Valla lay on a stretcher, untended by mourners or flute-players, yet respected. A coarse cloth was pulled back with a gentle hand, ready for my inspection. The orderly stayed with me, as if he took as much care of this dead man as any screaming ditcher with a sickle through his leg. They had standards on this site, apparently.
"Will Valla be given a funeral?"
"It is normal," said Alexas. "We get deaths on any project, some perfectly natural. Hearts give out. Disease takes a toll. The workers will have a whip-round, probably, but on a long-distance job, arrangements are made by management."
"You then ship the ashes home to relatives?" He looked embarrassed. "Too much trouble," I agreed calmly. "I bet half the crew here have never named a blood relation to be contacted."
"They are supposed to," I was assured earnestly.
"Of course." I tapped his chest. "Have you put your wife or your mother on a scroll?"
Alexas began to speak, then paused and grinned back at me. "Now you mention it…"
"I know. We all think anything bad will happen to some other man.
This one was mistaken, though."
The body was cool. I was told nobody saw what happened. It looked as though he came off cleanly; there were certainly no signs that he scraped his hands trying to regain a grip. There were no real marks on him. The fatal injuries must be internal. If anybody shoved the poor fellow to make him lose his footing, then they had left no evidence.
"Where did his fall happen?"
"The old house."
"It's under scaffold, I know. Isn't there some dispute over the building's future?"
Tin not the man to ask," Alexas said. "If they are demolishing any part of it, Valla would have been salvaging tiles."
"Hmm. So what's your theory?"
"What do you mean?" asked the orderly in genuine puzzlement.
"Is this death suspicious?"
"Of course not."
An informer gets used to being assured that stabbings and stranglings are 'merely accidents'. I had come to expect lies whenever I asked questions- but maybe a world still existed where people suffered ordinary mishaps.
"Did he let out a cry, do you know, Alexas?"
"Would that be important?"
"If he was pushed, he might have protested. If he jumped, or fell, he might have been more likely to stay silent."
"Shall I try to find out for you?"
"Not worth it, thanks." It would be inconclusive anyway. "The palace project has hardly started but this is not your first fatality."
"It won't be the last either."
"Can I see any of the other bodies?"
He stared. "Of course not. Long gone in funeral pyres."
Suspicious as ever, I was wondering about a cover-up. "Did you inspect the bodies, Alexas?"
"I saw some. "Inspect" is too strong a word. We had a man felled by one of those end fmials off roofs-' Alexas went out to his wound dressing area, rooted under a counter and produced the guilty party: it was a dead-weight lump in the shape of a four-sided arch- a miniature tetra pylon with a ball on top. He dumped it in my arms and I staggered slightly.
"Yes, that could dent your skull!" I shed it fast, onto the shelf. "You keeping it for something?"
"Make a nice bird hut." Alexas grinned. People on building sites are always snaffling materials for their own domestic purposes. I noticed one of the four legs was stained. "Sparrows won't notice a bit of blood, Falco!"
"Hmm… Any other mishaps?"
"A slab of uncut marble flattened someone. The marble supervisor was furious that it got damaged; he said it was priceless."
"A heartless swine?"
"He reacted without thinking, I suppose. Then another man got swiped with a spade in a fight last week."
"Unusual?"
"Unfortunately not. Construction sites are always full of tools- and hot-headed men who can wield them skilfully."
"I came across a spade killing in Rome before I left," I said, again thinking of Stephanus being swiped and stuffed under Pa's new mosaic.
"I've seen plenty," scoffed Alexas. "Axe-deaths. Crane decapitations. Drownings, crushings, leg and arm amputations '
"All these have happened on the palace scheme?" I was horrified.
"No, Falco. Some have happened. Others may yet."
"A man was stabbed, I hear? Knife fight. Drink involved."
"So I believe. I heard it happened in the town. The body was not brought here." He was patient, but he thought me a time-waster.
"Alexas, don't misread me. I'm not looking for trouble. I just heard that the death count was too high here and it might be significant."
"Significant of what? Slack management?"
Well, that would do as an explanation until I found a more precise definition. If that was ever possible.
I left him to staunch a workman's blood-dripping finger. I noticed that he carried out the task with calmness -just as he faced everything, including me jumping about looking for scandals.
Now that I had talked to him, I thought I understood him. He was a man in his middle twenties, with drab colouring and a dull personality, who had found a niche as a specialist. He was happy. He seemed to know that in rougher areas of life he would have ended up a nobody. Some lucky chance had brought him to work at the routine end of medicine. He dispensed herbal remedies, staunched blood on straightforward wounds. Decided when a surgeon ought to be sent for. Listened to depressives with a helpful manner. Perhaps once in his career he would encounter a real maniac who needed tying down in a hurry. Perhaps his ignorance killed off a few patients, but that's true of more doctors than doctors will admit. On the whole, society was the better for his existence and that knowledge pleased him.
I suppose it pleased me to think that Alexas would regard it as a matter of professional competence to report any irregularity. I would find no clues otherwise. I would have to rely on Alexas for information on the past 'accidents'.
But the situation was covered now: I was here. That should reassure anyone who had the misfortune to be done in in murky circumstances!
When I left the medical post, somebody was hanging about outside in a way that made me look twice at him. I felt he was intending to quiz Alexas about me. When I stared straight at him he changed his mind. "You're Falco."
"Can I help you?"
"Lupus."
Broad-browed and squat-bodied, with a tan that said he had lived out of doors in all weathers for maybe forty years, he seemed familiar. "And your position is?"
"Labour supervisor."
"Right!" He had been at the project meeting; Cyprianus pointed him out to me. "Local or foreign workers?"
Lupus looked surprised that I knew there were two. I just waited. He muttered, "I do the overseas."
There were benches outside the bandage house for queuing patients. I sat down and encouraged Lupus to do likewise. "And where are you from yourself?"
"Arsinoe." It sounded like a hole at the back of a gully in the desert.
"Where's that?"
"Egypt!" he said proudly. Reading my mind, the loyal sand flea added, "Yes, yes; it's the place they call Crocodilopolis."
I took out my note-tablet and a stylus. "I need to talk to you. Was Valla one of your men? Gaudius? Or the man who died in the knife fight at the canabae?"
"Valla, Dubnus and Eporix were mine."
"Eporix?"
"A roof feature fell on him." The heavy fmial Alexas showed me.
"And tell me about the knife victim? That was Dubnus, wasn't it?"