Lindsey Davis - The Jupiter Myth

'Do you blame him? Suppose this was the Balbinus mob, would you pipe up, "Oh officer! I saw the boat they threw this person off"? You'd have your eyes very tightly closed.'

'So where were you at the crucial moment, Petro? Did you see this boat dumping him?'

'I was aware of the boat,' Petronius admitted angrily. 'Classic witness failure, Falco – I was paying no attention. I didn't think it was important at the time.'

'Big craft or small?' We had to drag it out of his memory while we could.

Petronius co-operated gloomily. He was disgruntled that he, the professional, had failed to take note of a vital scene. 'Smallish. Smart, a private river craft – pleasure not trade.'

'Sailed or rowed?'

He placed a wide palm on his forehead. 'Rowed.' He paused. 'There was a small sail too.'

'Nameboard? Flags? Interesting prow?'

He tried hard. 'Nothing that stuck.'

'Anyone visible?'

'Couldn't say.'

'Hear a suspicious splash?'

He grimaced. 'Don't be stupid. If I had, I'd have paid attention, wouldn't I?' Something struck him. 'There was somebody standing in the prow!'

'Good – what about him?'

It had gone. 'Don't know… nothing.'

I frowned. 'Why were you aware of the boat? Also, why did the ferry have to wait? The river's wide enough.'

Petronius thought. 'The boat was stationary for a while. Drifting.' He pulled a face. 'While they dropped him in, perhaps. They could have slid him over the side, the side away from me.'

'Hades… That was stupid – right by the bridge and the ferry crossing!'

'It was at the crack of dawn, but you're on the dot: it was stupid. Anybody could have seen them. These villains don't care.'

'Anyone else about?'

'Just me. I start early. I was here, squatting on the jetty.'

'Would they have seen you signalling to call the ferry?'

'No. I don't bother. I was just sitting still, listening to the marsh birds and thinking about -' He stopped. His lost daughters. I dropped a hand over his forearm, but he shook me off. 'I have a routine arrangement to be fetched at first light. The ferry was still moored opposite. If the people in the drop-boat were preoccupied, they may not have realised I was watching.'

'They were damned careless, all the same.' I thought about things. Life stank. 'I still say, this is a wide enough river. Why did the ferryman wait?'

Petro saw my point. 'Wonder if he knows who owns that boat?'

'And wanted to avoid them? Was he scared then?… All right – so what about the corpse?'

'Bumped up against us as we crossed. The ferryman would have pushed it away and hoped it sank. I made him hook it.'

'Did he know beforehand that it was death by violence?'

'I thought he just wanted to avoid trouble. He was horrified when he saw we had landed a corpse in that condition.'

'And Firmus? Firmus happened to be there?'

'Yes. He threw up in the drink.'

We sat quiet for a time. Dusk was falling; if I wanted to make it back across the river I would have to move. I would have liked to stay and give Petronius solace.

'I feel bad about leaving. I don't like you being alone over here.'

'I'm all right. Things to do, lad. Wrongs to right – villains to catch,' he assured me, his tone drab. Petronius had never been a pious hero. He was far too decent.

Before I set off, I told him what I had learned today about the circumstances of the Verovolcus death.

'It's clear Splice and Pyro did it – but I wish I knew what Verovolcus was talking to them about at the bar.'

'And who was the man giving them orders? What are you going to do?' asked Petro.

'Report it all to the governor, I reckon.'

'What will he do?' He managed to avoid sounding sceptical.

'What I tell him, I hope. Now I have to decide what that should be.'

'What do you think?' I knew he was dying to make suggestions. When we were lads out here in Britain he would have barged in, taking over if he could. But we were grown up now. If no wiser, we were both more sad and tired. He held back, leaving me to take the initiative in my aspect of the case.

'I think it's time we arrested Splice and Pyro. Are you happy? Will it cut across you?'

Petro thought quickly, then shook his head. 'No. Time to shake things up. So long as I know what's coming. But take care,' he warned. 'You may be pulling out a support that brings the whole damn edifice crashing down on us.'

'I see that.'

Petro was trying to prophesy: 'If you take out their main collectors, the group then has to reorganise. They'll need to do it fast, or the locals will start enjoying their freedom. Way out here, the gangsters are very far from their normal resources. If they lose a crucial operative, I doubt if they have back-up. They may make mistakes, become too visible. Then too, they have the worry of what Splice and Pyro may tell you.'

'Nothing, trust me on it.' I was a realist.

'Everyone has a weak spot. Everyone can be bought.' Bereavement, or something, was making Petronius sentimental. Gangsters' enforcers must be the hardest men in the criminal underworld and if Splice and Pyro had come from Rome, they were the worst of their type.

'This is the end of the world. It's frontier rules,' Petro insisted. 'Frontinus could sink them in a bog and no questions asked. If their masters place bail for them, we'll know exactly who their masters are. So they could be abandoned. They know they can be replaced; there is always some creep offering to become the gang's new bagman. Pyro and Splice know it, Falco: this is dead meat town for them if things start going wrong.'

'Oh yes! I'm taking notes,' I scoffed, 'for when we interrogate these babes! Cradle stories should frighten them witless. Whoever mashed Epaphroditus is obviously a nervous type -' Petronius sighed. 'You suggest something then.'

'What can I say? Arrest Splice and Pyro – then watch what happens. That's as far as I can go, like you.'

'It's pathetic,' he said bleakly.

'Yes.'

We both knew it was all we had.

Before I left to go and see the governor, I said, 'Ask me who told me about the Verovolcus death.'

'Who told you?' Petronius demanded obediently.

'One of those gladiator girls.'

'Oh them!' Petronius gate a short mocking laugh. He had temporarily forgotten that he saw me being led off by the fighters in frocks. 'So they captured you outside the brothel. Now you're here, unscathed. How did you escape their clutches, lucky one?'

'Helena Justina came and fetched me safely home.'

He laughed again, though he could read the trouble in my face. 'So which one coughed?'

'She's calling herself Amazonia, but we know better. Remember Chloris?'

He looked blank, though not for long. He let out a shout. 'You are joking! That Chloris? Chloris?' He shuddered slightly. 'Does Helena know?'

I nodded. Then, like the two boys we had been years ago in Britain, we both sucked our teeth and winced.

A sunlit street. Not much of a street by Roman standards, but feebly shaping up. It is morning, though not early. Whatever is happening has had to be approved, planned out, and put in hand.

A back alley bar has a portrait of a short-legged, punk-faced Ganymede offering his lop-sided ambrosia cup to some invisible sex-mad Jupiter. Waiters from the Ganymede stand halfway down the street, in conversation with a waiter from another place, the Swan. Its painted sign shows a huge randy duck pinning down a naked girl. All the waiters are talking about a dead baker. Everyone in the streets today is talking about him. By tomorrow he will be old news, but today on this fine morning, his grim fate is the main talking point.

Even so, the morning glows. There is little feeling of menace, just a faint lowing from a stable somewhere, the scent of eggs frying, a smooth-haired dog with a long snout, scratching herself. Between the pantiled roofs of the ramshackle properties is a narrow glimpse of clear blue sky, subtly more mellow than blue skies in Italy.