Retalio

by Alison Morton

  ‘It can’t be—,’ she whispered. ‘You’re dead.’

  I touched both my ears and raised an eyebrow.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Thank the gods for that,’ I said. ‘We can talk properly.’

  ‘But how can you be alive? They showed photos of your body.’

  ‘Well, I’m harder to kill than Tellus thinks. But he knows I’m alive. He sent an assassination squad, but they killed my bodyguard instead.’ I swallowed, remembering Miklós’s anger and sadness at his friend’s murder.

  Her eyes darted all over my face.

  ‘What happened to your eyes?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing.’ I smiled at her. ‘I’m wearing these new coloured contact lenses to dim the colour. Mitela blue is too well known.’

  ‘Gods, yes.’ She stared at me for a few more moments, then stood up.

  ‘Domina, sit, please.’ She offered her chair.

  ‘No, I mustn’t. Suppose somebody came in? The lowly cleaner wouldn’t be sitting at her ease.’

  I put my hand out and grasped hers. At last I saw some light in her eyes.

  ‘Drusilla, I’m so pleased you’re alive, too. That little bastard Turturus told us how he pressured you.’

  ‘We manage, but it’s so bad now. Every day that we’re still alive is a bonus. As well as shortages, we all have to go to political meetings.’ She gave a half-cracked laugh. ‘Of course, as a woman, I can’t join the nationalist movement so I’m spared that. But I feel so sorry for the men. Most people are just keeping their heads down, but some are starting to adapt to the new system despite the hardships.’ She pressed hard on my hand. ‘Come back soon, please. You must stop them before it’s too late. Before they all fall in line with it.’

  ‘Believe me, Drusilla, that’s my priority. Thank you for keeping the faith.’

  ‘That man’s people killed my daughter. There is no question of doing anything else but resisting.’

  * * *

  Armed with mop, bucket, brush and duster, and wearing a grey overall and headscarf tied at the back of my neck, I followed the supervisor into the atrium.

  ‘The first consul will be here at seven sharp. You have just over half an hour. Personally, I’d make sure to get it done in twenty-five minutes and be clear. But for Juno’s sake, make sure everything is free of dust and stains. He has a fit if he sees either.’

  I dampened the dust mop and worked my way to and fro across the vast area of marble. I reached Caius’s desk after about five minutes. Just as I was reaching into my pocket for the tiny camera, I heard the door open behind me. My heart thudded so hard I was sure the incomer could hear it. Bootsteps sounded across the floor I had cleaned. Oh, Juno save me. Please, not Caius. My hands started to tremble. Should I turn? Would he recognise me? I hunched over, praying for my life.

  ‘Get out of my way, woman!’

  Caius!

  Merda.

  I bobbed a curtsey, shuffled sideways, bent my head and stood still.

  He searched for something on the desk, snatched up a paper and to my horror, turned and looked at me. I fixed my gaze on the floor; my shoulders bowed, stomach out, toes turned in. Squinting through my eyelashes, I saw his frown. I didn’t breathe as I waited. He shrugged, then marched off, leaving dirty footprints across my clean floor. A tiny surge of anger on behalf of cleaners of the world was drowned by the flood of relief. My fingers ached from gripping the mop handle so tightly. I wiped the sweat off them on my overall and took a deep breath to try to stop trembling.

  Mop in hand again, I edged towards the desk again. I probably had ten minutes at the most before he returned to start his day’s work. After a glance at the side windows to be sure nobody could see me, I flipped through the papers. Nothing. Beige file covers bulged in the in tray. I rifled through them, then found treasure – the sent folder of carbon copies of all Caius’s letters. I flipped the precious file cover open and took my photos. Fifteen years of being a bureaucrat equipped me to see immediately what was important and what not. I closed the file and carefully replaced it and thrust the camera in my brassiere under the softest part of my flesh. I glanced around, especially at the side windows, then carried on with my mop, erasing all traces of Caius’s dirty marks.

  20

  I was given a bowl of soup from the kitchen by Atrius, who was disguised in an off-white tunic and grey trousers as a kitchen helper. We sat in the adjoining domestic staff hall, just two of us in a room for thirty.

