Perfiditas (30 page)

XL

I was trimming shrubs at the far side of the villa next afternoon when I heard a car stereo blasting away in the distance. It gained in level relentlessly. I heard, but couldn’t see, a car racing up the drive, passengers bawling their heads off to the music. The brakes screeched, no doubt depositing rubber on the driveway that one of us would have to clean off. The music cut with the engine, followed by laughing and shouting. Sounded like three, no four voices. I heard car doors slam, the steward’s calm voice, then silence.

I wheeled the barrow full of green clippings back to the composting bin in the yard, hoping that the arrival of this noisy weekend party, undoubtedly some of the younger Mitelae, wouldn’t interfere with what I had planned. Thinking about it, they could be a great diversion, keeping the steward’s team too busy to follow what a casual outdoor worker was up to.

My backpack had been upended, my pathetic collection of tees on the floor with boot marks, my notebook torn, the plastic baggie with my wash kit split open, the contents scattered over the bed. The sponge was making an increasing wet patch in the centre. Two women at the far end of the dormitory stopped talking as I started gathering things back together. I sensed more people circling around. I glanced up, but said nothing as I repacked my things.

‘Oh, dear. Had an accident? That’s what happens when you keep to yourself.’ A coarse face, framed by long black and grey hair tied back with an elastic tie, topped a broad unforgiving figure. ‘We too good for you, ay?’

‘She goes off on little walks by herself in the evening, spying on the rest of us having a good time.’

Another, younger version said, ‘Look what I found.’

My field glasses. I held my hand out. ‘Give them back, please.’

‘Oooh! “Please”. Little Miss Suck-Arse who bags garden duty while the rest of us are scrubbing in the fields.’ She smirked at me, revealing gapped, stained teeth under mean little eyes. ‘Come and get them.’

I reached her in two strides, kicked her fat stomach, winding her, grabbed the field glasses as she fell, and whirled round to face the older one. She had a knife in her hand. I threw my glasses on my bed, praying nobody else would feel tempted. My knives were too safely hidden inside the mattress. I shucked off my jacket, held it in my left hand, ready to use it like a
retarius
net. We circled. My opponent’s breathing shortened. She tried a few jabs and slashes, but I dodged them easily: she moved too slowly.

Time for a lesson. I flicked my left wrist and my coat shot out, slapping across her face. She lunged towards me, I shot my leg out, and she went over, landing hard. The knife skittered away. Her younger friend had recovered enough to rush me from the other side. I jabbed my right elbow into her face with the whole force of my upper body. The crunch of breaking bone was easy to hear in the silence surrounding us. She collapsed on the floor, clutching a bleeding nose.

The older one grabbed my ankle, pulled me over, but I rolled as I fell, tearing my leg out of her reach. I was on my feet in seconds. Crouching. Waiting. She pushed herself up, put her hand out toward the audience, fingers commanding somebody give a fresh weapon, but they shrank back. Breathing heavily, she lunged at me, a good eighty-five kilos of solid flesh, mouth wide open and roaring. As she bent her head to bite, I jumped sideways, thrust my covered arm into her jaws and brought the edge of my right hand down in a hard jab on the back of her bent neck. She stopped dead, her eyes rolled up, and she fell, unconscious, slumped in a heap.

‘Anybody else?’ I unwrapped the coat from my arm, but nobody looked me in the eye. ‘Okay, then somebody take out the trash on the floor.’

I was in the laundry room an hour later pulling my washed tees out of the machine when a young boy came with a message that the farm assistant wanted to see me in the dormitory now. My things were spread out on the bed again, but tidily. A number of other workers loitered in the background.

‘Please explain why I have two previously able-bodied workers in the infirmary.’

‘They’d stolen something that belonged to me. They wouldn’t give it back. I recovered it.’

‘How did you acquire such an expensive pair of field glasses?’

‘I didn’t steal them, if that’s what you’re saying.’

‘I’m not. Please answer my question.’

‘I saved up.’

‘And why do you have them?’

‘Why not?’ I shrugged.

‘I seen her writing things in her book,’ said one of the audience.

‘Show me,’ said the assistant.

I handed her the torn notebook.

She took it and leafed through. ‘I see. These notes go back two years. How long have you been watching?’

‘Several years.’

