‘Glypto?’ I murmured, genuinely shocked. ‘When did this happen?’
‘I don’t exactly know.’ It was the tanner’s rasping voice and I turned to see him standing very close behind. I had not seen him till that moment, though clearly he’d been there. ‘One moment he was hobbling to and from the house, and the next he’d simply gone. It must be. . I don’t know how long. . since I saw him last.’
His wife gave an impatient, disgusted little snort. ‘Then you’ve even fewer brains than I supposed you had. The last time I summoned him, it was to stoke the fire in the tanning house. I watched him do it — he shirks it otherwise — and now it has almost completely burned away. That would take half an hour or so at least, and when I looked and found he wasn’t there, the cauldron was not only off the boil, but it was starting to cool down. I was furious, of course. I had to stoke the fire myself to keep the tannage warm. That’s why I wanted him so urgently — to bring more fuel to get it brewing up again — but I couldn’t find him then, and we have been hunting for him for a long time since. So the answer to your question, citizen, is an hour, more or less.’
I nodded. That accorded with what I knew myself. ‘Shortly after I saw him at the pile, when I was talking to the cursor on the street,’ I said.
The woman glowered again. ‘And whose fault is it that the poor old fool is dead?’ she demanded angrily. ‘If it hadn’t been for you, and my foolish husband there, Glypto would not have been lurking in the gap, getting himself stabbed to death and buried in the pile.’
‘Stabbed to death?’ That was a real surprise. I hadn’t taken a close look at the corpse, which was anyway still part-covered by refuse from the pile: the top half obscured mostly by the piece of sack, but the legs still under what looked like kitchen waste. I noted rancid fat and vegetable skins as well as hooves and bones and fur-scrapings from the nearby factory. I had caught a glimpse of bloodstains on the length of tattered loincloth I could see, but I’d put that down to the gruesome activity of the dogs.
‘You are sure of that?’ I’d supposed that he’d been strangled like the other two.
She gave a mirthless grin. ‘It rather looks that way. Something pointed has made a hole between his ribs.’ She wouldn’t meet my eyes. ‘Take a look yourself. I had them pull that piece of sacking over him. I didn’t want the rats and dogs to gnaw him any more.’
I moved the piece of sack and knelt down on it myself — fruitless to try to save my toga now — and took a closer look at Glypto’s corpse. He had been thin in life and he was thinner still in death, no more than a skeleton encased in wrinkled skin. The woman was quite right: there was a knife wound in the chest and it had bled a lot, not only on the loincloth but on the pile beneath — presumably fresh blood was what had drawn the dogs. They had gnawed the wound quite badly, and the arm as well, but the rest of the body was more or less intact. When I brushed off the rubbish, I could see the heavy boots — the skinny feet still in them — and the sight of the iron collar round the neck gave me a little jolt.
The knife, which had been carefully removed, had struck with deadly skill. There was no sign of struggle or of other injury, and the old face looked — oddly — more surprised than pained.
It was clear that, once dead, he had been shoved down on the pile, and some of the contents pulled down over him, though even if we had not known it for a fact, we could have deduced that the body had not lain there very long: the stinking wet of rotting waste had not had time to seep deep into the clothes, only to damp the edges, and the hair, though full of leaves and rubbish, was not matted to his head, despite the recent rain.
In fact, I thought, we should be grateful to the starving dogs. If they’d not been driven to scrabble in the heap and dig the body up, it might have lain there quite a long time undisturbed until it had disintegrated into rot itself, the stench lost in the general stink that always permeates the heap.
Junio was tugging at my toga sleeve — more like his slave self than my only son. ‘Father,’ he whispered, ‘this proves that we were wrong. No one could stab Glypto thinking it was you. He doesn’t look like you, or dress like you, or wheel your pavements round the street for you — none of the things we spoke of earlier.’ He shook his head. ‘Or is there a second killer, do you think? I suppose there could be — there’s a different method used. Glypto wasn’t strangled.’
I didn’t answer. I got slowly to my feet. I was feeling very old. I turned to the stout woman still glowering at my side. ‘Madam, I am sorry that you have lost your slave. I can see it is a blow. If I can prove who killed him, as I hope I may, there is a possibility that you could claim redress. I will let you know as soon as I have news. In the meantime, I see your slaves have come, bringing the skinning board to take the body on. No doubt the slaves’ guild will arrange the funeral. Send me word when it happens, and I’ll attend the pyre.’
The woman gave me a baleful glance. ‘Claim redress!’ she muttered. ‘What? And buy myself another servant in his stead? You think that is so easy? You are nothing but a fool. Worse than my husband, if that’s possible. Parvus and Servus, pick this body up!’ She whirled around, to my astonishment, and almost spat at me. ‘And don’t go anywhere near his funeral, do you understand? He was my slave, and you killed him, whatever you may say! As surely as if you’d plunged that knife in him yourself. So don’t pretend you’re sorry and come snivelling around his pyre.’ And following the slaves, who had scooped the body up, she seized her silent husband by the arm and marched, as rigid as a centurion, back down the alleyway and round towards her door.
Junio looked helplessly at me. ‘Just because you told her that she might claim redress. That’s hardly gratitude.’ He frowned. ‘You don’t suppose she did the deed herself? Stabbed him in a fit of rage, because she found him out here at the pile again when he was supposed to tend the fire? She might have done. She’s quite strong enough, and there’s plenty of sharp knives in the house — after all, they use them for skinning all the time.’ He was warming to this theory now. ‘Suppose she came out carrying a blade, struck him harder than she meant and killed him, more or less by accident. Wouldn’t she have tried to bury him a bit — scrabble a bit of the rubbish over him — and then sent in for help, pretending she’d just found him? By her own admission she put the sacking over him. Perhaps it wasn’t even such an accident.’
I put a fatherly hand upon his arm. ‘I don’t think she killed him. I think he was killed because of what he knew — and most likely by the strangler himself.’
‘But we know she hated him. She flogged him dreadfully, locked him out all night, kept him with that chain around his neck-’ He broke off. ‘Oh I see. Glypto always wore that heavy collar round his neck. Even if the strangler had wanted to slip a cord around his throat — like he did the others — he couldn’t have done so, because that was in the way?’
‘Exactly so,’ I said. ‘Using the knife may have been an unexpected last resort.’ I went towards the midden as I spoke, half-wondering if there was a way to clamber over it, but it was far too high. High enough, as Glypto had observed, to hide a child — or a corpse — that was on the other side. I cursed myself for my lack of curiosity when I’d come out to search for Glypto in the rain. I turned and began to walk the long way home again.
Junio trotted after me. ‘Well, I still think there is something strange about the tanner’s wife.’ He was reluctant to cede the argument. ‘She was behaving very oddly after he was dead. You don’t think it was guilt?’