While I was in the Fifth Region I made another call, to Claudius Tiasus the funeral director. I implied I had lost a relative. Through a series of lesser players, I acted nervous; when it looked as if the sale might be lost, the great impresario came himself to clinch the deal..
He was a fat bundle with a greasy pigtail, at once subservient and sly. He had a disreputable air. His tunic was clean, and his hands were heavily be-ringed. It seemed unlikely he still carried out embalming, though when he patted my shoulder, thinking he was consoling the bereaved, I wondered where those podgy hands had been half an hour ago.
He realised I was a fraud.
`Sorry – though there is a corpse to bury, truly. Consider my visit official. The name is Falco. I am working with the vigiles on a suspicious death. It's somebody known to you.'
Tiasus had signalled to his staff to leave. We two sat in a small corridor partly in the open air, with a view over a fountain with a soppy nymph, and soft cushions on the bench. It would be suitable for discussing which scented oil had been a deceased's favourite, though it was inappropriate for being grilled by me. For one thing, I kept staring at the nymph. She appeared to have no nipples and two doves were sitting on her head, doing what doves do.
`Who is dead?' enquired Tiasus calmly. He had a light, rather high voice.
`Your clown, Spindex.'
`No!' He calmed down fast, no stranger to tragedy. `Spindex is a freelance. I haven't seen him since, oh -'
`For about four months? Since the Metellus do? I'll be blunt: Spindex was strangled. We think he knew too much about someone. Metellus probably.'
`This is a lot to take in,' complained Tiasus. He changed position, easing his bulk on the stone seat. I could see him thinking. When Aelianus came on reconnaissance, he received the brush-off, that would not happen today.
`Sorry to rush you. Most clients must have aeons at their disposal,' I said drily.
`Not Rubirius Metellus!' Tiasus aimed it heavily.
`Explain, please?'
`He needed fast burial.' I raised an eyebrow. `If it is all coming out, Falco -' I nodded. `The body was… not fresh.'
`I know that it stank.'
`We are used to that. Even the diarrhoea…' He tailed off. I let him. He rallied. `This cadaver was, in my professional opinion, over three days old by the time we were called to the house.'
`Unusual?'
`Not unheard of. But-'
`But what, Tiasus?’
'There were odd features.'
I waited again, but he had dried up. I tried encouragement: `When you arrived to view the body, was Metellus in his bed?'
A grateful look came into the undertaker's eyes. `So you know, then?' I pursed my lips. He took it as an answer. `Yes, he was. But he must have recently been placed there.'
By now, this was no surprise. `Had they put him on his back?'
`Yes. But the dark red marks – which indicate settlement of the blood in the body after death – showed me that the deceased had lain somewhere else, in a different position, for a considerable while. Nothing too odd!' Tiasus reassured me. I blinked. I had never suspected perversion. I found it disturbing that Tiasus had routinely considered it. Did he often encounter necrophilia? `Metellus had been on his side, rather than his back, that's all. No doubt,' he suggested, with a kind of disapproval, `the family thought he looked more peaceful face-up.'
`That's normal. But why not arrange him as soon as he died, I wonder?'
`I wondered that,' Tiasus agreed eagerly.
`Any thoughts?'
`Well… You know what happened at the funeral? A lot of stress – this was an overwrought family. There may well have been panic when Metellus first died. The son was away somewhere. Maybe the widow became distraught before her son came home -'
`Not that widow, surely?' I smiled.
`Oh you met her! Well, perhaps not.'
`The death scene will have shocked her. Metellus had taken poison, Tiasus.'
`Yes but it was suicide. They were expecting it.' Tiasus paused. `Weren't they?'
`So I am told.'
`Have we been told the truth?' he mused portentously. I was sure we had not.
`You really came about Spindex,' Tiasus murmured in his comforting undertaker's voice.
`Any help you can give?'
`He liked a tipple, but he was a good satirist. He went to the heart of a man's character. And he had judgement. He knew what was permissible, what was too sensitive.'
`Not in the Metellus case. The family sacked him.'
`Ah.' Tiasus took a long breath, with his mouth wide open. He had gum problems. `Well, I don't know the story there, and that's the problem. Spindex was let go – but they never told me why.'
`Who dismissed him? Was it the son?'
`No…' Tiasus looked thoughtful. `No, I think it was another man.
`Name?'
`I never knew that.'
`Licinius Lutea? He's a friend of the son; I think he was helping Negrinus at the funeral.'
`Means nothing,' said Tiasus. `It was a freedman who assisted. I had a few words with him in a quiet moment. Alexander, he was called.'
`Not him who paid off Spindex?'
`Er… No. Possibly a relative?' Tiasus quavered. This was hard work.
`A brother-in-law?' I suggested. 'Canidianus Rufus, Rubiria Juliana's husband?'
`Yes, perhaps…'But then Tiasus wavered yet again. `I don't think it was Rufus. He had a right temper; I remember him! I think the second one dealt with Spindex.'
`Second brother-in-law? Laco? Verginius Laco, the husband of Carina, the woman who got upset?'
`Yes, that was him.'
Dear gods, just when you think you have scanned all the scenery, up pops some new participant.
The two doves had finished. The female preened, looking as if she wondered what the fuss had been. The male thought he might be up for another go. She shrugged off his nonsense. The deformed nymph shivered mournfully. Part of her drape had been chipped off in an accident.
`Do you think Spindex discovered something about Metellus or his family, something they did not wish the world to hear?'
`Oh no doubt of it,' Tiasus exclaimed. `It must have been a stupendous secret! Wouldn't it be wonderful, Falco, if we knew just what?'
I agreed dourly.
I went to visit Rubiria Carina's husband.
For once, he was at home and he agreed to meet me. He was more than a decade older than his wife, a thin, cultured man who implied he was being more patient than I deserved. `You have always refused to be interviewed, citing your privacy,' I reminded him. `Now will you answer me?'
`You can ask. I may not be free to answer.' Interesting: why?
`So what changed your mind?'
`You intend to accuse my mother-in-law of killing her spouse.' He was a man of some refinement; I omitted the obvious son-in-law jokes. `Do you think Calpurnia did it?'
`No,' he said.
`There is a case to answer,' I told him. `Metellus made unhealthy provision for his daughter-in-law, and disinherited his wife. It's vicious and it's public; Calpurnia Cara must be furious. Murky circumstances cloud what
