Flavia Albia Mystery 09 - A Comedy of Terrors

by Lindsey Davis

  “It is news to me. I am only his wife.”

  “No, no. You are more astute than that, Nephele. Perhaps it’s a new discovery and that is why you threw him out. Incidentally, I do know you have barred him from your house—rejected the taxidermy, spurned the stepchildren. But you certainly know Murrius derives his income from a filthy occupation. You can’t not know—he has a group of strong-armers who work with him. You cannot imagine they are there to read him poems while he picks his nose. I myself have seen him boldly bringing cash back to what I presume is his brother’s house. Don’t pretend. You understand what is going on, where his money comes from, how your husband operates.”

  She refused to concede this. She either knew, as I said, or more likely she chose not to accept the truth. Plenty of women are happy to spend dirty money, while acting blind to its source.

  “I had to lock him out,” she protested, dodging the real issue. “I want to leave him, but he won’t allow it. I need a life of my own, but he and his relatives just pretend everything must carry on the same as usual.”

  I chewed at my beaker bitterly. “Come clean. Why are you here today?”

  Nephele placed her cup on a side table, folded her hands, stared at the floor. I noticed a small spider running away to a corner.

  I said firmly, “I cannot work for clients who are dishonest with me.”

  At last, Nephele seemed to give up. She accepted what I had said. She stirred, ready to leave. It all felt oddly negative.

  I stood up, ending the interview. I would not willingly tangle with a gangster’s wife. As with other clients who were voiding their commissions, I tried to ignore my disappointment. Once she was gone, I knew of old I would be glad. It was time to ditch this, shake my skirts free, move on.

  I led the way out to the courtyard. Fornix must be up; I could smell the first sizzles of stew-preparation. We were eating a lot of mutton, all well disguised.

  Nephele stopped. I paused too, politely.

  She burst out, “I have to get away from him!”

  I stopped too. Hello, hello! Then she muttered, as I was already half expecting, “I am terrified what he will do to me. I have to escape.”

  XXXII

  Everything altered. Time to regroup. That was the moment when Terentia Nephele truly became a client of mine.

  I must have shocked her into action, saying I would dump her. It happens. I turned back, holding open the salon door again.

  Behind me, I was aware that Tiberius had appeared on the balcony and paused, watching, while Gratus returned from the bakery with a covered basket; seeing us reactivate our meeting, they would either hold up breakfast or carry on quietly without me.

  Nephele came past me, back into the salon. I sat her down. Once she obediently resumed her chair, I took charge. “Right! Let’s do this properly. So you really do want to leave your husband, and he and his brother are very unpleasant characters. One important question first: you told me Murrius has never resorted to violence. Was that true?”

  “He does not need violence. He gets what he wants in other ways.”

  “I understand.” Mental stress and family pressure.

  That must have been right because she added, “His brother is the dangerous one. And mine’s worse.”

  Noting her anxiety about these brothers, I extracted more history. “Tell me about your marriage. How did you first meet Gaius Murrius?”

  Quietly, she obeyed. Her story contained few surprises. The couple came from similar backgrounds; their union was arranged for them by relatives. He was older, not as old as he might have been, though he had two infant children from a wife who had died. Anyone would say the arrangement was suitable. The orphans needed a mother.

  Clean goods, I thought. Never been with anybody else. Never would do, once he had her. To be sure, I demanded, “Do you have a lover, Nephele?”

  “No.”

  I believed her. For one thing, if she had, the lover would lead in helping her escape. Well, he would if he had anything about him. Plenty are useless, but she did not strike me as someone who would take risks for a man like that. Not even if he drove a quadriga and had all his own teeth.

  In many ways the match with Murrius was promulgated in classic Roman tradition, the ghastly linkage of two bodies for financial and political reasons that still occurred in extreme senatorial circles. I had been brought up by Helena and Falco to view this with horror; professionally I made no judgement. The only difference with Nephele and Murrius was that their connection came not from having consuls among their ancestors, but from basic criminality. She still tried to be vague about it, as they had trained her to do, but I had already realised that both her own and the Murrius family were classic, old-style, deep-dyed racketeers.

