Ode to a Banker mdf-12

by Lindsey Davis

  I turned. I stopped. We all did. The person who had grabbed me with the iron grip was a woman.

  'Flying phalluses, Falco! What's this brawl about?'

  'Perella!' I exclaimed in shock.

  She was a dancer. I mean a good one, not some twirling girl in a two-piece costume with eyes for all the men. Aged somewhere short of fifty but a long way after girlhood, Perella looked like a housewife with a headache on a bad day of the month. She was the deadliest intelligence agent I had ever met.

  'Fancy running into you again.'

  'No – I ran at you, Falco,' she said, letting go of me with a contemptuous flick of her wrist.

  'Stay still, Pa,' I warned him grittily. 'The last person I saw upsetting Perella ended up terminally out of it. She's a rather clever lady; we worked together on a job in Baetica.'

  'You stole that job from me,' Perella commented.

  I grinned. Perhaps uncertainly. 'This is my father,' I introduced him, not mentioning her main occupation since Pa probably thought he was a demon at seducing dancers. 'He's a lamb normally. He just happened to hear that Anacrites has been making love to my old mother and he lost his rag.' Anacrites, who had gone red when Pa hit him, now went white again. I grabbed Pa by the scruff of his tunic. 'Come on. That's enough of us playing the fighting Didius boys. I'm taking you home.'

  'Sounds as if the Didius boys – and probably your mother – had bestleave town,' murmured Perella. She was implying how stupid it was to offend the Chief Spy.

  'I don't think that will be necessary.' For the first time, I looked directly at Anacrites. I spoke quietly. 'You owe me one for Lepcis Magna, isn't that right?'

  Perella was looking intrigued. She could obviously tell I had made a serious threat. I had done it in front of other people on purpose.

  Anacrites breathed carefully. At Lepcis, he had fought as a gladiator in the arena. That meant legal infamy. If it were known, he would lose his position, and be stripped of his newly-acquired middle rank. His free citizenship would be meaningless. He would become a nonperson. 'Of course, Falco.' He was standing so straight he was almost on parade at attention.

  I smiled at him. It was not returned.

  'So now we are on even terms again,' he pleaded.

  'If you like.' Not so even as he implied. This fight with Pa would lose its importance very quickly; Anacrites would remain vulnerable to exposure for the rest of his life. No need to insist too strongly. He knew I had him. 'Take a hint, Anacrites old son – it's time to move on. My mother has loved having a lodger, but she is no longer young; she is finding it a bit much nowadays.'

  'I was intending to move out,' he said, in a taut voice.

  'And one other small point – she is anxious about her savings now the bank has failed.'

  'I shall do what I can, Falco.' Then he asked wistfully, 'What about Maia Favonia?'

  I had done enough. Never strip a man so brutally that he is left with nothing to lose. Maia would have to be the sacrifice. 'My dear fellow! That is between you and her, of course.'

  He did not thank me.

  'What does he mean?' demanded Pa.

  'Mind your own business.' I skipped telling him that Anacrites wanted to jump generations; it would only set him off again. Or even if Pa stayed cool, if I thought too much about Anacrites making himself a 'friend' to my sister, it might be me letting fly at him.

  I marched my father out of the Palace and dragged him into a closed carrying chair, away from prying eyes. I stayed with him all the way to the Saepta Julia, neither of us saying much. At the warehouse, we found Maia writing figures neatly in the auction daybook. Sheappeared busy, competent, and content. At our entrance together, she looked up in surprise.

  'What have you two been up to?'

  'Our esteemed father just socked Anacrites.'

  'You pair of fools! What for, Pa?'

  'Oh… he gave your mother some terrible financial advice.' Instinctively, both Pa and I decided not to mention to my sister the real subject of the disagreement.

  Maia sidetracked herself, in fact: she had heard about Junia's idea that Pa and I should swap houses. While she had us together, she decided to extol the virtues of him opting for semi-retirement and moving to the janiculan (nearer the Saepta Julia than his Aventine place, and perhaps further from the temptation to run wild and hit officials) and of me taking Pa's tall, spacious house on the riverbank (close to clients, with plenty of room for a family) Subdued, we both listened to her reasonable words. Eventually Maia found it too disconcerting.

