Pandora's Boy: Flavia Albia 6 (Falco: The New Generation)

by Lindsey Davis

  Scorpus was typical: a lewd, crude, shrewd type, whom I assessed as just about acceptable at his job. This was as good as you get in an organisation of ex-slaves who carried out dangerous work for little thanks. The vigiles were tough. Their officers could be either cynical or corrupt. Many were both. If they had been delicate, they would have chosen to be florists.

  Scorpus was a short, wide man with shaved hair, who clearly had a past behind him: he walked with a limp that could have been acquired either during a tricky arrest or from an accident while firefighting. Or in a bar fight. Or from a furious girlfriend. With the vigiles, unless they boasted of their exploits, you never knew. This one did not bother trying to impress, since he intended to get rid of me.

  He remembered the family: ‘The Volumnii. Apricot Street.’ I noticed he gave no verdict on them. The man did not gossip. His Quirinal patch included the gracious homes of Imperial family members – or at least any relatives Domitian had allowed to remain alive – not to mention retired consuls and serving senators. I guessed Scorpus left them alone as much as possible; if he was ever called in, he would be polite though probably not deferential. With the Volumnii, if he had mentally dismissed them as poncy time-wasters, they would never have noticed what he thought. He knew how to bluff. I didn’t need a description of them from him; I would decide for myself. I reckon he could see that. I tend to come across as self-assured when I’m working.

  In twenty words Scorpus rapped out a story that more or less matched what I had been told by Laia. I name-dropped Falco, which softened him, though gained me no additional details. He was a plain reporter. I thought of mentioning my uncle, Petronius Longus, who had done the same job as Scorpus for many years in the Fourth Cohort, but I suspected the First thought the Fourth were layabout headcases, just as the Fourth called the First bribe-taking slimeballs, so there would be no advantage. It was better simply to let Scorpus see I was familiar with how the vigiles worked and that I understood their problems. To be fair, although he had no time for informers (the traditional attitude), he was treating me as a professional.

  He went so far as to say I could see the cohort clerk. If the clerk could find the record pertaining to the Volumnius incident, I could neither handle it nor take it away, but the scroll could be read out to me. Scorpus marched me to the clerk’s cubbyhole, where he left me to make my own overtures. He himself strode off to what he described as more important business.

  The clerk was a nasty, pasty, far from hasty slave who presumably hadn’t got a copper for the laundry so he could not fetch his clean tunic. Judging by the state of the one he was in, collection was weeks overdue. He was either trying to grow a beard to hide his pimples or his barber had a blunt razor that spread infection. Nevertheless, like many clerks, he was so surprised at somebody taking an interest, he roused himself to look for a note-tablet (nothing so grand as a scroll, then) where Scorpus had written up his visit to the Volumnii. The scrawled notes were so hard to decipher, the clerk laid the tablet on his tiny table to pore over it; although I was not supposed to look, I read them upside down.

  Father: Aulus Volumnius Firmus, bonus vir. aggro. No previous with I Vig.

  Mother: Sentia, [unreadable squiggle] Aggro plus.

  Grandmothers: [presumably crossed out because Scorpus stopped bothering, the clerk looked up and told me, knowing his officer’s habits]

  Deceased: Clodia Volumnia, XV, unmarried, no lovers — alleged. Corpse: in bed, nightwear, no marks, no odd colouring. No vomit/diarrhoea. No empty liq bottle/pills. Used water glass – no scent: colourless/tasteless drops. Agreed body could bury. [I mentally edited this to ‘could be buried’ though what it meant was clear enough]

  Doc: Menenius, XII yrs in practice, nothing known contra. Confirmed: no foul play. No preg evident. Assumed virg. No ill-health history.

  Undertaker: not contacted

  Allegations: v Pandora. Denial at interview. [double squiggle] As per p.

  Boyfriend: Cestinus, had been dumped. Denial involvement. Evasive — normal. Not known to I Vig.

  S/O No further.

  ‘“Tasteless drops”? Did Scorpus drink the water in the glass?’ I was amazed. ‘With accusations of poison being bandied about?’

