knew how.
There had been collusion obviously. Instead of me watching them for their reactions, they were all staring at me. Informers recognise the challenge: well, let's see if you can work this out, Falco! If I was lucky, they were just curious to see how clever I was. A worse alternative would be that they had set some trap. I was the man from Rome. I should never forget that.
Present was all of the surviving project team: Cyprianus the clerk of works; Magnus the surveyor; both Plancus and Strephon the junior architects; Lupus the overseas labour supervisor; Timagenes the landscape gardener; Milchato the marble mason; Philocles Junior the bereaved mosaicist, taking his father's place; Blandus the fresco painter; Rectus the drainage engineer. Absent was anyone representing the British labour now Mandumerus had absconded. Gaius represented all the clerks. Alexas the medical orderly had joined us at my request; later I would escort him to the bath house to remove the body. Verovolcus had added himself, no doubt at the instigation of the King.
'Should we have carpenters? Roof-tilers?' I asked Cyprianus.
He shook his head. 'I stand in for the trades unless we have a technical issue to discuss.'
'You wanted all of us from the farting meeting yesterday,' Rectus groused.
'That's right. You had an issue to raise then?'
'Technical hitch.'
He did not know that Cyprianus, while in shock last night, had described the hitch: expensive ceramic pipes missing and Rectus incandescent with fury. 'It's sorted?' I asked innocently.
'Just routine, Falco.'
The drainage engineer was lying or at least putting me off. It might be significant or just symptomatic. The team was against me, that was certain.
It was not the first time everyone in a case was hostile, but that was to my advantage. I had professional experience. Unless they regularly arranged murders when life became difficult on site, they were amateurs.
I There was not much room in the project manager's packed '' quarters, and certainly no privacy for individual questioning. I handed
them tablets that I had brought for that purpose and asked everyone to write down their whereabouts the previous evening, supplying the names of anyone who could vouch for them. Verovolcus looked as if he thought himself exempt from this after-banquet parry game, but I gave him a tablet anyway. I did wonder whether he would be able to write, but it appeared he could.
'While you are doing that, can I make a general appeal for anyone who saw anything significant in the region of the royal bath house?'
Nobody responded, although I thought there were some sideways glances. I realised that when I came to look at these tablets the men were gravely inscribing, they would all fit neatly, each one covered with an alibi and each in turn covering somebody else.
'Well,' I said quietly. 'I don't suppose Pomponius had many friends here.' That did raise a cynical murmur. 'Most of you represent larger groups; in theory, anyone off the site could have born a grudge and done for him last night.' Downcast eyes and silence were now my only reward for this frankness. 'But my starting point,' I warned them, 'is that the killer, or killers, was somebody of status. They are permitted to use the King's bath house and last night Pomponius accepted their presence when they joined him in the caldarium. That rules out the labourers.'
'Ruling us in?' concluded Magnus wryly.
'Yes.'
'I object!'
Out of order, Magnus. Pomponius will receive the same consideration as anyone. Being a bad team leader, even a highly unpopular one, does not excuse violent removal. Brutus and Cassius realised that.'
'So you would have offered a crown to Pomponius, Falco?' Magnus scoffed.
'You know what I thought. I loathe that type- it changes nothing,' I said tersely. 'He still gets a funeral, a Daily Gazette obituary and a courteous report on his demise for his grieving parents and the old friends in his hometown.'
I nearly said and for his lovers. But that meant Plancus, for one. He was a suspect.
Plancus had already handed in his tablet; I glanced at it, looking casual. He claimed he was dining with Strephon. Strephon still held his own tablet, but I knew it wrould confirm the tale. There was supposedly no love lost between the two junior architects, yet they had somehow produced cover for each other last night. Was it true? If true, was it pre-arranged? And if so, was taking a meal together normal or exceptional?
People had noticed me looking at the Plancus offering. There was a general move to collect and deposit the other statements. I publicly declined to look through the tablets. Camillus Aelianus, still laid up with his bitten leg, could play with these fabrications for me. I had no patience with their obstructiveness.
Magnus was still trying to force issues. 'Surely your concern, as the Emperor's man, is how losing Pomponius causes yet another hitch in the project?'
'The project will not suffer.' I had worked this one out while I lay awake in bed last night.
'Shit, Falco -now on top of everything, there is no project manager!'
'No need to panic.'
'We need one-'
'You have one.' My tooth gave a twinge, so I may have sounded curter than I meant. 'For the immediate future, I myself will take over.'
Once the words were out, it made me gulp myself.
As their outrage boiled up, I interrupted levelly: 'Yes, Pomponius was an architect, which I am not. But the design is good- and it is complete. We have Plancus and Strephon to take forward the concept they will be assigned two wings each to supervise. Other disciplines and crafts are controlled by you people. You were chosen as leaders in your field; you can all cope with autonomy. Report to me on progress and problems.'
'You have no professional training-' gasped Cyprianus. He seemed truly shocked.
'I shall have your competent guidance.'
'Oh stick to your brief, Falco!' Magnus roared. I had suspected that Magnus would seek control himself. Maybe I would recommend it- but not while he was, with the rest, under suspicion for Pomponius' death.
'My brief, Magnus, is to steer this project back on target.'
'I concede you are a tough auditor. But do you think you have the expertise to supewiseT
'That would be nonsense.' I kept my reply gentle. 'In the long term Rome has to appoint a man with standing and professional skills.' Plus man-management and diplomacy, it I had any say. 'It will not necessarily be another architect.' Magnus cheered up. 'In the interim, I can supply common sense and initiative enough to stitch things together until we appoint a replacement.'
'Oh this needs approval from the governor, Falco '
'I agree.'
'He won't allow it.'
I'll be pushed out then. But Frontinus is renowned for technical nous and practicality- I know him. I've worked with him. I came to Britain because he asked for me.'
That silenced most of them. Magnus did mutter, 'Someone else seems to have a lust for power!' I ignored that. So he sought to bamboozle me with 'We're held up by some major indecisions, Falco.'
'Try me.'
'Well, what is to be done about incorporating the old house?' he demanded with ill-concealed truculence.
'The King wants it. The King is an experienced client, prepared to endure any inconvenience- so go ahead. Raise the floor levels and bring the existing palace into the new design. Had you already looked into this?'
'We did a feasibility study,' Magnus affirmed.
'Let's define that,' I offered light-heartedly. 'Feasibility: the client proposes a project, which everyone can see will never happen. Work is held in abeyance. Some disciplines do carry out independent preliminary work, failing to inform the project manager that they are doing so. The scheme then revives unexpectedly, and is throum into the formal programme with inadequate planning…'
Magnus finally had the grace to soften up.
'Strephon!' I disturbed his dreams. 'I said we'd divide the blocks between you and Plancus. You take the east
