Marilyn Todd - Wolf Whistle

Arbil leaned back in his chair, the signal that the meeting was over. Sargon and Dino stood up.

‘I received a report from Rome,’ the slave master said casually, ‘saying another girl was killed last night.’

Two Adam’s apples tensed. ‘Rough districts, some of them,’ said Sargon.

‘Real no-go areas,’ added Dino.

‘Mmmm.’ Arbil’s eyes fixed themselves on the green-tiled zodiac scorpion. ‘I’m told this girl died of twenty-seven cuts with a knife.’

Dino glanced up sharply. ‘Twenty-seven?’

Arbil’s eyes moved to the lion, symbol of courage. ‘That makes three girls who have been killed from exactly twenty-seven wounds. Odd, don’t you think?’

No one answered. Drips from the eaves splashed into puddles of mud beneath the window. Arbil’s spicy unguents seemed to cloy, especially the cade which clashed with the cedarwood scent from his hair oil.

‘The authorities are too busy wetting their pants over his Imperial Majesty’s health,’ he said, pulling his long woollen mantle more snugly over his ankles, ‘to be concerned about slaves.’

Sargon and Dino stared straight ahead, and pretended they didn’t notice the heat in this dark blue room of antiquities.

‘But I am,’ the slave master said quietly. ‘Especially when they could be traced here. Do either of you have information on these killings?’

The word ‘No’ came in unison.

‘Then that’ll be all for this morning.’ Arbil’s hirsute cheeks bunched into a smile as he chafed his hands together. ‘The shipment that’s due out-those three boys for the bakery-I’d like to check it over personally, could you see it’s brought to the house, Dino?’

Two jaws relaxed visibly.

Arbil waited until the two men had reached the door. ‘Oh, and boys.’

‘Father?’

‘I can take it as read, can I not, that the five of you in no way disbanded last night?’

Neither Sargon nor Dino so much as blinked, but it was Dino who first found his voice. ‘Absolutely not, sir.’

‘Good. Good. Then I’ll see you later.’ Arbil stood up and admired the rings on his short, stubby finger joints. ‘Dino.’

‘Sir?’

‘You’ll be going to Rome?’ He buffed up a band set with chalcedony.

‘With the shipment, yes. I’m also looking for buyers for those copyists, now the deal with old Nerva fell through.’

‘Quite.’ Who’d have thought Nerva would fiddle the books? ‘Well, while you’re in town, see if you can find out the name of the dead girl.’ He spat on the precious white stone. ‘And Dino?’

‘Sir?’

‘Let’s make sure this stays within the three of us. Eh?’ When he was alone once more with his Mesopotamian treasures, Arbil walked round his table and picked up the thin-bladed knife which he used for breaking the seals of his letters and studied it carefully for several seconds.

‘Neat.’ A young man in a long grey cloak stepped out from behind the green-tiled zodiac and smiled a lazy, lopsided smile. ‘Very neat.’

Arbil let out a soft snort that was part irritation, part amusement but, it had to be said, principally admiration. He didn’t bother to enquire what it might be that this visitor was complimenting. ‘How long have you been standing there?’ he asked.

The cloak was what he’d have expected the man to wear on a day when the clouds were so low you were part of them, a colour to render its wearer invisible.

‘Long enough to prove a point.’

‘Which is?’ Even as he asked the question, Arbil knew the answer.

‘To remind you that your investment in my training wasn’t wasted.’ He plucked the knife from Arbil’s manicured fingers and, with an exaggerated wink, dropped it down the top of his boot.

Arbil sighed resignedly. ‘I suppose you heard?’

‘The acoustics in this room are really quite remarkable,’ the visitor replied, running his fingertips over the relief of Adad’s sacred bulls. ‘You know, Arbil, you and your son have much in common.’

‘I am very proud of Sargon,’ the Babylonian said stiffly. Not once had his eyes left his visitor’s face.

With an extravagant flourish, the man in grey shook Arbil’s paper knife down the sleeve of his cloak and sent it twanging into the maplewood desk. ‘Oh, but I was referring to your other son,’ he said slowly. ‘Shannu.’

‘Shan-?’ The colour drained from Arbil’s face to leave two bright spots of rouge above the beard line. ‘Shannu?’ Before he could recover his powers of speech, the visitor had unhooked the shutter and had his long leg halfway over the sill. ‘Magic,’ he laughed, twirling his cloak.

Within seconds, his camouflage was complete and, as Arbil poured a glass of strong, fermented date liquor with a hand which trembled badly, he was left wondering whether he had imagined the entire episode. The same way he couldn’t get it up and hours blanked out, his mind, also, played tricks.

Then Arbil saw the knife, quivering upright in the wood.

When he shivered, he was not sure whether it was from the cold coming in through the open window or from the spectre of his youngest son. Shannu.

Wringing his hands, Arbil fell on his knees and thanked Marduk for his daily round of schedules.

Only his schedules kept him sane.

By the time Claudia had brought up her breakfast, her supper and possibly even yesterday’s lunch, the crowd of ghouls on the Argiletum had all but dispersed. Not out of shame, or because every fibre of their clothing was waterlogged, or even because they had better things to do. It was simply that now the undertakers had left, there was nothing more to gawp at. One or two among them sneered, the way people do when they think they’ve been short-changed, but the majority trickled quietly away as Orbilio began to question the neighbours. Each time he drew a blank. Even from Zosi, the speech seller who discovered the body. Zosi was a disenchanted, middle-aged bachelor with a penchant for the grape and he was adamant. Yes, his room was directly overhead. No, he didn’t hear a thing. Well, possibly a scuffle, but he keeps himself to himself, and all right, maybe he did hear a small boy calling for his ma, but it wasn’t any of his business what goes on, same as that chap whistling his dog.

‘What dog?’ Orbilio’s ears pricked up. ‘When was that?’

But Zosi couldn’t say, and in the end all Orbilio had for certain was that Zosi had heard a whistle, three short notes in succession, and that it was some time after midnight. As he said, just some chap calling for his dog. Whit-whit-whit.

Wiping her mouth with her handkerchief, Claudia straightened from her groggy knees. What kind of mind can slash a girl unrecognizable? Could stand there, perhaps laughing at the pain he was inflicting, but far more likely aroused by his own sadism? She looked round for Junius, couldn’t see him, and stumbled into a bookshop to wait. The instant he returned, she’d be off, and that wasn’t a reaction to the crime down in the alley, more to the man who was investigating it. This was the first time she’d seen him on home turf, his face grey and pinched with anger at the atrocities committed, mastering his fury and masking his revulsion in his ordered questioning, his note taking, his painstaking attention to detail as he searched the scene of the crime, demonstrating both his professionalism and, at the same time, his vulnerability. It struck a chord Claudia did not wish to hear. Picking up a wax tablet from deep inside the bookseller’s, she flipped open the hinge.

‘Claudia?’

This was not a voice tinged with a Gaulish accent and so she lifted the book to cover her face.

‘I do believe,’ the baritone continued, taking the tablet from her hands, ‘that to truly appreciate the poetry of Virgil, it helps to hold it the right way up.’