See Delphi And Die (11 page)

XXIII

The other two couples saw the family depart and noisily waved us to their table.

'Up for it?' I muttered to Helena.

'Don't get sozzled!' she hissed back.

'Don't get cheeky! I am total sobriety - but can you keep your hands off the winecup, fruit?'

'Stop me when I go purple.'

'Ah too late, too late!'

The foursome shrieked a welcome. They had watched us bantering snappily; they liked us for it. The men were already beaming like debauched cupid grape-treaders on a wine bar wall-panel. They were well glued to their stools by now, incapable of shifting until their bladders became quite desperate, but the women were probably never static; they leapt up at our approach and together hauled a bench nearer for us, straining in their flimsy frocks like navvies and then flailing into the wrong husbands' laps. Cleonymus and Amaranthus groped them, automatically, then shoved them on to the seats they had previously occupied, like men who had gone through this routine before.

All four were older than befitted their behaviour and bright outfits. I put the men at sixty, the women older if anything - yet it was the men who looked to be flagging at this lunch table. Cleonymus and Cleonyma, the two freed slaves with a huge inheritance, had hands which had quite clearly done much manual labour, though their fingers were now expensively be-ringed. The other couple were harder to place. Amaranthus, the suspected adulterer, had narrow, wary eyes, while Minucia seemed tired. Whether she was tired of life, of travel - or even tired of Amaranthus, we could not deduce.

They positively rushed to tell us all they knew, making the details lurid where they could. I tried saying I hoped they did not mind more questions, at which they bellowed with laughter then assured me, they had hardly been asked anything yet. So Aquillius was too snobbish to speak to freedmen. That was no surprise.

'It was me who heard him coming.' Cleonyma took centre stage. She was a thin, wiry woman who burned off her physical excesses with nervous energy. Good bones and lack of fat gave her a handsome face; had she laid off the eye paint she would have looked even better. She shuddered, her skinny shoulders lifting beneath the fine pleats of her gown; it was held together with vivid clasps and, as she moved, ovals of oiled, scrawny, suntanned flesh came and went between large gaps in the material.

'Statianus? Was he calling for help?' asked Helena.

'Yelling his head off. No one else bothered to notice; you know how people are. I was going outside. As I went through the tent door, he staggered up, weeping bitterly, with the bloody corpse held in his arms. Her dress was all filthy with sand from the exercise yard. Her head, though - her head was so horribly battered you could hardly tell that it was her.. I nursed my master through ten years of a wasting illness; I saw enough there not to faint at mess, you know - but Valeria's body turned my stomach, and I only glimpsed her.'

Cleonyma now looked haggard beneath her glinting face powder. Minucia took her hand. An emerald ring flashed. She carried more weight than Cleonyma, and although she too almost certainly carted around a compendium of face creams, her skin was very coarse.

Overcome, Cleonyma leaned her head on Minucia's shoulder; about four pounds of Indian pearls lurched sideways on her flat chest. A fully rounded perfume of rose petals and jasmine on one lady clashed waft for waft with a headier essence of Arabian balsam. After a moment of comfort in a mingled aroma cloud, Cleonyma sat up again; her pearls strands clacked and tumbled straight once more. The women's two scents uncoiled and slid dangerously against each other like towering clouds moving one way while a second raft of weather moves in the opposite direction underneath. Just like a coming coastal storm, it left us restless and unsettled. Minucia even mopped her forehead, though that could have been the drink overheating her.

More subdued now, the party of four described subsequent events: how Statianus was persuaded to relinquish his ghastly burden; the few muddled attempts by locals to discover what had happened; the cursory investigation carried out by Aquillius. Nobody at the site took any real interest in Valeria's fate initially, beyond the usual lascivious nosiness in whether the young woman had been having affairs.

'Who called in the quaestor to take charge?' asked Helena, thinking it must have been Sertoria Silene, or perhaps the widow Helvia.

'I did!' Minucia surprised us. In outward style she resembled Cleonyma, especially since the two couples had shopped for their present outfits at the same market boutique. I found it hard to place her otherwise. She could have been a freed slave too, but equally I could see her as the hardworking wife of some freeborn craftsman or shopkeeper; maybe she had tired of arguing with a lazy husband and rebellious children, had run off with Amaranthus in desperation, and now knew she could not easily return to her home town.

'How come, Minucia?'

'Things were getting ridiculous. I had nothing against Valeria, poor soul. She did not deserve what happened to her. The priests were all trying to ignore the problem, some damned women from Elis were extremely obnoxious - what in Hades had it to do with them in any case? - and when I heard there was a Roman official at the VIP's guesthouse, I just marched right up to him and made a fuss.'

'Aquillius seems convinced Statianus was the guilty party,' I said.

