Lindsey Davis - Scandal Takes a Holiday

A sleepy seaside after noon, when the noon sun has baked the morning's fish scales to papery transparency on the harbour wall and the cormorants are sunbathing, is the time to find people.

I watched Helena sum up the woman, who was broad-shouldered and florid and wore a plum-coloured gown that was a little too long around the sandals, and a not-quite matching stole. Her heavy gold ear-rings were in a hooped style and she had a snake bracelet with sinister glass eyes. Rouged cheeks and tinctured eyelids, with the colour settled crudely in the creases, were clearly routine ornament [for her, not the bracelet snake.] She was either a widow, or it suited her to appear so. She was certainly not the helpless kind of widow. I would have accepted her as a client, though the prospect would not have excited me.

I knew from my previous visit that her manner was one of pleasant efficiency but she was out to make money. Play her right, and pay her far too much, and she would be all sweetness. She wanted no trouble, so on production of my docket she scowled heavily but did lead us to Diocles' belongings. She was keeping them out in an old chicken shed. There were predictable results.

'I can see you are looking after everything.' No chickens now scratched around the tiny kitchen garden, but they had left mementoes of the usual kind. There are worse things than feathers and chicken shit, but it seemed a crude repository.

'I am not a luggage dump.'

'No, of course not,' Helena assured her, soothingly. The woman had noted Helena's clean vowels and consonants. Accustomed to sizing up would-be tenants, she was puzzled. I was an informer; my girlfriend should be a pert piece with a loud voice and a pushed-up bust. After six years together, Helena and I no longer explained.

'Diocles had mentioned that he was coming to see relatives,' Helena murmured. Do you know if he had any visitors, or contacted anyone in particular?'

'His room was in my building next door.' The landlady was proud that she owned a couple of houses, one where she lived herself and one variously let out to seasonal visitors. 'He was free to come and go.'

'So you saw no one with him?'

'Not often. The slave from Rome, who alerted me that the man was missing, seemed the only one.' That was the slave who came to pick up Gazette copy. 'So long as there is no trouble, I don't pry.'

'Ah you're as helpful as a goat with three livers to a novice augurytaker,' I commented. Helena caught the woman's eye. 'It has endless possibilities, but no obvious story to tell,' Helena explained, then both women sneered at my joke. I busied myself with the baggage. There were unwashed tunics, as Helena had prophesied. I have smelt worse; public scribes who work in government offices do know how to use the baths. Diocles' laundry had been sitting around for a month, then placed in a poultry hut. There was never a chance of sweet scents of balsam.

'Did you believe Diocles was in Ostia to work?' Helena had a quiet persistence which people never felt able to challenge. The landlady hated answering so many questions, yet she was drawn in.

'He said so.'

'Did he tell you his occupation?'

'Some sort of record-keeping, I think.'

'Seems right.' I confirmed the half-lie, having dug out a bundle of note-tablets. They looked almost empty. Just my luck. Diocles was a scribe who kept everything in his head. Witnesses can be so selfish. I did find one name. 'There is someone down here called Damagoras.' Looks like an appointment… Do you know this Damagoras?'

'Never heard of him,' said the landlady. At least she was consistent.

Helena and I walked slowly back. This time we went straight up the Decumanus. I was carrying the scribe's laundry and other possessions, collected together in his cloak. Apart from the whiff, which was a strange mixture of male sweat and old mortar, being in possession of what was clearly a clothes bundle made us a muggers' target. Dresswear is the most popular item for thieves. Half the vigiles' case-work comprises reports of filched tunics from changing rooms at the baths. I bet you didn't know that.

Wrong! I bet you have been a victim at least once. There is no such thing as a bath house with good security. Look no further than the owners. Most proprietors are taking your ticket money with one hand while they feel the nap on your garments with the other, prior to a transfer of ownership. Many have a cousin who is a fuller. Your prized tawny tunic will be re-dyed bull's blood red, making it impossible to identify, while you are still strigilling off your chosen body oil and moaning that the water isn't hot enough. I take the dog to guard my togs.

Since Nux guards clothes by lying on them, the disadvantage is that I get clean only to end up smelling like my dog. Nux is never clean. However, unlike one unfortunate man we passed in Ostia, I have never had to scuttle home naked, covering my assets with a borrowed hot-room water scoop. The Decumanus was the short route back, but it was full of other people. The nervous nude had his own problems dodging jibes and guffaws. We were little better off.

All the porters with handcarts had bagged the shady pavement, the roadway was crammed with wagons and the hot side of the street was baked. Diocles' property was not heavy, but it included a little folding stool, washing gear, a half-empty wine flagon and a stylus box; the knotted cloak was an awkward shape to manoeuvre in the confined spaces of a main road with its afternoon traffic jam. Helena was no help. She was carrying the tablets, and as an insatiable reader that meant she was already searching through them as she walked.

'His doodles are useless. He must just scribble a memory aid like. Tomorrow, without saying what for… This Damagoras you found is the only name.'

There were about five bound sets, each with four or six double-sided wooden tablets, so keeping her grip on all these writing-boards, while struggling to open them one at a time, kept Helena busy. She dropped a couple once, but that was because a water-carrier barged her. Helena stooped to retrieve the fallen tablets, thwarting any helpful passers-by who might have pretended to help pick them up for her while palming the odd one.

As she bent down, a lecherous snack-bar waiter clearly planned on goosing her, but Diocles' bundle made a good guard, under cover of which I kicked the waiter. He reeled back with his empty drinks tray. Oblivious, Helena carried on reading. '

Juno, this man was a bore… here he's added up a bar bill. In the last set he sketched what looks like a grid for solo draughts.' The bar bill came to so little it could only have been cold stew and a beaker for one. The scandal scribe dined out alone. At least that saved us feeling frustrated about untraceable meetings with anonymous contacts. The apparent board game could have been a map for a rendezvous, but if so, Diocles had missed out all the street names. That was no help.

'Maybe he was the kind of sad bastard who spent his leisure time drawing imaginary cities,' I speculated gloomily. Nothing I knew about him suggested he was King of Atlantis in his spare time, however.

'Marcus, from what I've been reading so far in the Daily Gazette, he had enough fun applying his creativity to: Flavia Conspicua seems to have grown bored with marriage very soon. Hardly has she been snatched from her mother's arms by the eligible Gaius Mundanus, than rumour has it Flavia [heiress to the Splendidus estates and an experienced amateur flute-player,] is already seeing her old love Gaudius again.' I invented that,' Helena assured me.

'Sounds good. Your Flavia is hot stuff?'

'Always popular on the bachelor circuit.'

'Blonde?'

'Auburn, I should say. No figure, but a lovely nature; she'll do anything for anyone.'