  'Oh, I can't stand any more of this! What's the matter with you two? Why are neither of you arguing?'

  I had played the peacemaker quite enough today. I left Pa to calm her down.

  XLVIII

  I went home. Helena had returned and was talking to Petronius in our third room. She had her nose deep in a chest where my tunics were stored, lifting them out by the shoulders and subjecting each much-loved antique to a mocking survey.

  'I am just checking your wardrobe. You and Lucius need to visit a tailor for new togas, so you may as well acquire some wearable tunics at the same time.' She looked up, suddenly uncomfortable, as if she had pried into my bachelor storage without my permission. 'Do you mind?'

  'That's all right, love.' Seeing a washed-out wine-coloured tunic that I had forgotten I owned, I grabbed the garment and started changing into it. 'I don't keep anything in there that I don't want you to find.'

  Helena went back to her inspection. After a quiet pause she asked me in an amused tone, 'So, Marcus, where do you hide things you are keeping secret?'

  We all laughed, while I tried not to blush.

  In my bankbox was the answer – or for tricky items that passed through the home temporarily, stuffed quickly inside the slipcase of a cushion on my reading couch.

  To change the subject, I told Helena and Petro what had happened earlier. 'Frankly I feel more shattered after coping with my parents than I was last night after we tackled that giant.'

  Helena Justina was by then safely out in the main living room, where she had settled to her own devices and started reading a scroll. It must now be the one she had swapped with Passus that morning, when she left Maia here. She was seated in a basket chair like the one Festus had given Ma, with her feet up on a tall stool and the scroll across her knees. She had the intent air l recognised; I could hold an entire conversation with her, but afterwards she would be quite unaware of what had been said. Her mind was locked in the newGreek novel, gallivanting about a strange landscape with Gondomon, King of Traximene, as Passus had been yesterday in the Greek library. Until she finished, she was lost to me. If I had been a jealous type like Pa, I would have been searching for that bastard Gondomon, to take a pot at him.

  'Forget your darling family' said Petro. He still sounded hoarse, though he had been given lunch and looked a little livelier than this morning. 'How about concentrating on the job I gave you? I'm anxious to see the Chrysippus case wrapped up, Falco.'

  'Don't tell me – Rubella is expected back?'

  'Smart boy.'

  'When?'

  'End of August.'

  'That calls for action then. I suppose you want to present your beloved superior with a success?'

  'Yes. I want this sorted – before he finds out how much of the slack in our budget I used up on your unconventional services,' agreed Petro, with force. 'Another reason,' he told me more mildly, 'is that I ordered Fusculus to put the bank's new owners under observation, now it's crashed. He reported back on signs that both Lucrio and Lysa are intending to pack themselves off in a hurry to Greece.'

  'Oh rats. Showdown time, then.'

  'Yes – results, please, Falco.'

  'I have a plan, of course.'

  Petro glared at me suspiciously. 'I thought you were stuck?'

  'Who me?'

  Until then my plan had been to eat an omelette and a bowl of wild strawberries, then snooze in bed all afternoon. Instead, I devoured the snack, lay awake on the
bed – and planned out what I had to do.

  'When in doubt, make a list,' snorted Petro from the doorway, craning his neck to peer at my notes.

  'Stop supervising; I have Helena for that. If I may say so, you seem well enough to return to your own apartment now.'

  'I'm enjoying it here… Anyway, my place is wrecked,' Petro groaned. Then he nagged me again: 'You come up with something, Falco – or else!'

  He was worried. That suited me. When I sorted out the case, he would be relieved and grateful.

  Once I was satisfied that I had covered everything, I jumped up, tucked my notes in a pouch on my belt, and strapped on my favouriteboots. 'Where are you going?' Petro niggled, fretting to come with me, though he was still too pasty.

  'Out!'

  'Oh, grow up, Falco.'

