Falco: The Official Companion (A Marcus Didius Falco Mystery)

by Lindsey Davis

  However, I would overturn stereotypes merrily. The big one is what happens to Sosia Camillina: I rarely know the victim; I don’t meet the victim until after the crime. That order of events is what I recommend. [SP] Theft from the Treasury and a plot to dethrone an emperor wouldn’t make a ‘crime’ novel. I had to produce a murder. I took a startling decision: I killed off the ingénue. Apart from letting me escape the dilemma of whether the hot-blooded Falco would seduce the willing Sosia, this made a valid point. In traditional plots, the victim is a naked blonde. Her role is merely to kick-start the action. We learn little about such women and certainly don’t feel affection for them. But Falco has fallen for the girl, and readers are invited to feel her bright attraction too. Killing her is a thump in the guts.

  It was the first time I had devised a murder (those in The Course of Honour came ready-made). I gave the death a direct source in history: At the beginning of his reign Domitian would spend hours alone every day doing nothing but catch flies and stabbing them with a needle-sharp pen [SUETONIUS].

  Losing Sosia would set the melancholy tone for Falco’s experiences in Roman Britain – which I introduced to reassure publishers. Britain was ours. (At that time, I had no thought of Falco being read elsewhere.) Britain was also a gloomy, uncivilised place to write about – always a pleasure to do. So I established a tradition: Falco travels; has a horrible time so complains morosely; he despises the places and their people; he is homesick for Rome.

  Archaeologically, I made Roman Britain as accurate as possible, yet ran into problems that were to dog me. For Roman London, for instance, I learned the probable site of the Governor’s Palace, with hints of layout, but centuries of rebuilding meant there wasn’t enough detail – and I felt scared of inventing. I took Falco to Bath, such a famous and well-preserved archaeological site now – only to read that in AD70 this was just a small Celtic shrine. At least that lined up poor Falco as the man who gets the future hilariously wrong: Rome had replaced some basic native equipment with a proper lead-lined reservoir, yet I could not believe that anything could ever be made of the place. Oh there were plans, but there were always plans. We sat in the reservoir, which was full of sand thrown up by the spring, drank flat tepid water laden with foul-tasting minerals [ever been to the Pump Room, people?] and watched red-nosed building surveyors clambering about the cliffs, trying to convince themselves there was scope for a vibrant leisure spa. [SP]

  I can never use real murder victims. If human remains from Roman times are excavated, clearly hidden under floorboards or knifed and thrown into ditches (as has happened), then Falco may not discover and remove them; they must stay for the archaeologists. But the fabled silver pigs were one wonderful exception. Four Roman ingots, apparently from the right period, had been found in the Mendips. I think I saw one at Dorchester Museum. They had been hidden under a cairn and abandoned; their strange stamps implied dodgy deals. These were perfect. My plot speculates on their criminal history, then Falco hides them for safety; he is in too poor condition to go back to fetch them.

  A Vespasianic ingot

  By the end of this book, I had established the Falco genre: a mix of ‘gumshoe’ pavement-pounding and overseas adventure, glances at ‘police procedure’, occasional set pieces from history, archaeologically authentic Roman life, nods to more modern concepts, the love between Falco and Helena, the importance of family, and the tussle between a pragmatic establishment and one man’s dogged morality. I had also established that all of this could be – should be – funny.

  My agent managed to sell the book; Oliver, my farsighted editor, took a second one as well. The Falco books were a series. My life would never be the same again. What a lucky girl I was.

  Shadows in Bronze

  First published 1990

  I started this book before The Silver Pigs found a publisher. That may explain the rambly synopsis. (At least now I did complete a synopsis!) No other book in the series would be so closely linked with what had gone before. Afterwards I deliberately tried to write each book so it could be picked up by a new reader and read in its own right; I just hoped people would be so intrigued they would go back to the beginning. Some do; others happily read the series in a haphazard order.