'Never!' We all looked at Cleonyma. True, she was enjoying the drama. Even so, her verdict was that of a shrewd, quietly observant woman. 'I saw him straight after he found her. I'll never forget his face. The boy is innocent.'

'Aquillius Macer must be fairly inexperienced,' Helena brooded. Amaranthus scoffed, summing up the quaestor as a man who would abuse his mother. Cleonymus insulted that noblewoman even more lewdly, not only casting doubt on the quaestor's paternity, but suggesting that an animal had been involved. Not one of the cuddly ones. Helena smiled. 'You are saying Aquillius could not organise his way out of a bran sack?'

'Not even if he had a great big map,' agreed Amaranthus, glumly drinking wine.

Until now, Helena had barely touched her cup, but now she topped it up herself. 'Here's a question for you. Your tour is supposed to be escorted. So where was your organiser, Phineus?'

A silence fell.

'People think Phineus is wonderful,' Cleonyma remarked, to no one in particular. She left the statement hanging.

'One or two people think he's bloody terrible,' her husband disagreed, but they did not argue over it.

'Did Phineus help, after the murder?' Helena persisted. 'Aren't you all paying him to keep you out of trouble?'

'He did what he could,' snorted Cleonymus. 'That wasn't much - still, there wasn't much anyone could have done, given that Aquillius was determined to keep us trapped in that tent until he could arrest someone - and that he failed miserably to decide who it should be. Only the fact that Aquillius wanted to come back to Corinth made him say we could all go free. Even then -' Cleonymus gave me a dark look. 'Our reprieve was temporary.'

'So what, to be precise, did Phineus really do for you?' I asked.

'Kept the food coming and ensured the wine improved,' Minucia told me, caustically. 'I thought he could have moved us into decent accommodation, though that never happened. But he kept at it, talking to Aquillius. 'Negotiating for us,' he maintained.'

'Aquillius speaks well of him.'

'Mind you -' Amaranthus used a heavy mannered delivery which combined making a point with making a joke. 'We have established to general satisfaction, haven't we, that Aquillius Macer is so bright he could lose himself in an empty sack.'

I smiled at his response. 'So, my friends - any idea where your wonderful escort is right now?'

Apparently, Phineus was earning himself a few drachmas, trotting off to Cythera with some other visiting Romans, while he waited for this group to be given their release. Cythera, an island at the extreme southern end of the Peloponnese, seemed a damned long way to let a suspect travel.

'I hope, for their sakes, he doesn't take them to that conniving murex-seller who cheated us last year,' said Cleonyma. Murex is the special shellfish dye used for purple cloth; its cost is phenomenal. Cleonyma and her husband apparently had an intimate knowledge of shopping for luxury goods.

Since we seemed to have exhausted their knowledge of the murder, Helena started asking Cleonyma about their past travels. Although this was their first trip with Seven Sights, the couple were old hands.

'We've been on the road for a couple of years. While we can last out, we'll keep going. The money came from our old master. He had a lot - mainly because for decades, he never would spend any. Life with him was bloody hard, especially after he got sick. But in the end, he seemed to change his attitude. He knew he was dying, and he started handing out presents.'

'Was he frightened that you might stop looking after him?'

'Bribery? No, Helena; he was scared of the pain, but he knew he could trust us.' Cleonyma was matter-of-fact. I could imagine her as a brisk but efficient nurse. Receiving a bed-bath at her hands might be a worry. Especially if she had been drinking. 'He never said beforehand, but when he went he left us everything.'

'So you know he valued your loyalty.'

'And no one else could put up with him! - We two had been together unofficially for years,' Cleonyma reminisced. Slaves are not allowed to marry, even other slaves. 'But as soon as we got our windfall, we made it proper. We had a huge bash, all the works, ceremony, contract, rings, veils, nuts, witnesses, and a very expensive priest to take the auguries.'

Helena was laughing. 'The auguries were good, I hope?'

'They certainly were - we paid the priest enough to guarantee that!' Cleonyma too was relishing the story. 'He was a clapped-out old pain in the buttocks - but he managed to see in the sheep's liver that we shall have long life and happiness, so I like to think he had good eyesight. If not, you and me are finished!' she warbled to her husband, who looked on, bleary but amiable. 'Now we just think, let's see the world. We earned it, so why shouldn't we?'

We all raised our drinks in a friendly toast to that.

'Somebody else took an interest in Valeria's fate.' Helena asked, trying not to look worried. 'Wasn't there a young man from Rome, called Camillus Aelianus?'

'Oh him!' The loud foursome all guffawed.

'He got up a lot of people's noses,' Minucia declared.

Helena said sadly, 'It means nothing. He doesn't know he's doing it.' She let the truth sink in. 'Aelianus is my brother, I'm afraid.'

They all stared.

'He said he was the son of a senator!' Cleonyma exclaimed. Helena nodded. Cleonyma looked her up and down. 'So what about you? You are with an informer, so we assumed...'