  He was always bored stiff as an invalid; I took pity on him. 'Listen, tribune, I am getting somewhere -'

  'Even though you don't know who killed Chrysippus, and you can't prove who strung up Avienus?'

  'Pedantic swine. We may never be able to finger the Ritusii for Avienus, you know that. Professional enforcers leave no tracks, and Lucrio is clever; he knows he only has to keep his mouth permanently shut in order to get away with hiring them. If it was him. It could have been Lysa.'

  'So what's happening?' Petronius frowned.

  'I need to ask one or two more questions of almost all the suspects and witnesses. To save me running around like a crazed ant in this summer heat, I shall pull them all in together for one big enquiry session.'

  'I want to be there, Falco.'

  'Hush, hush, my boy! You will be in on it; I want you to see me triumphantly unmasking the villain.'

  'And where are you going now?' he insisted.

  'To check one last alibi.'

  First, I placed one finger on Helena's scroll just when she was about to unravel the next column. She glared up at me, avid to continue reading. 'Don't, or I'll bite!'

  I lifted my finger away quickly. 'Good is it, this one?'

  'Yes, Passus was right. It's excellent. Quite different from the first awful thing I read for you.'

  'And it looks like the author's own manuscript?'

  Helena waved the papyrus impatiently, so I could see it was written in a difficult hand and littered with alterations. She was racing through it though. 'Yes, it's as blotty as a child learning the alphabet. And someone has stuck together all sorts of old documents to make a scroll to compose on – there are even a few luncheon receipts.'

  'Stuffed vine leaves?'

  'Chickpea mash. Are you going out, Marcus?'

  'Devotions at a temple.'

  Helena found time for a smile. 'Your geese on the Capitol, procurator?'

  'No, the Chrysippus case.' In the background, Petronius snorted. 'I'll be back in time to cook dinner for you and the malingerer. You enjoy yourself with the zippy prose adventure. If I do any shopping for the meal, should I include Marius?'

  'No. Maia took him home.'

  'She wants her brood where she can see them.'

  'Actually, she wants time to herself. But Junia has decided to do something nice for somebody. She is going to Ostia with Gaius Baebius.' Ostia was where Gaius worked as a supervisor of customs clerks. 'She offered to take all the children, so they can swim at the seaside.'

  'Junia, on a beach? With a swarm of little ones? And they will have to stay overnight!' Doubt struck me. 'Is Maia going too?'

  'I believe not,' said Helena disingenuously. I glanced at Petro and we both scowled. Helena kept her eyes fixed on the scroll. 'The whole point is to give Maia a little peace alone.'

  Alone? Or sharing a few delicious moments with her admirer Anacrites?

  X LIX

  The Temple of Minerva on the Aventine lay only a few minutes' walk away, though I cannot pretend it was one of my haunts.

  Now that I had started thinking about our local temples, I came to see the Aventine as an ancient holy place. Once it had lain outside the pomerium, the official city boundary that had been ploughed out by Romulus. That original exclusion had allowed the positioning here of shrines that possessed for our forefathers a remote, out-of-town mystique; in the quieter squares of the modern Aventine, they still maintained their historical air of privacy. Perhaps they always would. The Aventine has a special atmosphere. The views once enjoyed from here must have been stunning. We who lived here now could still see the river and the distant hills, or in open spaces feel close to the sky and the moon.

  Cacus, a god of fire who must have been a foul rapscallion, had lived in a cave at the base of the cliff; slain by Hercules, his haunt became the Cattle Market Forum. Above, we had Ceres, the great queen of agricultural growth and grain; Liberty the freed slaves' patroness in her turned-over felt cap; Bona Dea, the Good Goddess; and Luna, the moon goddess, whose temple had been one of the few buildings on the Aventine destroyed in Nero's Great Fire. Two local temples were at present working up to their annual festivals. One was Diana's majestic sanctuary in the plebeian part of the Hill, where the goddess was traditionally worshipped by working people and slaves. The other was the small shrine of Vertumnus, god of the seasons, change, and ripening plants, a fruit-wreathed garden deity of whom I had always been secretly fond.

