Appalled by the queue for a ride back across the Island, I led Aelianus to the bar where Gaius Baebius and I had chatted two days ago. A carved sign, tail up, indicated its name was the Dolphin. A welcome sight to travellers, it had a large stock of wines and a decent array of food pots. I guessed it served plenty of breakfasts when the early morning workers arrived, and it certainly had a pavement full of punters in this evening rush hour. With nothing to lose, I asked the proprietor what he had heard about kidnappings. He claimed ignorance, but loudly asked his regulars. These barnacles all instinctively feigned puzzlement; to them we were slick town boys. When I said a wealthy woman, newly landed, had been captured and ransomed only that day, they shook their heads and declared it was terrible. But gradually one or two admitted that they had heard of such things happening. After Aulus bought drinks all round [he borrowed the money from me, on the excuse that this was a business expense, they lost some of their scruples and we became as friendly as I ever wanted to be with short sweaty men who manhandled fish-sauce containers all day. Between them, they were able to recall at least three stories of abductions. Since the victims wanted secrecy, there could have been plenty more. Details were skimpy. women were taken, their male relations pressurised. A common thread was that afterwards the ransomed women were traumatised. The tendency was to leave Ostia fast.
You don't know who does it?"
Must be foreigners." Anyone who came from outside Ostia was a foreigner to this lot. They meant that the kidnaps did not form part of the age-old pilfering, skiving, cadging, diddling, dawdling and mislaying that were regarded as normal trade practice by the long generations of intermarried families who worked in the ports. One gnarled stevedore with a lop-sided shoulder did suggest that someone had reported the problem to the vigiles. Give those Rome boys something else to think about!" he grinned gummily. These men who worked on the docks and in the warehouses preferred not to be policed.
Have you seen anyone hanging about around here?" I asked.
Other than us two, of course?" There was muttering and a little laughter. Somebody mentioned Caninus. Someone else turned his back on the conversation, disgusted. They loathed the navy even more than the vigiles, it seemed.
I know about Caninus. I was thinking of a clerkish sort, a scribe looking for something exciting to write about. His name is Diocles. Ever seen him?" Apparently not. Aulus and I finally hitched a lift back to the ferry on a slow cart, but all across what they called the Island the traffic jam was terrible. Like many others, we soon jumped off and walked. At the ferry dock we herded with the crowds, with people's toolkits jammed in our backs and elbows in our sides. On the boat, we were hanging off the gunnels, clinging to any handhold, and bruised every time the oars made a stroke. The oarsmen had their work cut out. Accustomed to this frenzy, they just stopped rowing when they were impeded too much. That added to the torture, as we drifted downstream and had to be brought back. The haze of garlic, wine, and perspiration from work tunics formed a breath-stopping miasma above the low-slung boat as it crept across to Ostia. Charon's filthy punt must be more pleasant. At least there you know you are heading to interminable rest in the Elysian Fields. Another thing. Charon makes every dead soul pay. Aulus and I were the only men from Rome in this ferry, and we seemed to be the only two who had been asked to cough up fares. At last we landed, and walked straight back home. It was too late to achieve anything more. I wanted to think first, because I had not come to Ostia to investigate kidnaps; no one would thank me, or pay me. I had to keep sight of my target. My brief was to find the scribe, Diocles. So far, I had linked him to a possible retired pirate, but the Damagoras connection led nowhere definite. I had no cause to think Diocles had known about the kidnaps we had just uncovered. He would have liked to know, yes. Kidnap for ransom was an old pirate tradition, but I couldn't prove Diocles had realised it was going on here. For all I knew still, he might really have come to Ostia to see his auntie as he told the other scribes. Once here he may have considered moonlighting on the Damagoras memoirs while he was invisible to his Rome superiors. Perhaps he dropped that idea when he realised he would earn better pocket money on a building site. In the end I might find him alive and well, mixing mortar for a construction team and unaware of the fuss he had caused. Mind you, he would find construction hard labour; he was no stripling. I possessed some personal details. The vigiles" recruiting officer had said Diocles was thirty-eight, a few years past retirement for an imperial freedman. Palace slaves were normally manumitted and pensioned off with a bag of gold when they were thirty. Holconius and Mutatus had told me the only reason Diocles was still working at the Daily Gazette instead of marrying and setting up a scrollshop behind the Forum, was that the Emperor wanted reliable old hands buffing up the imperial name. Why did Vespasian care about the Infamia column? According to Holconius, the court circular would constantly display good news affecting members of the ruling Flavian dynasty, impressive deeds in the fields of culture, adorning the city and bashing barbarians. But Vespasian, famous for his old-fashioned ethics, also wanted tales of immorality toned down in the Gazette so that he, as the Father of his Country, would appear to have cleaned up society. The old spoil sport needed to feel the scandal column was no longer so titivating as it had been in Nero's day. I could not see, or could not see yet, how piracy came into that. True, if there really were pirates still roaming the seas, Vespasian would clear them out again. But would he want to be the new Pompey'? Pompey was an unlucky politician, murdered in Egypt for the delight of his rival, Caesar. In the end the great Pompey was a loser. Vespasian was too canny for that. Wrong message from the signal post. And wrong messages were not Vespasian's style.
XXIII
First thing next morning I was off to the vigiles station house. Petronius was not there. In fact, no one much was around. I addressed myself first to the clerk. He told me Brunnus was out somewhere. At the time I took that for a good omen. Ignoring cries of protest from the arsonists and thieves who would have to wait longer to be freed on bail, I extracted Virtus [the clerk's name, I discovered] and drew him to the open courtyard where nobody would overhear.
You'll know this," I complimented him. You're the only one here I can rely on to be up to date with case-work
Stop buffing the bronze, Falco. What's the score?"
Kidnap." Virtus shook his head. He turned to go back to his duties. I grabbed his arm. I told him there had been several victims, and I thought some at least had made vigiles reports. Virtus assumed the vague expression clerks do so well. Maybe the snatches occurred months ago when the last cohort were here."