The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley (ed)

  Silly fool; last thing I wanted to do was look closely at that. I've seen worse, I ought to point out. I've seen half a stonemason sticking out from under a three-by-six granite block, where a bit of second-hand rope couldn't take the strain. I've seen kites stripping sun-dried meat off a ribcage, where some old nuisance of a beggar dropped dead beside the road and it was nobody's business to tidy him away. And I've seen a battlefield, but I'd rather not remind myself by talking about it. Marcus Vitellius Acer was bad, but he could've been worse. I guess.

  "Hence," Scipio was saying, "the need for urgency; because unless we get him burned in the next two days, he's going to stink the place out so bad you won't be able to smell the elephant dung. Also, the family are going to want to know why I made poor dear Marcus hang about on the wrong side of the River with all the riff-raff, and I have better things to do with my time than explain myself to my second cousin Vitellia."

  I was thinking; investigate deaths, what do I know about investigating deaths? Whereupon, I thought, elephants; he's tricked me into charging, then opened his ranks. And me a lawyer. I was ashamed.

  "No problem," I said. When all else fails, act cocky. "Only, I've got to ask you this, what sort of investigation are you looking for?"

  He looked at me. "I want the truth," he said.

  "Oh," I replied. "That old thing. You sure? I mean, it's not for me to tell you your business, but wouldn't it be neater just to arrest someone you want to get shot of anyway, and make out it was him? It's how we handle these situations back home, and we find it works pretty well."

  Romans do scorn very well; they've got the lips for it. "Kind thought," he said, "but the plain old truth will do me just fine. So; are you up for it or not?"

  It occurs to me that when my mother taught me to speak, she entrusted a deadly weapon to my worst enemy. "Of course," I said.

  "Now you've examined the body," Scipio said, as we sat opposite each other in his tent behind big cups of wine, "I expect you'll be wanting some background on Acer. Right?"

  I nodded slowly. I was reluctant to open my mouth just then, for fear of what might come gushing out of it. It's embarrassing when strangers can see what you've been eating lately.

  "Fine," he said. "The main thing about Acer was, he was a Senator. Big man in the Senate, all through the war; supported Fabius after Trasimene, stuck with him after the Metaurus, when everyone else was on my side about the invasion of Africa. I respected him for that, but nobody much else did. Probably that's why he was so keen to come out here, to show them all he was big enough to accept the Senate's decision even though he didn't agree with it. So he wrote to me asking for a command; and he'd been a good soldier when he was young, fought against Demetrius in Illyria, so I didn't mind accommodating him, and anyhow, he was family. Did well in the battle, too; I'd tucked him away at the back of the heavy infantry where he couldn't get hurt, but an elephant broke through the line and went crazy, caused a real mess. Acer was back there with the reserve; he charged out in front of the horrible creature, on foot, alone, and actually managed to keep it pinned down until the archers shot off its crew and our people were able to get ropes on it. Not quite sure how he managed it, because every time he told the story it was slightly different, but a man who was there said he stuck a spear right up through its lower lip, then danced about in front of it dodging and yelling, and somehow contrived not to get trampled or swatted. Not bad work for a man in his fifties."

  I nodded. Vitellius Acer had been living on borrowed time after that, no question. It's a Roman knack, doing bloody stupid things that History later turns to gold, like the contents of Midas' chamber-pot.

  "Anyway," Scipio went on, "that tells you he was brave, impetuous, not the sharpest needle in the case maybe, but he had nerve."

  "Enemies," I said.

  Scipio laughed. "Oh, he had enemies all right," he said. "In politics, the number of enemies you make is one of the most reliable ways of keeping score. I can give you three names straight off the top; Servius Gnatho, Publius Licinius — " he paused, and grinned. "And me, of course."

