Marilyn Todd - Wolf Whistle

‘That’s three of our five suspects demolished.’ Orbilio stroked his jaw. ‘What about Shannu?’

‘The obvious candidate,’ Claudia said. ‘Unfortunately he has a watertight alibi, that room is locked at all times, repeat all times, which is a pity, because Shannu has the perfect temperament for this crime.’

‘You think so?’ Marcus frowned. ‘These are sophisticated killings, carefully planned and thought through, and I can see Shannu being bright enough and cunning enough to carry them out, but it’s the control aspect that doesn’t fit in.’

She pretended to be surprised. ‘Control?’

‘The binding of the ankles and the wrists,’ he explained. ‘Not easy with just one hand, and it suggests a need to dominate the victims, show who’s boss, and the longer it takes, the better. So then.’ Orbilio closed his eyes. ‘Suppose you tell me why you know it isn’t Sargon.’

The lids were shut, but you could still see the sparkle. He knew. Goddammit, he knew she didn’t think Sargon was the killer, he’d been stringing her along all the time! How the hell could he have guessed? Claudia’s fingernails drummed against the woodwork. Of course. If she’d suspected for a second that any of those men had been a butcher, she’d have contacted him straight away, instead of waiting for him to come to her. He knew she would not have risked another tattooed life.

‘I don’t know it isn’t Sargon,’ she said, with no attempt to disguise the petulance in her voice. ‘The wolf, the whistle-whit, whit, whit. He comes in on a market day, sneaks away from Dino and the Captain, and yes of course he has a secret. All men do.’

One lazy lid opened and slowly closed again.

‘Sargon,’ Claudia continued, ‘intends to wrest the reins from Arbil and operate from Rome, there are letters in his chest to that effect. Unfortunately, he intends to change his father’s moral strictures.’ She tossed across the two folded documents, the contract and the invoice, she’d purloined from Sargon’s satchel. ‘This is merely a sample.’

Orbilio’s breath came out in a hiss and he moved across to scrutinize the papers by the ever brightening sky. ‘The bastard plans to sell children into brothels! He’s drawn up a pricing structure, for gods’ sake.’

That’s the trouble with peace, thought Claudia, remembering all too clearly Sargon’s tariffs for brothels the length and breadth of the country. Peacetime brings boredom, boredom breeds hedonism and hedonism clearly pays handsome. Suddenly there was a nasty taste in her mouth.

‘I’ll bloody put paid to that,’ Orbilio was saying. ‘I’ll send soldiers right now to arrest him, and even then, we’d probably be doing him a favour. Janus knows what retribution Arbil would extract.’

I dread to think.

‘I just wish we had a motive for the slaughter,’ he said, tucking into his belt the evidence which would shortly sink Sargon. ‘Annia can’t recall any incident which might have triggered-where is she, by the way?’

‘Search me,’ Claudia shrugged.

‘Gladly,’ he grinned. ‘Can we start now?’

But all he got was a look that would have burnt holes in cobblestones.

He stared across the garden, where bees buzzed round the fan-trained peach and blizzards of apple blossom cascaded on to the path as a small boy climbed the branches. The first of the slaves were up, laying out breakfast, stoking the furnace, putting out crumbs for the birds. Had it not been for the dim light of the peristyle, the killer would have seen Severina had no tattoo and instead he’d have run Annia to ground. A sharp pain ran through Orbilio’s gut. Maybe the bastard already had…

‘Think carefully, Claudia. Think really carefully. Severina was killed here on purpose, a message to you-and they don’t come much clearer than that.’ She heard the rasp where he scratched at his stubble. ‘Is there no one else you can think of who has a connection with Arbil?’

A mental picture flashed across Claudia’s vision. One man talking earnestly with two others in a cool and shaded courtyard. A man who was surprised to see her there. A man who likes to control…

‘No,’ she said irritably. ‘I’ve told you everything I know.’

Around now, bakers would be cooling their first batches of the day, cats and dogs would stretch and scratch their fleas. Canopies would be unfolding under which tribunes would sit to hear petitions. Temple priests around the city would kindle up their sacred, aromatic fires.

Claudia feigned a yawn.

‘I’m sorry.’ Marcus jumped out of the chair and held open the door of the office. ‘I ought not have kept you up all night.’

She fluttered a grateful feminine smile and shuffled wearily into her sandals. Once in the hall, however, those same shoes barely touched the floor as she dived into the bustling street.

Claudia did not believe those tales about werewolves who lusted after human blood.

But she believed in men who did.

‘I know he’s in there.’ Claudia pounded her fist against the heavy, holm-oak door. ‘Dammit, Tucca, open up!’ Heads poked out of windows, doves took flight, dogs barked. This was a respectable suburb on the Quirinal, the residents were unused to disturbances. A small child began to bawl. Claudia continued to batter.

Click, clunk, graunch. Finally, the door swung open a hand’s span.

‘Where is he?’ Claudia shoved her weight behind the timber and sent the mute reeling. ‘I know you’re here, Kaeso. Come on out!’

Tucca picked herself up and stumbled after the intruder, gargling and gesticulating with her raw, red hands that Kaeso didn’t live here, please go now. Undeterred, Claudia swept down the atrium, her magenta wrap flapping like batwings as she flung aside curtains, doors and shutters and peered into every dismal, empty room along the way. Nothing. She marched into the peristyle, still deep in shadow where the sun had not yet risen above the surrounding apartment blocks, and swore. The garden, if possible, looked gloomier than ever. No brindle dog to cheer it up, no puffs of white narcissus or scented squills, and the room of curios was strangely silent, too. The grate had been swept clean and only a lingering hint of woodsmoke suggested a fire had ever danced here. The collection of carved animals-rearing horses, diving dolphins, licking cats-seemed static somehow, lifeless, and the gap where the leaping billygoats had stood glared mournfully back at her.

The vitality of the room, she realized with an irregular thump of her heart, had been generated solely by Kaeso.

Tucca stood beside the polished cypress door, hands on solid hips as though to say I-told-you-so. Claudia’s eyes narrowed as she slowly retraced her steps to the atrium. The doors she’d flung open Tucca hadn’t bothered to close. Another smack in the face for her visitor. He was here, though. Goddammit, he was here…

Methodically she cast her eye over the atrium decor. Unimaginative was the word, that geometric mosaic, those boring blocks of colour on the walls, that mean little pool. Claudia looked up at the neutral stuccoed ceiling. Janus, the silence in this house was creepy! Then she remembered how Kaeso was predisposed towards tricks. Aha! With a judicious shove, two concealed doors in the far wall gave way, exposing a hidden room washed with blues, greens and silvers, sparkling with the reflections from a polished silver mirror. A shrine to an unfamiliar figure filled the far corner, although she recognized the Babylonian cherubs that were clinging to the ceiling.

‘Now tell me what were you doing at Arbil’s,’ she demanded.

And still there was nothing straightforward about Kaeso. The linen of his tunic was neither green nor blue, yet it could pass for either, and in the early morning light, his shaggy mane shone silver. Even in the privacy of his well concealed bedroom, it transpired, Kaeso resorted to camouflage.