  Mystery novels leave unfinished business: usually it’s the murderer, who is so often killed off to save the bother of writing a trial. I am more tidy. So I provided a horrific introductory scene where, ten days after the chief plotter has been left dead in a hot warehouse, his maggot-ridden remains must be secretly cleared up. Needless to say, this ghastly job falls to Falco. I have always been proud of the nauseous description, much of which is achieved by colourful metaphor and your nervous imagination, rather than explicit detail. A pathologist’s memoirs helped.

  After Publius drops down the drain, what of the other plotters, by now all fugitives? Faustus Ferentinus went abroad to stay with his auntie in Lycia; will he ever reappear to be dealt with? If he does, will Falco or any of the rest of us even remember who he is? Such a lovely name, with those onomatopoeical Fs … That left two brothers and an ambitious senator, all of whom Vespasian wants to salvage if possible, plus a mystery man I couldn’t bear to abandon. Falco has to track them down.

  At the heart of the book is the Bay of Naples with its glorious archaeological sites. We visit the best known: Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis. (I visited them – oh bliss!) As Falco strolls around, hindsight tells us that Mount Vesuvius is just waiting to explode. He calls Pompeii a place that intended to last, perhaps with ironical hindsight himself. Some of my favourite scenes take place in Herculaneum, which has always been to me the Solihull of Roman Naples, though you may need to be a Midlander to understand that. It is where the much-loved episode occurs when Nero the ox tries to rape a donkey, so Falco and his endearing nephew Larius are arrested for blasphemy.

  Pompeii street, with stepping stones and Vesuvius

  Although there are ‘proper’ murders, starting with a death by arson at the (invented) Little Temple of Hercules Gaditanus, this story is primarily told through the developing love between Falco and Helena. I knew not to resolve that too soon (it would take several more novels, and perhaps neither character will ever feel entirely secure). Here, each misunderstands the other’s intentions, they both wrongly decide that social class is a barrier, they fail to talk openly about their feelings and there is a serious breakdown of communication over Helena’s pregnancy. NB: I was determined that actions should have consequences. Unprotected sex will bring babies. Contraception is so rarely used by heroes in fiction, yet those ‘girl in every book’ action men are never pulled up by paternity suits. My boy was to be different.

  On the other hand, it was too early for Falco and Helena to be parents.

  Subplots explore other kinds of human love: the hormonal teenaged Larius; the tetchy, realistic, yet romantic marriage of Petronius Longus and Arria Silvia; the homosexual leanings of Aemilius Rufus Clemens, which come as such as a surprise to Falco; the piteously lovelorn Aemilia Fausta, who – after empowerment through Falco’s cithara lessons? – sorts herself out rather briskly; even the ambitious barmaid Tullia, who will bury the man who betrayed her, in gratitude for independence and funds.

  A confused donkey got over-friendly with a spectator at an agricultural show. The jack donkey rushed towards a large man displaying a ‘builder’s crack’ from his trousers as he leant over railings. Towing his woman owner behind him, the donkey mounted the terrified man at the Great Yorkshire Show. A witness said: ‘The man was pinned by the donkey’s forelegs and it started to bite his neck. His mates were in heaps of laughter.’ The donkey’s owner lashed out with a long cart whip, crying ‘Git orf, Piglet!’ Earlier the victim called a judge, who asked him to move off the railings, ‘A toffee-nosed twit in a bowler hat’.

  METRO

  We explore Helena Justina’s previous marriage. Two characters who will become significant appear for the first time: Geminus and Anacrites. The golden magistrate, Aemilius Rufus, is
my first exercise in the overpromoted high-flyer. Owing everything to money and rank, his presumed talent is a sham, his judgement hasty, and power makes him dangerous.

  Triremes on the Bay of Naples

  A big theme is political. Falco advises the plotters to make their peace with Vespasian, on practical grounds: It’s clear the Flavian circus is here to stay. Gordianus is convinced, and so saved, by Falco. Among those who resist, Atius Pertinax has no moral core but is a jumped-up young man with a grossly inflated idea of his worth, supported by a deluded patron; we know that his shallow treatment of Helena foreshadows how badly he would act in a public position.

