Marilyn Todd - I, Claudia

‘I heard a rumour.’ She thrust a glass of wine in his hand. ‘I heard it was in some ghastly slum.’

‘Then you heard right. It was one of the buildings owned by Ventidius Balbus. You know him, I presume?’

‘Everyone knows him,’ Claudia said, making a great show of helping herself to raisins. ‘What’s this got to do with my husband and myself?’

Orbilio leaned back to rest his spine against the bark of the tree. ‘Now who said this has anything to do with Gaius?’

Had the sun gone in? It seemed rather chilly all of a sudden.

‘Come to the point, Orbilio.’

He fished in his pouch and came out with a torn scrap of apple-green cotton. ‘This is the point,’ he said quietly. ‘It was found on the door of the room where poor old Crassus was killed. Looks like you caught it in your hurry to leave.’

Claudia took the proffered scrap. ‘It’s not mine,’ she said, tossing it over her shoulder where it landed to adorn a rosemary bush.

‘Oh, but it is.’

‘Rubbish. I wouldn’t be seen dead in that colour.’

‘I rather thought it would suit you,’ Orbilio replied, smoothly retrieving his evidence. ‘It would complement the tints in your hair.’

Claudia narrowed her eyes. ‘Then perhaps I should order some,’ she said sharply.

Orbilio smiled. ‘But you already have, remember? I know, because I spent all yesterday traipsing round mercer after mercer to see who sold this particular cotton in this particular colour and Gratidius, now-Gratidius remembers quite clearly it was the wife of Gaius Seferius who was so taken by the subtlety of the shade.’

‘Gratidius is old and he’s a fool with it. I’ll have you know, I’m not in the habit of visiting malodorous slums, Marcus Orbilio-’

‘Then you won’t mind if I have a look around, will you?’

Claudia jumped to her feet. ‘Yes, I bloody well would! How dare you come in here, you jumped-up little mongrel, and presume to search my house!’

Orbilio studied his thumbnail. ‘Would you prefer someone with higher status?’ he asked indifferently. ‘Someone, say, like Callisunus, who would bring his soldiers with him?’

‘That sounds suspiciously like blackmail, Orbilio, and I don’t like blackmailers.’

Orbilio sighed. ‘Sit down, Claudia, and try to remember I’m investigating the brutal murders of four of our most prominent citizens. Just to refresh your memory, that’s one prefect, one aedile, one retired senator and a jurist.’

‘Which you assume gives you the right to trample over decent folk in the process.’

‘For pity’s sake, woman! I’m busting my baldrics in the hope of reaching this lunatic before another unfortunate sod has his eyes gouged out and if that offends your sweet sensibilities, I couldn’t give a stuff!’

Realizing one of the slaves might be watching, Claudia seated herself with a show of indifference and nibbled an olive. He was whistling in the dark, she decided. He couldn’t prove she’d bought the fabric, and besides, if push came to shove, she could always slip Gratidius’s assistant a spot of silver-between them, they could manage to persuade the old mercer his memory was at fault here and she’d done nothing more than simply admire the colour.

No. What really irritated her was the fact that she’d slipped up. By heaven, she’d chop that wretched Melissa into pieces for not checking the stola was intact!

‘I’ll be discreet,’ he added, reaching up and plucking a sour apple.

‘Young man,’ she said. It sounded so pompous when he was virtually the same age as herself. ‘There’s no way in the world I’m having your greasy little fingers poking around in my underwear and that’s final.’

‘Would you mind, then, if I requested your husband’s permission?’

He was up to something, the bastard. She could smell it. He knew damn well she didn’t want Gaius involved.

‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Junius!’

A muscular young slave appeared as if by magic.

‘Junius, fetch my husband, will you?’

‘I’m sorry, madam, but the master’s already left for the baths.’

She shot Orbilio a glance. ‘How long ago?’

‘About an hour,’ the boy replied.

Curiously enough, it was shortly after that when Marcus Cornelius Orbilio came to call. Well, well! What a coincidence. She dismissed Junius with a curt nod. When she first thought this man would make a formidable adversary, she hadn’t expected him to be hers. No matter, she could be as sharp as a wagonload of monkeys when she chose. Four and a half years of easy living might have softened her physically, but Claudia Seferius had never once afforded herself the luxury of letting her guard drop. She picked a pink, sniffed deeply, then gave Orbilio her sunniest smile.

‘Why don’t we compromise?’

That seemed to shake him.

‘MELISSA!’ As did the pitch of her voice. ‘Ah, Melissa. See this,’ she pointed to the snippet of green cotton, ‘do I have anything in this colour?’

‘No, madam.’

The investigator frowned and pressed the fragment into the girl’s palm. ‘Look carefully,’ he said, his eyes darting from slave to mistress for signs of hidden communications. ‘It’s very important.’ Claudia studied her onyx brooch, careful that her eyes never once met Melissa’s.

‘Madam has nothing in this colour,’ the girl said, looking him coolly in the face before turning back to the house.

Claudia let her breath out slowly. ‘Anything else, Orbilio? I mean, you don’t want to turn the house upside down to see whether we’re concealing a chest full of eyes as well, do you?’

Orbilio pursed his lips sullenly. ‘No. That’s all for the moment, thank you.’

‘Good.’ Claudia swept to her feet and flounced along the shaded colonnade. ‘Then you can see yourself out,’ she called over her shoulder.

Orbilio heaved himself off the naked, glistening body of the girl beneath him and rolled on to his back. Mother of Tarquin, he had difficulty remembering who was who these days! Was this Vera, the Sardinian fish-trader’s daughter or Petronella from the locksmith’s place? He wiped his brow with the back of his hand and wondered whether the locksmith either knew or cared who his woman slept with. He reached for the flagon, but it was empty.

‘Damn.’

He slumped back on to the bed, his hair falling across his eyes. He couldn’t go on like this much longer, he was burning himself out. Eighteen hours a day, seven days a week for the past six months he’d searched for clues that would bring him closer to trapping a demented killer, seeking solace at night in wine and women-and finding it in neither.

If only he could get a break, and, Juno’s skirts, it wasn’t for the want of trying. There had to be a connection between the four men. There had to be. That foul-mouthed, sour-faced boss of his didn’t think there was, but then again, Callisunus hadn’t exactly risen through the ranks because of his brains, had he, the oily bastard? A propensity to take full credit for his officers’ findings if they were successful and to swiftly disown them if they fell short had secured his position as Head of the Security Police. That his men might despise him mattered not a jot to Callisunus. Small and squat with pug-like features, he sat like a spider in his web of complacency knowing that even if Orbilio’s theory happened to prove sound, he could still come up smelling of lavender. Except in this instance, Callisunus was convinced the killings were random, leaving Orbilio to follow his nose…providing it was during his own free time. No matter. There was a link, he was sure of it-but what?

His mind ranged back over the information to date, but so far he hadn’t found one single shred of evidence to link any of the men with the others, particularly Crassus who, having retired from the Senate, had recently completed a long stint in Isauria. He’d driven himself into the ground, delving into every business transaction they’d ever entered into, and so far he’d found bugger all.