`Sit, and I'll pull your boots off… Well, I saw Euboule – a fright, eyes sliding off in all directions guiltily. I couldn't see why Ursulina hates them so much, but your mother thought the whole set-up was sinister. They live well. There's a crиche of several infants. They've been doing the job for years. Euboule was a wet-nurse for Calpurnia, her daughter for Saffia. Trusted retainers, it seems.'
`That so? Do they have the Negrinus new baby?'
`No. Juliana and Carina did seem set against them – that's why I was curious. But, Marcus: I did see one child I recognised. He was very quiet, but playing happily. He seemed quite at home. Little Lucius.'
`Lutea told me Lucius had gone to his 'foster mother'… So she's the wet-nurse? That's odd.'
`Why, Marcus?’
'Saffia made out Calpurnia Cara insisted she use a nurse to feed the Negrinus daughter. Saffia pretended to hate it. Yet she had previously farmed out Lucius voluntarily to Zeuko? Why would Saffia lie?'
`Marcus, maybe you'll want your boots back on, if I tell you about Zeuko -'
`Zeuko wasn't there today?'
`No. She had rushed off in hysterics because of her lover.'
'Zeuko's having a fling?'
`I'd guess, one of several. But this one matters – to us, that is. Somebody saw this man being dragged into the local vigiles' patrol house this morning.'
`I think I've guessed.'
`I'm sure you have, Marcus. Euboule and her daughter live in the Fifth Region. The local vigiles are the Second Cohort. And Zeuko's lover is called Perseus.'
XLIX
Time: evening.
Place: patrol house, Second Cohort of Vigiles, Fifth Region.
Subject: conversation between an unknown squad member and M. Didius Falco, informer. In the presence of Q. Camillus Justinus, informer's associate.
Mood: angry.
'Be reasonable. We need to know what the door porter says.'
`He's unavailable.'
`Is he still getting the treatment?'
`I can't comment.'
`Can I speak to your persuasion officer?'
`He's busy.'
`Still in session?'
`We never reveal that.'
`You just invented that edict! Don't you think you owe us cooperation? I've heard all about how you got hold of this slave. If it wasn't for Justinus bringing him back to Rome, you'd have had to flog all the way to Lanuvium. We've saved you a long trip and a longer runaround – it took Justinus a three-day effort to root out the porter from where he was hiding up.'
`Get lost, Falco.'
`Listen -'
`No, you listen. Either leave this station-house right now – or you'll be flung into a cell.'
L
Time: evening.
Place: patrol house, Fourth Cohort of Vigiles, Aventine.
Subject: conversation between L. Petronius Longus and M. Didius Falco, in the presence of Q. Camillus Justinus.
Mood: tense.
`I've got the story for you.'
`Something happened. That's obvious.'
`Look, Falco -'
`You're sounding defensive.'
`I'm damn well not.'
`Well, damn well get on with it.'
`Perseus refused to tell them anything. And he's no longer available.'
`Translate that, Petro. What pretty vigiles excuse is 'no longer available'?'
`He's dead.'
`They killed him?'
`It's not their fault.'
`Oh please!'
`The courts expect a high standard of battery, if it's to count as torture legally.'
`Oh I'd really call this a 'high standard'!'
'They are not all as skilled as Sergius -'
`Oh Quintus, don't you like the comparison? Sergius is the penalty man in this cohort. Here, torture is no more dangerous than a sheep shearing picnic in the Apennines. Here they can squeeze your goolies off so delicately you stay alive and keep on making helpful statements for absolutely weeks.'
`Spare me your sarcasm. The Second slipped up, Falco. Sometimes it's a risk.'
`Some risk. These incompetents have removed the one witness who might have told us the truth.'
LI
I WAS BITTERLY angry. But in fact there were still other possible witnesses.
I badly wanted to sort this. The one thing that had always bothered me about accusing Calpurnia was that her family had a secret, one I still did not know. I was working blind. And that meant I could be caught out by some angle I had failed to anticipate. I was right to be wary: by the end of that evening I would know it too.
I was keen to pressurise Zeuko. Anything Perseus had known was likely to have been passed on by him to her – unless he had learned it from Zeuko in the first place. Unfortunately, since the wet-nurse had stupidly run to the Second's patrol house when she heard Perseus was in custody, the Second were now holding Zeuko herself as a suspected accomplice of the dead slave. (They had had no charge against Perseus – except that he had let himself be killed under torture, clearly a suspicious act.) To mollify me, Petro volunteered to try to inveigle himself in to examine Zeuko, but he warned me the Second were jumpy.
`I'm doing you a big favour, Falco -'
`Ah well,' I sneered, throwing his own words back to him. 'What are friends for?'
That left the Metellus steward. As the Second could not touch him because he was a free man, they had released him and he had gone home. Although it was late, I returned to the Fifth Region to attempt an interview. I went alone. Justinus had pressing reasons; to unload his travel packs at the senator's house; he needed to make his peace with his wife over absconding to Lanuvium. He was upset about losing Perseus too. He would tell me the full story of his journey tomorrow.
I found the Metellus spread in darkness, apparently deserted. Maybe Calpurnia had gone into retreat. Perhaps one of her daughters had offered her hospitality. The trial was bound to be distressing her. And she had no slaves, because they were all being processed by the vigiles.
Even the steward had failed to gain entry to the house. He possessed no latch-lifter or key; well, there had always been a porter to let people in. I found him drinking himself senseless at the nasty bar opposite. I told him about Perseus, hoping shock would make him open up. No use. He was still singing the old song: he knew that a