  ‘Gods, this smells disgusting,’ I muttered and tore a lump off the loaf in the middle of the table.

  ‘It’ll keep you going.’

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’

  He snapped out a short laugh.

  Drusilla’s underling, the cleaning supervisor, bustled in and glared at me.

  ‘Haven’t you finished yet? You’ve got five rooms upstairs to do this afternoon,’ she said. ‘You can’t hang around in here trying to get off with the kitchen staff.’ Her eyes in a round face bulged slightly as she looked at Atrius. ‘You better be about your work as well.’

  He glanced at me once more, then swung his leg over the bench seat and, smirking at the supervisor, sauntered back towards the kitchen.

  ‘He’s a bit cocky,’ the supervisor said, although she’d watched him until he disappeared through the door. ‘You want to watch yourself with that one.’

  ‘He’s my son.’

  ‘Well, never mind that. On your feet and get cracking.’

  * * *

  As we trudged back down the hill into the town, I was sweating, not with the weather. Atrius handed me a bottle of water.

  ‘You got what you wanted?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, and more.’

  He eased me through the next alley, then back out onto the next street.

  ‘Can we get the pictures developed here to check? If the film gets exposed on our way out, we’re stuffed,’ I replied.

  ‘We’ll ask Marcia when we get back. But she may not have the right chemicals.’

  We walked on in silence, winding through the streets until we arrived at the corner of the street near Marcia’s block. We were both tired and desperate for a drink and a wash. I shivered. It all looked as it had been this morning; a half-derelict car, some plastic sacks of rubbish, crumpled paper in the gutter. An empty drinks can rolled along the pavement. Where had that come from? There was no wind to push it, no people rushing home from work, no kids on the street to kick it. Atrius went to turn into the street. I grabbed his arm.

  ‘Keep walking,’ I hissed. ‘Something’s not right.’

  We crossed to the other corner.

  ‘Shoe,’ I said forcibly, but under my breath.

  He knelt and fiddled with his shoe, while I glanced around, hardly moving my head. Atrius stood up and we moved quickly to the next block and the next before pausing.

  ‘What did you see?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing, and that was wrong.’

  ‘Agreed.’ He rubbed his forehead with his fingers and leant back against the wall. 'Now what do we do?’

  We didn’t have any idea where the other group was, only the RV point; for operational security, Volusenia had kept our briefings fully separate.

  ‘I have an address,’ I murmured. ‘But we must be especially careful.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She’s an er, informal trader.’

  ‘A criminal?’

  ‘That’s a little harsh. She hasn’t been convicted of anything.’

  ‘Is it far?’

  ‘At the lower end of the Via Nova.’

  ‘D’you think we could go via my sister’s? Just to look.’ He didn’t say anything but his eyes pleaded.

  * * *

  Last year, Atrius, Pia Calavia and I had sheltered in Paula Atria’s dry cleaning shop. But that damned informer kid, Turturus, had led Caius’s political troops there and we’d fled for our lives across the roofs of the old town, then through the dark wet streets. Would the shop still
be there? More importantly, had Atrius’s sister survived?

  But there it was, thank the gods, lights on. We watched from the newsagent’s across the street. I chose a magazine and almost fainted at the cost; eight solidi for one that had cost two-fifty last year. And the paper was coarser and thinner. Atrius pretended to flick through a tabloid while watching.

  A man pushed open the glass door into Paula’s shop and went in. Paula appeared at the counter. She was still alive and free, thank the gods. The man waved his hands about. She shook her head. He slammed his hand on the counter and a middle-aged man appeared to stand beside Paula.

  ‘Pluto, that’s that prick Firminus,’ Atrius muttered. ‘He’s our mother’s cousin. What’s he doing here? Paula can’t stand him.’

  The customer turned, wrenched the door open, and left, huffiness radiating from him as he stamped off down the street. But Atrius was watching the plate glass window, his face set. We both saw Firminus grab Paula’s wrist, bring his other hand up and slap her hard across the face.

