‘He got careless, you say?’ A gloating light danced in Dymas’s eyes as he saw history repeating itself. Better and better. Now this patrician, this tall, handsome, wealthy patrician who he so despised because of his caste, would send another man to the arena. And in so doing, would slit his own throat Orbilio moved the candle and propped himself against the sill. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I was the careless one. You see, Dymas, for the first time in my life, I took someone else’s word, without checking the facts for myself.’
The pause was almost imaginary, but something in Dymas changed. Orbilio felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck.
‘Yeah, but that last guy confessed,’ the Greek said, although the bluster had adopted an edge of wariness now. ‘You weren’t to know he was the type who’d confess to anything, were you? I told you before, shit happens. Quit beating yourself up about this.’
‘Well, that was the thing, Dymas. I didn’t actually get a confession last time. No one actually reported the suspect confessing to the crimes, only that he signed a confession. There’s a difference.’
Dymas’s tongue flickered nervously round his lips. ‘It’s not part of your remit to interrogate suspects once they’re under arrest.’
‘Nor is it yours.’ He stood up, flexed his shoulders. Felt a hundred years old. ‘It’s over, Dymas. The game’s up.’ There was no bluffing. The Greek had worked with Orbilio long enough to know when he was serious. He edged towards the bed. Marcus drew the knife from his boot.
‘This will be in your heart before you’re halfway.’
‘Kill me and you kill yourself,’ Dymas sneered. ‘They’ll say you did it because I was promoted over your head and you couldn’t take it, and who’s to say otherwise? You have no evidence, nothing to connect me with the rapes. Even with your poncy connections, who’ll believe you? The boss?’ He spat on the floor. ‘Yeah, right.’
‘Oh, I’m sure that somewhere in this poky apartment there’ll be a key. A key to a room where files are spread out permanently, anchored by stones, and where a mask hangs on a wall. A room where a little man, an insignificant little worm of a man, a man who can’t get a woman in any normal way, pleasures himself as he relives his victims’ torment.’
‘Sex? You think this is about sex?’ Orbilio didn’t, but he said nothing. Dymas had unleashed the beast now. There was only one way this could end.
‘Sex is nothing, mate. A dirty, vile, nasty little act by a man who’s supposed to love you and care for you but sneaks into your bedroom when you’re seven years old and holds your head into the pillow until you can’t breathe then tells you he’ll throttle you if you tell anyone. No, it’s not about sex, mate. This is power.’
Dymas seemed to grow before his eyes.
‘Until you experience it, you can’t imagine what it’s like,’ he said, clenching his fists. ‘You talk about exercising control when it comes to limiting the attacks, but fuck, that’s nothing compared to the control when you’ve got the little whores whimpering at your feet.’
He laughed. It was the first time Marcus had heard him do so, and it wasn’t a sound he much cared for.
‘I never harmed one of the little slags, d’you know that? Didn’t need to, mind. Showed them the blade, and they were too fucking scared to fight back. Timid, snivelling, cringeing little mice, that’s all they are, and they got what was coming to them, the worthless trash.’
‘I didn’t realize any creature deserved to have their lives ruined, their families put on hold, their emotions suspended for ever.’
‘What life?’ Dymas scoffed. ‘You’ve seen them. Wandering around half-naked, even this time of the year. Harlots, that’s what they are. Oho, yes, don’t think I haven’t seen them, mate. Don’t think I haven’t watched the little whores and I tell you, that herbalist’s no better than a pimp, having Deva showing herself in all weathers. Well, I showed her, mate. I showed all of them. I bloody did, too.’
‘Bodices and short skirts are traditional Damascan attire. Deva didn’t invite sex, and she certainly didn’t invite rape.’
‘Yeah, but she won’t be waggling her arse at any more men for a while, will she? Filthy little prick-teaser.’ Dymas turned a sly eye on his colleague. ‘But I’m not finished yet. Not by a long chalk.’
As he dived for the bed, he kicked out at the table. The candle fell and went out. Orbilio’s knife whizzed through the air. Thudded harmlessly into the door. Shit. Splinters of pain tore at his side, jarred by the table slamming into his thigh. It had ruined his aim. In the darkness, Dymas laughed. The sound reminded Marcus of a hyena closing on a kill. Silently, he drew his dagger.
Listened.
Heard nothing.
Dymas was employed by the Security Police for his streetwise ways and his cunning, his brute strength and his resilience. Orbilio cursed the man who gave him the job. In the blackness, the only breathing he could hear was his own. Below, in the street, men wished each other goodwill. He remained motionless, straining for sounds. Dymas knew every square inch of this apartment. Orbilio’s sole advantage was that he had his back against the wall.
The strike came out of nowhere. At the last moment, he saw the blade plunging through the dark. He ducked. Could not contain the grunt that escaped when the herbalist’s stitches snapped as he twisted. One all, he thought dully. Blood dribbled down the outside of his leg and pooled at his feet. He waited. Dymas would have expected him to move. For that reason he hadn’t. Seconds dripped by like lead. Then, Jupiter be praised, a lull in the traffic coincided with Dymas’s strike. Orbilio swung his dagger. Steel clashed against steel.
‘Sloppy, very sloppy.’ Dymas was laughing. ‘I can fucking smell you.’
Vinegar and turpentine. Of course. The blades locked and Orbilio’s free hand balled into a fist, driving into Dymas’s side. The Greek jerked like a puppet. So then. That was where the food vendor’s wife had landed her blow. Without waiting to think what it would cost him, Orbilio thudded his boot into the wound. Dymas reeled backwards and Orbilio tumbled on top of him. Closing his forearm round the Greek’s throat, he forced Dymas’s head back, exposing the throat.
‘You haven’t the strength,’ Dymas hissed.
It was true. But Orbilio had the strength to call out. Immediately, four legionaries burst into the room. The one at the back carried a torch.
‘Drop the knife, Dymas.’
The Greek had no choice. Reluctantly, he released the dagger in his hand.
Marcus turned his head to the soldiers, was conscious of blood pumping from the wound in his side and sweat pouring down his face to blind his eyes. ‘Did you get all that, sergeant?’ he rasped.
‘Every word, sir,’ the soldier said, grinning. ‘Although you took your bloody time calling us inside, if you don’t mind my saying so.’
When Orbilio released his grip on the rapist, his whole body began to shake like a poplar. ‘This was something I had to do myself.’
As one of the soldiers stepped forward with chains, the hobnails on his boots slipped in the pool of Orbilio’s blood. It was all the time Dymas needed. He lunged for his dagger. Marcus used every last ounce of his strength to prevent him from falling on it.
‘No chance,’ he growled. His victims weren’t going to be cheated. ‘Last time I arranged for the rapist to be executed by lions. For you, Dymas, I’m working on something rather more protracted.’
But for now it was Saturnalia Eve, and despite the hour he owed Claudia a visit. He needed to thank her for talking to the victims today, for helping him out, for taking such an interest in the case, to tell her she was right and Who was he kidding?
Hell, he just needed to see her.
Thirty-Five
Claudia opened her eyes to blackness and the sound of a percussion orchestra on their first practice run. It took her a while to work out that the cymbals and drum rolls were inside her head, and that the blackness came from lying face down on a pile of thick fleeces. The fleeces had been washed, and they were soft and comforting, like floating on a cloud, and smelled slightly oily. She tried to sit up, and found that her furs had been stripped from her, her arms tied behind her back, her ankles bound and memories of being trapped down Pepper Alley flooded back. Looking round, shivering from the bitter night air, she realized she was in some sort of shed, possibly a warehouse, lit by a single oil lamp placed on the floor.