  Aufidius Crispus is most telling. Falco sees his quality; I myself half admire him. He has genuine leadership qualities; he is clever, tough, resourceful, persuasive, even likeable. He says: After Nero died, we saw Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian – and the only thing which made any of them better than anybody else – for instance better than me! – was that they had the simple luck at the time to be holding public positions which provided armed support. It is cynical, but irrefutable. Falco responds – to us – The man had talent. He had shown over the problem of Fausta that he had some compassion, which is rare. He also had good sense, a cheerful humour, the ability to organise, and an approachable style. Vespasian’s family had years of public service behind them, yet they continued to seem small-minded and provincial in a way this urbane, likeable character never would. I did like him. Mainly because at bottom he refused to take himself seriously. [SB] Crispus refuses to reach an accommodation with the Flavians. Historically, of course, he has to.

  The problem Aufidius Crispus poses still seems to me one of the most interesting I’ve covered. It gives real poignancy to this story of misplaced ambition and failed effort. Meanwhile Falco will go forward into other books, accepting his own uneasy alliance with Vespasian – not swayed by uncritical devotion to the man, but believing this is as good as Rome can hope to get.

  Venus in Copper

  First published 1991

  I had to survive a period of anxiety: my editor, Oliver, lost his job at Sidgwick & Jackson in a reorganisation. The replacement editor fouled up, so I was free to follow Oliver. Random House UK offered me a super three-book contract. My agent still has the letter she wrote to my bank manager to explain why a person on the breadline was about to become rich enough to buy a new house.

  It had its own study. I was a real author.

  Second study (airing cupboard not shown)

  With Venus in Copper I portrayed Falco as a freelance investigator. He is formally engaged by private clients – who later, in the traditional manner, dismiss him; he, in the traditional manner, then continues with the case independently. We see him in his own city, among the rich and the poor. We watch him on surveillance, interviewing witnesses, investigating obvious murders both past and present, then to the best of his ability solving them.

  I tried hard to have the three occupations and murders of Severina’s husbands specifically Roman in character: the bead-seller who dies of sunstroke in the arena, the apothecary whose death is caused by the kind of Roman medicinal pastilles that archaeologists really find, and the wild-animal trainer who is eaten by a panther. Central to the story is property fraud; the scene where a developer buys a burning house cheaply reflects the practices of the Roman millionaire, Crassus. Although Severina is never tried, she will marry the legal clerk who knows her crimes and who can prevent her killing again because of evidence he has planted in a particularly Roman place: on a will deposited with the Vestal Virgins.

  Moreover, observing how extremely subject the city was to fire and falling down of houses, by reason of their height and their standing so near together, he bought slaves that were builders and architects, and when he had collected these to the number of more than five hundred, he made it his practice to buy houses that were on fire, and those in the neighbourhood, which, in the immediate danger and uncertainty the proprietors were willing to part with for little or nothing, so that the greatest part of Rome, at one time or other, came into his hands.

  PLUTARCH, trans. DRYDEN

  In this story Falco meets Thalia the exotic dancer and Jason the python. Both were such good value and so popular they would reappear in later books. It wasn’t planned. I just enjoyed them.

  During the investigation Falco and Helena are settling their private lives. Like me, Falco obtains better accommodation (apparently). In a key scene Helena Justina then chooses to come to live with him – arriving just as he is cooking the enormous turbot, his gift from Titus. Turbots frequently appear in Latin literature as the ultimate luxury. In Juvenal one is presented to Domitian, with a long satirical description of attempts to cook the thing – ‘oven-bake by committee’. For research, I too cooked a turbot. This was one of my most intriguing research efforts. Selfridges provided a whole fish – they called it a baby, though it seemed big enough and unexpectedly deep and sturdy, so its snout and tail had to be bent up in the pan. Many details in the iconic scene are based on our experiences (though my mother did not come to grab the skeleton for stock). But Petronius having his arms burned by the shield represents Oliver my editor who was holding the fish on a fast-conducting stainless-steel tray.