  ‘He is very thorough,’ the clerk said, defending this lunacy.

  ‘And he categorises people morally? Why say the dead girl’s father is a bonus vir, a good man?’ The clerk looked vague. All clerks are taught how to do this on their first day at work. He was a natural, though not as a good as Dromo. ‘All right, what do those odd squiggles mean?’

  ‘One squiggle is shorthand for “ghastly cow”, to warn anyone else who might go along to question the suspect.’

  ‘Don’t you mean witness?’ I corrected him mildly. ‘If the mama is suspected, I would expect to see more written here … And two squiggles are?’ The clerk looked shifty again. He claimed he could not say. I put up the standard rejoinder: did that mean he had no idea, or he was not allowed to reveal the secret? He gave me a shrug; I assumed the latter. I deduced that the ‘Pandora’ against whom allegations had been laid might well be known to the vigiles, especially as Scorpus had not said that she wasn’t. ‘And “as per p” means what?’

  ‘Behaved as per previous enquiries.’

  ‘Other enquiries? She is known to you?’ Another shrug. ‘And your officer is suggesting she was difficult?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘Or even impossible?’

  ‘Dead cert.’

  ‘Right! What is “S/O”?’

  ‘Signed off. “Keeping the situation under review”, we say to them.’

  ‘Well, you have to soothe the punters … But no further action is intended?’ I managed not to snort.

  ‘Zero. You have worked with the vigiles before!’ The clerk applauded.

  He gave me directions to where the Volumnii lived, which he had to find from Scorpus’ call-out diary. He pointed out the street on the district wall-map, a curly-edged skin that was so old it was barely legible. Off his own bat, he also offered an address for Pandora. He knew that without any looking-up. That told me the ‘previous enquiries’ must be regular harassment. Pandora was seen as a social problem.

  Keeping my eyes down as I added details to my own note-tablet, I asked in a conversational tone, ‘So which of your watch lists is Pandora on?’

  The clerk must have been better trained than some: he refused to tell.

  5

  The ‘important business’ that the investigator Scorpus had claimed, was being conducted at the snack bar next door. All the vigiles have an eatery close to their station-house, because snack bar owners are not daft.

  I walked up and ordered a flatbread. It came stuffed with chickpea paste and a man-sized gherkin. The server and Scorpus slyly watched for my reaction, but I happen to like pickles. I reached for a knife and cut it firmly into thin slices, eating the first one thoughtfully. Scorpus winced.

  ‘Your man was very helpful – within the usual well-defined limits. Thank you, Scorpus. Most was what I had been led to expect, though I spotted that your notes did not discuss the slave who was wounded in a family argument?’

  ‘Subsequent to my visit, I believe.’ That made sense; I could imagine tempers flaring in the family afterwards, precisely because the vigiles had failed to produce answers. The father who had called in the First would have had to field insults from his more sceptical relatives. Everyone must have been racked with suspicion, as well as heartbroken.

  ‘And you blanked the witchcraft allegations. I won’t try asking about that.’

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Scorpus, easily. ‘Don’t ask me.’ Now I had turned up, he was already gathering himself to leave. Informers have that effect.

  ‘I was told about a love-potion. Pandora sells under-the-counter concoctions?’

  He paused, then condescended to elaborate after all. To me this confirmed that the vigiles had had tricky run-ins with the woman; he would give her up to me because they loa
thed her. Scorpus declared in a dry voice: ‘“Pandora” – otherwise Rubria Theodosia – supplies top-grade herbal beauty products to women of a certain age who are desirous of defeating the ravages of time. That, she maintains, is her sole activity.’

  I smiled. I liked his dry attitude. ‘If challenged she can supply receipts to prove it? If you search her premises, all you find are oodles of glossy beeswax and extremely small alabaster pots? But you say it’s cobnuts …’

  ‘She makes her stuff in a warehouse. Neighbours are always complaining about too many delivery carts.’

  ‘Why don’t you order the storehouse owner to terminate her lease?’