‘Well, you might try the far shore of the lake. It’s a good spot for grebe, greylag geese, black-headed gulls and sometimes kingfishers. The rise the other side of the road near the cottages is where migrating populations gather.’ She stopped smiling. ‘You’re a good worker, so I don’t want to lose you. But I won’t have brawling. You’re deducted three days’ pay to cover medical costs for the two injured, and you’re reassigned to field work for a week. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, ma’am.

‘Ex-military?’

I nodded.

‘Try to remember the “ex” part.’

I looked away.

That evening, with my knives under my tee, I set off as soon as I could after the evening meal towards the cottage. I’d pulled a muscle that afternoon, but nothing important. I had the strangest feeling of not being alone. I stopped and waited for ten minutes, extending every sense to its furthest stretch, but I heard and saw nothing. I couldn’t smell much beyond grass, sheep dung and hedgerow plants.

I found a better vantage point to observe from, one which had sight of the front door. I glimpsed Justus talking to somebody else but, irritatingly, couldn’t see the other person. But I knew in my heart who it was. Twenty-five minutes after I’d arrived, a car pulled up with a rental plate. My throat constricted as I saw the driver step out, lock the door and approach the cottage.

Philippus.

No.

Justus answered the door and, within seconds, the two men were waving hands around and shouting at each other. I had to hear this. I had no distance mic so, scanning left and right, I crept across to the wall and pressed myself against it. I took a quiet deep breath and edged along to just before the corner.

‘…be so childlike. He was protecting our interests.’ Justus’s voice was terse, impatient even.

‘You knew! You knew all along!’

‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t. But I’m so relieved he dumped that little tart and her national interest crap.’

‘But he backed the wrong side.’

‘No, he played both.’ A pause. ‘Good tactics.’

‘Yeah, but they know,’ retorted Philippus, ‘and they’re hunting him.’

Justus’s laugh. ‘They’ll never guess where he is and now Mitela’s contained in jail, even she won’t be able to do anything about it.’

‘So why did he want to see me?’

‘He’ll tell you himself. Turn round against the wall.’

I heard the movement of Justus’s hands over Philippus’s clothes as he searched him.

The door opened and closed. I shut my eyes. Thank Juno, Philippus wasn’t involved.

I edged back to the window. I always thought it was too obvious in spy movies when the window was left open, so I nearly laughed when I saw the gap. But the voices overrode my bizarre thought. Apollo’s rich, cold voice and Philippus’s hurt and angry one.

‘My dear Philippus, this really is unlike you to be so overwrought. It was a matter of pragmatics.’

‘I thought we were doing the right thing when we helped Pulcheria, and I thought you did. I don’t understand.’

‘It’s always wise to make, er, arrangements with other players, you know. Do tell me, just how did you find out?’

I shivered with fear. What would Philippus say? I dreaded he would go too far and give Apollo no option but to terminate him.

‘Hermina and I were dragged in by those PGSF bastards and given the full treatment.’

‘I trust Hermina has recovered?’

‘Do you? I always thought you cared for your people, Apollodorus. Now I’m not so sure.’

Shut up, Phil. Don’t get him riled, I begged silently.

‘But you still haven’t told me how they found out,’ Apollo said in his softest tone.

I shut my eyes.

The jab of a barrel rammed under my jawline woke me up.

Shit.

‘Nothing smart. Hands on the wall above your head.’ Justus kicked my feet apart. He punched me in the small of my back, so I collapsed against the stone wall. I couldn’t stop a grunt escaping. I was helpless with pain as he wrenched my wrists down and circled them with a cable tie, pulling the plastic band tight. I sagged to my knees and fought for my breath. He hauled me to my feet and dragged me round to the front entrance, each step a jab of pain. He shoved me through the door into a rustic living room with an open fire blazing and pulsing out heat.

My head swam but I planted my feet on the tiled floor. I willed myself to stay upright. Sitting at his ease on a high back couch was Apollodorus. But I knew him too well. The skin around his mouth was tight, a sure sign of tension. Was it anger or guilt shining in his eyes? Or some other emotion? Philippus stood back facing him, fury all over his face.

Both men stared at my dramatic entrance. Apollo was first to recover.

‘My dear Carina Mitela, so kind to drop in.’ He gestured to Philippus. ‘A chair.’