  Most classically cool was Minerva. It seemed fully appropriate that the son of a family with a Greek background would attend this temple. I could not argue with that. Diomedes was thoroughly Romanised, yet I had seen how firinly he was influenced by his mother. If Lysa loved Athene, he might well offer prayers to the armoured owl-goddess himself. A good boy – well, one who was pushed about firmly by Mama.

  In the echoing sanctum, I forced a priest to speak to me. Gaining attention was so difficult I even tried citing my position as Procurator of the Sacred Geese of Juno. Hah! That got me nowhere. So I had to resort to simpler methods: threatening the shrine with a visit from the vigiles.

  One of their refined operatives then deigned to take questions. I still might as well not have bothered. His answers were useless. He seemed unable to recognise my careful description of my suspect, and had no recollection of him attending the Temple on the day Chrysippus died. The priest had heard of Aurelius Chrysippus and Lysa. They had been benefactors of the Temple in the past. So I knew there was a link with the family. It hardly amounted to an alibi for murder.

  Annoyed, I set off for Lysa's house to re-interview her son. I accepted that Diomedes had never been subjected to real interrogation before now. There could be advantages in letting him think he had escaped close scrutiny. (Not that I could think what those advantages might be.)

  Outside the house, I noticed the vigilis observer that Fusculus had placed there in case the principals did a flit. He was pretending to drink at a caupona, a peaceful type of surveillance; I nodded but did not speak to him.

  The place was barred and bolted as Lucrio's house had been after the bank crashed, but a porter let me in. Indoors, there were indeed signs of imminent departure. It was definitely time to act, or we would lose Lysa and the freedman. Packed bundles and chests were standing about. Since I was here before, some wall hangings and curtains had been taken down.

  For once, Diomedes was in. For once, he made no attempt to seek refuge behind his mother; she did not appear at all. He had grown a beard, shaped like his father's. I told him of my inconclusive meeting with the priest, and ordered him to come back with me to the Temple, to see if he could find somebody else there who might remember him 'If not, you may have to shave off this new face-disguise.'

  As we were leaving, somebody entered the house – Lucrio, interestingly in possession of his own latch-lifter. He looked a little harassed and tired. He was also put out at seeing me – though far too astute to complain.

  'Stay there.' I snapped at Diomedes. 'Lucrio, sending a thug to kill me was not a bright idea!' I would get him for that if I could.

  Lucrio was too clever, or too weary to pretend. He just kicked off his outdoor shoes and filled in time shoving his f
eet into house slippers.

  'I am sorry you had to liquidate,' I said. 'Let's get this straight though. My enquiries were never aimed against the bank maliciously – and I never suggested to people that there should be a run on deposits. Don't blame me for what has happened. I just want to identify who killed your old master.'

  Lucrio made no comment on the Bos incident, but said of the bank, 'The collapse was inevitable. From the moment Chrysippus was killed, we faced a loss of public confidence.' A ghost of a smile crossed his face. 'That should be one argument against me being your killer. I foresaw this. I would never have risked it.'

  'What happens now?' I asked.

  'A careful and calm unwinding of our affairs in Rome. Neutral agents, experienced in such work, will pay off what they can of our debts.'

  'Do something for me.' There was no question of letting him buy himself off, though if he thought he could, it might help Ma. 'Look kindly on the deposits of a little old lady called Junilla Tacita. She came to you on the recommendation of Anacrites, the spy. I expect he handled the deal.'

  'He didn't,' replied the freedman, somewhat testily. 'I remember Junilla Tacita. We negotiated face to face.'

  'I won't ask what arrangements you made for her. I don't expect you to break a client's confidence.'

  'Good!' He was being unhelpful. It was professionally correct, though I sensed annoyance. 'What's Junilla Tacita to you, Falco?'

  'My mother,' I said levelly. I wondered if Ma might have dealt with Lucrio in her inimitable style. The feeling was confirmed when I suddenly found myself exchanging wry grins with him. 'Have a look at her situation,' I instructed. 'You can tell me tomorrow – I want to finalise my enquiries. Come at noon, please, to the scriptorium. Tell Lysa, she is to be there as well.'