Claudia had seen what he had not. What was in front of him all along. That’s why she went to visit the victims and had kept her suspicions about Dymas to herself. To brand a man a monster when he was merely odd would leave an irrevocable scar, while for Marcus to arrest his own colleague in a rush to stop further attacks and then be proved to have been wrong would have destroyed both Dymas and him. It was only once the pieces started to fall into place that he realized what tipped the balance of Claudia’s scales from supposition to proof. The victims’ statements.
Funny, but he could quote them word for word every time and still the penny didn’t drop.
‘How could you identify the attacker,’ he had asked, ‘if he was masked?’ and each reply was the same.
‘By the smell of aniseed, by the way he held himself, by his voice and the shape of his hands.’
That was the point. Each reply was the same. As though someone had coached them- And, goddammit, he hadn’t picked that up.
‘You can drop me here,’ he told the head bearer. The Greek’s small apartment was one block ahead, he could see a light burning in the window. Could almost picture Dymas hunched over the case notes. Insurance, my arse! He’d kept those files to pore over in his spare moments, relishing every living moment, gloating over his triumphs.
Orbilio checked the dagger in his belt, the knife down the side of his boot.
‘This is for you,’ he promised the man whose throat had been torn out by the lions.
*
‘Bloody fuck, mate, you gave me a start. Don’t you know what time it is?’
Orbilio smiled. ‘Did I wake you?’
‘Well… no. But it’s gone midnight, can’t it wait?’
‘Not really,’ Orbilio said mildly, pushing past.
The apartment was small. Cramped, even, and not very clean. Food, probably stew in a past life, had congealed into black tar on top of a pile of unwashed wooden trenchers, shrivelled onions hung on a string on the wall, and a coating of dust took the shine off what little furniture there was. It occurred to him that, if he’d been lowborn and forced to live on Security Police pay, this is the sort of accommodation he could expect to live in.
But if he’d been hoping for the stale smells to be eclipsed by aniseed, he was out of luck. Of course, that was never really on the cards. A man who covered his tracks with such care wouldn’t risk leaving the paraphernalia of his trade lying about. The aniseed, the files, the mask, these treasures would be kept in a separate place. A secret place. The Halcyon Rapist’s private den, where his trophies could be displayed to their full and glorious triumph. And where the stench of aniseed could be washed off, leaving no trace.
‘If you don’t mind my saying, you look like shit, mate.’
Orbilio wondered where the hot-food vendor’s wife had wounded him. She didn’t know. Twisted his testicles, lunged with the knife and ran off before he could get his breath back. ‘You look pretty rough, too,’ he said happily.
‘Crumbs, what d’you expect? It’s two in the fucking morning and it’s been a tough few days. Drink?’
‘That’s promotion for you,’ Marcus breezed, seating himself in a high-backed wooden chair and waving away the proffered goblet. Ideally, he would have crossed his legs to emphasize the casual nature of his call, but the wound in his side wouldn’t permit it. In the end, he was just glad to sit down and felt a small trickle of something sticky run down the inside of his tunic.
‘So what happened?’ Dymas asked, indicating his colleague’s blackened and ragged appearance.
Orbilio steepled his fingers. ‘We caught the rapist,’ he said.
‘Really?’ Dymas’s eyes lifted at last. ‘Well, good on you, Marcus. Sure you won’t have that drink?’ He swallowed half a glass in one go, and Orbilio noted the effort the Greek had to use to keep the smirk from his face.
‘So was I right?’ Dymas refilled his goblet. ‘Was it some sick copycat bastard?’
Orbilio ran his hand round the back of his neck. ‘No, Dymas. Just some sick bastard,’ he said, adding, ‘with a pathological hatred of women.’
A hatred so bitter, so twisted, that he tormented his victims over and over by making them relive their ordeal in the name of interrogation. Some of the girls naturally recognized his voice-and how Dymas would have relished that moment. Watching the horror on their faces as they realized that the rapist was protected by the Security Police. There could be no justice for them, they would think. Who would believe their stories? His word against theirs? They’d be the accusations of a hysterical woman versus a trusted investigator. It was hopeless. Leaving Dymas to torment them to the brink of despair and treasure in his heart that exquisite moment when they howled, whimpered, quivered or tore at their own flesh with the injustice of it all. How sublime, knowing you had the ability to push someone over the edge into suicide. No wonder he’d been so keen to go back to Deva this morning. He hadn’t finished torturing her yet. Silently, Marcus thanked Jupiter for the brainwave which got her out of his clutches.
‘Imagine the control he exercised, Dymas. Limiting himself to just fourteen rapes at a run.’
A number specifically chosen to breed panic yet insufficient to run too much risk of detection.
‘Over Saturnalia, too,’ Dymas said, covering the smirk he could no longer control with the back of his hand. ‘Halcyon Days, when people should be happy and without a care in the world.’
‘Ah, but he’s a spoiler, Dymas. He chose Saturnalia because it’s traditionally the happiest time of the year, and he isn’t happy, so he wants to ruin it for everyone else.’
A man who submerges his victims in ordure is a man who wants to defile everything. The chair creaked when Marcus leaned back.
‘It’s the only way someone so small and insignificant can feel big.’
The Greek’s hand clenched round the goblet so tight that it shattered.
‘Can’t agree with you there, mate,’ he said, wrapping a linen towel round his hand to staunch the blood. ‘Our boy’s instigated one of the biggest manhunts in the history of the Security Police, he’s outwitted us at every bleeding turn and put the fear of Jupiter into every woman in the city. That’s a clever man, Marcus. A very intelligent mind at work.’
‘You think?’ Orbilio pretended to consider. ‘I reckon that if you asked anyone in the Empire, rich or poor, freeborn or slave, what’s clever about destroying lives and creating a climate of fear, they’d laugh in your face.’
Dymas’s expression darkened. Marcus pressed on.
‘Only little men think terror is clever. Big men, important men, the really intelligent ones, they have nothing to prove.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Dymas hissed. ‘But anyway, who cares? You got the bastard, you said.’
Orbilio moved across to the window and peered between the gap in the shutters. ‘Only because he overreached himself,’ he said quietly. ‘He got greedy.’
Limiting the rapes, organizing the attacks, entailed enormous self-control, but the pleasure came from the stalking beforehand and the tormenting after, whether or not the victims recognized their attacker. And for those who hadn’t recognized his voice, how simple to suggest, in a personal visit, that the Security Police had strong evidence linking a suspect, then stressing that it was only circumstantial. Yes, his clothes reeked of aniseed, yes, they found this mask under his bed-oh, Dymas. How easy it must have been when you held up the grinning face of their attacker. How susceptible they would be then to your coaching. What did you plant in their impressionable minds? How much better it would be if witnesses were able to identify the evil bastard and put him where he belonged, perhaps? In hell. Orbilio could see how quickly the terrified girls would have learned their lines.