Marilyn Todd - Second Act

‘I see you’re prepared to dispense with the small talk,’ Claudia said. ‘A man after my own heart.’ Indeed, judging by the snarl on his face, he’d like to claw it out with his bare hands, given the chance. ‘But since you ask, I thought it was obvious. I want my five thousand back.’

‘I ain’t got yer five-’

‘Before you say anything you might regret-’ Claudia snapped her fingers and three men entered the storeroom. ‘I’d like to introduce you to Beno.’

She beckoned forward a rugged individual whose left socket was sewn over. Unlike Philip of Macedon, Beno hadn’t lost his in battle when it got pierced by an arrow. He’d fallen down drunk and hit his head on the corner of a stone step, and he was no warrior, either. He stoked the fires in Claudia’s boiler house, although she saw no reason to draw Moschus’s attention to that.

‘His friend, Atticus-’ She waved forward a giant, six feet six, broad as a barn, with a grin as wide as the Caspian Sea. ‘-is better known as Hatchet Atti,’ she said blithely, forgetting to add that Atticus had the mind of a nine-year-old. ‘And the third member of the trio is Tiro. You might know him by his nickname? The Butcher of Brindisi?’

Tiro curled half a lip and Moschus recoiled on his chair. He hadn’t heard of any Butcher of Brindisi, but he didn’t like the look of those dark red, rusty stains round the hilt of Tiro’s knife.

‘Right then.’ Claudia rubbed her hands briskly. ‘What was it you were going to tell me about my five thousand sesterces?’

*

Marcus Cornelius Orbilio had had a brainwave.

Although he could see the logic of Dymas’s argument, that the more they talked to the victims the more they might learn about the rapist, he would have preferred to divert resources into questioning witnesses. People who lived or worked near where the attacks had taken place and who might have seen something, even though they hadn’t necessarily understood its significance at the time. Talking to the victims’ neighbours and friends, asking whether they had noticed anything unusual, because the rapist had clearly stalked his victims. Knew enough about their movements to know when, and where, to strike. Had it been him in charge, he would be talking to the hot-food vendor’s wife and her family.

More than merely channelling resources in different directions, though, Marcus felt it was morally reprehensible to pressurize Deva by questioning her again so soon. Had he honestly thought it would advance the investigation, he would have had no hesitation, but forcing answers from a girl who’d retreated into herself would severely damage her chance of recovery.

But Orbilio’s methods were not Dymas’s methods and, if nothing else, these last few days had shown him that the surly Greek was far more ambitious than he’d given him credit for. Today he’d shown no signs of wanting input from his patrician colleague, and if that was how he wanted to play it, going solo and getting all the credit, then so be it.

Just remember that two can play at that game.

Conspiring against the Security Police wasn’t exactly the career move Marcus had envisaged, but either a man had principles or he hadn’t. They could drum him out of the force and he would still bring this bastard to justice and so, without a word to anyone, Orbilio had arranged for Claudia’s house to be put under twenty-four-hour surveillance. If the rapist was one of the Spectaculars (as he was beginning to suspect), then by heaven the monster had claimed his very last victim. Marcus was lucky enough in that he could afford to hire private surveillance teams, but thwarting the rapist wasn’t the source of his brainwave.

Demotion meant there was nothing he could do to prevent Dymas from questioning Deva. Providing Dymas could find her.

‘This is strictly between ourselves,’ he told the herbalist. ‘I’ll send a covered litter to collect you. You can stay at my house for as long as you like.’

Deva and the herbalist might as well make use of the servants, enjoy full central heating, an indoor sunken bath, good food and vintage wines. Hardly the Saturnalia the Damascan girl would have wanted, he knew, but at least she could recover at her own pace and he had left strict instructions with his steward not to let Dymas, or indeed anyone else from the Security Police, inside.

‘This is extremely kind of you,’ the herbalist said thickly.

Kind? Marcus felt a lump form in his throat. Had it not been for his incompetence, Deva wouldn’t be in this state. Neither would four other girls ‘I don’t know how to thank you.’

‘I do,’ Marcus said, smiling. ‘Appoint me godfather of your first child.’

Orbilio had still not returned home, but coincidentally several large muscular types had appeared in Claudia’s street and stationed themselves on various corners, trying for all the world to blend in as locals and ending up looking-well, like large muscular types. It could be the linen merchant was taking no chances with his money box for Saturnalia. Then again, Claudia wouldn’t bet her life on it.

Moschus had gone. Very soon he would realize that he’d been conned, but at the time he was too terrified to do more than answer Claudia’s questions. Jail for a sailor used to wide-open seas was the ultimate terror. Especially for one who had, as Orbilio very conveniently pointed out, a low threshold of pain. Put the two together and Moschus had been putty in Claudia’s hands.

Getting her five thousand sesterces back was easy. After leaving Claudia in the Temple of Portunus, Moschus had merely transferred the funds within the temple depository, with a view to collecting them later. With the misfortune of being picked up by the Security Police shortly after, he’d had no chance to return. Moschus had been a tad reluctant when it came to disclosing the precise location of the receipts which would redeem her money, but then the Butcher of Brindisi began to strop his blood-encrusted knife, and of course Moschus didn’t know the blood came from skinning rabbits for the stewpot. After that, he became very accommodating, because Claudia had needed more from the good captain than her money back.

Moschus and Butico had to be partners in this shipwreck scam, and you could bet your bottom quadran that Claudia wasn’t the first person they’d conned. No doubt the deal was that Moschus got to keep the profits of the fraudulent wreck, while Butico made his money from his extortionate thirty-two per cent interest, knowing only desperation would drive people to embark upon a criminal course in the first place. After that, he’d have them for life, sucking them drier and drier until they shrivelled like raisins. Bastard.

Conclusive proof of their collaboration, were it needed, was the involvement by the Guild of Wine Merchants. Clearly one of their members knew about the scam and passed the information on to his brothers, knowing that if penury didn’t force Claudia Seferius out of business, then exile on some scrubby island would. She really, really hoped they’d paid Butico a humungous amount of money for this. As much as she despised the moneylender, she despised the Guild even more. How sublime, that moment when they realized that they’d shelled out huge sums for nothing.

And so, for that reason, Claudia had needed more from Captain Moschus than her five thousand bronze sesterces. She’d pumped him for details of all his previous transactions with Butico and he, of course, with three goons standing over him, sang like a lark over a wheatfield.

A small matter, then, of paying Butico a visit.

*

‘The deal is straightforward,’ she told him. ‘One, you forget you’ve ever seen me. Two, you give me your solemn oath that my body won’t be found in some dark alleyway with its throat cut, because if anything nasty happens to me, there’s a box that goes straight to the Security Police containing Moschus’s confession. And three, I shall, of course, require the name of the wine merchant who hired you.’