Helena shook her head gently. 'Make no mistake - Marcus is a very good informer. He has talent, connections, and scruples, Cleonyma.'

'Any good in bed, though?' Cleonyma giggled, giving Helena a poke in the ribs. She knew how to defuse an awkward situation by lowering the tone.

'Oh, I wouldn't have looked at him otherwise!' Helena replied.

I drank my wine impassively. 'So where is Aelianus - does anybody know?'

They all shrugged and told us he had simply vanished.

XXIV

A lull allowed Volcasius to interrupt. With unabashed lack of social skill, the man nobody wanted to sit with suddenly accosted me. 'I've finished lunch. Better speak to me!' He was on his feet and about to leave the courtyard.

I gathered my note-tablets and went over to the table he had occupied alone. He sank back on a bench again, with an ungainly sideways motion. His clothes were unkempt and exuded a waft of body odour. Though his manner towards me was abrupt, I would treat him with courtesy. People like that do know how others regard them. He was probably intelligent - perhaps too intelligent; that may have been the problem. He could well provide useful information.

'You are called Volcasius?'

He glared. 'So some snitch gave you our biographies!'

'Just a list of names. Is there anything you can add to what the rest have told me?' He shrugged, so I asked him, 'Do you think Statianus killed his wife?'

'No idea. The pair were wrapped up in themselves, and frankly did not interest me. I never gained any impression of whether he was jealous or likely to snap.'

I surveyed the oddball thoughtfully, wondering whether he himself had ever had any tricky exchanges with the bride.

As I had thought, the man was bright: he read my thoughts. 'You are imagining that I killed her!' The way he put it was very self-centred. He seemed almost pleased to rank as a suspect.

'So did you?' I challenged.

'Certainly not.'

'Any idea who might have done?'

'No idea at all. Is that the best you can come up with?' His tone was contemptuous. As an investigator, he thought I stank. I knew the kind; he believed he could do my job for me - though of course he lacked experience, persistence, skill, or sensitivity. And if he had had to park in a doorway to watch a suspect, the mark would have spotted him instantly.

I leaned back, looking relaxed. 'Tell me why you are on this trip, will you?'

Hooking himself into a crazy position, he peered at me, now deeply suspicious. 'Why do you want to know, Falco?'

'I want to establish who had a motive. Perhaps I wonder whether you attach yourself to travelling groups in order to prey on women.' He humphed. 'Not married, Volcasius?'

Volcasius grew hot and bothered. 'That applies to plenty of people!'

I gave him a conciliatory smile. 'Of course. You see the obvious way of thinking, however. But I never follow obvious lines of enquiry... Are you keen on culture? Is that the lure?'

'I've nothing at home to keep me. I like to visit foreign places.'

'Nothing wrong with that!' I soothed him, while also implying that there might be. I could see how it was. He would never fit in, wherever he was, so he kept moving. I guessed that he also had a genuine, even a pedantic interest in the provinces he toured. He was carrying a note-tablet set much like my own. His tablets lay folded open so I could see scrawled lines of madly minute handwriting, lines which made my eyes ache as I tried to decipher them at a distance. There were place-names underlined, then long inches of detail; he was creating an enormous travel guide. I could imagine that when he had been at Olympia he compiled not just descriptions of the temples and sports facilities, but lists of the hundreds of statues, probably each with its inscription copied down. 'You strike me, Volcasius, as the kind of observant man who may have seen something other people missed.'

I hated myself for flattering him, and since he was far from grateful, I then hated myself more. 'I've been thinking about that,' he retorted. 'Unfortunately for you, I have not been able to remember anything significant.' I looked rueful; he was triumphant. 'If anything should come to mind, have no fear, I shall report forthwith!'

'Thank you.'

Volcasius had a way of leaning too close which, combined with his sour smell, made me desperate to be rid of him. 'So what is your solution for that other girl, Falco? The one who was found on the Hill of Cronus?'

I kept my voice low, to match his. 'Marcella Caesia?' Some of the group must have known her story, because the apparent connection was why Aulus had written to us back in Rome. 'It now appears that the two cases are not linked.'

Volcasius let out a short bark of derision, as if with that I had just proved myself incompetent. He said nothing to assist me, needless to say. I never had any patience with idiots who gave me that superior 'Little do you know!' snot.

He stood up again. 'As for that young man you enquired about, Falco - the Aelianus fellow - nobody else seems to have spotted it, but when we were all put under house arrest here, he took ofTsomewhere with the dead girl's husband.'

Volcasius strode away with the air of a man who had just given himself a big thrill by annoying me. I failed to point out that he had left his hat behind, lying on the table. It was the kind of greasy straw affair that looks as if it harbours wildlife. If there had been an oil lamp lit, I would have taken a spill and deliberately set fire to the hat in the cause of hygiene.