I shook my head. 'I think the killer went up the stairs.'
'And who was he?' demanded Petro.
'Don't nag me. I'm working on it.'
'You need to work fast then! Marponius has summoned me to a conference tomorrow about this stinking case, and I can tell you in advance, the conclusion will be that I have to haul you in.'
'I'll keep out of your way then,' I promised, as he growled and let me go.
Only when I had turned the corner did I remember meaning to ask him about the caupona's owner, the mystery rent-collector whom Epimandos told me had discovered the corpse.
I made it back to Mother's in a sombre mood. I seemed no further forward, though I now had some feeling for events the night the soldier died. How his death connected with Festus was a mystery. Censorinus had been killed by somebody who hated him. That depth of emotion had nothing to do with my brother; Festus had been friends with everyone.
Or had he been? Maybe somebody had a grudge against him that I wasn't aware of? And maybe that was what had brought disaster on a man who had been known as one of my brother's associates?
The ghastly scene in the room still hovered on the edge of my consciousness as I went indoors.
I was already hemmed in by problems, and when I entered the apartment I discovered another: Helena Justina was waiting for me, alone.
Mother was out-probably gone to see one of my sisters. She might stay the night. I had an idea things had been arranged that way. Our driver from Germany had already taken his pay, such as it was, and left us. Helena had lent her maid to her mother. Nobody on the Aventine has a maid.
So we were alone in the apartment. It was the first time we had been on our own like this for several weeks. The atmosphere was unconducive to romance.
Helena seemed very quiet. I hated that. It took a fair amount to upset her, but I frequently managed it. When she did feel hurt I lost her, and she was hurt now. I could tell what was coming. She had been thinking all day about what Allia had told her. Now she was ready to ask me about Marina.
XVII
Things began quietly. Helena let me kiss her cheek. I washed my hands. I pulled off my boots. There was dinner, which we set about in virtual silence. I left most of mine.
We knew each other too well for preliminary skirmishes. 'Want to talk about it?'
'Yes.' Always direct, this one.
After what I had witnessed that evening, it was the wrong time for an argument, but if I tried to dodge, even temporarily, I was afraid that it could be the end of everything.
I gazed at her while I tried to clear my head.
She was wearing a long-sleeved dark blue dress, winter-weight wool, with agate jewellery. Both suited her; both went back to before I met her. I remembered them from when I first knew her in Britain; then she had been a haughtily independent young woman, recently divorced. Though her confidence had been eroded by the failed marriage, defiance and anger were what I most recalled from those days. We had clashed head-on, yet by some divine metamorphosis that had turned into laughing together, followed inevitably by love.
The blue dress and agates were significant. She may not have thought about it. Helena despised premeditated drama. But I recognised in her appearance a statement that she could be her own woman again any time she chose.
'Helena, it's best not to quarrel at night.' It was honest advice, but came out more like insolence. 'You're proud and I'm tough; it's a bad combination.'
During the day she must have withdrawn into her private self. Helena had given up a great deal to live with me, and tonight she must be as near as she would ever be to throwing that back in my face.
'I can't sleep beside you if I hate you.'
'Do you?'
'I don't know yet.'
I reached to touch her cheek; she leaned away. I snatched back my hand. 'I've never cheated you, sweetheart!'
'Good.'
'Give me a chance. You don't want to see me grovelling.'
'No. But if what I've heard is only half right, I'll be seeing you squirm soon!'
Helena's chin came up. Her brown eyes were bright. Maybe we both felt a thread of excitement, sparring like this. But Helena and I never wasted time inventing pretexts. Any accusations that were about to be flung would carry as much weight as wet sandbags.
I leaned back a little. I felt breathless. 'So what's the procedure? Are the questions to be specific, or shall I just warble cheerily?'
'You seem to be expecting a crisis, Falco.' That 'Falco' was bad.
'I do keep an eye on what you're finding out about me.'
'Have you something to say about it?'
'My darling, I've spent most of the afternoon thinking up explanations to win you round!'
'Never mind the explanations. I'm well aware you can invent wildly and phrase it like a barrister. Tell me the truth.'
'Ah that!' I always told her the truth. That was how I already knew the truth sounds more insincere than anything.
When I made no effort to respond further, Helena seemed to change the subject. 'How are you getting on with your mother's business?'
'It's my business now. I'm a murder suspect, don't forget!'
'What have you done today?' It appeared oblique, but I knew it would be relevant.
'Spoke to Maia; Mico; Allia. Got nowhere with any of them. I talked to the waiter at Flora's-and I inspected the corpse.'
I must have looked drawn. 'Did you have to do that?' Helena asked in a changed voice.
I smiled wryly. 'So you still have some heart?'
'I have always treated you reasonably!' That was a fierce dig. 'I think you have been wasting time, Marcus. It's obvious there were two people you ought to have seen immediately. You've spent a whole day dodging the issue, and contacted neither. The situation's too serious for this.'
'There is time.'
'Petronius only gave you today!'
'So you've been listening to private conversations?'
She shrugged. 'Thin walls.'
'Who are these people I'm supposed to be ignoring?'