  ‘He won’t do it. He’s some ponce from the Aventine who doesn’t want to lose revenue.’

  ‘Not Tullius Icilius?’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  Not Uncle Tullius. ‘Just a thought. Never mind.’

  I chewed my flatbread, in a morose mood. Scorpus was paying the barkeeper; he collected a paper of raisins to take back to his clerk, which showed they had a kindly relationship.

  ‘I bet those high-end crow’s feet remedies come expensive!’ I scoffed, stopping his departure. ‘Defying age is bloody hard. If the potions work, Pandora must certainly be assisting the process with spells.’

  ‘I am a man,’ answered Scorpus, playing the innocent. ‘I know nothing of face creams.’

  We shared a bleak stare as he left. He did not bother to wish me luck, but I was starting to think I might need it on this case.

  The gherkin was gently repeating on me as I walked to Apricot Street. I was probably tense. As I faced the unknown hazards of a new case, the mood of depression that had passed between me and Scorpus lingered. I was contemplating the well-known impossibility of proving poison – especially where it had originated with someone who was skilled at handling herbal ingredients. Scorpus, verging on sympathetic, had known all too well the kind of task that lay ahead of me. If misadventure had been easy to identify, he would have done it himself.

  The street I needed lay within a purpose-built grid of speculative dwellings. All the roads were named after fruits; some past developer had a fanciful attitude. Most minor streets in Rome have no names at all, but close by was Pomegranate Street, where our beloved Emperor was said to have been born in a back bedroom of his uncle’s house during a period of financial strain for his father, Vespasian. Domitian had now raised the status of his own birthplace by implanting upon it the Temple of the Flavian Gens. Upgrading poor old Pomegranate Street gave him a marble tomb in which to deposit the ashes of his relatives, especially those he had executed, which by now was most of them. It being some distance from the Palatine, he never had to come and lay flowers.

  As ambitious senators, old Vespasian and his brother would have lived well, or at least made it appear they did. They would have aspired to the detached high-status houses here, though in this area there were also tiny rented rooms where poets and other low-downs climbed to pigeon-infested attics to write complaining satires. Pear Street. Plum Street. Damson Court and Almond Alley. Moderate property with accessible rents. Locally, they had temples to gods of health, friendly markets, hygienically kept fountains, interesting shops. There was good social activity. I could have lived here, were my connections to the Aventine less strong.

  The vigiles had directed me to Apricot Street. I never identified which of the clean fountains Laia Gratiana had instructed me to look out for. I doubted whether she had ever been here. She must know the mother only through the temple cult that Laia tried to dominate. Her brother had some business connection with the father, but it might not involve social mingling. The brother was getting married. So, would this family be on the guest list? Well, even if the Volumnii were that close to the Gratii, with their daughter dead they would probably decline a wedding invitation at the moment.

  From what I had already been told, I knew the sudden death of Clodia Volumnia had placed enormous strain on her relatives. I wondered if she was an only child.

  I had come to a large well-kept building. The Volumnii had a suite on the first floor, above an inner courtyard. It looked as if they rented rooms along two whole sides; trellises and screens marked off other people’s adjacent spaces. Everything suggested they had been here for some years. When I went up to their level, I found battered chairs and drinks tables outside, looking over the courtyard. Diligent slaves had put out their bedding to air on their part of the balcony rail; pots of flowers had been watered that morning; cypress trees stood either side of their entrance to show they had suffered a death in the family.

  Nice people, you might think, though Scorpus’ notes had said they were a trial. Being an informer, I know nice appearances can often be a sham.

  I climbed a wooden staircase in a corner, then knocked on the door: not red, but unpainted; I enjoyed myself sneering at Laia’s incompetence.

  Almost at once a slave answered. With so much going on, he had probably been instructed to stay on the alert. Not the one who had had his arm broken; this ageing man wore a clean tunic and a stone amulet on a thong. He was polite, with pure Roman Latin, signs that he had not been purchased but had been born in the family, for whom he had probably worked all his life. Rather than attempting to pick his brains, I simply asked to see the head of household, saying I was sent by a family friend.

