The Silver Pigs (14 page)

XXXV

"Now you think it's me."

"What?"

You spend months stalking a problem that constantly escapes. Then cover more ground in half a second than your brain can comprehend.

This was why Decimus had spoken of Pertinax in such a reluctant tone: Pertinax was his misery of a son-in-law. Atius Pertinax! Now I knew. I knew how the silver pigs were carried to Italy, by whom, and how concealed: under a cargo so dull the customs force at Ostia who operate the luxury tax and have perfect artistic taste glanced once inside the hold, groaned at the ghastly shale, then never stooped to search his boat. Poor Helena had innocently tried to arrange our passage on a ship weighed down to the gunnels with silver pigs!

More. At the start of all this Atius Pertinax, as aedile in the Capena Gate Sector, would have been the snoop in the praetor's office who heard where his praetor's friend Decimus had hidden the lost ingot in the Forum probably he arranged to have Sosia Camillina snatched from home. After I spoiled that, he nosed out that she was with me, told her father, then used Publius as an excuse to arrest me for stalking in too close. All this in high panic, because the ingot lost in the street might have pointed to him.

Helena was his wife.

"Your first thought," she insisted, "will be that this implicates me."

She was not his wife now.

"You're too straight." My second thought always the best.

She goaded me on.

"Now can your dull brain tease it out? The two names Triferus gave to Uncle Gaius must be my husband Pertinax, and Domitian, Vespasian's son."

"Yes," I said. I felt about as useless as she always implied. It must be because Pertinax had been her husband that Gaius had refused to tell us whose names they were.

There was a long pause. Somewhat stiffly I asked, Tell me, lady, how long ago did you work this out?"

For a moment she remained silent. "When the captain of my husband's ship refused to carry us. Gnaeus and I had parted kindly. It was such a spiteful act." So she still called him Gnaeus!

The captain of your ex-husband's ship must have felt quite dismayed when you asked! How close," I demanded as another aspect struck me, "is your ex-husband to your Uncle Publius?"

"Uncle Publius cannot know about this."

"Sure?"

"Not possibly!"

"Any views on Vespasian?"

"Uncle Publius supports him of course. He's a businessman; he wants stability. Vespasian stands for a well-run state: high taxation also high profits in trade."

"Your uncle provides wonderful camouflage for Pertinax in more than one way."

"Oh Juno, my poor uncle!"

"Is he? Tell me, what line did Publius take in the discussion about Domitian Caesar that made you quarrel with Pertinax?"

"None. He wasn't there. He only came to our house for family events. Stop hounding my uncle!"

"I have to."

"Falco! Why? For heaven's sake, Falco, he's Sosia's papa!"

That's why. It would be too easy for me to ignore him"

"Didius Falco, your one certainty must be that none of her relations her father least of all can be part of anything that let that child be harmed!"

"What about your own father?"

"Oh really, Falco!"

"Pertinax was his son-in-law; a close tie."

"My father seriously disliked him after I was divorced." It fitted what I had seen. Decimus had been clearly annoyed when I mentioned Pertinax.

I asked her who was party to the Domitian conversation. She listed some names that meant nothing to me.

"You know anything about an alley called Nap Lane?" I sprang the question at her; she looked at me, wide-eyed, as I pressed on. "Sosia Camillina died in a warehouse there. Belongs to an old patrician stick, fading from the world on his country estate - a man called Caprenius Marcellus"

"I know him slightly," Helena interrupted in a steady voice. I have been in his warehouse; Sosia came with me. A dried out, painfully dying old stick who had no son. He adopted an heir. Common enough. A presentable young man with no hopes of his own, who was pleased to be welcomed by Marcellus into his noble house, honour his resplendent ancestors, promise to bury him with devoted respect and in return supervise the substantial Marcellus estates. The Censor's office would have told you if you bothered to ask. My husband's my ex-husband's full legal name is Gnaeus Atius Pertinax Caprenius Marcellus."

"Believe me," I commented blackly, "your ex-husband has several other filthy names!"

It seemed most comfortable not to talk for a while.

"Falco, I suppose you searched the warehouse?"

"You may suppose we did."

"Empty?"