  I grabbed Atrius just about in time to stop him catapulting across the street.

  ‘No.’

  He gave me a savage look and jerked his arm away, almost pulling mine out of its socket. I grabbed his trouser belt, thrust out my leg and heaved him back over it. Atrius fell on the vinyl floor in a heap of arms and legs, He leapt up, but I was ready for him and blocked the doorway.

  ‘Stop.’ I fixed him with the sternest look I could muster. If I couldn’t calm him down, he would not only sabotage the mission but get us both arrested and probably terminated. The newsagent had swung the top of his counter up and was bearing down on us.

  Keeping an eye on Atrius, I smiled at the newsagent.

  ‘Oh, thank goodness,’ I bleated. ‘Please sir, could you help me with my brother? He’s bipolar,’ I said in a stage whisper. ‘The pharmacy’s run out of his pills. We’re at our wits’ end with him.’

  ‘Get off me, woman,’ Atrius snarled at me. I didn’t know whether he was playing along at this stage or meant it.

  ‘Come along, son, calm down now,’ the newsagent said, and pulled Atrius back from the door. He pushed him down onto the chair in front of the counter and gave him a beaker of water. Atrius grabbed it and gulped it down. The newsagent stood there, arms crossed and looking sternly at Atrius.

  ‘Do you want me to call an ambulance or something?’ He snorted. ‘Not that anybody will be here within the next five days.’

  ‘No, thank you, we’ll just go home,’ I said. ‘Come on, Secundus. Ma will be getting worried.’

  * * *

  Atrius still hadn’t said anything ten minutes later as he plodded beside me down the narrow street parallel to the Via Nova. The daylight was fading fast and we had to get off the street by the curfew at 9 p.m. or we’d be picked up by the vigiles or worse, Caius’s nats.

  ‘Atrius, we’re nearly there. Are you ready?’

  He nodded and we stepped into what was normally one of the most vibrant, if tackiest, streets of Roma Nova. Bright plastic shop signs, homemade displays, dubious cooking smells, tiny tables with fold-up chairs and people laughing and loitering on the streets – that was how this end of the Via Nova should have been. But this gloomy evening it was silent, apart from the occasional car or military vehicle roaring past and the odd late evening shop light. Three men and a woman stood under the lamp post nearest us, smoking. One or two others hurried by, intent on getting home by the curfew.

  We strode past the smoking group who watched us, not with interest, but wariness. Trying not to look obvious, I glanced at the building numbers. Ten metres further down on the left we reached a faded maroon door between two shops. I entered the numbers Miklós had given me on the entry pad and pushed the door.

  Enough lamplight invaded from the street to show a time-release switch on the hallway wall which Atrius pushed as I closed the door behind us. Dull beige walls and ceiling with a light bulb dangling from a wire and plain doors with heavy-duty locks to the left and right. A flight of uncarpeted stairs rose in front of us. I glanced at Atrius, then we started climbing. On the landing I signalled him to wait while I went forward. There were two identical doors. Hades. Which one? Miklós hadn’t said. I had a fifty per cent chance of being wrong and possibly dead, but we had no choice. I took a deep breath and knocked at the nearest one with the sequence Miklós had given me.

  A door chain rattled and the door opened about ten centimetres revealing a man’s face. Dark hair and eyes, his face wore a frown.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Niklaus sent us,’ I said.

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘Are you János?’

  The closing door stopped.

  ‘Who’s asking?’

  ‘Niklaus’s wife.’

  He searched my face, then looked over my shoulder at Atrius who had come up to stand behind me.

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘He works for me.’

  The door closed before I could say another word, but reopened enough to let us pass into the room. I took a huge gulp of air, letting it out slowly.

  ‘Wait here.’

  I glanced round at the dark old-fashioned chairs, crochet antimacassars, a dresser stacked with a display of Samian pottery and coloured china, a vase of silk flowers, a television in the corner with a newscast mumbling at low level. All incredibly normal.

