'We have a nice clean barracks and decent tuck it's fine, if you can stand living on top of nine other fellows, some of them right farters and one who cries in his sleep.'
'Will you stay in Britain when the job's completed?'
'Not me, legate! I'm for Italy as quick as you like… Still, I always say that. Then I hear about some other scheme. There's always pals going, and the pay sounds rich. I get lured off again.' He seemed content with this.
'Would you say,' I asked narrowly, 'that this site is any more dangerous than others where you have worked?'
'Well, you lose a few fellows, it's natural.'
'I know what you mean. I've heard that outside the army, more men are killed on building sites than in any other trade.'
'You get used to it.'
'So what are the casualty numbers like?'
He shrugged, no statistician. I bet this easy-going lamb was just as dozy over his pay.
No, I didn't. I bet he knew what he was owed to the nearest quarter as.
'Know anybody on this site called Gloccus or Cotta?'
He said no.
XII
directed by the labourer, I found the infirmary where the body of the roofer killed that morning was supposed to lie. This was a small but efficient medical station, set among some site huts on the far side, with a young orderly, Alexas, who tended day-to-day cuts and sprains of which there were many. I guessed his job also included identifying malingerers. They would have those on a regular basis too.
Without surprise, he showed me the dead roofer. Valla had been a typical site navvy, ruddy-skinned and slightly paunchy. He probably liked a drop to drink, probably too often. His hands were rough. He smelt very slightly of old sweat, though that might only be that he rarely washed his tunic. He would smell worse soon if nobody paid to cremate him; my recent memories of the corpse under Pa's hypocaust were revived unpleasantly.
Valla lay on a stretcher, untended by mourners or flute-players, yet respected. A coarse cloth was pulled back with a gentle hand, ready for my inspection. The orderly stayed with me, as if he took as much care of this dead man as any screaming ditcher with a sickle through his leg. They had standards on this site, apparently.
'Will Valla be given a funeral?'
'It is normal,' said Alexas. 'We get deaths on any project, some perfectly natural. Hearts give out. Disease takes a toll. The workers will have a whip-round, probably, but on a long-distance job, arrangements are made by management.'
'You then ship the ashes home to relatives?' He looked embarrassed. 'Too much trouble,' I agreed calmly. 'I bet half the crew here have never named a blood relation to be contacted.'
'They are supposed to,' I was assured earnestly.
'Of course.' I tapped his chest. 'Have you put your wife or your mother on a scroll?'
Alexas began to speak, then paused and grinned back at me. 'Now you mention it…'
'I know. We all think anything bad will happen to some other man.
This one was mistaken, though.'
The body was cool. I was told nobody saw what happened. It looked as though he came off cleanly; there were certainly no signs that he scraped his hands trying to regain a grip. There were no real marks on him. The fatal injuries must be internal. If anybody shoved the poor fellow to make him lose his footing, then they had left no evidence.
'Where did his fall happen?'
'The old house.'
'It's under scaffold, I know. Isn't there some dispute over the building's future?'
Tin not the man to ask,' Alexas said. 'If they are demolishing any part of it, Valla would have been salvaging tiles.'
'Hmm. So what's your theory?'
'What do you mean?' asked the orderly in genuine puzzlement.
'Is this death suspicious?'
'Of course not.'
An informer gets used to being assured that stabbings and stranglings are 'merely accidents'. I had come to expect lies whenever I asked questions- but maybe a world still existed where people suffered ordinary mishaps.
'Did he let out a cry, do you know, Alexas?'
'Would that be important?'
'If he was pushed, he might have protested. If he jumped, or fell, he might have been more likely to stay silent.'
'Shall I try to find out for you?'
'Not worth it, thanks.' It would be inconclusive anyway. 'The palace project has hardly started but this is not your first fatality.'
'It won't be the last either.'
'Can I see any of the other bodies?'
He stared. 'Of course not. Long gone in funeral pyres.'
Suspicious as ever, I was wondering about a cover-up. 'Did you inspect the bodies, Alexas?'
'I saw some. 'Inspect' is too strong a word. We had a man felled by one of those end fmials off roofs-' Alexas went out to his wound dressing area, rooted under a counter and produced the guilty party: it was a dead-weight lump in the shape of a four-sided arch- a miniature tetra pylon with a ball on top. He dumped it in my arms and I staggered slightly.
'Yes, that could dent your skull!' I shed it fast, onto the shelf. 'You keeping it for something?'
'Make a nice bird hut.' Alexas grinned. People on building sites are always snaffling materials for their own domestic purposes. I noticed one of the four legs was stained. 'Sparrows won't notice a bit of blood, Falco!'
'Hmm… Any other mishaps?'
'A slab of uncut marble flattened someone. The marble supervisor was furious that it got damaged; he said it was priceless.'
'A heartless swine?'
'He reacted without thinking, I suppose. Then another man got swiped with a spade in a fight last week.'
'Unusual?'
'Unfortunately not. Construction sites are always full of tools- and hot-headed men who can wield them skilfully.'
'I came across a spade killing in Rome before I left,' I said, again thinking of Stephanus being swiped and stuffed under Pa's new mosaic.
'I've seen plenty,' scoffed Alexas. 'Axe-deaths. Crane decapitations. Drownings, crushings, leg and arm amputations '
'All these have happened on the palace scheme?' I was horrified.
'No, Falco. Some have happened. Others may yet.'
'A man was stabbed, I hear? Knife fight. Drink involved.'
'So I believe. I heard it happened in the town. The body was not brought here.' He was patient, but he thought me a time-waster.
'Alexas, don't misread me. I'm not looking for trouble. I just heard that the death count was too high here and it might be significant.'
'Significant of what? Slack management?'
Well, that would do as an explanation until I found a more precise definition. If that was ever possible.
