‘Madam.’ He gave Claudia a sweeping bow. ‘I do believe this is the happiliest household in which I have had the pleasure to perform.’
It wasn’t entirely clear whether he was referring to his theatrical productions or his performance in the bedroom, but it didn’t matter. Because Flavia had come to a decision in the meantime.
Like a child poring over a litter of puppies and not knowing which to choose, she had finally settled on the one she would adopt for her next crush. Claudia rather hoped it would have been Ion, with his broad back and shoulder-length hair and voice that boomed like a god. It wasn’t, of course.
Like everyone else, she picked Skyles.
Fourteen
The second Orbilio opened his eyes he realized he was in trouble. He knew instantly that he’d slept in, something he hadn’t done since his school days, but there was more.
For a moment, he wondered whether he might be dreaming. Same cramped bedsit with its scrubbed floors, polished chairs and window open regardless of the weather. Even, he was sure, the same baby bawling. He had to be dreaming. Reliving the nightmare, as trauma victims invariably do.
But Orbilio was no victim of suffering. True, he was under stress-enormous stress-over the halcyon rapes. But surely he would be reliving those moments, not this? Also. He scratched his head. Would he be able to dream of fresh blankets on the bed, green ones, even though they still smelled of violets? Would his imagination pile a plate of honey cakes on the stove? Would his imagination make it drizzle outside? Maybe, he thought sourly. But no way would imagination catch his skin with a fingernail when it made the pixie clamber on top of him!
‘You were fabulous last night,’ she whispered, rubbing herself against his naked skin. ‘After the fourth time, Marcus Cornelius, I thought you’d be too exhausted ever to rise to the occasion again. But-’ she giggled ‘-I see I’m mistaken.’
To his horror, Angelina was right. Mother of Tarquin, how could he? How could he have taken her to Milo’s tavern, fortified himself with a jug of wine before dumping her, then allowed himself to get so out of his skull that he ends up here. Again.
‘That feels so-o-o good, darling.’
What the hell happened after him taking her to Milo’s and breaking off the relationship?
‘Oh, Marcus. Yes.’
Apart from the obvious, that is, and for a moment he experienced a brief surge of something that might have been pride. (Four times? Well, well, well!) But his performance wasn’t the issue here. It was the fact that he couldn’t remember it. In fact, he didn’t even remember leaving the tavern. Was he really so stressed about the Halcyon Rapist that it was unbalancing his mind? Or did the answer lie closer to home? In the jugs of wine he had taken to consuming, in an effort to blot out the man he had sent to the lions?
Orbilio licked his lips. They were dry, his tongue felt furred, and there was a sour taste in his mouth. So that’s what a conscience tastes like…
He made a vow. No more wine. Ever.
And all the while, those damn castanets behind his eyes ‘Do you like that?’ Angelina moaned, wriggling on top of him.
Like it? It was driving him wild. ‘I have an appointment,’ he rasped.
‘Break it, darling.’
‘I can’t,’ he said, pushing her away, and he wasn’t referring to his fictitious appointment. ‘I’m sorry, Angelina, I just can’t.’
Kneeling on the bed, the pixie pouted. ‘You won’t stand me up again tonight, will you?’
Orbilio draped his toga roughly over his tunic and hauled on his boots. ‘No,’ he said solemnly. ‘You have my word, Angelina. I’ll call on you tonight, after work.’
This time, he would cut the thing dead once and for all.
*
Dymas was waiting for him in his own atrium, where Orbilio’s steward had provided hospitality in the form of warm tansy wine and dried figs. Rain dripped through the aperture in the roof into the atrium pool via a series of shiny copper waterspouts. Dymas counted the drips. He was not a young man-late thirties and his hair was thinning-and he wasn’t particularly big, but he was strong. Greek-born and a blacksmith by trade, he had retained both native cunning and strength. The instant Orbilio returned, he was off the couch and grabbing his cloak.
‘Bloody fuck, mate, where the hell have you been? All Hades has broken loose and we couldn’t find you any place.’
Marcus had only worked with Dymas twice before, the last occasion, of course, being on the rapes last year. He hadn’t enjoyed either mission, frankly, finding the Greek truculent and temperamental, prone to sulks interspersed with bouts of sullen, protracted silences. Small wonder Dymas tended to work alone. No one had ever seen him with a woman. But credit where it’s due, the man was thorough. Certainly, on the two cases in which he’d been seconded to Orbilio. And loners, in the Security Police, invariably achieved more than team players.
‘I had another case to attend to,’ he lied, swiping his wet hair out of his face.
‘Well, if you were hoping to freshen up, tough luck, mate. The boss wants to see us. Like an hour and a half ago.’
Marcus felt a punch to his stomach. ‘Another rape?’
‘Number three,’ Dymas confirmed. ‘And the boss is going ballistic.’
Stomach churning, Marcus stared at the bust of his father glowering censoriously down from his podium. That’s another gel you’ve failed, m’boy. Another life you’ve ruined, because you cocked up. The atrium swam. He was glad to close the door on it behind him.
‘Where did it happen?’ he asked thickly.
‘Near the river.’ Dymas kept his eyes to the ground to avoid stepping in the puddles. Not that he ever looked up when he walked. ‘Same modus operandi as before. Masked attacker drags his victim off the street, strips her clothes off with a knife, forces her to have oral sex with him, then beats her to a pulp, buggers her senseless and dumps her in the filth on the middens.’
He might just as well have been talking about the weather or describing a handcart.
In his office, the Head of the Security Police was hopping up and down. Enough that the rapes had started again. Enough that he was looking at full-scale panic in the city right over the holiday period, a time of peace and goodwill and festivals which would bring every young woman in Rome on to the streets to be exposed to the beast who’s still stalking them. But that he, a man of such standing, should be kept waiting for nearly two hours by some patrician underling…
‘Wait outside,’ he told Dymas.
Dymas scowled. ‘This is my case, too, boss.’
‘Are you fucking deaf, man? Outside. And you.’ His boss’s gaze ranged over the tunic Orbilio had been wearing yesterday, the stubble on his chin. ‘What the fuck is going on?’
Marcus tugged at his earlobe. ‘I don’t honestly know, sir.’
‘Well, there’s a young kid called Deva who does fucking know, and if you’d been there like you should, at the scene of the fucking crime, you’d have seen for yourself. Seventeen years old today, on her way to her mother’s, and now the poor cow can’t even speak. Just clutches some bit of red cloth to her breast, shouting, “My baby, my baby,” and that is not fucking good enough.’
‘No, sir, it isn’t- Did you say Deva? The Damascan girl from over the river?’
‘You know her?’
‘Not exactly, but-’ He began to pace the office. ‘I met her when I interviewed her husband last summer. He’s a herbalist, and I was picking his brains over that crackpot who tried to poison the Emperor by putting what turned out to be monkshood in the sweetmeats.’
Two civil servants and a slave died that day. A high price to pay for filching Imperial sweeties.
The Head of the Security Police pursed his thick lips and sat down behind his desk. The silence alone should have been enough to set alarm bells ringing, but Orbilio couldn’t rid himself of the haunting image of a young woman clutching her favoured red fringed shawl and mourning a baby that she might now never have.