  I hadn't been expecting that. "You," I said. "But I thought —"

  "I liked him, actually," Scipio said. "And he was a sort of cousin, and he did well in the battle. Fact remains, he was a very effective supporter of Fabius Maximus, and therefore my sworn enemy, politically. Also," he added, with a shrug, "he hated me like poison, which made him a security risk, if you follow me. Oh, I didn't kill him, and I didn't tell anybody else to take care of it, either. Trouble with being the man in charge, though, you get a lot of people who're always trying to guess what you want well in advance, so they can suck up to you by doing it. Killing my acknowledged enemy is just the sort of thing some ambitious hothead'd do on the off chance there'd be a nice reward."

  "In which case," I said quietly, "you wouldn't want him caught, right?"

  "Wrong." He looked all Roman at me, down his nose. "Unauthorized murders aren't approved procedure in my army."

  "Fine," I said. "And approved murders?"

  He smiled. "War is approved murder," he said. "But Hannibal didn't kill this poor sucker."

  Thing about being a lawyer, you get used to the other guy being the straight man. "You assume," I said. "But there's escaped prisoners, spies —"

  "Or maybe he was hit by extremely solid lightning. But it's rather unlikely."

  "Noted," I said. "Tell me about those other two people you just mentioned."

  "Ah yes." Scipio nodded. "Gnatho. Nasty piece of work, though you wouldn't think so to look at him. You're a Greek, so I'm assuming you buy into this beauty-equals-virtue idea that my teachers tried to beat into me when I was a kid. Don't believe it. Gnatho's a good example. Rich man, young, handsome; Calabrian, if I remember correctly. The short version is, Acer stole his boyfriend, so he got back by seducing Acer's wife."

  "Which means," I interrupted, "Acer had a good motive for killing Gnatho, not the other —"

  "No, that was just the start of it. Since then, they've been at each other's throats like Spartan hounds. In fact, I think the feud led to the seductions, rather than the other way about. They just didn't like each other much, fundamentally."

  "Well," I said, "that's a start. Who's the other man? Licinius?"

  "Wealthy knight," Scipio said. "Made a fortune buying prisoners straight off the battlefield in the Gallic war, selling them quick and cheap to the big Senatorial estates. Quite the inspirational success story, because he came out of nowhere, father was a blacksmith in Apulia, and suddenly he appeared on the scene with a purseful of money, and nobody knew where he'd got it from. Turned out some time later he was fronting for Acer — as I'm sure I don't need to tell you, since a philosopher like yourself will undoubtedly have figured it out from first principles, Roman senators are forbidden by law to sully their paws with Trade, so what we all do is set up some likely character in a good line of business and quietly collect 60 per cent of the profits. As Acer did with Licinius; only he misjudged his man, because Licinius ran the business but quietly omitted to pay Acer his share; and of course Acer couldn't sue or do anything about it, because he wasn't supposed to be waddling about in the cesspit of commerce in the first place. So Acer had to use other methods to get his money."

  "Such as?"

  "Such as sending a couple of retired gladiators to kidnap Licinius' family, as a bargaining aid. But the boys he hired must've got clonked on the head once too often; they made a hash of it, Licinius' houseboys started a fight, and the result was that Licinius' father, brother and kid son all got killed. Well, Licinius paid up after that; but I'd call that a motive for murder, wouldn't you?"

  "Sure," I said.

  "And," he went on, "Licinius has been following this whole campaign, buying prisoners at the pit head, so to speak; he hadn't left last evening, waiting for half a dozen of his convoy escorts to turn up, and I'll send someone just to check he's still here in camp."

  "Thanks," I said.

  He shrugged.r />
  "So, that's two strong leads for me to follow up," I said. "I'll go away and have a think about it, and catch up with you later today."

  He grinned. "Don't pull a muscle in your head," he replied. "Like I told you, you've got till tomorrow evening."

  "Thanks," I said, "but it shouldn't take me as long as that. Thought, you see; all I've got to do is sit down and think about it for an hour or so, and I'll have the answer for you, smooth and warm as a hen's egg."

  I do say some stupid things, don't I?

  But, like I said, I needed the job; so I waited till he was out of sight, then went straight to work. Solving mysteries is all about prepositions, the first being how? Acer had had his head bashed in, with spectacular thoroughness. First question therefore had to be, what with? No way a human fist could've scrunched bone like that; but there were no blood-spattered rocks, sticks, iron bars or heavy implements anywhere to be seen. Conclusion; the killer either took the weapon away with him, or hid it somewhere.

