"We lost Florius," said Petro glumly. "He slipped the net somehow."
"We can search for him. Any ideas?"
"He may change his plans now we have been so close to him, but he spoke of going back to Italy. We had the river sealed tonight. Nothing was allowed to move on the water. He cannot have sailed yet."
Maia looked surprised. "Oh, a ship did go downstream, Lucius, just before ours landed here. It was carrying no lights, but showed up in the flares we had. The captain cursed because he nearly ran into it."
Petronius swore and Flavius Hilaris growled. "These gangsters have both cheek and incredible influence-"
"Money," stated Petro, explaining how they managed it.
Hilaris considered whether to order a pursuit, but it was too late and too dark. Every creek, beach, and landing stage from here to the great northern ocean would be scoured tomorrow.
"One ship?" Petro checked with Maia. She nodded. "Can you describe it?"
"Just a ship. Quite big. Loads of cargo lashed on its deck, as far as I could see in the dark. It had oars and a mast, but just came gliding silently."
"No chance you know what the vessel was called?"
My sister smiled at her heartthrob teasingly. "No. But you should talk to Marius. My elder son," she explained blithely to the procurator, "so loved the experience of sailing. I am very grateful that you made it possible. Marius has been collecting ships' names in a special note tablet…"
Petronius biffed her for stringing him along, then he and the procurator smiled hopefully. Flavius Hilaris chuckled. "I'll signal across to Gaul. He may berth there and go overland, or he may go around Iberia by sea. But by the time that ship hits Italy, every port on the coast will be on notice."
"Good luck, then." Petronius was sanguine. "But I'm afraid you need to alert every harbor in the Mediterranean. Florius has to maintain his links with Italy; his real fortune is tied up in his wife. But he'll have made enough here to survive as a renegade for a long time… He could go anywhere." Petro was taking it fairly well. "One day he will come back to us, and I'll be there waiting."
"I have every faith in that," Hilaris assured him quietly.
Petronius Longus gazed downriver. "He is out there. I'll get him in the end."
???
As a courtesy we had to wait while Flavius Hilaris checked the condition of his damaged boat, then spoke to the soldiers. Petro and Maia sat together on a bollard, intertwined.
I grumbled to Helena, "I'm not sure I can face a thousand-mile journey home, with those two acting like star-struck teenagers."
"Be glad for them. Anyway, they'll have to be discreet with four nosy children watching."
I was none too sure. They were lost in each other; they didn't care.
The soldiers had now removed the barriers, so members of the public could come and go at will. Numbers had been attracted here by the military activity. A vagrant, one of the wide-eyed hopefuls who congregated in this frontier province, wandered up and decided I was a suitable friend for a man of his mad status. "Where are you from, Legate?"
"Rome."
He gazed at me, from some vague world of his own.
"Italy," I said. The need for explanation grated, even though I knew he was a derelict. He was filthy and showed signs of disease, but acted as if he recognized a like soul in me.
"That Rome!" murmured the vagrant wistfully. "I could go to Rome." He would never go to Rome. He had never wanted to.
"The best," I agreed.
He had made me think of Italy. I went across to Helena and hugged her. I wanted to go back to the residence and see my two daughters. Then, as soon as possible, I wanted to go home.
LIX
Any good informer learns: never relax. You fight to create a workable case. It has flaws; they always do. In ours there was a gaping hole: we had one target dead in the Thamesis, but the other chief suspect had escaped.
Petronius Longus was anxious to leave Britain on the next available boat from Rutupiae. He had personal reasons to call him back to Ostia, but naturally intended to put himself where Florius might reappear. In view of the Florius angle, the governor allowed him a pass for the imperial post service. In recognition of the demands of love, he extended that to Maia and the children, and then he felt obliged to include Helena and me. Fine. A quick journey suited all of us.
Just as we prepared to leave for Rome, however, a key witness let us down. We were doing well in some respects. The very public success of the attack on the gang at the customs house had impressed the locals. As a result, Frontinus was able to draw depositions about the extortion from some tavern-keepers, and these were with Petro to take back and use in any trial. A formal statement from Julius Frontinus himself might also be read out in court, if ever Florius was brought to justice. That would sound good. But we had already lost Chloris. Her companions could testify only that Florius had pressured them, which-apart from their dubious status as gladiators-a good lawyer would demolish by calling it
"legitimate business practice." Any Roman jury would envy the ability to make money. As the jurors struggled to stay afloat amid their mortgages and creditors, Florius would seem to them an ideal citizen. He would walk.
Our one damning piece of evidence against him was the waitress's claim that at the Shower of Gold Florius had deliberately ordered Pyro and Splice to shove Verovolcus down the well. I could say I saw him kill Chloris-but accuse him of murdering a gladiatrix, in the arena? Excuse me. Case dismissed!
I wanted to persuade Frontinus that the waitress's evidence was so important he should order her transportation to Rome. With her smart new name and newly refined accent, Flavia Fronta could be tricked out as a nearly honest woman, even though the profession of waitress ranked very close to gladiating socially and legally. I was ready to prime a barrister to blacken Florius by suggesting that the low venue for the killing had been his choice, symptomatic of a despicable man who frequented filthy dives. Verovolcus was in effect British aristocracy, so with the King's closeness to the Emperor there was a scandal factor in killing him.
I first became uneasy while discussing whether Frontinus would agree to a Rome trip for the waitress. King Togidubnus had returned to his tribal capital; I assumed he was still saddened by the fate of his renegade retainer, yet comforted by the fact that the issue had been resolved. But instead of being taken to Noviomagus with the King, to be installed in the promised new wine bar, Flavia Fronta was still in Londinium.
"So where is she?" I demanded of the governor. "There is a security angle."
"She is safe," Frontinus assured me. "Her evidence is being reassessed by Amicus."
Reassessed? By the torturer?
I went to see Amicus.
"What's going on? The waitress said Florius ordered the well-drowning. That alone will send him to the lions if he ever stands trial. Giving the statement makes her our one strong witness-but, with due respect to your art, it has to be seen that she made this statement voluntarily!"
"There is doubt," replied Amicus dourly.
"Well, we cannot have doubt! So what is the problem?" I tried not to rage too fiercely. I was irritated, but concerned to ring-fence our case.
Amicus then told me one of the arrested men he had been allowed to work on was the owner of the Shower of Gold. I remembered him from the night I took Helena there for a drink: he had been an unwelcoming, stubborn piece of truculence.
"He sticks with what others had told me," said Amicus. "Verovolcus was a nuisance to the gang, and Florius wanted to humiliate him-but putting him in the well was just a game. That barber said the same. But the bar owner actually saw what happened."