Lindsey Davis - The Ides of April

The fact that you know something about someone's history that could make you feel sorry for them does not inevitably alter your attitude: I still thought Laia Gratiana was a snobbish bitch. For her part, she was interested enough in who I was, and why I was working for the aediles, to remember she had encountered me before. She did not say so; I just saw it in her eyes. I wondered if she knew how rude she had been to me the first time.

I did not ask her anything about her marriage or her ex-husband. I am not stupid.

All the same, this time I took a harder look at her. She appeared to be around my age (though her manner added years); she was my height (less toned); a blonde (natural); with brown eyes (painted, but very subtly). I regret to say, she was decent looking. Knowing that her ex-husband had been lured astray by a brooch-buster (my husband's term for big-bosomed), was it significant that Laia Gratiana was very fiat-chested? Also key was that Tiberius had told me the woman with whom Faustus had his affair was "a free spirit." That usually means vivacious, witty, and more likely to hang admiringly on a man's every word than to slap him down. Gratiana was a slapper-down. She could no more curb this habit than avoid believing herself special because of her role in the cult of Ceres.

When I was taken in to see her, an old female slave quietly left the room. Laia Gratiana did not reckon she needed a chaperone or support. She was a powerful character. Everyone around her knew it.

Was she like that when she was first married at eighteen? Or did the shock of her husband's betrayal toughen her up?

I took out my note tablet and explained my task. "My first question is this: Marcia Balbilla said the incident with her maid, Ino, happened in the Vicus Altus. That is some way from here; can you explain why you were there, please?"

With a trace of impatience, Gratiana said, "It is on the way back from the Temple of Ceres. Marcia and I regularly walk home if the weather is fine, after we have been attending to cult business. Normally we walk down the Street of the Armilustrium, but that is tediously straight and long. That day, we chose to take a detour through the quieter back streets. So," she finished triumphantly, "if someone deliberately wanted to attack Ino, he would not have known we would change our usual route. He cannot have been lying in wait-he must have followed us."

She was sharp. And she did so enjoy pointing this out before I could say it myself.

I sat quiet, making a note of the detail. "Tell me about what happened."

"Marcia Balbilla must have described it to you." Gratiana was a little petulant, annoyed by being visited second.

I stayed calm. "She said you saw something."

"I think I did."

"Even if it happened quickly, any fleeting perception may be helpful."

"Well. The maid cried out. Dear Marcia and I at once turned back to see what the matter was and to assist." That was not the impression I had gained from dear Marcia; she implied the cult ladies had been annoyed at the girls' public squealing. "My own maid was just catching Ino as she staggered off balance. If somebody pushed her, it must have been extremely hard. Before I went to comfort them, I had the impression I glimpsed a man, with his face hidden as he was turning away from me. I had a momentary sense that he had been involved, that he had just made a movement aimed at Ino."

"What kind of movement?" I gestured with the flat of my hand as if pushing a door open.

"No." Next, I mimed a dagger thrust, fist raised and plunging downwards. "Not that either. More like this-" Laia Gratiana made a different move, underarm, at waist height: a quick jerk.

"Interesting. Do you think he had a weapon?"

"It is illegal to be armed!"

"That rule might not stop a killer," I said dryly.

"If he did, the weapon was extremely small." Laia Gratiana bunched her thumb and two fingers. "Like a musician's plectrum."

Were we looking for a crazed harpist?

"But when Ino passed away, no wounds were noticed on her, I believe."

"She had a bruised arm," Laia Gratiana corrected me. "Where somebody had shoved her. Hard enough on her arm to spin her right around. A vicious blow, in fact."

"She was turned around towards him? So did she say she recognised the assailant? Or might it have been somebody she knew, but would not want to admit to knowing, in case Marcia Balbilla was angry about that?"

"I see what you mean. No. Marcia Balbilla's staff are clean-living and respectable. Ino thought she had been awkwardly jostled, by someone who may not even have known they had knocked against her. We all thought it was an accident-until later, when she died so unexpectedly. Then some of us-" she meant herself, but was feigning modesty, "-put two and two together."

"And you yourself felt no recognition of the person you had glimpsed?"

"I would not know anybody one encounters in a street!"

"No, of course not." This woman was so pure, she would not even say hello to her own brother in a public place. That's assuming he had not spotted her first and fled to avoid talking to her. "So can you describe the man you saw?"

"Ordinary." No serial killer would like that! They tend to believe they are exceptional.

"Height? Build? Colouring?" She had no idea. It was a member of the public, one of the mob, anonymous.

"A slave?"

"No, not a slave."

"Long hair?"

"No, not like a boy. Older."

"Beard?"

"No. No, I don't think so."

"A workman? A soldier?"

"How would I know?"

"Someone in imperial livery?"

"No."

"Is there anything else you can tell me?"

"That is all I saw." I was putting away my note tablet when Gratiana suddenly added in a troubled voice, "She dropped her stole." I looked at her enquiringly. "Ino. I wonder if it had been tugged off her during the collision? While Marcia Balbilla and my maid were comforting the girl, I picked it up."

Although Laia Gratiana was clearly troubled by this detail, it hardly seemed significant. I was ready to leave. Now, she could no longer help herself. "So-do you work closely with the aedile Faustus?"

"We have never met." I gave her a bright smile. Bright enough to worry her, if she was jealous. "I take my instructions from his staff. I presume you must know him socially?"

"His uncle is on friendly terms with my brother," replied Gratiana dismissively. Women like that are practiced at denying unpleasant history. She had blotted out her failed marriage.

She knew I knew. She hated me for it. I am never unreasonable. I did not altogether blame her.

I walked over and had a look at the Vicus Altus. Just a street.

Nothing unusual or significant. I walked back.

When I finally returned to the Stargazer, Tiberius was still there, with the draughtboard unused in front of him. The counters were still in their leather bag, as if he had never taken them out. He looked as if he had been depressing himself, perhaps continuing to think about the aediles failed marriage.

In the moment before he glanced up and spotted me, I had a chance to assess him. Some customers in bars are clearly vulnerable, especially if they are preoccupied; not him. I noticed, for instance, that Trinius the pickpocket made no attempt to sidle up, and I thought it unlikely any drunks would be troublesome.

In the few days I had known the runner, he can never have visited a barber; that unpleasant stubble of his had become full-face untended growth. Andronicus was bearded too-Hades, they must have more beards at their house than an academy of Greek philosophers. Andronicus' light gingery hair was carefully trimmed. From a short distance away, it was undetectable. In no way did it hide his features. The runner was darker. I could see nothing of Tiberius but those wary grey eyes.