  Well, I could search the whole camp for a brain-speckled rock; but I wasn't in the mood, so I looked for something that'd give me a clue. Shuffling round on my belly isn't my idea of a big time, but I did find something down there on the ground that set me thinking; a long row of little round dimples pressed into the dirt, next to a tent where they stored great big skeins of horsehair.

  A couple of off-duty soldiers were lounging about nearby. I decided that Scipio would want me to make whatever use I felt necessary of all available facilities, and called them over. They didn't seem thrilled with the job I gave them, which basically consisted of a lot of scrabbling about in dirt and splintered wood. Their bad luck; they shouldn't have joined.

  Anyhow; I had a hunch about the how, and no other leads whatsoever. Rather than waste time, I made up my mind to skip resolving how, and make a start on when.

  Roman army camps; they're crowded, noisy and smelly, and there's always someone about. But all Scipio had said was that Acer's body "was found", by the first patrol of the day, just after reveille. Helpful.

  Yes, really. When is a doddle in an army camp, because at night, when there's nobody about, they have sentries. A little bit of bluff with the duty officer got me a look at the previous day's duty roster, and I sent a runner to fetch me the decurion in charge of the night watch; he in turn gave me the names of the sentries who should've been guarding that sector of the camp, and I had them brought up to see me.

  No, they assured me, they hadn't seen or heard anything. I told them I knew they were lying and why. They panicked and said they'd tell me the truth; they hadn't seen or heard anything, really.

  I believed them; but it was awkward, because if they genuinely hadn't seen anybody alive or dead (and they'd have noticed a dead body, for sure) it meant that Acer arrived at the place where he died and was killed in the short period of time between the sentries' last stroll down the alley, and the end of the nightwatch, which was when the body was found, according to Scipio. I worked out how long that period was by walking the route myself with my hand on my wrist, counting heartbeats. Figuring that reveille must be the cut-off point — the whole camp seething with people getting up and rushing about — I ended up coming to the conclusion that Acer must've left his tent, which was where he'd last been seen, five thousand heartbeats before reveille, in order to have time to walk from his tent to the place where he was killed; furthermore, that he was killed pretty well as soon as he got there. Implication; the killer knew he'd be coming, and was waiting for him.

  Which made it interesting; since the killer had to get there too, unless his assigned sleeping-place was in the alley itself—and nobody matched those criteria; I checked. The alleyway was formed by the stores on one side and the plunder-stash on the other, and it goes without saying that both of those were heavily guarded at night against the depredations of light-fingered squaddies, so no chance of anybody sneaking in during the day and hiding till Acer arrived.

  Fine, I thought; so I went and talked to the guards. The quartermaster, in charge of the stores, swore by the River that he hadn't seen or heard, et cetera. More to the point, he had four Greek clerks who spread their bedrolls out in the four entrances to the stores compound, a simple and praiseworthy precaution. On the other side, the soldiers who'd guarded the plunder were equally adamant, which accounted for three points of the compass; "and you don't have to worry about anybody coming from the north," one of them added with a grin, while the other two sniggered.

  "Don't I?" I said. "Why's that?"

  The soldier smiled and pointed.

  "All right," I said, "there's a palisade of high stakes. What about it?"

  "That's the animal pen," the soldier said. "Where all the captured livestock's kept; horses, loads of mules, several dozen camels —"

  "And the elephant," his mate reminded him.

  "And the elephant. Bloody thing," the soldier added.

  "Never goes to sleep, and a sneeze'll set it off crashing about. No way anybody could sneak in through there without a hell of a racket."

  Well, that ruled out access from either side; which meant Acer, and Acer's killer, must've come up the alley, during the period (nine hundred heartbeats) between the last time the nightwatch passed the entrance to the alleyway, and reveille. I had when.

  I was doing well. I'd got when, I had a gut feeling about how, and Scipio had presumably given me all I needed for a shortlist of candidates for why. Trouble was, all those together had to make up who, and they didn't.

