Half a lap to go, the two were neck and neck. Their bodies strained with every movement, sinews stood out, sweat poured down their faces. Faster now, they approached the final bend. Every man, woman and child was on their feet, cheering, clapping, whistling encouragement Claudia watched them, side by side, each with a red ribbon fluttering behind them. ‘Come on, you wooden clod,’ she urged the panting wheelwright. ‘Get a bloody move on!’
Something was happening off the field. The tumult was deafening still, but the cheers had changed. Screams predominated. Suddenly spectators down by the lake were pointing, yelling, shouting, and the judge wasn’t even pretending to keep an eye on the racetrack.
Frowning, Claudia watched as, with not so much as a change in pace, Orbilio calved away from the racetrack to the lake. What the hell…? With no crowded steps to negotiate, no human impediments, Claudia raced behind the grandstand to the shore, where Marcus was wading into the shallows. Pul was there already, up to his kilted thighs, and suddenly Claudia saw the reason behind the hysterical behaviour of the crowd.
Face down bobbed the body of a woman, her long hair streaming, her gown as blue as the balmy waters which supported her.
Together Orbilio and Pul each grabbed an arm and hauled her to the shore. Pylades, Mosul and Tarraco were surging through the crush, but it was Kamar who got there first.
‘Somewhat redundant, my services,’ he muttered, his mouth souring at the white and swollen flesh, ‘but turn her over anyway.’
A collective gasp rang round as Orbilio and the Oriental heaved the corpse on to its back. Retching noises rippled round the circle.
‘Mighty Mars!’ Mosul made the sign to avert the evil eye.
Pul also opened his mouth to speak, but Pylades preempted him. ‘Fetch the army,’ he ordered a liveried lackey. ‘Tell them we have a murder on our hands.’
*
Full marks for observation. Not only had the poor cow’s face been mashed to a pulp, the livid purple bruises round the neck told a story of their own.
Claudia watched as the Oriental pulled back, shaking the drips off his massive hams, leaving Kamar and Orbilio to examine the body. Not a young woman, that much was obvious even to Claudia’s amateur eye, nor a pauper, judging by the cut and quality of her gown. But by the gods, the fish had had a field day
A shudder ran through her as Orbilio scooped a handful of green slime from the dyed tresses. Claudia clapped her hands over her mouth.
Pylades was shaking his head. ‘This is terrible. Terrible.’ And unlike at Cal’s funeral, Claudia could see that this time he really meant it. ‘What hatred could inspire such an act of savagery?’
‘Well.’ Undaunted by the condition of the body or the ghoulish curiosity of the crowd, Orbilio peered at the rings on her bloated fingers, the marks on her neck, checking the hair, the wrists, the feet. ‘We might be in a position to answer that if we could ascertain her identity,’ he said lifting the mangled head. ‘Hmm. Only one earring?’ Perhaps it was to avoid looking at the ghastly blob lying on the grass that Claudia noticed the colour had drained from Tarraco’s face. How strange. After what he did to the bear, she hadn’t imagined him the queasy type. Yet here he was, standing rigid, white, his eyes locked fast on the woman’s corpse. Oh, my god…
As her lunch curled inside her stomach, another part of Claudia became aware of Kamar answering Orbilio.
‘There’s no problem with regards to identification,’ he was saying, and Pylades and Mosul were nodding sadly with him. ‘We knew her well, up here.’ He glanced across at Tarraco. ‘This poor bitch is Lais.’
XXIV
The army, when it clanked to a halt beside the lake, consisted of one junior tribune flanked by two legionaries, though what it lacked in strength, it more than made up for in enthusiasm. Within seconds of its arrival, spectators had been moved back and out of earshot, grumbling at being short-changed, while the wheelwright’s son pestered for a decision on whether two runners dropping out of the race meant he had won.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ the tribune hammered for silence amongst the little group which remained clustered round the corpse, ‘I am Cyrus, the Emperor’s representative in Spesium. Now we have, as you all know, a new town rising on imperial soil, our reputation stands on our results. This applies to all of us and if we are to play our part in the evolving political climate, an ethic based on peace and on loyalty and trust, if Spesium is to take its rightful place among commercial centres, it is essential we get to the truth of this heinous crime and you have my assurance, ladies and gentlemen, my word that I shall not rest until the murderer of this poor woman is brought to justice. It is, of course, and I need not remind you, a capital offence-’
‘That man,’ Orbilio whispered to Claudia, ‘blows more hot air than Vesuvius. Thank you.’ The latter words were addressed to the small boy he’d sent to fetch his clothes. He flipped a copper to the child and pulled on his long, patrician tunic, and he had time to buckle it as well before the tribune’s speech was finished.
‘The victim has not only been strangled,’ Kamar was telling Cyrus, ‘she has been brutally battered around the head. These lesions here…’
Claudia blocked out the grisly anatomical details, leaving them to Cyrus to jot down on a wax tablet. Patrician, like Orbilio, and young, of course-this was a stepping stone in many an aristocrat’s career, be it the army or civilian life-but a certain podginess was beginning to show, a puffiness around the cheekbones suggestive of indulgences on quite a grand scale.
‘When,’ he asked the Spaniard, ‘did you last see your wife?’
Tarraco buffed his fingernails against the palm of his hand. ‘Why?’
Claudia rolled her eyes to heaven. You idiot, Tarraco. Won’t you ever learn?
‘Remorse is not your strong point, is it?’ Cyrus sneered. ‘Well, let’s see what other little weaknesses you have.’ After each question that he fired off, he scratched another annotation on his hinged tablet. ‘Right,’ he said eventually. ‘Let’s see if I have this straight.’ He read back over his notes. ‘The last time you saw Lais was Wednesday, correct?’
Tarraco made no response and the chubby tribune’s hackles began to rise in earnest.
‘Moreover, you say she walked out on you after a row?’
This time he received an imperceptible shrug and, stung, the tribune jerked his thumb at his legionaries. ‘Row out to the island. See whether anyone can corroborate that story.’
For the first time, Tarraco looked Cyrus in the eye. ‘No need for the army to start straining itself at this late stage,’ he said. ‘My staff come today to watch the race. You may interrogate them here, if you wish.’
‘Don’t get cocky with me, you money-grubbing dago,’ Cyrus snarled, jabbing a finger into Tarraco’s muscled chest. ‘I know your game. First it was Virginia, now Lais. What happened, eh? Laughed in your face, did she, gigolo? Told you she was cutting you out of her will?’
A dark flash of anger sparked Tarraco’s brooding eyes, and Claudia realized that Cyrus had hit a raw nerve. The Spaniard’s mouth clamped tighter and the knuckles of his bunched fists turned whiter.
‘In a fit of rage, you strangled her-but that wasn’t enough for you, was it? Consumed at what you considered her betrayal, you rained blow after blow-’
Claudia could not listen. She stared up at a pair of hawks, wheeling overhead, and remembered Tarraco as she had seen him this morning, strutting like a peacock with his gold torque and fancy embroidery. Dressed to kill.