  As I had thought originally, they might have slavery in their backgrounds, typical for the Aventine, though Nephele glossed over it: “They all came from nothing. They used their wits until now they have something.”

  “When people say, ‘using their wits’ it tends to mean finding ways around the law.”

  “Our people have a respected profession within the community.”

  “Ah, yes!”

  As Nephele paused, I considered her coming to spy on Tiberius so I put in a direct question: whether she knew anything about the nut-wars. Had Murrius anything to do with that? She said she had heard about trouble on the streets, but her husband and his brother only gave people loans. She made it sound like a charitable act, so I was drawn to argue, “What about all the victims who are terrorised when they cannot pay?” She gave no response to that. The question about nut-wars was also left hanging.

  I let her continue describing her personal life. Once she and Murrius were married, they lived in a closed circle, mainly mixing with their own. If this circle ever widened, that was because the family were seeking to expand their reach through new links to other businesses. In social situations wives, in their finery, might be paraded to add lustre to functions where deals were being fixed, particularly when the wives were good-looking. I understood. That is no different from what happens among groups of civic dignitaries, in trade guilds, or in restrictive religions. You dress up so he looks good. Don’t get tipsy, go home as soon as he’s ready, don’t complain about the other men who flirt.

  Such wives led lives of privilege. There was money available. They kept good homes, for which they were allowed funds. If they had children, they lied to them about their fathers’ occupations. In return for comfortable lives, they conformed to group standards.

  “Good behaviour? Because you are a sign of your husband’s power—and because you are bringing up his children?” Nephele let that pass.

  I could see how closely she was tied to the group code. That, too, followed the supposed model of marriage in the high Roman establishment. But in both it also went with husbands having mistresses, fathers quarrelling volcanically with sons, spirited daughters eloping with rival clansmen or, worse, getting pregnant by menial staff members who had overstepped trust. Children would tend to be difficult if their fathers were away a lot (in exile, say) or if they were dead (due to the high mortality rate in their operating field).

  Traditionalists will feel I can only mean the murky world of criminals. However, if you want patrician parallels, take a quick stroll through the history of the Julio-Claudian imperial family.

  A key difference was that in the upper classes unhappy women or restless men were allowed divorces. Indeed, divorce could be a handy device to further ambitious schemes. Repositioning was a well-used social tool.

  In the criminal community that never occurred. This was Nephele’s problem. “Murrius wants to carry on. His brother insists we are together for life. My own family won’t help me.”

  I supposed there were deep fears that gangsters’ wives knew too many secrets. Wives had to be told enough to be able to run the business if their men were forced abroad, the Roman punishment for capital crimes committed by free citizens. Wives of men who did terrible d
eeds also shared the enormity with them. A criminal’s wife has her own lifelong punishment. Wives signify much, count for everything, yet are invisible.

  Among Nephele’s family, and that of Murrius, divorce never happened. She could think of no one who had done it. When she said to me, “I have to get away from him,” this was a dangerous decision.

  “Well! Now you want to leave your husband.”

  I reached into a wool basket, which certainly contained no wool-working kit; it was my handy canister for writing equipment. I picked out a note-tablet, then deliberately replaced it: shorthand for assuring the woman that all we said would be in confidence.

  I folded my hands. “Sometimes,” I mused, “people toss that phrase out in the same tone of voice as ‘I have to buy winter pears on the way home.’ But occasionally, a client speaks so intensely I know it is the first time she has dared to voice the words. I have to leave him. She has faced a terrible truth. As a result, her world will change for ever.”

  Nephele lifted her chin. “Then?”

  “Then I spell out the consequences. She decides whether she is strong enough for what has to be. If so…” I braced myself to describe the process. For me, the challenge now was one of logistics—and, hell, I could handle detail.

