‘You mean my master?’
‘Crazy caryatids! − You, Dromo!’
‘I thought so!’ he muttered, in my hearing, though as if to himself or the imaginary companion who shared his thoughts when he was unhappy. ‘“Being nice to Dromo” was never going to last!’
I took him to breakfast with me, at the good bar. I even gave him most of mine, since I felt no desire for food.
They had a canary in a cage on the counter. I refrained from ordering fried bird. It was bound to be some child’s pet. Besides, the thought of anything in oil risked what the aedile called an up-chuck.
I could not even fantasise these days without that man worming his way in. Time for a new case, with a new client.
From now on they would be ugly seventy-year-olds with brown eyes − and women at that.
I took Dromo back to the Aviola apartment, telling him we would load all our things onto his handcart and take everything away with us.
‘Have you solved the case then, Albia?’
‘Not quite, but this is as far as I can go.’
‘Has my master said you have to finish?’
‘No. I set my deadlines for myself. I have to know what is realistic.’
I left him to start packing up, while I went to say goodbye to Graecina. At my approach to their apartment, the rough dog kicked up his normal racket though when she let me in he calmed down, walking off to gnaw at a table leg.
‘Where is Cosmus?’ Graecina lifted an eyebrow to query why I asked. I indicated the dog.
‘Oh, Panther is ours. He belonged to my husband, really. Polycarpus fed him; he used to bring unwanted scraps from the master’s kitchen. Panther knew who to love.’
‘I thought he belonged to Cosmus.’ From things he said, Cosmus either thought that too, or he pretended. A lot of slaves have pets. The poorly-treated like to have something of their own to beat. ‘Apart from barking, which a guard dog is supposed to do, he seems obedient.’
‘He’s a good boy, aren’t you, Panther?’ asked Graecina in that exaggerated voice some people use for their animals. Panther wagged his tail, even though he was sitting on it. ‘He’s wonderful with children.’ I bet he gave them wonderful fleas too.
I was working up a theory. ‘I noticed that when Panther is out in the street, you don’t have him on a lead.’
‘He trots back if he’s called. He had a bit of old cord for a long time-’ Graecina stopped, as she saw where I was heading. She was an intelligent woman. She looked at me in a mixture of wonder and horror. ‘Oh no.’
A true sense of surprise was missing. Yesterday, while we were drinking and talking in the courtyard, Graecina spent a lot of time lost in her own world. She must have had doubts even then. Thinking about Panther’s lost lead confirmed her pre-existing fears. She had half-expected me to ask the question.
She made no attempt to put me off. She went to the back of a door where a hook was nailed. It held a hat and a cloth bag for shopping, nothing else. ‘The dog’s lead used to be kept here. It was not much more than a length of raggy twine. He doesn’t have a collar; we just looped it around his neck …’ Graecina swallowed and I felt my own mouth go dry. ‘They lost it.’
‘They?’
‘Cosmus, my husband … one of them.’
‘Which?’
‘I don’t know.’ I felt she did not want to say it was Polycarpus who disposed of the lead.
Graecina sat down. She folded her hands neatly in her lap, but she was breathing too fast. This was a woman who recently lost her husband and who was scalded with hot water yesterday. One of her bare arms was so red raw it must be hurting badly. She had two small children to worry about, as well as her own grief; I could hear the son and daughter playing in the next door room. And now she had to cope with … what?
I sat down too. At that point it was a toss of the coin whether I would end up having to tell her the answer, or she would tell me.
‘At one time, Graecina, I wondered if Aviola and Mucia had been killed by Polycarpus.’ At that, she let out a small squeak of misery. ‘No,’ I reassured her at once. ‘For a freedman to do that to the master who gave him his liberty is patricide — he has killed the man who gave him life, his second life, his life as a free man. And the penalty for patricide in Rome is as cruel as the crime.’
I did not enlighten Graecina, if she did not know. A patricide is sewn into a sack, with a serpent, a cockerel, a monkey and a dog, then the sack is thrown into the sea. Do not ask me the symbolism. That’s Rome, all over.
Whether or not Graecina knew the punishment, I wanted this woman to feel anxious. I needed to pressurise her so she told the truth.
‘Your husband was just protecting someone, wasn’t he?’ I asked her quietly again: ‘Graecina, where is Cosmus?’ Her eyes were wide. I guessed some duty to stay silent had been laid upon her by Polycarpus. ‘It is too late, Graecina. The charade is over. Now you have to tell the truth.’
‘Cosmus ran away. He does that from time to time; he comes home when he is hungry.’
‘He is an unhappy boy.’ As Myla once said to me.
‘He is. He always was, Albia, though he has been much worse lately. I never wanted him here in the first place, as Cosmus must have realised, but my husband took pity on him when the boy was younger.’
‘He came from the Aviola household?’
‘Yes. I had just had my first child and needed help domestically. Cosmus was to be sold and he hated the idea. Polycarpus felt very sorry for his situation, and I think saw something of himself in the lad.’
‘So Polycarpus bought him from Aviola?’
‘Yes. He came to us and was nothing but a nuisance. I do not want him in the house any longer.’ Graecina rushed on, ‘I have asked Galla Simplicia for help with getting rid of him, because I am so afraid he will be difficult about it.’
She stopped, so I repeated it more simply: ‘You are altogether afraid of him.’
She behaved as if she had not heard. ‘Galla Simplicia’s cousin was going to have Cosmus picked up for me, and sent away for sale. I had said nothing about it, but I think Cosmus may have guessed the plan.’
‘It seems unlikely he will come home this time!’ I returned dryly. ‘And that’s good, because you don’t want him in your house with young children here; you must feel unsafe yourself. I have to report him as a runaway, you understand why. The vigiles must set up an urgent search.’
‘Yes. Yes, I understand,’ Graecina agreed miserably. There were tears in her eyes. She was a strong woman but she felt extremely anxious. I did not blame her. Her little household had fallen to pieces. Until the slave was found, there were also grave dangers.
I gave my verdict: ‘I believe your slave Cosmus killed Valerius Aviola and Mucia Lucilia.’ Graecina let out another tiny whimper. She knew it was true. ‘He must have strangled them with the dog lead that has disappeared.’ I knew Polycarpus removed it from around Mucia’s neck — ‘an act of respect for the dead,’ according to Titianus. Trust him to misinterpret. It was ‘respect’ that allowed Polycarpus quietly to remove this murder weapon from the scene, so it would not be identified. Later, he destroyed it or lost it altogether.
As Graecina’s hand flew to her mouth to smother her horror, I had to say, ‘I have no time now to ask, but I find it hard to see why Polycarpus was shielding the boy.’
‘Just kind-heartedness, Albia!’
‘Well, it rebounded. When you and I went into that lock-up, you must have realised straightaway what the boy had done to Polycarpus. Cosmus showed no gratitude for your husband’s protection of him. Cosmus went into the shop downstairs and had an argument. Then Cosmus murdered your husband, strangling his kind master with his bare hands.’
‘I know why,’ admitted Graecina. ‘My husband had a great sense of fellow-feeling for all the slaves in the household, but he knew he now had to stop shielding Cosmus. He refused to keep him any longer after what the boy did to the master and mistress. He said we would sell Cosmus. Polycarpus had to think about me and the children. Cosmus became very angry. He swore he would run away for good. He demanded some of that silver to take with him.’