  We live in a city shored up, for the most part, with gimcrack

  Stays and props; that’s how our landlords arrest

  The collapse of their property, papering over great cracks

  In the ramshackle fabric, reassuring the tenants

  They can sleep secure, when all the time the building

  Is poised like a house of cards. I prefer to live where

  Fires and midnight alarms are not quite such common events.

  HORACE

  Another key scene is the collapse of the apartment building. We know such disasters happened – often some deliberate ploy by landlords so they could redevelop and charge higher rents. My description owes a lot to TV films of the demolition expert Fred Dibnah neatly bringing down redundant industrial chimneys. The property plot involves themes dear to my heart: hatred of landlords, shoddy builders – and it can be no coincidence that an estate agent is killed by a mob, in a book I wrote while selling my flat …

  Parrot in the House of the Birds, Alexandria

  But let’s be clear: I have never owned a parrot.

  The Iron Hand of Mars

  First published 1992

  Other novelists take Latin writing and Roman history as their starting point, but I generally use archaeology more. However, in this book I used historical events, relying heavily on Tacitus and Josephus. The plot this time is a ‘quest’ adventure. Falco must solve the two real mysteries of what happened to the colourful German rebel leaders, Civilis and Veleda. I came across a third question, too: what was the fate of Munius Lupercus, commander of the fort at Vetera, who was sent as a ‘gift’ to Veleda?

  It was to be a novel with a heavy military background. I feared this might trouble readers, though it turned out to be among the most popular books in the series. The plot concerns recent chaos and restoring normality. Rebels have to be contained; rogue legions are tamed; fractured industry is restored. Ethics are reestablished too, we hope. Love and loyalty also have their moments.

  Unravelling the complex events of the Year of the Four Emperors was a challenge. I particularly dealt with that most stroppy of legions, the Fourteenth Gemina Martia Victrix; they had been part of the Claudian invasion force, helped establish Roman Britain in the early days, and were one of the legions – unlike Falco’s – that defeated Queen Boudicca. So I felt affection for them, enlivened by what I knew of their later ups and downs from Graham Webster’s magisterial The Roman Imperial Army.

  Writing about Germany brings to mind the Varus disaster of AD9. A newspaper article alerted me to the now well-known story of Captain Tony Clunn, a British officer fascinated by the ‘lost’ battle site, which he discovered near Kalkriese. I decided that Roman soldiers would be equally fascinated by their fellows’ fate �
�� from which sprang some haunting scenes. Writing my book predated the new museum at Kalkriese, but we visited Mainz, which has a fine Roman collection in the Landesmuseum – not many surviving remains, but we obviously found a Jupiter Column because here’s our photo.

  Nobody knows how the historical mysteries ended, or they wouldn’t be mysteries … Veleda’s ultimate fate, though sometimes referred to as conjectural, is probably known. I hint that her tribe, the Bructeri, eventually turned against her (perhaps because she was unsuccessful; isn’t that always the way?). The Bructeri were wiped out later by rivals. I would be able to cover Veleda’s personal history in Saturnalia – though at this stage it was not planned.

  Mainz, Jupiter Column

  Her ‘gift’, Munius Lupercus, had been in command of the huge double fort at Vetera, which fell to the rebels in terrible circumstances. Lupercus was dispatched to Veleda, but executed before he reached her. I guessed at the kind of tribal tensions involved and suggested the manner of his death. This alludes to the ‘bog bodies’ found in various parts of Europe. The most famous in Britain, the wonderfully nicknamed ‘Pete Marsh’ (Lindow Man), had been unearthed in 1984. Now in the British Museum, Pete is one of the most poignant archaeological relics. Scientific tests suggest this young man of twenty-five, who lived in Falco’s period between AD20–90, suffered a very violent ritualistic death, perhaps a victim of human sacrifice: he was probably struck twice on the head with a heavy object like an axe and kneed in the back so hard it broke a rib; a narrow cord around his neck may have been used to strangle him and break his neck; though probably dead, his throat was cut, and he was placed face down in a pool. Other bog bodies have shown evidence of being pinned down under hurdles. Ötzi the Ice Man, that other iconic ancient body, was found in September 1991, which must have been just when I was finishing this novel.