  “If so?”

  “I make the arrangements.”

  “Can you?”

  “I have done it before. But, Nephele, you must want it. You cannot be squeamish. You cannot compromise. It is vital to be taken right out of the man’s life. If a woman is frightened enough, she has to break away utterly, move somewhere nobody will ever come to look for her, take a new name, start a new life, contact no one, never look back.”

  Nephele did not flinch. Perhaps she had already thought this through; perhaps she simply needed help to organise. “It has to be for a long time?”

  “For ever.” I paused for her to absorb it. “For women in trouble like yours, it must be, I’m afraid.” Nephele was staring. She reached for the cold beaker of her half-drunk mulsum, as if her mouth had suddenly gone dry. Low-voiced, I emphasised what I meant. “Listen. I had one client who returned home. Her children had to be left behind when she fled. After a few years she could no longer bear never seeing them.”

  “What happened to her?” Nephele asked quickly.

  “She died.”

  “How?”

  “Guess. He killed her. It was inevitable. I had warned her, but she knew anyway what would happen. To him, her sin in leaving was unforgivable, so his retribution was the most extreme. It was nearly a year before anyone found her body, but it happened. Then she was at least given a funeral. Hardly anybody came.” But I went. “To many of her relatives, even when dead she remained untouchable. They would not speak her name. She was a non-person.”

  “What about the man?”

  “Ah, him!” Nephele looked startled by the force of my contempt. “There was no trial, of course, the evidence was circumstantial—he had fixed that. He was sure he would get away with it—he thought he could get away with anything. You must be familiar with that boast!” Nephele looked rueful. “Still, justice caught up with him. She was my client. I did all I could for her. I believe he was last seen heading for a gold mine, in a line of shackled convicts. If you know the right people, well…”

  “You do know the right people?”

  “I know some.” I could see Nephele assessing all this. “Nephele, you must have seen the attitude: live with me or live with no one—live with me or die.” I paused slightly. “I presume that is why you need to leave your husband. And why you came to me for help.”

  She nodded. “What would I have to do?”

  I gave her the facts plainly. “First admit to yourself that you mean this, mean it absolutely. Then leave him, leave him right now.”

  She blinked.

  “It has to be unexpected,” I explained. “It must happen very fast.” She understood me at last, yet looked astounded. “I mean literally this: do it today. Start from sitting right here. Never go back to your house. Walk away in what you are wearing. Shed everything else, family and possessions, abandon your wealth—”

  “How can I live?” She had the answer herself: “I had brought some money to pay for your commission…”

  “Keep that, then.”

  “I have a friend—”

  “Don’t tell your friends.” With hindsight, I should have pressed her for an identity. I was too concerned with what she had to do. “Go without planning, so you are dropping no clues. Do not discuss anything beforehand, never contact your husband afterwards. Go far away. I can help you with that. Become a different person, have no past, only make whatever you can of your future.”

  “He will try to find me.” She was a hardened realist. “He and his brother.”

  “Yes. I imagine they will search maniacally. Follow my instruction, stick with it. They will be thwarted.”

  “He will guess that I came to you.”

  “Perhaps. By the time he arrives in a rage, you will not be here.”

  “He will not give up.”

  “No. He won’t. That is why you can never waver. Walk away and do not look back for a moment. Never weaken.”

  “Even if he dies, he will leave a charge with other people. His brother. My family.”

  “You must remember that always.” I could see one possible flaw. “You told me you have a sister, a sister you are close to?” Nephele nodded miserably, anticipating what I had to say. “This may seem impossible, but you should not contact your sister.”

  “How can I tell her where—”

  “You cannot. You must not.” Murrius would see the sister as the weak link. So did I! “Your husband will find ways to make your sister tell him what she knows—she must, for her own sake as well as yours, know nothing.”