"By the time we searched."

More frogs plopped. Some of them croaked. Some fish plopped. I threw a stone into the little pond and that plopped. Clearing my throat, I croaked.

"It seems to me," the senator's daughter dictated, sounding like her British aunt, "boors in a praetor's office and brats at the Palace cannot organize world events."

"Oh no, a real manager runs this monkey troupe!"

"I don't believe," she said, in a much smaller voice, "Atius Pertinax is capable of murder."

"If you say so."

"I do say so! Be cynical if you must. Perhaps people never really know anybody else. Yet we must try. In your work you must trust your own judgement"

"I trust yours," I admitted simply, since the compliment was true.

"Yet you don't trust me!"

My ribs were causing me severe distress, and my leg hurt.

"I do need your opinion," I said. "I do value it. For her sake Sosia's sake there can be no luxuries in this case. No loyalty, no trust then with any luck, no errors."

I limped to my feet, distancing myself as I spoke that name. It was a long time since I had thought of Sosia so directly; the memory was still unbearable. If I was going to think about Sosia Camillina, I wanted to be alone.

I walked over to the fishpond, huddled in my cloak. Helena remained on the bench. She must have spoken to no more than a grey shape, whose cloak flapped occasionally in the night wind rising off the sea. I heard her call out quietly.

"Before I face my people it would be helpful to know how my cousin died."

Gaius, who must have broken the news to her, would suppress details if he could. Since I respected her, I told her the bare facts.

"Where were you?" Helena asked in a low voice.

"Unconscious in a laundry."

"Was that connected?"

"No."

"Were you her lover?" she managed to force out. Silence. "Answer me! I'm paying you, Falco!"

Only because I knew her stubbornness, did I eventually answer. "No."

"Did you want to be?"

I remained silent long enough for that to be an answer in itself.

"You had the chance! I know you did... Why not then?"

"Class," I stated. "Age. Experience." After a moment I added, "Stupidity!"

Then she asked me about morals. It seemed to me my morality was self-evident. It was none of her business, but in the end I told her a man should not abuse the eagerness of a young girl who has seen what she wants, and owns the instincts to obtain it, but lacks courage to cope with the inevitable grief afterwards.

"Had she lived, someone else would have brought Sosia disillusion. I did not want it to be me."

The night wind was rising, tugging at my cloak. My heart felt very grey. I needed to stop this.

"I'm going in." I had no intention of leaving my client alone in the dark; by now if there was any justice she knew that. Raucous revelry intruded from the mansio. She was uneasy in public places, and Massilia during drinking time is no place for a lady. No place for anyone; I was starting to feel unhappy out here in the open myself.

I waited, not impatiently.

"Better see you up."

I took her to the door of her room, as I had always done before. Probably she never knew how many offensive types I warned away during our trip. One night in a place where locks had yet to be invented and the clientele were particularly vile, I had slept across her threshold with my knife. Since I never told her, she had no chance to be grateful. I preferred it that way. It was my job. This, even though she was too awkward to have spelled out the contract, was what the precious little lady was paying me for.

She grieved more closely for Sosia then I realized. When, in the shadowed corridor, I turned to say goodnight and finally looked at her, I could see that although in the garden I heard nothing, she had wept.

While I stood, helpless at this unlikely spectacle, she remarked in her usual way, Thank you, Falco."

I assumed my own normal face, a shade too humble to be true. Helena Justina ignored that, as she always did. Just before she turned away she murmured, "Happy birthday!"

Then because it was my birthday she kissed me on the cheek.

XXXVI

She must have felt me flinch.

"I'm sorry!" she exclaimed. She should have stormed off. We could have left it there. I really would not have minded; her gesture had been civilized enough.

The damned woman did not know what to do.

"I am so sorry"

"Never apologize!" I heard my own voice grate. Since Sosia died, I had shrunk into myself. I could not deal with women any more. "Nothing new, lady! Rich piece of brisket looking for thick gravy gladiators get this all the time! If that was what I wanted you'd have known long before now!"

She ought to have turned into her room at once. She just stood there looking anxious.

"Oh for heavens sake!" I cried irritably. "Stop looking at me like that!" Her great tired eyes were lakes of misery.

