There was a startled silence. Junio looked at me. ‘Her faith in your abilities is rather touching, Father, don’t you think?’
I sat down on the corner of the workshop bench — the only place inside where there was room to perch. ‘Embarrassing, I’d call it,’ I said bitterly. ‘Of course I’d like to find out who killed the men and put their corpses here. Anyone would want to solve the mystery of a body in their shop — let alone two bodies — and no motive one can see.’ Maximus had poured a cup of mead for me, from the store that I kept underneath my workbench at the back, and — almost without thinking — I accepted it. ‘I am no further forward than I was at the start.’
The mead was cold, of course, not warm and spiced as I prefer, and it was ill luck to drink in the presence of a corpse — unless it was a funeral libation to the gods — but all the same I took a sip of it. Somehow the thick liquid seemed very comforting.
Junio, however, waved his cup away. (If it had been Roman wine, I thought, he might have taken it!) ‘You don’t suppose that Radixrapum’s wife was right, and that these murders were aimed purposely at you, just because you have a reputation in such things? Perhaps there was no real motive for the killings after all — simply that these people were on the doorstep here.’
I didn’t answer. The idea seemed preposterous to me.
But Junio was warming to his theme. ‘So it might have been significant that they were street-vendors after all, though it didn’t matter who they were or what their business was. Perhaps the strangler didn’t even know, since he attacked them from the back.’ He paused, then shook his head. ‘But, of course, it can’t be possible. No one would murder random passers-by, simply to prove that he was cleverer than you. Only a madman would do a thing like that — and these murders are too cold to be the product of a raving mind.’
But suddenly I almost choked upon my mead. ‘By Jupiter and all the gods, I do believe you’re right.’
Junio gaped at me. ‘You think that we are looking for a lunatic? Someone so crazed with self-importance that he’d do that to somebody?’ He broke off and gestured to the unfortunate body on the floor.
I shook my head, still spluttering with mead. ‘That isn’t what I meant. Dear gods, why didn’t I think of this before? Even the tanner said the murderer might have done it by mistake!’
Junio looked baffled. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Think, Junio! You suggested that the murders were aimed purposely at me. Suppose that you are right?’
Junio sat down heavily on the trestle by my side. He had turned deathly white. ‘Great Mars! You mean, the murderer thought that it was you!’ He shook his head. ‘Then it must have been someone who knew you not at all. Lucius was so ugly that you could hardly miss the fact-’
‘Not from the back, he wasn’t. He was much my height and build, and he was wearing an old tunic that I’d given him. And it seems that Radixrapum was murdered in the dark, though I don’t know what he was doing at my workshop at that hour.’
‘After he had been wheeling your pavement through the streets!’ Junio said. Almost without appearing to notice what he did, he seized the second cup of mead that Maximus had poured and drained it at a gulp. He made a face. He didn’t care for mead. ‘So anyone who glimpsed him might have thought that it was you and followed him back here. Dear Mercury! Father, it looks as if you’re right.’ He saw that I was frowning. ‘You’ve thought of something else?’
‘Only that Radixrapum left his barrow on the lane outside Pedronius’s country house. I thought that he got into a wagon with a friend, but perhaps I was mistaken. My would-be killer could not have followed someone in a cart.’
‘Your would-be killer!’ Junio echoed disbelievingly. ‘But who on earth would want to murder you? And why? I know that Marcus Septimus thinks highly of your mind, but — no disrespect, Father — you don’t have influence, or serious wealth and power. I suppose a casual robber might set on you for your purse, as we thought had happened with Lucius at first, but two planned attempts to kill you? Who would benefit?’ He shook his head. ‘Perhaps the turnip-woman was right after all. It was a madman, pitting his crazed wits against your own. Besides-’
He broke off as there was a commotion at the door.
‘The stretcher already?’ I said to Maximus. ‘You’d better go and let the bearers in.’
But it was not the stretcher. It was the tanner’s wife, and her raddled face was a mask of what looked like rage and shock. She shouldered her way past Maximus and burst into the shop.
With one accord, Junio and I moved to stand between the woman and the cloaked shape upon the floor — to mask it if we could — but she did not so much as glance around the room. Even the now-pervasive smell did not seem to register. She sought me with her eyes and glared at me.
‘I might have known that you would bring trouble on our house. I told my husband so, but would he listen? Of course not, he knew best — as usual. All this lending burning embers and sending our best slave to talk to you for hours — and not even making any charge for it. Well, you won’t be talking to Glypto any more. I hope you’re satisfied.’
‘He has run away, then?’ I said stupidly. ‘I’m sorry if you think that was on my account. I think it was because of something he had seen which he thought was dangerous. He’s doubtless hiding till he thinks the threat has past. I’m sure that you will find him.’
She gave me a look that would have withered stone. ‘It was dangerous all right. And we’ve found him already. You’d better come and see.’ And, without waiting for an answer, she turned and strode outside.
Junio and I exchanged a startled glance and, leaving Maximus to keep vigil on the corpse, we meekly followed her.
Twenty-Three
The tanner’s woman did not turn her head to glance at us at all, but stumped imperiously on. She did not, as I expected, move towards her gate, but walked straight past it to the corner of the block and down the street that led towards the main road from the town. We were in the northern suburb here, just outside the gates, and I thought she was going to lead us to the high road further out, which was flanked with tombs and led off eastwards towards Corinium and beyond.
But, to my surprise, she doubled back again, down the narrow lane that led behind her premises and so back to the alley where the midden-pile was, so that we were now on the other side of it.
For the moment, however, I could not see the pile. The alleyway was narrow at the best of times, and now there was a crowd of people clustered into it, all of them craning to get a better view. One of them turned to glance as we approached and I recognized him from the tanner’s works — he had been one of the people scraping hides the day before.
The tanner’s wife had recognized him too. ‘Out of my way, you oaf!’ she barked. He backed away, and instantly a sort of path appeared, thanks to a general shuffle in the crowd. I realized that this was the workforce from the tannery. The stout little figure of the woman struggled through the gap, and as we tried in vain to follow her, she climbed up on a cracked pot at the bottom of the heap and turned to face the milling bystanders. ‘Get back to your work, the lot of you. There’s nothing more to see. Servus and Parvus, go and fetch a skinning board, and we’ll put this on it and carry it inside, and send for the slaves’ guild to take care of it. The rest of you — there’s tanning to be done. Stay here another moment and I’ll turn you on the streets.’
This outburst had an immediate effect. The two men that she had nominated — obviously slaves — trotted off at once in the direction of the house, and all the other workers seemed to melt away like dew. Junio and I were left alone with the tanner’s wife and found ourselves able to approach the midden-pile and take a look at it.
This side of it had clearly been recently disturbed, revealing something that had been roughly hidden beneath the surface rubbish — something that looked at first sight like a pile of bones and rags. It was still partly covered by a piece of filthy sack, but I hardly needed to examine it. I understood, with sinking heart, what those dogs had been so excited by a little while before.