  We turned as a petite woman came through a door at the side; she had brown hair and large brown eyes in a classically beautiful face. She wore a nondescript frock, and a hard expression on her face. She studied us. I returned her stare, refusing to look away. She wasn’t just looking at me, she was trying to get inside me.

  Apparently satisfied after a full minute, she gestured us to chairs.

  ‘He said you were strong-willed. I see he was right.’

  ‘Can you help us?’

  ‘Depends what you want.’

  ‘A bed for tonight and some food.’

  Miklós had told me she was called Anna and her man was a friend of Sándor, the driver bodyguard Caius’s assassins had killed in Vienna. She unbent a little as we devoured a plate of pasta, then tinned fruit. János didn’t join in the conversation. Neither did Atrius.

  ‘Niklaus sends his greetings,’ I started conventionally.

  ‘You don’t need to pretend with me, Farkas asszony, I’ve known Miklós for years.’

  Miklós used the German form of his name, Niklaus, for his trading activities, but if these two knew his real name he must trust them.

  ‘Very well. Are you Hungarian as well?’

  She laughed. ‘No, I’m as Roma Novan as you. Maybe not so well documented down the generations, though.’ Her eyes half closed as she sipped her glass of water.

  ‘I’ll be straight with you. Our safe house looks blown. I can’t confirm it, but let’s say I’m eighty per cent sure.’ I glanced up at her as pasta slid off my fork. ‘It’s a lot to ask, but would you be willing to have somebody walk by and see if they think the same?’

  ‘You’re asking us to walk in the direct path of the vigiles and those nats and wave our thumbs at them? You’ve got a bloody cheek. We’re keeping our heads down. Nothing doing.’

  ‘Very well. Then at least lend me some clothes to disguise myself so I can do it.’

  ‘Mercury’s balls, don’t you understand? Every corner is watched, every other human being a potential informer or denouncer.’

  ‘I understand that, but I need to know,’ I said. ‘Our contacts there risk their lives every hour of every day. We’ve also stashed some important resources which we must retrieve. Of course, we’ll recompense you,’ I added.

  ‘You think money will buy our services?’ Her voice couldn’t have held more scorn.

  ‘Well, that’s how you conduct your business, isn’t it?’ I bit back.

  ‘Oh, so you think you’re the only ones who can make loyal gestures?’

  ‘Criminals aren’t usually so inclined.’ The words were out of my
mouth before I could stop them. ‘I apologise,’ I added quickly, but the damage had been done.

  * * *

  In the small bedroom, with only a roof light as a window to the world outside, I lay on the bed. Atrius was asleep on a mattress on the floor, or so I thought until he spoke in a low voice.

  ‘I know she was annoying, but I think you may have stuffed our chances.’

  ‘You can’t kick me any harder than I am myself, Atrius.’

  ‘She’s quite a looker, isn’t she?’

  I couldn’t reply. How well did Miklós know her? But she had her man, János.

  ‘We’ll leave tomorrow morning,’ I said. ‘If we can’t get those packets back from the roof space then we’ll have to abandon them and run.’ I wriggled on the lumpy mattress. ‘I’m very sorry about your sister. It must be hell for her.’

  ‘And I’m sorry for losing it back in that shop, but when we come back, I’m going to hunt that little turd down and give him the thrashing of his life.’

  I didn’t answer him. We had to plan for reconciliation afterwards and couldn’t sanction revenge acts. But I wasn’t going to tell Atrius that now. His anger was only contained by a very thin crust.

  A faint glow of light from the roof light relieved the Stygian dark of the room. The street lights either weren’t working or were switched off. Unlike my mind.

  ‘We need to get to the RV point with the other team the day after tomorrow, whatever happens,’ I said. ‘Let’s get some sleep.’

  21

  We woke at six the next morning. As I slipped out of the small bathroom after a quick wash, I saw a light coming from the kitchen. I hurried back to the bedroom and dressed. In the kitchen, Anna was at the stove staring down at the eggs she was stirring in an old pan. The boiling kettle clicked and snapped her out of her reverie.

  Her face coloured when she looked at me, but she said nothing.

  ‘Could we make a drink?’ I said. ‘Then we’ll be on our way.’