  Sometimes it is a fight to get indoors, but I was taken in and left to wait in a small reception room. I sat on a couch with my feet neatly together, taking in my surroundings. The apartment was comfortably furnished, with nicely chosen vases and wall art. Money had been spent – not extravagantly, not to show off, but with quiet good taste. I felt the things on display were things the people here liked themselves. If this showed the wife’s influence, it was so much sadder that she had now lost her child, quarrelled with her man and left the home.

  The room doors flew open and in bounced someone I presumed to be Volumnius Firmus. He was short, ordinary-looking, certainly not handsome. Though he was wearing a decent white tunic, it looked as if the slave had hastily put him into shoes: one strap was askew. His expression was strained. He looked very unhappy.

  I stood up and introduced myself. ‘My name is Flavia Albia, wife to the aedile Manlius Faustus. First, please accept our condolences on the loss of your daughter. I am here at the instigation of Laia Gratiana, whose brother I believe you know. I often help families in trouble; she suggested I might be able to offer you professional assistance.’

  ‘She mentioned you.’ That smoothed my path somewhat, though he sounded suspicious. ‘The informer – are you working for my wife?’

  ‘I am working for no one at present. I just came to see if help was wanted.’

  ‘You met my wife?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Not so far.

  He made a show of looking around. ‘No maid? No chaperone?’

  I remained calm. ‘We have an acquaintance in common, which was enough for me. And you may be assured Laia Gratiana would only send you somebody respectable. She is a stickler for propriety and, besides that, a leading member of the women’s cult of Ceres.’ I bet Laia never said my husband was once hers; it was nothing to brag about that Faustus cheated on her. ‘I feel any discussion between us should be confidential.’

  Volumnius relaxed a little. He sat. He took a chair with arms. Though not invited, I resumed my previous couch. I meant him to know that I saw us as equals. I would not stand in his presence like a menial.

  He was considering me and my offer.

  I had dressed carefully for this: good pale gown and toning stole, soft shoes rather than sparkly sandals, a plain gold necklace and small earrings instead of dangly gemstones. My tunic was good and long, with wrist-length sleeves. I had summoned up a genteel manner too: assured but not pushy, restrained yet competent. Approaching any new case, this is the critical moment. I had learned the need to overcome client prejudice. Later, I would be able to lash out and be myself. Braids and bangles could come afterwards.

  To help
him decide, I summed up formally: ‘Your daughter died unexpectedly. You want to know why, but the authorities have failed you. I have experience in investigation. You will find me sympathetic and discreet. I can provide references. In a family situation, hiring a female can be useful.’ I deliberately stressed that it was a commercial offer. Actual costs could be settled once he said yes. Then I would make sure it was money up front. ‘So, what am I able to do for you? Well, I would speak to people who knew your daughter, re-examine what happened to her, cast fresh eyes upon the tragedy. My strength is assessing evidence.’

  That was it. I stopped, folded my hands, waited.

  ‘You will give me answers?’

  ‘Volumnius Firmus, I make no promises. Distrust any informer who does. You must be prepared for disappointment, just in case. Sometimes the truth cannot be discovered. When I finish, at least you will know that everything has been tried that could be – and if answers do exist, I will produce them. My success rate has been good, I say that proudly.’

  ‘Fine.’ He was very abrupt. ‘Do you have a schedule of charges?’

  ‘I ask for a daily fee, plus incidental expenses.’ It helps to be ready with this information; I stated my price, saying he would have sole claim on my time, while I would aim to finish as quickly as possible. I suggested a review of my findings after a week.

  Volumnius accepted everything, equally promptly. This was the kind of client I liked. I took him on, while letting him think it was his decision.

  6

  Volumnius clapped his hands so a slave appeared, a tall, thin, fairly mature young man, dressed in a similar style to the door porter. This one, called Dorotheus, had his left arm in a sling. I said nothing. I would ask him about the incident later, without his master listening in. He was sent off with a key to fetch my advance payment.