Nemesis

'Beach holiday at Baiae?'

'Gone to visit his grandma.'

'Is that a joke? I hear he's a tough nut.' Plotia just stared.

I walked closer. After the incident with Fangs, I looked around, in case there were other guard-dogs. Reading my thoughts, Plotia said, 'We never have animals.' Her gaze flickered; she stated sombrely, 'Well not for long.'

I swallowed. Petronius once told me that pathological murderers tend to start their killing sprees while they are children. Find a man who takes prostitutes off the streets as a personal vocation, and he'll probably have a set of neat jars with his childhood collection of dissected rats. I had suggested all boys are curious about dead animals. Petro said most just pick them out of the gutter; we don't trap them on purpose and deconstruct them. Most of us don't eviscerate our own pets.

'What is your connection to the Claudii?' I asked the women.

'I'm married to Virtus.' It was still Plotia answering. 'Byrta belongs to Pius.' Belongs to was a term that would have delighted our ancestors; my Helena would disdain it. [Note to scribe: delete that 'my'. I don't want my balls pickled.]

Before I could ask, Plotia added, 'Both not here. Pius and Virtus work up in Rome.'

That was news. Petronius would be sure it was not good news.

'I'm from Rome.' I played friendly. 'What do your men do there?'

Plotia just shrugged. A Roman wife may be her husband's closest confidante in theory, but not around here. I guessed marriage was a one-sided contract among the Claudii. Wives had to take foul language, thrashing and forced sex, if I was any judge. Then they bore endless children, who were battered and buggered too. They would all learn to keep their heads down, to judge carefully from bad moods what it was safe to say or do, and never to ask questions. They were bound to have been ordered not to talk to strangers.

Many a slave knew that existence. Maybe it was how the Claudius men had learned to impose themselves on weaker souls.

'Nobilis have a wife?' I asked.

'She left.' At the mention of escape, Plotia looked jealous. Even Byrta perked up. From her perch she was listening to everything. 'He never recovered.'

'I bet there was all Hades of a row.' Plotia laughed briefly. 'Still, she got away from him?' Neither woman reacted to the way I phrased it. 'Where did she go?'

'No idea.' That meant not allowed to tell. 'Nobilis knows. Antium, I think. She set up with someone else, so Nobilis stopped that -'

'Really! How?'

'The usual way!' Plotia said scornfully, 'The girl took refuge with her father afterwards, I heard.'

'What's her father's name – and her name?'

Plotia and Byrta glanced at each other. This information must be on the banned list. Nonetheless Plotia told me the father was a baker called Vexus. The wife was Demetria.

'Does Nobilis now accept her going?'

'Yes – - if "accept" means constantly saying he'll get the girl one day.'

I sighed. 'When did they split?'

'Three years ago.' And it still rankled with the husband? Demetria must be a brave soul to break free of that control. Or was she so badly crushed that anything was better than life with Nobilis?

'If that's his house, can I have a look round?'

'He won't like it,' Plotia said flatly. Strangely, she then made no objection. It might be part of the Claudian plan to appear helpful whenever they were directly confronted. I took my chance and went to the door. It was unlocked – - almost a jeering invitation to search. Even at that point, entering the house Nobilis lived in sent a shiver down my spine.

I wondered if the posse from Antium had searched here. It must have done them no more good than it did me. The freedman's house was crammed with stuff with an obsessive neatness. The collection of rubbish looked as if Nobilis had lined it up in rows, just waiting to upset enquirers by failing to provide clues.

Plotia came to the door behind me. She was gazing around as if she too had never stepped inside before. 'He keeps everything. He's got stuff that goes back decades.'

That was true, but if Nobilis killed Modestus, he had not kept the statue-seller's lapis lazuli signet ring. There were no locks of hair from victims, no lovingly cared for boxes of different girls' underwear. I found no old calendars with scored marks to signify killing days. No bloodstained weapons. No ropes with cut ends that could be matched to ligatures around dead men's necks.

I had been an informer long enough to expect disappointment.

I searched until I had had enough, then I came back outside.

'Find anything?' called Plotia, now squatting alongside her sister-in-law, with the early evening sun on her face.

'No. Does Nobilis have anywhere else he hangs out? Some special annexe, where he plays boys' games alone?'

Both women merely gave me odd looks.

This place was a shack to me, but maybe it had a subsidiary hovel, some even more secret hideaway where Nobilis committed his worst deeds. If so, either he kept it from his relatives or they were playing dumb. 'Just one last thing – did either of you see the quarrel with a neighbour called Modestus?' Both Plotia and Byrta shook their heads, rather too quickly. 'You know who I mean?' I insisted. 'He disappeared after a bust-up here, then his wife came to look for him and now she's missing too.' When the women continued to blank me, I said in a sombre voice, 'Modestus is dead. Murdered – on a journey to petition the Emperor. This isn't going away, so you may as well tell me. You still deny seeing the argument?'

'Probus and Nobilis talked to the old man.' For the first time Byrta found her voice. She had a common country accent and her attitude was the wrong side of aggressive. 'It did get heated – Modestus was an idiot, and pushy with it. Our lads never did anything to him. He just went away.'

'You sure of that?' I don't know why I bothered asking. I included Plotia in the question; she was keeping quiet now. She looked away and I knew she was not going to help me. 'Nobilis and Probus were the ones Modestus argued with?'

'They never touched him,' repeated the pale, thin woman as if this was a religious chant and if she said a word wrong, some sacrifice would be invalidated.

'That right? I'll be off then.'

'We'll tell the boys you came!' Plotia mocked my wasted effort.

'Don't do that, please. If there's talking to do, I'd rather do it myself.'

Then, Plotia and I shared a brief glance. It was possible I had made a connection with at least one of these drear, isolated women – some bond that might help our investigation later.

More likely, she was just thinking I was an idiot.

XXI

I met my companions as I walked back through the woods. 'Next time you want to play good officer/bad officer,' Petro rebuked me mildly, 'let's agree it in advance, shall we? You know I hate always being the nice fellow. When is it my turn to put the boot in?'

I asked if his being sweet to Probus had achieved anything; he growled, 'Guess!'

'I wish I'd hit him harder, then.'

'Yes, if it helped whatever's eating you!' He knew what that was. Petronius was a loyal, affectionate family man. He knew I had grief I had not yet dealt with, and I was guilty about leaving home.

He smacked me on the shoulder, then we walked side by side. The others watched us warily, letting Petro play nurse. I outlined what the women had told me, not that it moved us forward.

The others had been carrying out sweeps, searching the woods in wide circles, looking for bodies. We went back along the path, passing the three hutments. Justinus stayed there to search the two women's homes with Auctus, one of the vigiles. The rest of us moved forward.

Looking for a good spot to camp because there was no chance we could return to Satricum that night, we were heading for what seemed to be more open country. Justinus and Auctus caught us up, having also had a fruitless search at the shacks. We. kept moving along the boundary fence, distancing ourselves from where the Claudii lived. We found a place where the fence had been broken down and rebuilt; a notice had been erected on the far side, warning off trespassers in the name of Julius Modestus. Despite its fierce semi-legal language, only a short way further on we came upon another boundary breach. A group of wild-looking cattle which probably belonged to the Claudii stood on the Modestus land, eyeing us inquisitively.