I dropped down onto it, catching another jab of pain, but a relief from standing. Philippus sent me a desperate look, but I closed my eyes and shook my head.

‘I think, Philippus, you should sit down opposite me where Justus can see you. I would be disappointed if you did anything rash.’ Apollodorus’s face had regained its usual praeternatural calm. ‘Now, I would like very much to hear what our other guest has to say for herself.’

‘First, I need some water.’

Apollo lifted a jug and tumbler.

‘From an unopened bottle.’

‘Dear me, you don’t trust anything, do you?’

‘No, as I’ve found out.’

He stood up, disappeared into the kitchen, came back with a small blue bottle, and with an ironic bow handed it to Philippus to serve me. It was liquid heaven. And, apart from the occasional crack from the fire, my gulping was the only sound in the room.

‘How did you know?’ Apollodorus asked at last.

‘Oh, you were very careful. I knew in the back of my mind something didn’t mesh together but couldn’t put my finger on it. Superbus let slip something after I interviewed him. He mentioned Cassia.’

‘Cassia?’ His brows drew together.

‘Common enough name, but it worried me.’

‘I thought a descendant of the Twelve Families would know how to hold his tongue, how to behave.’

‘Then you’re kidding yourself. He’s an amoral little shit.’

‘Very well, I admit I was not overly impressed.’ He shrugged. ‘I did warn Petronax to keep a close eye on him, but I was too far in by that stage.’

My back was aching like seven levels of Hades, the breath was circulating my lungs on minimum running, but I couldn’t help myself. I smirked at him.

‘Cassia,’ I said, ‘turned out to be a Censor’s Office investigator. An undercover one. She went through your organisation like a ferret on a high.’ Apollodorus and Justus exchanged nervous looks.

I gave a quick laugh. ‘Don’t worry on that score – Hermina had everything in wonderful order. Cassia found nothing. You don’t deserve Hermina. She was fantastically loyal to you. She’s devastated by your treachery.’

Apollodorus rose off the couch, his hands balled. I tilted my face up, daring him.

‘But the key was a witness at Superbus’s house,’ I carried on. ‘She saw you the evening before the coup and has identified you.’

He sat down again, his face sombre.

‘Why did you do it, Apollodorus? Why did you deal with Petronax?’

‘Pragmatism, my dear. My father was weak – it was humiliating. Although I loved my grandmother, I sometimes hated her for sneering at him, her son.’

‘That’s sentiment, not pragmatism. He was a druggie pimp who prostituted his own child.’

‘Petronax winning would have settled that for me. I would have become one of the richest men in the new order.’

‘You knew it was wrong.’

‘I never said I didn’t.’

‘We worked so well together against the drug dealers all those years ago.’

‘Yes. You were so useful to me then and it never hurts to have the establishment owing one a favour.’

‘Is that all it was?’

‘You know it wasn’t.’

I was trying to puzzle out this complex and damaged man. The hard ruthlessness was genuine, but so was the sensitivity. A crack from a log breaking up on the fire made me jump.

‘Why did you help Flavius and me when we were shot in front of your gate?’

‘Petronax hadn’t made his big move then. It could have gone either way.’

I shivered when I thought about when he’d had Conrad at his house. Out of Transulium into the traitor’s trap.

‘How did you know I was here?’ Apollodorus asked.

‘You told me.’

His brow creased.

‘You always said you’d finish where you began, so I guessed you’d return to Castra Lucilla. I found the rental contract you took out five years ago in the concealed compartment in the swan’s neck table.’

‘And what precisely were you doing in my private room?’

‘Didn’t Justus tell you?’ I smirked at him. ‘I would have thought he would have the answer off pat. Or is he hiding something from you?’

Justus swung his hand up in an arc to smash his semi-automatic down on my face. Pleasure and anticipation shone out of his eyes.

‘Justus,’ Apollodorus’s soft voice chilled the air. Justus’s arm came down slowly. He was only centimetres away from me. He waved the Glock in my face, but stepped back.

Apollodorus turned his black gaze on me. I couldn’t read it, but I tried very hard not to shiver.

‘If you attempt to provoke him again, I won’t stop him. Now answer my question.’

‘You know the
custodes
raided the house. They brought me in to help with their search. I found the panel into the room.’ I shrugged. ‘It’s been stripped out, and the contents will be sold off at public auction when you’re convicted.’