For two hours I had been speculating how it would feel to kiss her. So I did. Completely exasperated, I stepped up to the doorway then gripped her with my elbows, while my two hands spread either side of her bone-white face. It was over quite quickly, so lacking in enjoyment it must have been the emptiest gesture of my life.

She wrenched away. She was shaking with cold from the garden. Her whole face was cold, and her eyelashes still wet from when she wept. I had kissed her; yet I still did not know what it was really like.

I have known men who will tell you rough handling is what such women want. They are fools. She was distraught. To be perfectly honest, I was distraught myself.

Helena might have dealt with the situation but I allowed her no time. It was me who stormed off.

I did go back. What do you take me for?

I walked down that dark corridor as discreetly as a servant with some message he had forgotten to deliver before. I tapped at her door my special knock: three quick successive little knuckle raps. We had never made a formal arrangment, it just developed as my sign. Normally she came at once to let me in.

I knocked again. I tried the latch, knowing it would not budge (I had shown her myself how to wedge a latch when she was staying at an inn.) I leaned my forehead against the wood and spoke her full name quietly. She would not reply.

By now I grasped that she had supposed we had at last reached some kind of understanding. She had offered me a truce, which I in my stupidity could not even recognize, let alone accept. She was as generous as I was crass. I would have liked a chance to tell her I was sorry. She would not, or could not, give me the chance.

The time came when to wait there any longer would subject her to scandal. She had hired me to protect her from that. The only thing I could do for her was to walk away.

XXXVII

In the morning I dressed, packed, then banged her ladyship's door as I went by. She did not appear until I was sitting on the step outside the mansio buffing my boots with goose-grease. She stood slightly behind me. I strapped on my boots slowly to avoid looking up. I had never been so embarrassed in my life.

Helena Justina stated crisply, "We shall both be happier if we end our contract now."

"Lady, I'll finish what I began."

"I won't pay you," she said.

"Consider your contract ended!" said I.

I would not allow myself to abandon her. I seized her luggage whether she liked it or not and strode ahead. A sailor handed her quite decently onto the boat; no one bothered about me. She marched off and stood in the prow by herself. I lounged on deck with my feet on her baggage.

She was seasick. I was not. I walked up to her.

"Can I help?"

"Go away."

I went away. That seemed to help.

All the way from Gaul to Italy those were the only words we said. At Ostia, in the morning crush, she stood next to me while we waited to disembark. Neither of us spoke. I let her be buffeted once or twice by other passengers, then I moved her in front of me and took the buffeting myself. She stared straight ahead. So did I.

I walked down the gangway first and commandeered a chair; she brushed past and climbed in by herself. I flung my baggage on the opposite seat, then travelled in a separate chair with hers.

We were entering Rome in the late afternoon. Spring now, and traffic increasing on the roads. We stopped for a holdup at the Ostia Gate, so I paid a boy to run ahead and warn her family she was on her way. I walked forward, craning at the hold-up that was jamming the Gate. Helena Justina put her head out of the window of her chair as I went by. I stopped.

I went on looking up the road. After a moment she asked quietly, "Can you see what it is?"

I leaned my elbow more sociably in the window of her chair. "Delivery carts," I replied, still gazing ahead. "Waiting to enter at curfew. Looks like a waggon of wine barrels has shed a sticky load." I turned my head and looked her in the face. "Plus some sort of official rumpus with soldiers and banners: some mighty personage and an escort to match, entering the city with a flourish..."

She held my gaze. I was never good at mending quarrels; I could feel the tendons setting in my neck.

"Didius Falco, do you know my father and Uncle Gaius have a bet?" Helena offered with a wan smile. "Uncle Gaius reckons 7 will dismiss you in a huff; father says that you will leave me first."

"Couple of villains," I remarked, carefully.

"We could prove them wrong, Falco."

My face twitched. "Waste of their stakes."

She thought I meant it; abruptly she looked away.

I had a hard pain in the pit of my stomach which I diagnosed as guilt. I touched her cheek with one finger as if she had been Marcia, my little niece. She closed her eyes, presumably in distaste. The traffic began to move again. Then Helena whispered to me dismally, "I don't want to go home!"