  Nephele considered it, acknowledged it, then nodded again. “I have a brother, but he will be looking for me just as furiously.” She asked me again: “How can I survive?”

  “You will. First, the kindness of strangers—I will arrange that for you. Then, believe me, any resourceful woman can support herself. You must learn to live very simply. Stretch every denarius.”

  “Can I not go home quickly to collect a few important things?” she quavered. I hoped this was her last tremor of weakness.

  “No. Somebody will see you. It is bound to happen. If anyone does see you, they will spot your intentions from your expression or the way you act. Eventually you will be tracked down. No one observed you this morning? Or heard you?” Nephele shook her head. “What about your maid? Was she awake?”

  “I had allowed her to go out last night to a party with her girlfriends, for the festival. As I left, I could hear her being ill.”

  “Excellent! She will be in no condition to answer questions.” If the maid was still drunk enough, when Murrius thrashed her—as I was sure he would—she would feel less pain. “You let yourself out of the house?”

  Nephele nodded. Of her own accord, she now made a deliberate gesture: she unhooked a key from a chatelaine ring at her belt, then placed it firmly on my marble-topped table. I could dispose of it. She would never go back.

  I spoke quietly. “It will be hard. But at least, unlike my other client, you do not have children.” I had already heard her tell Murrius the stepchildren were his concern.

  “I have a pet!” she exclaimed. It sounded as if she had only just thought of this and was on the verge of mind-changing. “My Beauty! She is doomed if I leave her to him. He wants her, but he will kill her out of spite against me. You must let me go to fetch her.”

  “No.”

  “Yes!”

  “No! That would be fatal. I hear your pain. You must live with it. You have to be anonymous,” I instructed her relentlessly. “Live quietly, look uninteresting. Beauty will make you visible, remarkable—and traceable.” With its crazed croaks of “Skanky bitch!” that bird would make her audible. “Nephele, this is your Rubicon. Save yourself. Forget the parrot.”
/>   XXXIII

  By the time I sat down for my breakfast, Nephele was already gone from our house. By noon, quietly secreted amid the bustle of pre-festival boat traffic on the Tiber, my client would have left the city. By tonight she would be in Ostia. Tomorrow a trusted contact of the auction house would see her on her way by road to an ancient city south of Rome. Everyone involved would immediately forget what they had done. There would be no trail.

  In fact, I had breakfast at my parents’ house. I had arrived there with a maid, who was not Suza; later I left alone. I had stayed there until one of the household told me the traveller had boarded her boat safely.

  I had devised a plan. My mother corresponded with a priestess at a shrine in Latium; she wrote to this woman rarely, but always at Saturnalia. It was the anniversary of when they had met, an occasion when Helena Justina, with various people she dragged into helping her, had preserved the life of this foreign priestess even though it had been claimed by the state. That had been when Rome was ruled by the benign Emperor Vespasian. Overturning a political death-penalty would not happen, these days.

  Helena made me write a letter of introduction, since it was for my client. “You want it, Albia, you do it!” I might be almost thirty years old, but I felt about thirteen.

  I grumbled that I was assisting out of good nature: as this client’s exit was abrupt, I would earn no fee. That made no difference. Mother had always been a stickler for doing your own homework. No cheating happened on her watch. She had brought up four children, very different from each other, yet under her rule we were all intellectually tough as old whelks.

  I gazed at her fondly, while I capitulated. Helena was still tall, though perhaps now losing some mass from her bones. Her hair was dark, yet silver had sifted through it, so she seemed to be growing into her natural age: mature, experienced, essentially wise, like a sybil at an oracle. Sybils who met my mother tended to cringe, I’m afraid, then opt for immediate retirement from their caves. She still had her wit, the abrasive, inventive comedy that made my father growl and leave a room as if in a huff—yet if you ran after him quickly enough, Falco would be laughing in the corridor. Her eyes were still the eyes he loved. Compassionate, missing nothing, speaking her thoughts even when she had not spoken.