It was barely dawn. The pale light, empty streets and our echoing footfalls increased the air of urgency. We came down past the Temple of Ceres into the damp grey mist along the river.
`Why does this always happen before I've had my breakfast?' Petro grumbled.
`They dump the corpse in the dark, then the dawn patrol discovers it at first light,' Martinus explained. Petronius had not needed him to say this. Martinus went in for pedantry. As a result Petronius went in for thinking that Martinus needed to be washed out with a violent enema.
It crossed my mind that I could do Petro a favour by naming his deputy as a bribe-taker and having him removed. In fact, if my interest in truth had inclined to the inaccurate, I could have wreaked havoc in the watch. I could finger anyone I took against; it would be hard to disprove. Even though none of them knew the position, I felt sour.
`Petro, they do it on purpose, to stop you enjoying your morning… Do we know who this dumped corpse is?' I asked.
Petronius glanced back at the patrolman who had been with him at Fountain Court. `Not yet,' Petro said. He seemed to be keeping something back.
`Who found the remains?'
`One of the Sixth's patrols. It's in their patch.' That explained Petro's restrained attitude. He kept his council in front of men from another cohort. But he did condescend to mutter, `There seems to be a connection with the Emporium.'
We had reached the scene of the crime – or at least where the victim had ended up. Our pace slowed and we left further questions to answer themselves.
The Forum Boarium lies in the Eleventh region, immediately below the Capitol, between the river and the starting-gate end of the Circus Maximus. It is, part of the Velabrum. Once the marsh where Romulus and Remus were supposedly found by the shepherd, it has a long history. There must have been a landing place and a market here since long before Romulus grew up and identified the Seven Hills as an ideal development site. The rectangular Temple of Portunus marked the ancient use as a harbour of the riverbank between the Aemilian and Sublician bridges. The diminutive round Temple of Hercules Victor was later, a cute initiative in marble that dated from the time when shrines started to become decorative and, according to my grandfather, morals declined.
The meat market had its own decidedly off-putting flavour. Owing to the presence of the body it had not yet been set up for the day, which made it appear even shabbier. There was a mess of hurdles everywhere. I never liked walking through it, for the putrid smell of drying animal blood always hung about. The disgusting odour filled the air this morning so strongly I felt sick.
Right in the centre of the area a small group of fire-watchers were conversing in a huddle near a body on the ground. Further away a couple of street-sweepers stood gawping, leaning on flatheaded brooms. Market traders, kept back from their normal business, hung about talking in low voices, some of them warming their hands around little cups of hot spiced wine. The first arrivals of cattle were jammed in a pen on the river-side. They were lowing with distress; maybe they sensed even more trouble than the slaughter that awaited them.
We walked across to the corpse. The vigiles drew back and watched us as we looked down at their find. The two who had come to fetch us joined their colleagues. As they let officers take charge of their discovery they were wary, and disbelieving of our so-called expertise. We inspected the body in silence. It was a bad experience.
We were looking at a man, age indeterminate, probably not young. He lay on his front, with arms and legs neatly outstretched like a starfish – not the attitude of any accidental death. We could see at once that he had been tortured. He was barefoot, wearing what might once have been a white tunic. The tunic was almost completely soaked in blood. Its material also bore signs of what seemed to be scorching. There were marks of a thrashing on his calves. His arms were badly bruised and had been slashed with knives. People with perverted natures had really enjoyed themselves here, and their victim must have died slowly. We could see nothing above the neck. At some point during his terrible adventure last night, his head had been crammed inside a large bronze pot. The pot was still on the corpse.
XXIX
MARTINUS MADE A loop of his neckscarf. He bent over the victim and pulled it up an arm, then dragged at the corpse until one shoulder twisted and the body turned over. The metal pot scraped piercingly on grit. There was less blood on the front of the tunic, but a great deal of dirt, as if the body had been dragged about face down. The pot stayed in place, wedged on by a cloak shoved inside. If the man had not been dead when they covered his head, he must have been suffocating while they tortured him.
Petronius strode over to the vigiles. `How did you find him?'
`On our last round,' said their leader, stressing that it was now time they went off duty. `We came upon him just where he is.'
`Had you been around here earlier?'
`When our shift started. He wasn't here then. We hadn't been back during the night. We check the temples for vagrants, but apart from that we don't get much to do in the Boarium. The smell of dead meat puts off courting couples.'
`Dear, dear!' Petronius tutted to me. `Lovers are becoming so fastidious…'
The patrolman gave him a sideways look, then continued sombrely: `There's nothing to pinch, and nothing to go up in smoke. So if there's no one about we forget it. We've got plenty of worse trouble spots.'
`This is the Eleventh region. What made you come for me?'
`The pot.'
`The pot?'
'A list was circulated to all the cohorts yesterday: things to watch for from that robbery. Anything we spotted being disposed of, you were the special contact name.' The patrolman grinned slightly. He had very stained teeth. `Nobody mentioned that the funeral urns might be full!'
Petro's face set. He rarely joked about murder. `You're referring to the Emporium losses? Was a pot like this on the list?'
The man Petro was talking to stared at him pityingly. `I seem to remember 'Etruscan bronze vessels: set comprising jugs, ladle, suspension hooks, and double-handled wine bowl, sir!'
`Right!' said Petronius, managing to sound crisp. `Well spotted, lads.'
He came back to us. We had been standing in silence, listening in. He checked with Martinus in a low voice, `Was stuff like this on our list?'
Martinus shrugged. `Could be. I only drew up the list. You know how many items were on it. I didn't know I was meant to learn it off by heart.' Sensing his chief's disapproval, he had second thoughts. `Maybe. Could well have been.'
Petro turned to me. `You're the antiques expert, Falco. Is this Etruscan?'
He really needed Pa to discuss bronzes. I walked to the top of the corpse's head and viewed the item more or less the right way up. It was a large, open-topped bowl, with two handles as the patrolman said, each fixed with two attachment plates and cast with satyrs' heads in relief. Handsome. Probably robbed from a tomb. My father would adore it; my mother would call it `too good to use'.
`It looks extremely ancient. One thing I do know,' I conceded. `This is a highly valuable pot. I personally would not stuff even my favourite granny into it.'
Petronius looked at me. `Who would abandon something like that, Falco?'
`Someone who knew what it was worth. Upending our friend in the pot was a statement: we killed him because of the robbery – and here's an item to prove the point.'
`What point?' asked Fusculus.
Petro supplied it: `We're the big boys now.'
Martinus pondered, `So who's the man who wasn't quite big enough? The man in the pot?'
I poked at the handsome crater, attempting to remove it with the toe of my boot. No luck. Like a naughty child egged on by an even naughtier brother, this corpse had ended up completely stuck. I had been jammed in a pot
