Lindsey Davis - Enemies at Home

I took myself across to the Esquiline to oversee the local search.

Manlius Faustus had told me the orders he intended giving. He provided a mix of men, as many as he could muster in a hurry. He must have sent out notes last night to organise this. Aulus’ wife would have had to provide stationery and messengers; it is a usual courtesy for a guest who needs to contact his associates, be they friends, aunts-in-law, or hapless farm managers. She must have been relieved that Manlius Faustus was not a man penning endless letters so one day he could publish his collected correspondence. Imagine the nightmare of having Cicero or that tacky show-off Pliny to stay.

With a normal law and order search, doors are shoved in with their latches broken before people have time to come and open up. There is much noise, damage and aggression — a supposed aid to public order. Property is smashed on purpose, other property is later found to have gone missing. Women are routinely felt up; dogs are kicked in the ribs; scared children are bawled at until they scream their heads off. From time to time wise men, or men who think they are, have explained to me why this approach is regarded as efficient. I once told Uncle Petro it was bull’s bollocks. He just grinned.

Some of the men were from the aediles’ office, others seemed to be Faustus’ own staff or at least his uncle’s. They were all so careful they never had to shake off protesting housewives and never became nervously hysterical themselves. Everything went smoothly. That was so like Manlius Faustus.

No complaints arose. No stolen silver drinks vessels turned up either. A couple of householders were cautioned about other items, mainly unused materials that had obviously walked off building sites, plus five wine amphorae of unknown provenance that were found hidden under hay. No arrests were made. We wanted people to be on our side, and stressed our willingness to listen to anyone who might have witnessed something useful — where ‘listening’ meant giving modest payment for information.

Towards the end it became clear there was one horrible place left to inspect. All the men put a copper into a bowl, then sticks were cut and they drew lots. The lucky winner of the sweep had to lift off the wooden seat then go down the hole to empty Aviola’s kitchen lavatory.

Nobody in Rome uses a household latrine if there is any alternative. They are disgusting. The man was given a bucket and a scoop to remove the contents; we sieved the sordid products of his labour. I helped. I don’t hang back. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the household’s eating habits, until I feared I would never manage dinner myself again. What we produced was the usual: apart from fish and meat bones, vegetable husks and nut shells, horrible pot and bowl scrapings, dead rats, and enough human pooh for an army cohort, there was lost jewellery, oil lamps that had fallen in at night, fresco painters’ leavings that ought to have been taken off site, odd shoes, snapped styluses, tablets that could have been fascinating love letters or signifi-cant lists of property but which were too indecipherable now to be clues for me, and a big group of broken potsherds that must be the end result of the quarrels between slaves that I had heard about.

There was no silver. Still, it could not be called a waste of time. I had nothing else to do that afternoon. At least we would be leaving the apartment with a spotless, free-running home facility.

Manlius Faustus had sent a docket that his foreman brought me to sign on completion. I was able to certify that the search had been thorough. This must be a bluff on the aedile’s part. I could not decide whether he genuinely believed it would make the men more diligent if I was watching them — or if he thought ticking off the job on a waxed tablet would give me a laugh.

Failing to find that silver left me downhearted. It had to be key to the mystery. While it might yet turn up a few pieces at a time in some dodgy backstreet homeware shop, the longer those goblets stayed missing, the less chance we had of finding them and we were missing the big clue as to who came into the apartment and carried out the murders.

If the Rabirius gang never took the loot, I had to accept that the vigiles investigator Titianus had been right all along: this must be an inside job. I badly wanted to best Titianus. But suppose he was right and the slaves were guilty: what had they done with the items they stole? Those who fled surely did not rush through the dark streets to the Temple of Ceres carrying a sack full of rattling bullion.

Well, it was just possible. We would look really silly if the lost property had been hidden there in plain sight all along. I would ask Faustus, the next time he was in the Temple, to double-check the display cases of gifts to the goddess. People deposited treasure to win themselves divine favour (or at least the glutinous thanks of the priests).

No, I do not care for priests. My father taught me to distrust them, whether they are members of the public holding office to further their ambition, or devious professionals with filthy morals and an eye for behind-the-cult-statue liaisons.

Yes, some priest must have upset my papa badly. Though Didius Falco can take against members of other professions just because they have a wart or are wearing pea green. Actually I agree with him over green.

Enough of this rambling — another thing my father taught me. You are supposed to witter on about nothing important, while the answer to your problem pops into your mind.

Look, even a brilliant informer can believe in crackpot routines. Father had them. I had them. You do your work your own lousy way, legate, and leave us to solve our cases in ours.

I admit, I had hit the low point here: that moment in an inquiry when frustration and even boredom threatens to make you abandon it. I had to remind myself that I was hired to report to Manlius Faustus that the slaves at the temple could be proven innocent. The truth threatened to be that I could not prove it — and maybe they were not.

It seemed impossible to say that any of the refugee slaves, except the deceased porter Nicostratus, were certainly not involved in strangling their master and mistress. Even Nicostratus could have been part of a conspiracy to steal the silver.

I kept returning to him. Even allowing a scenario where Aviola and Mucia were killed by their slaves for one of the normal reasons slaves turn against masters, I was unable to explain the first attack that night. However I looked at it, what happened to Nicostratus was an anomaly. Who killed him? Who beat him up so violently he died of his injuries — and why?

I supposed it was feasible that the other slaves conspired against Aviola and Mucia, but Nicostratus remained loyal to the couple and refused to join in. So the others may have turned on him. Perhaps they carried him away with them because if he regained consciousness he could tell the vigiles what the rest had done? But that was no surety because he could still have told the temple authorities.

If the other slaves had murdered Aviola and Mucia, they cannot have been tender-hearted. Why in that case did they not finish off Nicostratus straightaway?

Another curious aspect: why was Libycus, Aviola’s bodyslave, out of the house? If he was part of a conspiracy, what was the point of him being off-scene when the killing took place? Had he too objected to killing Aviola, whom he had served so intimately for so many years? Did somebody suggest he go and see his friends in the shop, to get him out of the way?

Supposing Libycus refused to contemplate killing Aviola, how did Amaranta feel about disposing of Mucia Lucilia? Of course male cynics will tell you women are more bloodthirsty. But she seemed a perfectly decent young woman to me.