That was the answer. She went after Valens. It was Julia Verecunda who had had him hijacked on the way to Crustumerium. She had had him brought back to Rome ignominiously, roped up and on foot, like a criminal. When he arrived, she intended to confront him with his old crime.
The long walk in the July heat had proved too much for him. He had died. It seemed to me that she would not have wanted him to die, not before she had a chance to make him understand the retribution she was exacting. If he died before they came face to face, she had probably not forgiven him for that either. She had been denied her chance of vengeance. No wonder she had had his corpse thrust into his own strongbox, hidden in a neglected storeroom, where she meant his remains to rot for ever.
55
Before he dismissed me, Philippus surprised me with a request. Apparently his father had told him to maintain contact with Falco. I said firmly, as my mother would want, that my father had retired from all that.
‘You mean, the current régime is not to his taste!’ Philippus responded astutely.
‘Everything comes to an end.’ Philippus could take that as referring to Falco giving up imperial work – or to my hope for Domitian’s régime.
‘Should the opportunity arise, maybe you would accept commissions, Flavia Albia. We do have women who carry out special tasks.’
Here was Philippus trying to set up his own network, just like his father. I chortled. ‘So Perella is still cutting throats? Hades, that dangerous woman ought to hang up her tambourine and castanets. Good as she was, she can’t still be going about in disguise as a dancer!’ Perella was a legendary agent, but worked undercover. Philippus blinked at my inside knowledge. ‘Not for me,’ I disabused him. ‘I’m not a spy. I hate spies.’ I had reasons for saying that. My intense feelings must have been obvious.
‘I know nothing of a tambourine!’ he claimed. ‘Well, please bear it in mind.’
Philippus was a smug bastard. He had no concept of ever being turned down. (He had not dealt with me before.) Distrusting him deeply, I wondered if he would respond to rejection as malevolently as Julia Verecunda. I could imagine it. You collaborated with these ambitious officials at your peril.
Riding Patchy back to the Aventine, I blanked out his invitation.
Philippus had given me a scroll, prepared by his father, showing the intertwined Callistus and Verecundus family tree. Patchy knew his way, so as the donkey reluctantly trotted homeward, continually stopping to nose at people’s flower tubs, I unrolled the scroll on my lap for an initial scrutiny.
Most was familiar. I understood why Laeta had been so annoyed at the interconnection of those on the aedilate list. I already knew that two candidates, Volusius Firmus (originally) and Vibius Marinus, were brothers-in-law of a third, Ennius Verecundus. There was one extra surprise: only now did I see that Julia Terentia, the sister who had found her own rich husband, was in fact married to Dillius Surus, he who enjoyed his drink. (Niger’s wife Galeria regarded him as a sponger, but Laurentina had said the couple were genuinely affectionate.) I now recalled that, before I knew who Terentia was, Nothokleptes had said he envied her investment in Baetican olive oil – and Baetica was where the fleeing Julia Pomponia had been offered a refuge.
So that made a fourth knot in the candidates’ tangled relationships.
Once I rerolled the document, I used the slow journey from the Palatine, round the Circus Maximus and up my own hill, to add to the significant case against Julia Verecunda. I suspected she had looked for – and found – someone she could employ to attack Valens; she had chosen someone from within her own family. The man I called Puce Tunic would be a possibility, if I could place him on that family tree – and I now believed I could.
What if he was Aspicius? Everything I had heard about Julia Pomponia’s low-grade, feckless husband made him obvious for dirty work. Always up for a fight or a dodgy deal and, more important, he never had enough money. The rich daughter, Julia Terentia, provided financial help but she had threatened to stop. So I guessed Aspicius would readily accept any black commission, if his mother-in-law paid enough. A hod-carrier could probably call on associates to help arrange an ambush. He would certainly be strong enough to carry a corpse on his shoulder and shove it into a chest.
If Aspicius had organised the snatch on the Via Salaria and his wife had found out, that explained why Julia Pomponia fled. I will never go back to him! After what he did … And I shall never see or speak to her again … That must have been a reference to her mother. Pomponia would not want her newborn to have a killer for a father, especially one acting for her own obnoxious mother. Besides, even though in youth she had abandoned her first husband, Callistus Secundus, prior to her elopement she must have known Valens as a decent father-in-law.
All the sisters must be in a dilemma. How could they reconcile loyalty to Valens, a good man, with his death at the hands of their relatives? I had heard Julia Pomponia tell her sister fearfully, If you go to their house … that family will see you know something … So Julia Optata also knew the truth. Pomponia must have told her what had happened to Valens, and how Aspicius was involved. She would have had to explain why she needed to hide. But even after she had left him, out of fear or misplaced loyalty Pomponia might not have wanted anyone else to turn Aspicius in.
That explained, too, why their sister Julia Laurentina was so anxious. She intended to stay married to Volusius Firmus and to remain on good terms with his family. If her mother had caused Valens’s death, while employing a disreputable brother-in-law, Laurentina’s position was difficult. I myself thought the Callisti would be understanding, but all this must be hard for her – and just when she, too, was expecting a child.
What to do now?
Some informers would have gone straight to Julia Verecunda and confronted her. It would be a pointless exercise, and dangerous. She was unlikely to confess and might turn vicious. I certainly would not see her without taking a witness, and any interview would be safer with armed back-up.
Nor was I ready to enlighten the Callistus family. Julia Laurentina was right to keep her own counsel. She knew them. I, too, was sure they would explode at the news. Both brothers and the nephew used bodyguards. They got physical themselves. They might well respond violently.
All this needed to be relayed urgently to Manlius Faustus. Criminal investigations were not his responsibility, especially on the Caelian, out of his area, but he and I together could safely conduct further interviews, including one with the hod-carrier, if we could find him. Then, when it came to arrests, Faustus had vigiles contacts.
I went first to his office, but he was not there. It was now late. I could travel about because there were always lights on bar counters and glimmers from lamps lit to signal the all-clear to adulterous lovers. Still, I would go home now and try to find Tiberius in the morning, having breakfast at the Stargazer, for instance.
Leaving the Temple of Ceres, which was next to the aediles’ office, I had to steer Patchy down Lesser Laurel Street, so I paused at the house Tiberius had bought. I knew this hilltop street extremely well, and had been inside the property, both the working yard and its adjacent home. That was of modest size, but in a desirable location on the main historic summit of the Aventine, among some of its most prestigious temples.
Renovation work was continuing by torchlight. The place badly needed to be cleared. Any neighbours must be complaining, though when the local aedile is himself being a menace, people are stuck.