  Well; I supposed I could get rid of one suspect, one way or the other. I went and found Licinius, the slave dealer. His compound was just inside the camp (he was allowed inside as a special privilege by the camp prefect, who owed him money), and I found him perched on the rail like a small boy at a fair, flanked by two Syrian clerks, taking inventory.

  "Bloody sun," he said. "You'd think they'd be used to it, since they live in this godsforsaken country. But apparently not; it boils their brains inside their heads, and they die. After I've paid for them," he added bitterly. "Six since the battle; that's a lot of money."

  I sighed. "Some people have no consideration," I told him. Then I reached into my purse and pulled something out for him to see. "This belong to you?" I asked.

  He took it and examined it; a longish iron nail with a ring passed through its head. "No," he said.

  "You know what it is."

  "Course I do, it's a tethering-peg. We use them to peg down the stock en route. But this isn't one of mine." "You can tell?"

  He nodded. "This is army issue," he said. "I don't use anything that's military specification. Saves bother, see;

  otherwise, my stuff would have a bad habit of getting mixed in with government property, since I spend so much time around army camps, and I'd never see it again. That's why all my pegs are wood, with bronze rings."

  "Ah," I said. "That's that, then. Sorry to have bothered you."

  "No bother," he assured me. "So," he added, "where did you get this from?"

  "Under the body of Vitellius Acer," I told him. "Look, you can see the blood on the spike, and this bit of frayed rope tied to the ring. At least, I'm assuming it's blood; could be brains, or —"

  He gave me a very nasty look. "You implying I had something to do with that?"

  I shrugged. "Well," I said, "I'd heard you weren't the best of friends."

  "You could say that," he replied. "But it wasn't me stabbed him, so you're wasting your time. I spent the whole of last night playing knucklebones with Caius Laelius — you know, General Scipio's bestest friend in all the world? Ask him if you don't believe me."

  Quite some alibi. "Who won?" I asked.

  "He did. You seriously think I'm dumb enough to gamble with Laelius and win?"

  Proving nothing, I reflected, as I walked back; a rich man like Licinius doesn't do his own murdering. Interesting that he'd said it wasn't me stabbed him. I'd shown him the tethering-pin with blood all over it, and he'd assumed it was the murder weapon; assumed
that confronting him with it was meant to be my winning throw. But Acer hadn't been stabbed, of course.

  Quick detour, to get a chicken. Next call after that, inevitably, was the camp blacksmith.

  "One of mine," he confirmed. "I remember doing them;

  drew down a load of busted spearheads we picked up off the field at Numantia. Can't waste good material."

  "Quite," I said. All his hammers were neatly arranged in iron hoops stuck into the side of the log on which his anvil rested. Their heads were all dry and shiny with use, apart from one, which was spotted with rust, and the wooden stem was swollen and wet. Licinius' father had been a blacksmith in Apulia, and the camp smithy backed on to the stores. Only one door, of course, but a very wide smokehole in the roof. "You just do army work, or do you sometimes do civvy jobs as well?"

  "Depends on how we're fixed," he said. "If there's nothing particular on, I can fit in a few bits and pieces now and again."

  "Do anything for Licinius the slaver recently?"

  He frowned. "Yes, as a matter of fact. Sort of. He sent one of his blokes over, said the tyre on one of his carts had sprung and could I weld it? I said no, too busy; he said that's all right, I used to be a smith myself. Fine, I said, you fetch it in here, you're welcome to use that anvil over there and anything you like. Did a good job, too, for a foreigner."

  High praise from a smith. "That was good-natured of you," I said. "I'd heard your lot are pretty touchy about letting other people use their gear."

  He grinned. "Some smiths are like that," he said. "Not me. Just as well," he went on, "because he broke the head off my two-pound crosspein hammer. Good as gold about it, though, he was. Said he'd get the wheelwright to put the head on again, and he did. A bloke brought it back this morning first thing, and there it is in the rack."

  A bloke, I noted, not the ex-smith himself. "It's all wet," I said.