Before I could ask him, he added, as if wanting to close the subject, “It’s a difficult time, Falco.”
“Really? There is a family secret, I gather.”
“Nothing escapes you.”
“I get to the truth in the end. I am beginning to suspect that I know what your secret is. So are you going to enlighten me?”
“It is not for me to tell. But it has nothing whatsoever to do with the child,” said Ariminius.
“Flamen Pomonalis, you had better be right-or if anything has happened to her, it will be on your conscience!”
We had started with the kitchen garden at the back of the house. We scoured every patch of ground, while the men used forks and twopronged hoes to turn all the piles of rubbish. There had been a bonfire; I myself raked through its ashes while the slaves were making the final push into the area of wildest growth towards the far wall. I sent for a ladder (the builders had left plenty) and even climbed up and looked over that wall. There was a public bath beyond it, in a maze of streets. If Gaia had, somehow, scaled this barrier she would then have been away in the reaches of the Aventine that ran towards the Raudusculana Gate. But first she would have had a climbing feat ahead of her. Even I only managed to barge through the rampant undergrowth with a great many curses, scratches, and a badly torn tunic; it seemed impossible for a child. The height of the wall when balanced on a precarious ladder placed on very rough ground was too off-putting. Not that I ever rule out anything absolutely. If she thought she was fleeing for her life, desperation could make anything feasible.
Next we probed and picked over the house. I divided the workforce and placed half in command of Ariminius; I started at the top with my men, he started at the bottom with his, and after crossing halfway we knew that every cranny should have been investigated not just once but twice.
There were large salons and small cubicles. An area which must have been far older than the rest of the property had all the rooms running into each other in an old-fashioned sequence, then there were other wings where tasteful modern reception rooms led off frescoed corridors. A damp basement consisted of about fifty cells for slaves; that allowed rapid searching. All they had in them were a few meager treasures and hard pallets to sleep on. We lined up the slaves, army style, each outside his or her own compartment, while we searched. That gave me a chance to ask every one if they knew anything or had seen Gaia yesterday after her mother sent the nurse to other duties.
“What duties were they, incidentally?” I checked routinely with Ariminius, but he only shrugged and looked vague. Giving instructions to women was a woman’s business-or at least that was what he wanted me to think.
There are odd contents in most homes, though few so odd as I saw here. In the ex-Flamen’s bedroom, which was some way from the rest of his family, stood a casket of sacrificial cakes (in case of night starvation?) and the bed legs were smeared with clay-an accommodation that allowed a practicing Flamen Dialis to escape the ancient prescription that he must sleep upon the ground. It was no longer necessary for Numentinus. Retirement meant nothing to the old manthough this seemed an affectation in his new house.
I could not have lived here. What passed for refinement in their lives made me turn up my fine long Etruscan nose: the ex-Flamen’s library, for instance, contained nothing but scrolls of ritual nonsense, as oblique as the Sibylline Books. Throughout the house there were too many niches that had been set up as shrines, and the cloying stench of incense lingered everywhere. Looms for the women were lined up in a whole bank in a bare room, like the workshop of the most miserable tailor. The wine store was meager. Even Helena and I, at our lowest ebb financially, had paid more attention to the quality of what went in our oil lamps. Shabbiness is one thing; lack of interest is pitiful.
I was not here to criticize their life. But if more people had done so in the past, and if its quality had been improved, just maybe there would have been less unhappiness. Then maybe the child would be safe at home.
We reached the point where there was only one ghastly place that we had not probed. My heart sank. I had hoped to avoid this. Still, it needed to be done. After checking with the plan, I led the way to a small cubicle in the kitchen area. A call for a volunteer met with silence, as I expected. I told Ariminius to pick out a slave who needed punishment, then I sent for buckets and gave orders to remove the wooden two-hole seat so we could excavate the lavatory.
It was impossible to reach down very far from ground level, so we put the protesting slave into the hole in a sling and passed him a long stick to probe the depths. We kept him down there an hour, until he seemed about to faint. We hauled him out just in time. The latrine had been very well constructed, with a shaft a yard and a half deep, but we found nothing, thank the gods.
Well, we found plenty. Nothing relevant.
We had done all we could. Short of tearing off the roof and battering holes in partitions, we had searched everywhere it was feasible to look. Ariminius lost himself, his earlier enthusiasm deflated by our failure. Receiving no further orders from him or from me, the slaves drifted off too. Even my escort conveniently forgot he had been ordered to stick with me.
There was nothing else I could do. I thought about sleeping here overnight, to listen to noises and absorb the atmosphere. But I had had enough of the dreary, stultifying aura of this unhappy home. I could not determine exactly what was wrong, but there were remnants of old miseries everywhere. I thought there was something worse too. Something terrible they were all hiding. I just hoped the Pomonalis had been right when he claimed it did not concern Gaia.
I walked for one last time into the peristyle garden. No one was there now. Holding Gaia’s little twiggy mop, I strode slowly around the central area, then sat on the marble bench, leaning my elbows on my knees. I had not eaten all day. I was filthy and knocked about. Nobody here had ever thought of offering me refreshments or the facilities to clean up. I was long past being able to complain or say what I thought of them. Still, this was everyday fare for an informer. I was not yet so nicely respectable that I would shriek if I noticed my white tunic had turned nearly black and that, not to be too dainty about it, I stank.
Somebody came out behind me. I was too stiff and too depressed to move.
“Falco.” Hearing the voice of the ex-Flamen, I did force myself to turn around, though I would not rise for him. “You have done well. We are grateful.”
I could not help sighing. “I have done nothing.”
“It seems she is not here.”
I looked around again, helplessly. She was still at home. I felt convinced of it. My voice sounded husky. “Forgive me for not finding her.”
“I am aware of how hard you have tried.” From him that was gratitude. Rather to my surprise he came and placed himself at the table where the workmen’s crumbs had once been squabbled over by the sparrows. “Do not think us harsh, Falco. She is a beguiling, sweetnatured little girl, my only grandchild. I prayed with all my heart that you would have found her today.”
I was too weary to react. But I did believe him.
I stood up. “I’ll find out whether the vigiles have discovered anything.” If so, it could only be bad news now. The old man looked as if he knew that. “If she still fails to turn up, may I come back here tomorrow and see what else can be done?”
He pursed his lips. He did not want me here. Yet he inclined his head, allowing it. Maybe he really did love Gaia. Or maybe he sensed that this loss of the small child could be the incident that split apart his family when all else had failed to break his dominance.
“I know what you feel about the vigiles, sir, but I would like to bring in one officer, my friend Petronius Longus. He has vast experience-and is the father of young girls. I want to walk the ground with him, and see if he turns up anything I missed.”
“I would prefer to avoid that.” It was not quite a refusal, and I kept it in reserve. “A woman is here to speak to
