them once.'
`I was hoping this was a recent phenomenon,' Frontinus said.
`No, it has been, happening for years, sir,' Helena explained angrily. 'Our-brother-in-law works on the river and says mutilated bodies have been discovered for as long as he, can remember. For years the disappearance of women has been going unreported – or uninvestigated, anyway. Their corpses have been hidden away in' silence: It's only when, people begin to think the aqueducts are contaminated that anybody cares!'
`It has initiated an enquiry at last.' Frontinus was a braver man than me to suggest it. `Of course it's a scandal, and of course this enquiry is too late; nobody denies that.' `You're being disingenuous,' she chided him mildly. `Practical,' he said.
`Whoever they were,' I assured Helena, `these women will have the investigation they deserve.'
`Yes, I think they will now.' She trusted me. It was a serious responsibility.
I reached, for the dish and held it. `One thing I shall have to do – even though, it seems disrespectful – is remove this poor soul's wedding ring.' It would he best done unobserved. The ring was embedded in waterlogged flesh and would be ghastly to extricate. `The only way we stand any chance of solving this is to identify at least one of the victims and work out exactly what happened to her.'
`How likely is that?' Frontinus asked.
`Well, it will be the first time the killer has to dispose of remains while somebody is actually looking, out for him. The girl's torso is likely to be dumped soon in the Tiber, as Helena said.' The consul looked up quickly, already responding and considering logistics. `In the next few days,' I told him. `At the latest just after the Games finish. If you have any men at your disposal they could be watching the bridges and embankments.'
`A day and night watch calls for more resources than I have.'
`Which are?'
`A modest allocation of public slaves.' His expression told me he realised he was heading an investigation on the cheap.
`Do your best, sir. Nothing too obvious, or the killer will be scared off. I'll put the word among the water boatmen, and my partner may be able to get some help from the vigiles.'
Helena's great brown eyes were still sorrowful, but I could see she was thinking. `Marcus, I keep wondering how these smaller remains are being put into the water system in the first place. Surely most of the aqueducts are either deep underground or high on arches and inaccessible?'
I passed on the query to Frontinus. `Good point,' he agreed. `We must consult with officials about how unauthorised entry is possible.'
`If we can find where it's happening we may trap the bastard in action.' I was interested in how our intervention would' affect Anacrites. `But won't speaking to water board officials cut across the Curator's own investigation?' '
Frontinus shrugged. `He knows I have been asked' to provide an overview. I will ask for an engineer to be made available for consultation tomorrow. The Curator will have to accept it.'
`He won't encourage his staff to help. We'll have to win them over with guile,' I said.
`Use your charm,' smirked Helena.
`What' do you recommend, love? Approachability and the dimpled grin?'
`No, I meant slip them some coinage.'
`Vespasian won't approve of that!' I pulled my face straight for Frontinus. He was listening to our banter rather cautiously. `Consul, we should be able to extract something useful from the engineers. Will you want to be in on this part of the enquiry, sir?'
`Certainly.'
Oh dear. `Oh good!'
I wondered how Petro and I would manage, sharing our hunches with an ex-magistrate. Cosying up to a consul was not our style.
The question was about to be addressed; Petronius had shambled up to visit us. He must have spotted the lictors wilting in Lenia's entrance. In theory he and I were still not speaking, but curiosity is a wonderful thing. He hovered in the doorway briefly, a tall, wide-shouldered figure looking diffident at interrupting.
`Falco! What have you done to acquire six rod-and-axe men in your train?”
“Belated recognition of my value to the state… Come in, you bastard. This is Julius Frontinus.' I saw that Petro was receiving the message in my glance.' `He's this year's Consul and our latest client.' As Petronius nodded pleasantly, pretending to be unaffected by rank, I explained about the commission of enquiry and how our expertise was needed for the legwork. I managed to slide in a warning hint that our client intended to impose himself on our interviews.
Sextus Julius Frontinus was of course the man who in our lifetime would achieve an unrivalled reputation for his talents as lawyer, statesman, general, and city administrator, not to mention his skilled authorship, of major, works on military strategy surveying and water provision (an interest which I would like to think he acquired while working with us). His career structure would be the illustrious ideal. At the time, though, the only question that concerned Petro and me was whether we could endure him as a supervisor and whether the mighty Frontinus would be prepared to bunch up his; purple-bordered toga; on his knobbly, knees and stand his round like an honest trooper in the seedy winebars where we liked to hold our debates about evidence.
Petronius found himself a seat and installed himself comfortably, in our group. He took the dish containing the most recent hand, stared at it with a suitably depressed sigh, listened while I pointed out, some apparent axe- marks on the wrist, then placed it carefully on the table. He did not waste his breath on hysterical exclamations; nor did he demand a tiresome review of the conversation he had missed. He simply asked the question which he reckoned
took priority, `This is an enquiry of major importance. I presume the fee will be appropriate?'
I had trained him well. Lucius Petronius Longus was a real informer now.
TWENTY FOUR
With the wedding ring we had our first useful clue. Removing it sickened me. Don't ask me how I managed it. I had to slide off to another room alone. Petronius assessed the job then pulled a face and left me to it, but I relied on him to keep Helena and the Consul out of the way.
I was glad I persevered: inside were engraved the names 'Asinia' and 'Caius'. There were thousands of men called Caius in Rome, but finding one who had recently lost a wife called Asinia might prove feasible.
Our new colleague said he would ask the City Prefect to make enquiries of all the vigiles cohorts under his command. We let Frontinus take this initiative, in case his rank speeded up the response. Knowing how the vigiles tended to react to rank, however, Petronius also made a private approach to the Sixth, who patrolled the Circus Maximus and were now the hapless hosts of his old second in command Martinus. Since the murders seemed to be connected with the Games, the Circus might be where the victim had met her assailant. The Sixth were the most likely candidates to receive her husband's plea to find her. Martinus, in his unreliable sounding way, promised to tell us at once if it happened. Well, he wasn't entirely hopeless; he might eventually get round to it,
While we waited to hear something, we tackled the aqueduct issue. Petro and I presented ourselves at Frontinus' house early the next morning. We wore neat tunics, combed-down hair, and the solemnity of efficient operatives. We looked like the men for the business. We folded our arms a lot and wore thoughtful frowns. Any ex-consul would be happy – to have two such sparks on his staff.
Although; we were allowed to interrogate an engineer, the
Curator of Aqueducts had had the choice of which to send. The man he imposed on us was called Statius,, and we could tell he would be a nincompoop by the size of his back-up team: he brought; a couple of slaves with note tablets (to record what he said so he could check it minutely afterwards and send us corrections if he had inadvertently been too frank), a satchel-carrier,, an assistant, and the assistant's chubby clerk. Not to mention the, litter-bearers and the armed guard with cudgels he had left outside. In theory he was here to contribute expert knowledge, but he behaved as if he had been summonsed on a, full-blown corruption charge.
Frontinus asked the first question, and it was typically direct: `Do you have a map of the water system?'
