Nemesis

'So what do you think?'

'It could be some consul or ex-consul who has never crossed our path.'

'Most of them!' We kept out of general politics.

'I can ask my father. Not that he tends to know strong-arm thugs. His friends in the Curia are benign. Men who read Plato over their lunch, philanthropists who think a commission should look into health issues among the urban poor.'

I said the Claudii were a health threat in Latium.

Helena was still considering the argument. While I ducked out if there were too many alternatives, she liked to be thorough, with no feeble 'decide that later' topics; she worked through every point. She would say I was a typical man; I thought her a highly unusual woman.

'We ought to consider, Marcus, not just who this person of influence is, but why he supports the freedmen. It's been a long while since mighty men in Rome aligned themselves with criminal gangs.'

'People like Clodius and his terrorists? He provided himself with brutal enforcers; everyone was scared of them and together with his very patrician name, it gave him enormous power… Nothing like that happens in the city now.'

'It cannot be about anything the Claudii offer to their protector,' Helena said. 'He may be ambitious, but he must be able to manage his career without their help. So why does he bother? What hold do they have over him?'

She was right and I agreed: 'What's he scared of? A bunch of second-rate ex-slaves, living out in a marsh, miles from civilisation, selling scrap and beating up their wives? I can't see how they have any influence with anyone who carries serious weight in Rome. And he must have weight. It takes a real someone to make Anacrites jump.'

'Could it be simpler?' Helena suggested. 'Could they be under the protection of Anacrites himself?'

We both laughed and agreed that was totally unlikely.

Back in Rome, it emerged that the visitor who had threatened Thamyris could not have been Anacrites. The man who went to Antium must have been an agent. Petronius confirmed that the spy had been in Rome. The vigiles had seen him.

Things had moved on. While Helena and I were away, the Seventh Cohort had been called out to the necropolis on the Via Triumphalis. This burial ground was across the river, north of the city, unlike where Modestus was discovered. Passers-by had alerted a caretaker to what looked like a shallow grave, dug without permission close to the road. In it was a fresh, mutilated corpse.

XXX

Julia and Favonia had been playing quietly on the floor with their pottery animals. As soon as we walked in, they remembered they had been abandoned by us, their callous parents. They jumped up, grew red in the face and ran away screaming loudly, real tears streaming down their faces. It was a classic scam.

Helena Justina gave me a quizzical look. 'Maybe two is enough?'

'Agreed!'

Albia, too, refused to welcome our return but stalked off like an offended dog. That gave Nux the same idea, even though she had been on the trip with us.

The message from Petronius about the new murder was irresistible. I changed my tunic and boots, then washed my face. I thought about a comb-through but settled for the windswept look. Being back in Rome had fired me up enough; being neat would be too much excitement. Sometimes I needed to remember when I lived in Fountain Court and was a rough rascal.

At mid-morning I set out from home, with a knife down my boot and just enough money in my purse to cover emergencies. My mind was clear and my step spry. However, I had the faint edgy feeling of a man who needs to re-impose himself on his customary surroundings. Adultery and cart-crashes could have occurred without me knowing it. I might have missed the crucial capture of that balcony thief from the Street of the Armilustrium. Old Lupus could have gone on his long-promised cruise of the Mediterranean – for all I knew, taking that pudgy waitress from the Venus Scallop, instead of his miserable wife, the one with pigtails who was always cadging off Brutus from the fish stall. Once I reached Maia's, she would fill me in on these essentials, but first my way took me to the Fourth Cohort's station house.

Petronius had finished the night shift and gone home. Fusculus was there and gave me the story.

'Same modus as before?'

'Apparently. Body found at the necropolis – though not in a tomb this time. There's a difference from the Appia and Latina sites, where you find patrician surnames and bloody big mausoleums. The Via Triumphalis is a big burial ground with a mixed clientele, slaves to middle rank. Its burials are mixed, everything from old skeletons popping out of shallow graves to grey stone urns with nice pointy lids or half a broken amphora lying on its side to hold the deceased's ashes.'

'About our level!' I said, grinning.

'Not as fancy as that inscription your papa fixed up for himself, Falco! No This is my memorial which may never be sold, with a frontage of a thousand feet; no pretty Etruscan funeral altar, with dear little wings on it.'

I was not yet ready for jokes. I could satirise losing Pa, but thinking about my tiny son demanded respect. 'Fusculus – that's a large cemetery with a litter of confusing graves. Why did this corpse attract attention?'

'You know some crazy killers want to yell out, Look at me; I've done what I wanted and you can't catch me! Petronius reckons the dead man was placed near the road specially, so someone would notice.'

'Did you see the body?'

'That was indeed my privilege.'

'Modestus was middle-aged. Someone similar?'

'No, this one's young. Slight build – easy to overcome.'

'How was he set out?'

'Obviously ritual. Face down, arms outstretched sideways like a crucified slave. Well, when I say full length, Falco, that is excluding both his hands which, having been hacked off, were placed very neatly either side of his head. Same groundplan as Modestus. And like Modestus, when the Seventh rolled him over, they found him sawn open from his gullet to his privates.'

'Any other mutilation?'

'That was enough!'

'As vindictive as the Modestus killing?'

Fusculus gave that thought. 'Maybe not. He had been thumped, but probably during initial attempts to subdue him.'

'Then apart from the fact he lost his hopes in life, you could say he did not suffer?'

'So nicely put! His clothes were there. Shoes, neckerchief – - and bright new wedding ring still on his severed hand. Mind, I don't think anyone would try selling what was left of his tunic in the flea market -not after he was slit open.'

'Ring left behind – - so theft not a motive?'

'No money on him, so maybe. His donkey's missing, but anyone could have pinched that from the roadside if the killer left it.'

'And do we know who he is?'

'We do, in fact!' Fusculus left me waiting. It was the end of the night and he soon lost interest in teasing. '… A carter reported his courier missing. Young fellow. Just got married, so the bride started jumping as soon as he failed to report for his dinner. Her very first attempt at seafood patties – - now he'll never know how terrible they were… He'd been sent out with a parcel – the Seventh haven't found the parcel, but it was in his donkey pannier. That caring citizen, his master, reported him gone because he thought the lad had simply scarpered with the goods.'

'So this parcel-boy was heading out of Rome, not coming into town? And not on the Pontine Marshes side?'

'No. So the Seventh were assuming it's the same killer, because of the method, but those on high say different.'

'Not the Claudii? That's the Anacrites verdict?' I was angry. 'Tiberius, my lad – this points us in the other direction much too obviously!'