My heart ached for her.

I understood how she felt. She left as a bride, grew up as a wife, ran her own establishment probably ran it well. Now she had no place. She shrank from remarriage; her brother in Germany had told me that. She must return to her father. Rome permitted women to live no other way. She would be trapped, in a girl's useless life, a life she had outgrown. Visiting Britain had been her brief escape. Now she was back.

I recognized real panic. She would never have made the confession otherwise, not to me.

Feeling responsible, I said, "You still look seasick. I like to deliver my commissions in a healthy condition. Come and get a glow. I'll take you on the Embankment and show you Rome!"

How do I invent such harebrained schemes? In the east of the city, miles from where her father lived, you can climb the high earthworks of the original city wall. Once past the squeaking booths of the puppeteers, the men with trained marmosets and the self-employed loom workers plying for hire, the ancient Servian ramparts form a breezy promenade. To reach it we had to forge right into the city centre, across the main Forum, then out to the Esquiline Hill. Most people turn north towards the Colline Gate; at least I had the sense to walk her in the opposite direction and come down half way home on the Sacred Way.

Heaven knows what the bearers thought. Well, knowing the things that bearers regularly see, I can guess what they thought.

We climbed up, then strolled side by side. In early April, just before dinner, we were virtually alone. It was all there. Nothing like it in the world. Six-storey apartment blocks thrust upwards from the narrow streets, confronting palaces and private homes with brotherly disregard for social niceties. Mushroom-beige light flaked the roofs of the temples or shimmered in the fountain sprays. Even in April the air felt warm after the British wetness and cold. As we walked along peacefully, Helena and I counted off the Seven Hills together. While we came west along the Esquiline ridge, we had an evening wind in our faces. It bore tantalizing traces of rich meat dumplings gurgling in dark gravies in five hundred dubious cook shops oysters simmering with coriander in white wine sauce, pork braising with fennel, peppercorns and pine nuts in the busy kitchen of some private mansion immediately below. Up to our high spot rose a distant murmur of the permanent hubbub below: touts and orators, crashing loads, donkeys and doorbells, the crunch of a marching Guards detachment, the swarming cries of humanity more densely packed than anywhere in the Empire or the known world beyond.

I stopped. I turned my face towards the Capitol, smiling, with Helena so close that her long mantle clapped against my side. I experienced a sense of approaching climax. Somewhere in this metropolis lurked the men I sought. It remained only to find proof that would satisfy the Emperor, then discover the whereabouts of the stolen silver pigs. I was half way to the answer; the end lay here and my confidence was up. Finally, while I absorbed the familiar scene of home, knowing that at least in Britain I had done all a man could, the desolation which had gripped me in its vice since Sosia died finally relaxed.

Turning back to Helena Justina, I found her watching me. She had her own misery under control now. There was nothing really wrong with her: she was a girl who had made herself unhappy for a time. Plenty of people do that. Some people do it all their lives; some people seem to enjoy unhappiness. Not Helena. She was too straightforward and too honest with herself. Left alone, she had a deeply tranquil face and a gentle soul. I felt sure she would recover her patience with herself. Not with me perhaps, but if she hated me I could hardly quibble, since when I met her I had hated myself.

"I shall miss you," she mocked.

"Like a blister when the pain stops!"

"Yes."

We laughed.

"Some of my ladies ask to see me again!" I teased her suggestively.

"Why?" Helena flung back in her fierce way, bright-eyed. "Do you cheat them so obviously when you send in your bill?"

She had lost a few pounds lately but she still had a bonny figure and I still quite liked the way she did her hair. So I grinned, "Only if I want to see them!"

And she scoffed back, "I shall warn my accountant to jump hard on mistakes!"

Her father and her uncle had lost their bet. It would never last, but at that moment we were friends.

She looked nicely dishevelled and pink; I could safely hand her over to her relations looking like that. They would think the worst of me, but that was better than the truth.

There are two reasons for taking a girl on the Embankment. One is to breathe fresh air. We had done that. I thought about the other reason, then thought better of it. Our long journey was over. I took her home.