Nemesis

'What if customers come?'

'We'll serve them for you.'

'You can't do that!'

'My sister owns the joint.' Wrong. I owned the joint now; Junia just managed it for me. A terrifying thought.

'You mean you'll send my customers packing!'

'Relax. We'll call you.'

One or two latecomers did try to buy stuff. We told them we were hygiene inspectors and had to close the bar down. Then indeed we sent them packing.

XLIX

Even after his shift, Petronius was buoyant. 'Let's start with the gem-buyer. Marcus, my boy, you've done well.'

'Persicus?'

'Persicus! He meant nothing to me, but Fusculus recognised the name.'

'Fusculus is a lad.'

'He's a sparkler. Too good, I'm afraid. Rubella will probably transfer him to another cohort for "career development".'

'How does he know about Persicus? We were not aware of him before, surely?'

'We could have been. He never showed on a statement, but while the Seventh Cohort were formally telling Rubella and me about that murdered courier, a couple of troops waited outside; talking to Fusculus, they gave up extra details. Their written reports are as skimpy as a whore's nightgown. I suspect their clerk can't even write – one of their centurions' halfwit cousins, who got the job as a favour…' He calmed down when I grinned. 'But their enquiry chief asked the right questions. The carter was forced to supply details of the courier's package, in case it was relevant – - or the Seventh even found it.'

'Have they?'

'Don't make me weep! The carter said the parcel was a load of cushion stuffing, sent by a client to his country estate.'

'The client was Arrius Persicus?'

'Correct. This is the good bit. He's alive and well and has never mentioned losing any fabulous cameo.'

I guffawed. 'In case his wife finds out he has a girlfriend! Shouldn't cushion stuffing go the other way? Wool, feathers, straw – they all come from the country into Rome.'

'Exactly.' Petro tried to winkle crumbs of the stale bread we were gnawing from between his teeth. The crumbs clung on resolutely. Junia must have Apollonius spread it with cow-heel glue as some new gourmet fashion. 'The crucial parcel didn't sound significant initially – which was a clever ploy. The Seventh thought they could forget about it. So let's think: why dispatch a load of cheap stuffing via an expensive courier?'

'Obvious: something costly was concealed inside.'

'You bet.'

We sat quiet for a beat, thinking.

'Anyway – don't let's get too excited too fast. Fusculus has gone to ask the carter about it on the sly. We still have to pretend we're not intervening in Anacrites' case. If the cameo was in the courier's parcel, then it's a lead – but you and I need a long, hard think about the implications…'

'I'll start thinking too much now, unless you distract me. So, what about the teacher with the numerical sideline?'

Petronius perked up. 'Found him. Easy. The mathematicians list is one of the shortest: thank you, Jove. Volusius may have died eight years ago. At any rate, he vanished from our records – - which is hard to achieve, once we have a rascal in our blotted scroll.'

I groaned. 'Dead end?'

'Not quite.' Petronius gave up on Flora's breakfast and threw what was left of his bread to a pigeon in the street. It flew off, affronted. He sniffed the acetic posca then dashed that into the gutter too. 'He lived with his mother, off the Clivus Suburanus, close to the Porticus of Livia. I'm whacked and old dames don't have enough verve to keep my eyes open. I'm going home to bed but you, being a layabout with time on your hands, may fancy a chat with her.'

I said I was always available to do work the noble Lucius found too much for him. And while he could only chat up pretty things of twenty, I was more versatile and could charm even older women.

Petronius let me get away with that, because he was bursting with one further fact. 'While I had the old documents spread around the room, my eye fell on something.' Calm by nature, he seemed excitable now: 'I found one of the Claudii!'

'Speak, oracle!'

'I'm sure it's him. Two years ago, a Claudius Virtus, newly arrived in Rome from Latium, appeared as a person of interest.'

'What had he done? Joined a dodgy religion?'

'Depends how you categorise cults, Marcus. We have him down as taking an interest in astrology.'

'Stargazing?'

'People-forecasting- wickedness. I hate that stuff. Life's dire without finding out in advance what will be dumped on you by Fate.'

'According to Anacrites, when he turned on me recently, when Fate gives you anything worth having, if you dare to enjoy your good fortune, remorseless Nemesis will fly up to snatch it away.'

'Is he sniping at your legacy?'

'You guessed. Is Virtus still living in the same place?'

'Who knows? We don't always update our records unless some name bobs up in a new offence.'

I said that in addition to Volusius' mother I would visit Virtus, but Petronius would not reveal the address. He would meet me for lunch after a few hours' rest, then we could go together. I promised to round up one of the Camilli, or both, to accompany us. Lunch could be at my house; Flora's had lost our custom.

'We should go armed. These bastards collect spears. The Urbans carry swords and knives – - why don't we ask Silvius for back-up?'

Petronius Longus was a vigiles man and he would never change. Despite the supposed joint operation with Silvius, he assumed a vague expression. 'Let's you and I just take a quiet recce first.' He was as keen on inter-cohort co-operation as a fifteen-year-old boy thinking about purity.

'Fine. We'll tiptoe up like cat burglars… I could knock on the door for a horoscope – but I don't want Virtus to look into my future and see when he and his stinking brother Nobilis will be arrested.'

'Don't worry.' Lucius Petronius had no faith in clairvoyance. 'He won't even be able to foresee what he's getting for lunch.'

'Right. What's your star sign, by the way? You're under the Virgin, aren't you?'

'Believe that, Marcus, if it gives pleasure to your childish mind.'

L

I sent a runner to tell Aulus and Quintus to come over for lunch.

Meanwhile, I went alone to find the teacher's last known address.

It was a dismal mission. I found the apartment, in a tangle of narrow lanes on the way to the Esquiline Gate; indoors, as she generally must be, was the ancient, widowed mother. I guessed she had lost her husband young. Perhaps there had been a legacy; the rental where she lived – - where she had brought up her only son Volusius – - was cramped but just about tolerable. She was the proud kind, to whom poverty must be perpetually shameful. She had scrimped to get her boy an education, investing all her own hopes in his obvious potential. Although he became a teacher, because of his experience at Antium only disappointment followed. She was now half-blind, but taking in tunics to mend, to keep from starving.

Volusius was dead. His mother said he had never recovered from his fright that day at Latium. It affected him so badly he could no longer teach. He lost his job at the local school, then failed to find other work. He moped around as a loser, became mentally disturbed and committed suicide – - threw himself in the river just after the second anniversary of being abducted.

'Did he talk about what had happened?'

'He could never bear to.'

'You went there to fetch him home afterwards. Was he in a bad state?'

'Terrible. He knew we had to pass the place where he had met those men. He froze at the memory. He was shaking so much when we tried to set off home, the people at the villa had to give him a sleeping draught and send us in a cart. Once I got him home, he woke up in familiar surroundings and just broke down crying. He kept saying to me he was sorry – as if what happened was somehow his fault.'