'You know who. Your brother's old girlfriend for one. But first you should have gone straight to your father.' I folded my arms. I said nothing; Helena fought me silently.
'Why do you hate your father?' she demanded eventually.
'He's not worth hating.'
'Is it because he left home while you were just a child?'
'Look, my childhood is none of your business.'
'It is,' snapped Helena, 'if I have to live with the results!'
Fair comment. And I could not object to her interest. Helena Justina's main criterion for living with a man was that he let her read his thoughts. After thirty years of keeping my own council, I went along with it. Being an informer is a lonely profession. Allowing Helena free access to the inner sanctum had come as a relief.
'All right. I can see I have to suffer.'
'Marcus, you're trussed up like a bird in a braising pan-'
'I'm not done for yet. Mind you don't get pecked.'
Her eyes glimmered; that was promising. 'Stop prevaricating! Tell me the truth.'
'You won't like it.'
'I realise that.'
'You win.' I faced the inevitable. I should have told her all this a long time ago. She must have half guessed it anyway, while I had nearly forfeited the right to give her my version. 'It's quite simple. I don't know what went on between my parents, but I've nothing to say to any man who walks out on his children. When my father took a stroll I was seven. Just about to assume the toga praetexta. I wanted my papa to be there watching at my first big ceremony.'
'You don't approve of ceremonial.'
'I don't now!'
Helena frowned. 'Plenty of children grow up with only one parent present. Still, I suppose the lucky ones at least get a stepfather to despise or stepmother to hate.' She was teasing, and on this subject I object to being teased. She read my face. 'That was bad taste… Why did your parents never divorce formally?'
'He was too ashamed to do it; she was, and is, too stubborn.' I used to wish I was an orphan. At least then I could have started again, without the constant hope or dread that just when everything had settled down our paterfamilias might reappear, upsetting everyone with his old blithe smile.
Helena was frowning. 'Did he leave you without money?'
I began to answer angrily, then took a deep breath. 'No, I can't say that.'
When my father ran out with his redhead we never saw him for several years; I learned afterwards that he had been in Capua. Right from the start there had been a man called Cocceius who brought money to my mother on a fairly regular basis. It was supposed to be coming from the Auctioneers' Guild. For years I accepted that story, as Mother appeared to do. But when I grew old enough to work things out I realised that the Guild was acting as agent-a polite excuse for my mother to accept my father's money without lessening her disgust for him. The main clue was that the weight of the coin bag increased with time. Charitable hand-outs tend to tail off.
Helena was looking at me for more answers. 'We just about escaped being destitute. We were barely clad and fed. But that applied to everyone we knew. It sounds bad to you, love, with your privileged upbringing, but we were the swarming mass of the great Roman poor; none of us expected any better from life.'
'You were sent to school.'
'Not by him.'
'But your family did have benefactors?'
'Yes. Maia and I had our school fees paid.'
'She told me. By the lodger. Where did he come from?'
'He was an old Melitan moneylender. My mother found space for him so the rent money would help out.' She only let him have a fold-up couch and a shelf for his clothes in a corridor. She had assumed he would hate it and leave, but he clung on and lived with us for years.
'And your father disapproved? Was the lodger a cause of arguments?'
This was all wrong. I was supposed to be the intruder who went round asking awkward questions, forcing long-hidden secrets to bubble to the surface of other people's ornamental ponds. 'The Melitan did cause a lot of trouble, but not the way you mean.' The Melitan, who had no family, had wanted to adopt Maia and me. That had caused some tumultuous rows. To Helena, who came from a civilised family where they hardly seemed to wrangle over anything more serious than who beat the Senator to the best bread roll at breakfast, the riots among my own tribe must sound harsh and barbaric. 'I'll tell you about it some day. My father's disappearance was directly related to his flamboyant girlfriend, not the lodger. Times were hard and he wasn't prepared to endure the struggle with us. The Melitan was irrelevant.'
Helena wanted to argue, but accepted it. 'So your father suddenly walked out one day-'
'It seemed unexpected, but since he left with a red-haired scarfmaker, maybe we should have been prepared.'
'I've noticed you hate redheads,' she said gravely.
'Could have been worse: could have been a Macedonian; could have been a blonde.'
'Another colour you loathe! I must remember to stay dark-'
'That means you're not leaving me?' I threw in lightly.
'Even if I do, Marcus Didius, I shall always respect your prejudices!' Helena's gaze, which could be oddly charitable, met mine. A familiar spark tingled. I let myself believe that she would stay.
'Don't go!' I murmured softly, with what I hoped were pleading eyes. Her mood had changed again, however. She looked back as if she had just spotted mould on a best table napkin. I kept trying. 'Sweetheart, we haven't even started yet. Our "old times" have yet to be enjoyed. I'll give you things to look back on that you cannot even dream-'
'That's what I'm afraid of!'
'Ah Helena!'
