposite recliner was occupied.

‘Sleep well?’ Orbilio asked, framing stiff lips into a smile.

‘Hardly a wink.’ Claudia heaped her plate with cheese and shrimps and ignored the fact that she’d slept like a baby. ‘You?’

‘Terrific.’ He saw no reason to mention the cockroaches in the pawnbroker’s attic which he’d been forced to rent since Atlantis was full.

Behind them the general reminisced about some ancient campaign in Galatia and the fat woman picked her teeth.

‘Business first,’ Orbilio began, lacing his fingers and leaning forward, but he was interrupted by the arrival of a brunette practically bursting the seams of her tunic as she sashayed up the banqueting hall, surveying the breakfasters through kohled lashes.

Claudia could not resist a smile. In Rome—indeed anywhere within the paid eyes of the Emperor—standards these days were close to puritanical. In return for bestowing stability and peace on his people, Augustus demanded purity of mind as well as body, family values to reflect this Golden Age, an example to the conquered masses. No gambling, no spinsters, no sex outside marriage. As a law, Claudia felt it didn’t have a lot going for it. For one thing, the rules patently did not apply to him, the Emperor’s infidelities were legendary, and, for another, whilst he bestowed privileges on men fathering endless baby Romans, there were few crackdowns on those who clung to their bachelor freedom, and certainly his vision failed when it came to philandering husbands. But Augustus was a man, and men will have their little jokes, now, won’t they? Like making marriage compulsory for women. Like not letting them speak in the law courts. Like imposing bitter penalties on adulterous wives.

Like forcing widows to remarry within two years of the death of their husband…

For the brunette, filling out her sails both fore and aft, it was unlikely she’d ever heard of moral reforms, let alone put one into practice. Claudia beckoned her over.

‘Do meet Marcus,’ she said, pointing to his couch in invitation. ‘He likes women with big chests and small drawers.’

‘You’ll have to speak up,’ Phoebe trilled. ‘I missed that.’

‘Orbilio here,’ Claudia shouted, ‘said he’s been dying to meet you.’

She thought she heard the girl purr. Then again, it could have been a deep Security Police growl.

Phoebe snuggled against him and pouted when he shuffled along. ‘Is he shy?’ she asked, as though Marcus wasn’t present.

‘Merely stodgy,’ Claudia explained. ‘Poor chap thinks getting a little action means his prunes have started to work.’ She smiled sweetly at Orbilio, who had sucked in his cheeks. ‘In fact, these days his back goes out more than he does.’

Marcus turned a laugh into a cough, but Phoebe’s attention had been caught by Claudia’s gown. ‘That is beautiful,’ she gushed. ‘Harebell blue, so elegant. Goes with absolutely anything.’

‘And there speaks an expert,’ Claudia murmured, fluttering her eyelashes at a man who had all but disappeared into his handkerchief. Louder, she said, ‘As a matter of fact, this gown was a gift.’

Across the table, Marcus stiffened. ‘The Spaniard?’

‘However did you guess?’

To emphasize her point, she stroked the silver pendant at her
neck, suggesting this, too, was a present from Tarraco, even though she’d won the thing last week in a game of knucklebones behind the Rostrum. As Phoebe helped herself to chestnut bread, Claudia heard Orbilio mutter underneath his breath, although she failed to catch the definition.