best in him.
'Actually, it lets her out of the murder,' I smiled. 'She never gets into trouble; she's always curled up on all the cushions in the house, with her nose in a scroll:' As we joked, those eyes of hers were still sending me agonised messages. I was desperate to find out the cause. 'Sweetheart, perhaps the man you regard as your marriage partner can properly ask why you are sitting in a stranger's house with a distressed expression and somewhat lightly chaperoned?'
'This is a formal examination,' Marponius interrupted, stiffly reacting to the implied criticism. 'It is a private session of my court! The lady knows I am a judge attached to the permanent tribunal relating to the Cornelian Law against assassins and drug-making-'
'Poisons, knifings and patricide,' I interpreted for Helena. The special murder tribunal had been established by the dictator Sulla. After a hundred and fifty years it had signally failed to stamp out death in the streets, but at least killers were processed efficiently, which suited Rome. The praetor had a whole panel of locally elected judges he could call on to hear cases, but Marponius had set himself up as the expert. He enjoyed his duties. (He enjoyed the status.) When he took an interest in the early stages of a particular investigation, he could rely on being chosen for the hearing afterwards if the officers of the watch ever caught someone.
Now they had caught me. Helena's distress made me attack Marponius. 'Under that legislation is there not a penalty by fire and water for inciting a judge falsely to bring a capital charge?'
'That is correct.' He had replied too calmly. He was too sure of his ground. Trouble was licking its fangs at me. 'No charge has been brought yet.'
'Then why is the lady here?'
'A charge does seem likely.'
'On what accusation?'
Helena answered me herself. 'Acting as an accessory.'
'Oh cobnuts!' I looked across at Petronius. His eyes, which were brown, honest and always frank, told me to believe it. I turned back to Helena. 'What's happened today? I know you went to the Saepta and visited my father.' I felt annoyed at having to mention Geminus, but making Helena sound like a girl who devoted her attentions to the family seemed a good idea. 'Did something occur afterwards?'
'I was going home to your mother's house. On the way,' she said rather guiltily, 'I happened to pass Flora's Caupona.'
I was starting to worry. 'Carry on!'
'I saw the body of Censorinus being taken away. The street was blocked temporarily, so I had to wait. I was of course in a carrying-chair,' she inserted, having grasped that some niceties were called for. 'The bearers talked to the waiter from the caupona while we were stuck there, and he happened to be bewailing the fact that he now had to tidy up the rented room.'
'So?'
'So I offered to help.'
I let go of her hand and folded my arms. The bad memory of that bloody room where Censorinus was murdered forced itself back into my mind. I had to repel it. Petronius knew I had been there, which was damning enough; admitting it to Marponius would be my key to a jail cell. Sending my girlfriend looked like the act of a desperate man.
I knew why she had done it. She wanted to scour the place for evidence that might clear me. But any stranger would assume she had gone there to remove clues that would convict. Marponius was bound to think it. Even Petro would be failing in his duty if he ignored the possibility. His deep sense of unhappiness filled the room almost like an odour. I had never before been so conscious of putting our long friendship under strain.
'It was stupid,' Helena spoke crisply. 'I offered on the spur of the moment.' I sat dumbstruck, unable to ask if she had got as far as the ghastly scene upstairs. She looked so white it seemed probable. My throat closed helplessly. 'I only reached the downstairs kitchen,' she said, as if I had transmitted my agony. 'Then I realised my presence there could only make things appear worse for you.'
'So what happened?' I managed to croak.
'The waiter seemed desperate for company. I suppose he was frightened to enter the murder room alone, even after he knew the body was no longer there. I was trying to think of an excuse to leave, without being rude to the poor man, when Petronius Longus arrived.'
I stared at him. He spoke to me at last. 'Encouraging your nicely bred girlfriend to visit the gory scene looks black, Falco.'
'Only if I'm guilty!' He must have known how closely I verged on losing my temper. 'And I did not send her.'
'A jury may not believe you,' Marponius commented.
'Juries are notoriously stupid! That's why the praetor will expect you to advise him on whether this charge is likely to stick before he lets things reach a court.'
'Oh I shall give the praetor good advice, Falco.'
'If justice is more than a dilettante hobby for you, your advice will be that this case stinks!'
'I don't think so.'
'Then you don't think-end of issue! I had no motive for killing the centurion.'
'He had a financial claim on you.' Without any formal signal, the atmosphere had shifted so that the judge was grilling me.
'No, he had a claim against my brother. But the claim was rocky. Marponius, I don't want to slander the brave centurions of the glorious Fifteenth Legion, but my private investigations already suggest it was a claim they could not pursue too openly. Anyway, where are your facts? Censorinus was seen alive, eating his dinner at the caupona, long after I had left and gone home to my own family. Petronius Longus has checked up on my movements the next day, and although there may be a period that I can't account for with witnesses, neither can you present anyone who will say they saw me at Flora's when the soldier lost his life.'
'The fact that you disagreed with him so violently-'
'Rules me out! We had a very strange quarrel, initiated by him, right in front of the very curious public. If you base your case on that, you are calling me a very stupid man.'
Marponius frowned. For a moment I had the illusion of controlling the situation, then the sensation altered. He made a gesture to Petronius. Some unpleasant challenge, previously arranged, was about to emerge.
Petronius Longus, with his air of misery deepening even further, stood up from his seat on the far side of the tasteful room and came across to me. He unwrapped a piece of cloth he had been guarding, and held out an object for me to inspect. He kept it just beyond my reach, and made sure that Marponius and Helena could both watch my face.
'Do you recognise this, Falco?'
I had a split second to reach the wrong decision. Delay would have answered for me. I took the honest option, like a fool. 'Yes,' I said. 'It appears to be one of my mother's cooking knives.'
Then Petronius Longus told me in a quiet voice, 'Helena Justina found it this morning amongst other utensils on the caupona's cooking bench.'
XXVIII
Criminals cut and run. For a second I knew why.
I stared at the knife. It was not one to excite a cutler. There was a gnarled bone handle, attached by a stout iron ring to a heavy blade that tapered to a solid point. The point had a small twist, as if at some time in its past the knife had been trapped and bent; such a nick at the end of a strong knife is impossible to straighten out.
It was like all my mother's other knives. They were not a true set, but they had all come from the Campagna when she was married. They were tough country items that she wielded with great force. Plenty of other homes in Rome must have similar gear. But I knew this was hers. Her initials were scratched on the handle: JT, for Junilla Tacita.
