Lindsey Davis - The Jupiter Myth

I left without awaiting a response.

It was a hot day. The sun baked down almost as warmly as in Rome. People staggered through the narrow streets, huffing. In some places a pantiled portico created shade, but the habit of Londinium traders was to fill the porticoes with impedimenta: barrels, baskets, planks and oil amphorae found handy storage on what should be the pavement. You walked in the road. As they had no wheeled vehicle curfew here, you kept an ear out for approaching carts; some natural law made most creep up behind unexpectedly. Londinium drivers took the line that the road was theirs and pedestrians would soon jump if bashed into. Calling out an early warning did not occur to them. Calling out abuse if they narrowly missed you was different. They all knew the Latin for 'Trying to commit suicide?' And some other words.

I was walking to the docks.

In the heat the wooden decks that formed the wharves stank of resin. There was a lazy midday siesta feel. Some of the long warehouses were secured with chains and mighty locks. Others stood with their huge doors open; whistling or wood-sawing sounded from the bowels, though often nobody was visible. Shipping had been packed along the moorings, sturdy merchantmen that could brave these violent northern waters. Occasional long-haired, bare-chested men fiddled about in bumboats, looking at me suspiciously as I passed. I tried polite greetings but they seemed to be foreigners. Like all harbours, this long strip of water bobbed with apparently deserted vessels. Even in daylight the ships were left to creak and lightly bump each other in isolation. Where does everyone go? Are captains, passengers and matelots all asleep on shore, waiting to disrupt the night with knife fights and carousing? If so, where in Londinium were the crammed lodging houses in which all the merry sailors snored away until the evening bats came out?

Waterfronts have a special seediness. I buffed one shin against the other, trying to deter small, unbelievably persistent flies. A haze hung over the distant marshes. Here everything was desiccated by the heatwave, but the river had patches of rainbow oiliness, in which ancient rubbish floated among greasy bubbles. In what seemed to be dead water, a log end thumped against the piles. A slow tidal current was carrying debris upriver. If a bloated corpse had suddenly broken the surface, I would not have been surprised.

No such thoughts troubled the customs officer. In his time he had probably fished out floaters – drowned bodies – but he remained as perky as they come. He operated out of a customs house near one of the ferry landings, a porticoed stone building that would stand at the bridgehead once the bridge was built. His office was crammed with dockets and note tablets. Despite the chaotic appearances, whenever someone came to register a cargo and pay their import tax, they were dealt with calmly and speedily. The clutter was under control. A young cashier presided over boxes of different currencies, working out the tax percentage and taking the money with panache.

Lulled by unaccustomed sunshine, the officer had basked too much without his tunic. He was a big fellow, running to fat. His rolling flesh had originally been pallid, as though he was a northerner by birth; now it was striped with raw pink sunburn. He winced and moved stiffly, but took his punishment philosophically.

'You need to organise some shade,' I warned.

'Oh I like to enjoy the sun while I can.' He eyed me up. He could tell I was not nautical. Well, I hoped he could. I do have standards.

'Name's Falco. I'm looking for my good friend Petronius Longus. Somebody said he was seen down here yesterday, talking to you.' There was no reaction, so I carefully described Petro. Still nothing. 'I'm disappointed then.' The customs officer steadily blanked me. Nothing for it: 'He's an elusive character. I bet he told you, "If anyone comes asking for me, say nowt".' I winked. The customs officer winked back, but this jolly fellow with the red shiny face may have reacted automatically.

I slipped him the proverbial coin that loosens tongues. Though a public official, he took it. They always do. 'Well if you do see the man who wasn't here, please tell him Falco needs to speak to him urgently.'

He gave me a cheerful tilt of the head. I was not encouraged.

'What's your name?'

'Firmus.' We were on moneyed terms. I thought it fair to ask.

'Handy to know. I may want to list your sweetener in my accounts.'

He opened his palm and looked at the coins. 'This is business, then? Thought you said he was a friend?'

'He is. The best. He can still go on expenses.' I grinned. Conniving always makes new pals.

'So what business are you in, Falco?'

'Government food regulations,' I lied, with yet another friendly wink. 'In fact, I'll ask you, Firmus: some of the hotpot hawkers up back of the stores seem to be having trouble. Have you seen any evidence of the local bars being threatened?'

'Oh no, not me,' Firmus assured me. 'I never go to bars. It's home straight after work for a Chicken Frontinian and an early night.'

If his habits were so abstemious, I was surprised he put on so much flab. 'Frontinian has too much aniseed for me,' I confided. 'I like a good Vardarnus. Now Petro, he has disgusting taste. He's happy as a sandflea sitting down to braised beets or beans in the pod… What's the word on the docks about that Briton dead in the well?'

'He must have upset someone.'

'Anybody suggesting who he upset?'

'Nobody's saying.'

'But everybody knows, I bet!'

Firmus gave me a knowing head tilt, indicating assent. 'Lot of questions about this stuff lately.'

'Who's asking? Long-haired Britons from the south?'

'What?' Firmus looked surprised. The team King Togidubnus had sent out could not yet have worked this part of the wharves.

'Who then?' I drew up short. 'Surely not that old friend of mine, the one you haven't seen?' Firmus made no reply. Petronius must have given him a bigger sweetener than I did. 'So what would you have told this invisible person, Firmus?'

'It's supposed to be out-of-towners,' said Firmus, almost matter-of-factly, as if I should know it already. 'I mean a long way out of town. There's some group taking an interest in the Londinium social scene.'

'Where do they hail from? And who's the big meatball?'

'What?'

'The man in charge.' But Firmus clammed up. Even though he had been enjoying the attention as he held forth as the expert on the local situation, something now proved too much for him.

He might know the answer to my question about who ran the rackets, but he wasn't going to tell me. I recognised the look in his previously friendly eyes. It was fear.

I walked back past the warehouses and into the unpromising interior streets where the racketeers seemed to operate. I had agreed with Hilaris: this happened everywhere. Yet that big-time frighteners would try taking over the commercial outlets in Britain still seemed unlikely.

There was so little here. Retail outlets selling staples: carrots, spoons and firewood bundles, mostly in rather small quantities. Oil, wine and fish-pickle sauce, all looking as if their crack-necked amphorae, with dusty bellies and half the labels missing, had been unloaded from the boat several seasons before. Dim eating houses, offering amateur snacks and piss-poor wine to people who hardly knew what to ask for. One obvious brothel that I saw yesterday; well, there must be more of those. A respectable husband and father – well, a husband with a scathing wife who missed nothing – had to be careful how he looked for them. What else? Oh look! Between a sandal-seller and a shop full of herbal seeds (buy our exciting borage and caress away care with curative coriander!) here was a placard scrawled up on a house wall which advertised a gladiatorial show: Pex the Atlantic Thrasher (really?); the nineteen times unbeaten Argorus (clearly some old frowsty fox whose fights were fixed); a clash of bears; and Hidax the Hideous – apparently the retiarius with the niftiest trident this side of Epirus. There was even a furious female with a clichame: Amazonia (advertised in much smaller letters than her male counterparts, naturally).