‘On the contrary,’ I said, pausing at the corner to let him reach my side, and dropping my voice in case the tanner was in earshot just beyond the wall. ‘She always acts like that. In fact, if anything, I think she’s feeling grief.’
He looked at me, puzzled. ‘Grief? For Glypto? But she despised him. She was always saying so. She thought he was a fool. She was always threatening to get rid of him.’
‘But she never did. And if her husband had ever tried to sell him on, she would have left the house and taken her dowry with her — he told me that himself.’ I saw his look of blank bewilderment. ‘Glypto had been her slave since she was just a girl. She treated him appallingly, of course, as you so rightly say, but, in her own peculiar way, he was probably the only thing she ever cared about. And I think the tanner knows it.’
Junio swallowed and said pensively, ‘And he put up with it? Simply to keep the dowry, I suppose. I wonder what will happen to that household now?’ He stared thoughtfully towards the rear entrance of the tannery, which we were now passing. Clouds of acrid smoke were pouring out of it and swirling round the lane — obviously the tannage process was in full swing again. ‘Perhaps it will help if we can solve the crimes and find out who killed Glypto. At least she cannot blame you for it then, as she seems prone to do.’
I said heavily, ‘But the tanner’s wife is right. I am very much to blame. Glypto was killed because he tried to come to me, to offer information. I did not see the danger and I let him down.’
‘It’s not your fault that someone planned to murder him.’
I paused at the corner of the street to say, ‘I don’t believe that Glypto’s death was planned — not like the other two. I think it went like this. The murderer found out that Glypto knew too much and that he was planning to meet me at the pile, so then, of course, he knew he had to act. He kept a watch for Glypto somewhere close nearby and found him loitering in the alley-gap. It was raining by then and there was no one else about, so he took the opportunity to slip a knife between his ribs and covered him quickly with rubbish from the heap, thus giving himself the time to make his own escape before the body was discovered. And he might have got away with it, if it wasn’t for the dogs.’
Junio looked at me. ‘You seem very certain — almost as if you’d worked out who the green man is.’
‘I wish I had,’ I told him. ‘But every time I think I have an answer to all this, something happens which makes me change my mind. But don’t let’s stand and talk about it here. As Virilis told us, the street has ears and eyes, and there is still the problem of Radixrapum’s corpse. But we must talk it over — I am sure there’s something very obvious I’ve missed — and very soon indeed. I need to solve this mystery before my patron comes. There might be dreadful consequences for us otherwise.’
Junio misunderstood my train of thought. ‘Because the strangler is still after you?’ He sounded quite appalled. ‘Of course! He has already made two attempts upon your life — if our deductions so far prove to be correct — and both times he failed. So you are still in danger. Don’t stay here in the street. The strangler might be somewhere very close nearby, and, as the tanner said earlier, he may be watching us — as he was obviously watching Glypto too.’
‘He can hardly strangle both of us at once, and I’m quite certain that he works alone. As long as there is someone with me, I should be quite safe,’ I said, wishing I believed it.
But Junio was already tugging at my arm. ‘Come back into the shop. Maximus and I will try to make quite sure that you’re not left alone at all — not until the killer has been caught.’
I submitted to his pleading and permitted him to hustle me towards the workshop door — just in time to meet Maximus coming out of it.
Twenty-Four
‘Ah, master — and young master — there you are at last.’ Maximus was breathless with relief. ‘I did not know what had become of you. The turnip-seller’s son and brother have arrived to take away the corpse. They brought the tailboard from the cart to put him on and a blanket to put over him, so I have let them in. I’m glad you’re here now — you can talk to them.’
I nodded and went in, but there was little to talk about, in fact. The two men had already put the body on the makeshift bier. Shrouded by the blanket, it seemed less grotesque, and the presence of fresh herbs and flowers, which they’d obviously brought, gave at least the impression of a normal funeral. When Radixrapum made his final journey through the streets, he would attract no special stares. I was glad of that for him.
The brother — there was no doubt that they were siblings, he was so like Radixrapum that it was startling — had folded up my birrus and put it carefully aside and was now engaged, in silence, in sweeping down the floor, using a broom-bundle we kept by the wall. His nephew — another, younger version of the same — was walking behind him, sprinkling the brushed area with drops of water from the jug.
The younger man looked up as I came in. ‘We have done our best to purify the place,’ he said. ‘Sprinkled some ashes from the altar over there, just as we would have done if we had been at home.’
It was hard to know how to reply to this, but I thanked him rather awkwardly.
The uncle turned a pair of grey, distrustful eyes on me. ‘It wasn’t our idea. My sister-in-law told us to. Seemed to think that you’d been kind to her, and to my brother, though I can’t see how. If I had my way, I’d have the town watch here and have you marched off to the magistrates, but she swears you didn’t do this and will find the man who did.’ He shot me a scornful look. ‘Well, I hope she’s right. Perhaps at the same time you can find out why anyone should want to see my brother dead. He was a kindly man who never did any harm to anyone. On the contrary, he always tried to help.’ He vented his feelings by swishing viciously at the corners with the bunch of broom.
‘He was trying to help me,’ I admitted with a sigh. ‘I think that’s why he died, though I don’t yet know for certain who was responsible.’
The young man stopped his sprinkling and said very quietly, ‘Go on.’
‘I’ve tried to piece together what must have happened here. I think your father came back to the shop to see me late last night, because I owed him money for-’
Radixrapum’s brother interrupted me. ‘Well, you are wrong already. He never came back here, and I can swear to that. He came to see me in the market in the afternoon — quite late, not long before I’m usually packing up the stall — and said he had an errand to run outside the gates. He had something on his barrow, a pavement of some sort. .’ He looked around as if the thought had just occurred to him and added bitterly, ‘I suppose that it was yours. He was going to deliver it to Pedronius’s house, he said.’
I nodded and was about to tell him more, but he went on without a pause.
‘At all events, he said he would be late, and asked if I could pick him up outside the villa when I had finished for the day, because the road to my farm and his turnip field runs outside the gates. .’
‘You live close together?’ My turn to interrupt.
He paused in his energetic efforts with the broom to give me a look of ill-disguised contempt. ‘His turnip field abuts my smallholding, of course. It was all one property in my father’s time, but it’s divided now. Each of the sons was left a part of it, though, as the eldest, I had the largest share. But we still cooperate. He grows the turnips and I sell some on the stall, as well as the ones he hawks around the streets, and in return on feast days he peddles my cheese and buttermilk for me. Of course, I don’t have room to bring him into town when the cart is full of produce early in the day, but I often take him home — even with his barrow. .’ He faltered suddenly. ‘Or, at least, I did.’
‘And that is what you had arranged to do last night?’ I said. ‘I heard that an ox-cart had stopped outside the house.’
‘Well, it wasn’t mine,’ the man said bitterly. ‘I don’t have an ox. Only an old mule. I leave it with a hiring stables just outside the walls — I pay them to look after it and the cart as well — and I pick it up each evening when the market shuts. That’s what I did last night — as the hiring stables will no doubt tell you, if you care to ask — and I drove out to the villa, where he told me he would wait. I waited for a long time, till it was almost dark, but in the end I had to leave.’