Lindsey Davis - Three Hands in The Fountain

These worthy old codgers clearly held seniority over the Curator. Luring just one of them into taking an interest in our story could have acted as a fulcrum under the Curator's arse. Unfortunately for us, the three consular commissioners simultaneously held other interesting public posts, such as governorships of foreign provinces. The practice was feasible because the Commission only met formally to inspect the aqueducts for three months of the year – and August was not one of them.

We were stuck. That was not unusual. I agreed that Petronius had been right all along. We consoled our injured feelings in the traditional way: having lunch in a bar.

Reeling slightly, Petronius Longus later led me to the best place he knew for sleeping it off, his old patrol house. There was no sign of Fusculus today.

'Time off to visit his auntie, chief,' said Sergius.

Sergius was the Fourth Cohort's punishment officer – tall, perfectly built, permanently flexed for action, and stupendously handsome. Flicking the whip gently, he was sitting on the bench outside, killing ants. His aim was murderous. Muscles rippled aggressively through gaps in his brown tunic. A wide belt was buckled tightly on a flat stomach, emphasising his narrow waist and well-formed chest. Sergius looked after himself. He could look after trouble too. No neighbourhood troublemaker whom Sergius looked after bothered to repeat his crime. At least his long tanned face, dagger-straight nose and flashing teeth made an aesthetic memory for villains as they fainted under the caress of his whip. To be beaten up by Sergius was to partake in a high-class art form.

'What auntie?' scoffed Petro.

'The one he goes to see when he needs a day off.' The vigiles were all experts in acquiring a maddening toothache or having to attend the funeral of a doge relative they had doted on. Their work was hard, ill paid and dangerous. Inventing excuses to bunk off was a necessary relief.

'He'll be sorry he was out.' Unwrapping it with a flourish, I flipped the new hand on to the bench alongside Sergius. 'We brought him another piece of black pudding.'

'Urgh! Sliced a bit thick, isn't it?' Sergius didn't move. My theory was that he lacked any emotion. Still, he understood what stirred the rest of us. 'After the last treat you brought him, Fusculus took a religious vow never to touch meat; he only eats cabbage and rosehip custard now. What caupona served this up to you?' Somehow Sergius could tell we had just been at lunch. 'You ought to report the place to the aediles as a danger to health.'

'A public slave pulled the hand out of the Aqua Marcia.'

'Probably a ploy by the guild of wine producers,' Sergius chortled. 'Trying to convince everyone to stop drinking water.'

'They've convinced us,' I warbled.

'That's obvious, Falco.'

'Where's the last hand?' demanded Petro. 'We want to see if we've got a pair.'

Sergius sent a clerk to fetch the hand from the museum, where it had apparently been a great attraction. When it came, he himself placed it on the bench side by side with the new one, as if laying out a pair of new cold-weather mittens. He had to fiddle with the loose thumb on the second one, making sure it was the correct way round. 'Two rights.'

'Hard to tell.' Petronius kept well away. He was conscious that the new one was in a poor state. After all, he had spent a night in the same apartment with it; the experience was bothering him.

'There's a lot missing, but this is how the thumb goes, and they're both palm up. I tell you, these are both rights.' Sergius stuck by his point, but he never warmed up in an argument. Mostly he never needed to. People eyed up his whip and then gave him the benefit.

Petronius accepted it gloomily. 'So there are two different bodies.'

'Same killer?'

'Might be coincidence.'

'Fleas might drop off before they bite,' scoffed Sergius. He decided to shout in for Scythax to supply a professional opinion.

Scythax, the troop's doctor, was a dour Oriental freedman; his hair lay in a perfectly straight line on his eyebrows as if he had trimmed it himself using a cupping vessel on his head as a straight-edge. The previous year his brother had been murdered, since when he had become even more taciturn. When he did speak his manner was suspicious and his tone depressing. That didn't rule out medical jokes. 'I can't do anything for this patient.'

'Oh, give it a try, Hippocrates! He might be very rich. They're always desperate to go on for ever, and they pay well for a hint of extra life.'

'You're a clown, Falco.'

'Well, we didn't expect you to sew these back on ' 'Who lost them?'

'We don't know.'

'What can you tell us about them?' asked Petro.

Sergius expounded his theory that the hands had come from different people. Scythax said nothing for long enough to cast doubt on the idea, but then confirmed it. He was a true medical man; he knew just how to aggravate people with his superior, scientific air.

'Are they male corpses?' Petro muttered.

'Could be.' The doctor was as definite as the route through a marsh in a thick mist. 'Probably not. Too small. More likely women, children, or slaves.'

'What about how they came to be separated from their arms?' I enquired. 'Could they have been dug up from a grave by dogs or foxes?' Before it was made illegal to bury bodies within the city boundary there had been a graveyard on the Esquiline Hill. The area still gave out a stink. It had been turned into gardens, but I would not fancy double-digging an asparagus patch there.

Scythax peered at the hands again, unwilling to touch them. Sergius picked one up fearlessly and held it so the doctor could inspect the wrist. Scythax jumped backwards. He pursed his lips fastidiously and said: 'I can't see any identifiable animal teeth-marks. It looks to me as if the wristbone has been severed with a blade.'

'That's murder, then!' crowed Sergius. He brought the hand right up in front of his face and peered at it, like someone inspecting a small turtle.

'What kind of blade?' demanded Petro of Scythax. 'I have no idea.'

'Was it a neat job?'

'The hand is too decomposed to tell.'

'Look at the other one too,' I commanded. Sergius dropped the first and eagerly offered the second relic to Scythax, who went even paler as its thumb finally dropped off.

'Impossible to say what happened.'

'There's about the same amount of wrist attached.'

'That's true, Falco. There is some arm bone. This is not a natural separation at the joint, such as might occur through decay.'

Sergius laid the second hand back on the bench again, carefully aligning the loose thumb in what he deemed to be its natural position.

'Thanks, Scythax,' said Petro gloomily.

'Don't mention it,' muttered the doctor. 'If you find any more pieces of these people, consult another physician if you please.' He glared at Sergius: 'And you – wash your hands!' Not much point, if all the available water came from contaminated aqueducts.

'Take a headache powder and have a lie down for a while,' Sergius advised humorously as the doctor fled. Scythax was notorious for his reluctance to prescribe this remedy to people who needed it; his normal routine was to tell badly wounded vigiles to get straight back on duty and take plenty of exercise. He was a hard man, with the living. Apparently we had found his weakness with our sad sections of the dead.

Ours too, in fact.

By next day it was clear that the water board's public slaves had been talking among themselves. They had devised a competition to see who could produce the most revolting 'evidence' and persuade us to let them hand it over. They trotted up Fountain Court looking meek and innocent, and furtively carrying parcels. They were bastards. Their offerings were useless. They smelt too. Sometimes we could tell what the ghastly item was; mostly we preferred not to know. We had to go along with the joke in case one day they brought us something real.