Helena Justina had two well-brought-up patrician brothers: Aulus Camillus Aelianus and Quintus Camillus Justinus. When I first knew her, both had looked promising citizens Justinus, the younger, especially. He and I shared some foreign adventures; I liked him and although he could behave like an idiot, I was impressed by his abilities. I never expected to work much with him because he seemed cut out for higher things.
Aelianus, two years the elder, had been on the verge of standing for the Senate. To look respectable, he became betrothed to an heiress from Baetica, Claudia Rufma. A nice enough girl, with extremely nice financial assets. Then Justinus stupidly eloped with Claudia. They were in love when they ran off, though probably not now.
The abandoned Aelianus felt a fool and refused to go through with the Senate election. He had a point. The family had already survived a political crisis when an uncle tried some dangerous plotting. Now public scandal gathered again. All the chalk-white robes in Rome could not really make Aelianus look a pristine candidate, one with illustrious ancestors and blameless modern relatives.
Deprived of his expectations and in retaliation, while Justinus was away marrying the heiress in Spain, Aelianus wormed his way in with me. He knew Justinus was planning to come home to work with me, and hoped to steal the position. (What position? sceptics might well ask.)
Justinus reappeared in Rome early that spring, not long after my daughter Sosia Favonia was born. Claudia had married him. We had all thought she might lose interest (mainly because Justinus already had), but they were both too stubborn to admit their mistake. Her rich grandparents had bestowed some money on the pair, though Justinus told me privately it was not enough. He appealed to me for support, and since he had always been my favourite, I was stuck.
I did escape one hairy proposaclass="underline" Helena had talked about Justinus and Claudia coming to live with us. But their first visit on their return to Rome coincided with one of our nursemaid's days off. While Hyspale was gallivanting on yet another shopping trip, Julia was racing about our new home's corridors with Nux. My dog thought being 'good with children' meant pretending to savage them, so that was noisy. Nux smelt too. Mico's Valentinianus must have rubbed bits of gherkin into her fur. At the same time, the baby who picked up tricks very quickly- had just learned how to turn herself blue with hysteria. Dear Favonia was well tended, but an unkind father might say babies produce as many smells as dogs. So our newly-weds backed out of sharing accommodation rapidly. I'm sure I would have begged them to reconsider, if I had thought of it.
Over the job, however, Justinus refused to give way to his brother. So now I had both lads at my tunic tails. It was a misery to their parents, who had already lost their daughter to the low-life Didius Falco; now both their noble boys were coming to play in the gutter as well. Meanwhile, I had to keep the jealous pair apart.
I gave them the bath house incident to experiment with. They had been hoping for more impressive clients than Pa. For instance, ones who would pay fees.
"Wrong," I explained harshly. "This man is excellent to start with. Why? Now you learn about clients. As informers, you must always out manoeuvre the devious crook who commissions you: weigh him up first!
My father, whom you know as Didius Geminus, is really called Didius Favonius -so right from scratch, you're tracing a fake name. With a client, this is typical. He has led a double life; he runs a shady business; you can't believe a word he says; and he'll try to duck out of paying you."
My two runners gazed at me. They were in their mid-twenties. Both had dark hair, which like aristocrats they left to flop annoyingly. Once a few derisive barmaids had pulled it, they would learn. Aelianus was thicker set, a little more untidy, a lot more truculent. Justinus, finer featured and better mannered, had more of a look of Helena. They were entitled to wear white tunics with purple bands to show their rank, but they came to work, as I had instructed, in subdued clothes and nothing fancier than signet rings. They still sounded so well-spoken I winced, yet Justinus at least had an ear for languages, so we could work on that. Unobtrusive behaviour would help. If ever they got in deep trouble, they had both been through army training; even as junior st aft officers, they knew how to put in the boot. I was now sending them to Glaucus, the trainer at my gym; I had told him to slaughter them.
"So," Aelianus condescended to address his younger brother. "We have learned today that our mentor, Marcus Didius, holds his papa in traditional respect!"
"It sounds," Justinus said to me, grinning, 'as if we should look at your father as the most likely killer."
Even I had never thought of that. But with Pa, yes: it was a possibility.
VII
"A ulus," I instructed, addressing Aelianus by his personal name in in attempt to make him feel inferior. Pointless. If one thing had qualified that blighter for the Senate, it was his inborn sense of divinity. "Your job is to root out background on our suspects. We have a couple of leads: Pa gave me an address for the yard out of which they are supposed to operate, also a name for the winery where they were regulars. That's where he used to meet up to commission them for work" work being a euphemism with these fellows. Then here's a possible home address for Cotta. It's an apartment by a food shop called the Aquarius at the side of Livia's Portico."
"Where's that?" asked Aulus.
"On the Clivus Suburanus."
A silence.
That runs into town from the Esquiline Gate," I said calmly. Senators' sons were bound to be ignorant. This pair would have to start drawing themselves street maps. "If the apartment location is right, someone there should be able to send you on to Gloccus."
"So if I find them '
"Not likely. Unless they are very stupid' which was a possibility' they will have fled as soon as their man died. That's whether they topped him personally, or merely had the killer on their payroll."
"What would they be afraid of if they are innocent?" Innocent, that was a sweet word. Was our thickset, sullen Aulus a closet romantic?
"They would fear being tortured by the vi giles I corrected him. "The dead man had been deliberately hidden under their floor so they are at least accessories."
"Oh."
"Just pump their associates for clues about where they have run off to and physical descriptions would help."
Aelianus looked less than impressed with his task. Tough.
Both brothers were beginning to feel that working with me was not' glamorous. For starters, we were gathered at my new house on the
ri riverbank eating a very rapid breakfast. A bread roll and a beaker of warm water each came as a shock. They had expected tour-hour dalliances in wine shops
"What can I do?" nagged Justinus plaintively.
"Plenty. Solve the identity of the corpse. Go to the contractors' yard with your brother. Hang about after he leaves and talk to the other workmen." I knew Aelianus would be rude to the men; then Justinus would be more friendly. "Make them list whoever was on site during Pa's bath house job. Again, obtain descriptions. If they cooperate-'
"Which you don't expect?"
"Oh I expect the goddess Iris to glide down in a rainbow and tell us everything! Seriously, find out who is missing. If you get a clue, visit wherever the missing man lived and take things on from there."
"If nobody tells us who he was," Justinus said, frowning, 'how can we proceed, Falco?"
"Well, you're big boys," I said unhelpfully.
"Oh go on!" scoffed Aelianus. "Don't throw us in and leave us to sink."
"All right. Try this: Gloccus and Cotta were the main contractors. But half the fancy fittings were supplied, and sometimes fixed, by other firms. See the marble-bowl supplier, the mosaicist, the plumber who laid the water-pipes. They don't want to be blamed. So they may be less inclined to conceal the truth. Ask Helena which importer sold her that monster splash basin in the tepidarium. Ask my father's slaves for names of men who tramped mud through the kitchen fetching water for their mortar mix."