'Ah nuts, Marcus!' I should always have spoken to her in formal Greek, and never have let her pick up my own slang. 'Stop bluffing,' commanded the love of my life. She had a sharp eye for fraud. 'So your father started a new life as an auctioneer in Capua; he eventually reappeared in Rome, the man I know as Geminus. Now he is a rich man.' She had met my father briefly. He had made sure he steamed in like Lars Porsena of Clusium to inspect the high-born madam who had picked me up. I still felt good whenever I remembered his amazement. Helena Justina was not some enamelled old baggage I was chasing for her money. He found her presentable, apparently rational, and genuinely fond of me. He never got over the shock and I never stopped gloating.
This sibyl could also be too shrewd for her own good: 'Is it his wealth you resent?'
'He can be as rich as he likes.'
'Ah! Is he still with the redhead?'
'I believe so.'
'Do they have children?'
'I believe not.'
'And he's still there twenty years later-so he does have some staying power!' Without intending to let her see a reaction, I ground my teeth. Helena queried thoughtfully, 'Do you think you inherited that?'
'No. I owe nothing to him. I'll be loyal to you of my own accord, princess.'
'Really?' Her light inflection belied the sharp whip in the insult. 'You know where he is, Marcus; you recommended him to my own father. Sometimes you even work with him yourself.'
'He's the best auctioneer in Rome. One of my professional specialities is recovering stolen art. I deal with him when I have to-but there are limits, lass.'
'Whereas,' she started slowly. Helena could use a word like 'whereas' not merely to shade her argument, but to add hints of moral stricture too. Her conjunctions were as piquant as anchovy. 'Whereas your brother seems to have worked with Geminus on a much more frequent footing… They were close, weren't they? Festus never felt the anger that obsessed you after your father left?'
'Festus never shared my anger,' I agreed bleakly.
Helena smiled slightly. She had always thought I was a broody beggar. She was right, too. 'The two of them had a long and regular partnership on a straightforward father-and-son basis?'
'It seems like it.' Festus had had no pride. Maybe I had too much-but that was the way I liked it.
'Don't you know, Marcus?'
'I am forced to that conclusion. Festus never mentioned it.' Sparing my feelings, I suppose. Mother's too. 'There was a hiatus in relations when my father was living out of Rome, but Festus must have resumed contact pretty soon afterwards.' Sometimes I wondered if they had even stayed in touch throughout the time when Father was hiding up in Capua. 'Certainly by the time Festus died they shared a lock-up in the antiques quarter, over at the Saepta Julia.' Where my mother could not see them. 'And then they were as close as two termites.'
'So your father will know about the statues and the ship that sank?'
'He should. If it was one of their joint ventures.' She had dragged the words out of me like crusted amber oozing from an old pine tree. Before Helena could capitalise on the achievement, I said sternly, 'I left him until last deliberately. I am going to see Geminus tomorrow.'
'I think you're afraid to face him.'
'Not true-but you have to understand, my father can be a very tricky customer. I wanted to assemble as many facts as possible before I tried talking to him.' She was closer to the truth than I admitted. I had never discussed family affairs with Father, and I hated the thought of starting now. 'Helena, just leave me to get on with it!'
Very manly. Asking for trouble, in fact. That glimmer in her eyes was quite dangerous now.
'All right.' I hate reasonable women. 'Don't scowl,' she complained. 'Anybody would suppose I interfered.'
'May I be eaten alive by ravens if I thought it… Is that the end of the marathon grilling?'
'No.'
I thought not. We still had Marina to upset our evening. The grilling had hardly started yet.
XVIII
I made one last attempt to restore peace. 'I'm in serious trouble, sweetheart. I may be under arrest soon. Don't let's spoil our evening with any more home truths.'
Helena Justina listened almost demurely, her hands lightly folded in her lap. Anyone who had never met her might sup
pose she was a woman of quality interviewing a cushion-stuffer who was seeking outwork. I knew her better. She looked sad, which meant she was angry-more angry than if she had merely looked annoyed.
Soon she would be sad too.
'Marcus, when people are so eager to tell me that you seduced your brother's girlfriend, I would like to assure them I have already heard the full story from you.'
'Thank you,' I said, pretending to assume it was a compliment. The full story posed some problems. Only Festus knew that. 'To start with, Helena, if I did seduce my brother's girlfriend, Marina did not object to it-and as for Festus, it was probably his plan.'
'Maybe she seduced you?' suggested Helena, almost hopefully.
I smiled. 'No, that's your privilege.'
Then I told her about that long and dreadful night in Rome.
My brother Festus was thirty-five years old when he died. Frankly, we had not been prepared to lose him to a hero's death. An accident during a prank seemed more his style.
Being older, he had always seemed to me to belong to another generation, though by that time the gap between us was closing. People used to say how alike we looked. That was only because we had the same rampant curls and silly grins. He was shorter and more thickset. More athletic and with a sweeter temperament. More gifted in business, luckier with women, smarter, sharper, more easily accepted as a treasure by the family. It was always pretty clear to me that both my parents and most of my sisters made Festus their favourite. (However, I had my share of being spoiled; my childhood place was as the family baby since Maia, who really owned that position, would not stand for the fuss.)
Like a good Roman citizen who saw his chance to eat, drink and fart at the Empire's expense while using its unrivalled facilities for world travel, Festus enlisted in the legions as soon as he looked old enough.
'So he must have been in touch with your father,' Helena commented. 'He would need the signed release from his family.'
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