Lindsey Davis - Three Hands in The Fountain

'I'm looking for someone to work with me, Falco. Camillus Verus recommended you.'

Any commission sent via Helena's papa had to be welcomed politely. 'What's the job and what's your role in it? What would my role be?'

'First I need to know your background.'

'Surely Camillus briefed you?'

'I'd like to hear it from you.'

I shrugged. I never complain if a client is particular. 'I'm a private informer: court work, acting for executors, financial assessments, tracing stolen art. At present I have a partner who is ex-vigiles. From time to time the Palace employs me in an official capacity for work I can't discuss, usually abroad. I have been doing this for the past eight years. I served in the Second Augustan legion in Britain before that.'

'Britain!' Frontinus jerked. 'What did you think of Britain?'

'Not enough to want to go back.'

'Thanks,' he commented drily. 'I've just been appointed to the next governorship.'

I grinned. 'I'm sure you'll find it a fascinating province, sir. I've been twice; my first mission for Vespasian also took me there.'

'We liked Britain more than Marcus Didius admits,' put in Helena diplomatically. 'I think if informers are ever barred from Rome we might even retire there; Marcus dreams of a quiet farm in a fertile green valley -' The girl was wicked. She knew I loathed the place.

'It's a new country with everything to do,' I said, sounding like any pompous forum orator. I was trying not to meet Helena's dancing eyes. 'If you like work, and a challenge, you should enjoy your term there, sir.'

He seemed to relax. 'I'd like to talk further – but there's something more urgent first. Before I leave for Britain I have been asked to supervise a commission of enquiry. I would like to see it completed as swiftly as possible.'

'So this is not about a private investigation?' Helena enquired innocently.

'No.'

She fished the cinnamon stick from her bowl, squeezing it slightly against the rim. Nobody was rushing the formalities. Well, I could rely on Helena's finely probing curiosity. 'Is the commission for the Senate?' she asked.

'The Emperor.'

'Did he suggest Marcus to assist you?'

'Vespasian suggested your father could put me in touch with someone reliable.'

'To do what?' she insisted sweetly.

Frontinus turned to me. 'Do you have to be given approval?' He sounded amused.

'I don't even sneeze without permission.'

'You never listen to me,' Helena corrected.

'Always, lady!'

'Accept the job, then.'

'I don't know that it is.'

'Papa wants you to do it, and so does the Emperor. You need their goodwill.' Ignoring Frontinus, she leaned towards me, beating my wrist lightly with the long slim fingers of her left hand. On one was the silver ring I had given her as a love token. I looked at the ring, then at her, playing moody. She flushed. I clapped my fist to one shoulder and hung my head: the gladiator's submission. Helena clucked reprovingly. 'Too much of the Circus! Stop playing. Julius Frontinus will think you're a clown.'

'He won't. If an ex-consul demeans himself by a hike up the Aventine, it's because he has already read my immaculate record and been impressed.'

Frontinus pursed his lips.

Helena was still urgent: 'Listen; I can guess what you are being asked to do. There was a public disturbance today in the Forum -'

'I was there.'

She looked surprised, then suspicious. 'Did you cause it?'

'Thanks for the faith, sweetheart! I'm not a delinquent. But maybe the public anxiety did originate with me and Lucius Petronius.'

'Your discoveries are the talk of the town. You stirred it up; you ought to sort it out,' Helena said sternly.

'Not me. There is already an enquiry into the aqueduct murders. It's under the auspices of the Curator, and he's using that bastard Anacrites.'

'But now Vespasian must have ordered a superior commission,' said Helena.

We both stared at Julius Frontinus. He had put down his bowl. He opened his hands in a gesture of acknowledgement, though slightly baffled at the way we had talked around him and pre-empted his request.

Once more I grinned. 'All I need to hear from you, sir, is that your commission takes precedence over anything being carried out by the Curator of Aqueducts – so your assistants take precedence over his.'

'Count my lictors,' responded Frontinus rather tetchily. 'Six.' He must have been awarded a special pack to match the special task.

'The Curator of Aqueducts is only entitled to two.' So Frontinus outranked him – and I would outrank Anacrites.

'It's a pleasure to do business, Consul,' I said. Then we swept aside the pretty drinking cups and settled down for a practical review of what needed to be done.

'I'd like to borrow a dish,' Frontinus requested calmly. 'One you don't use very much, I suggest.'

Helena's eyes met mine, dark with concern. We both realised what he probably wanted it for.

The third hand was swollen, but undamaged. Julius Frontinus unwrapped and presented it without drama, placing it in our dish like an organ removed by a surgeon. The first two relics had been dark with decay. This hand was black because its owner had been black. She must have come from Mauretania or Africa. The fine skin on the back of her hand was ebony, the palm and fingertips much lighter. The cuticles had been kept manicured, the nails neatly trimmed.

It looked a young hand. The fingers, all still present, would recently have been as fine and slender as those of Helena's which had just now so urgently tapped my wrist. This was a left hand. Trapped in the swollen flesh of the fourth finger was a plain gold wedding ring.

Julius Frontinus stayed fastidiously silent. I felt depressed.

Helena Justina had reached out abruptly and covered the severed remains with her own much paler hand, fingers splayed and straight, thankfully not quite touching the other. It was an involuntary sign of tenderness for the dead girl. Helena's expression held the same absorption as when she made that gesture above our sleeping child.

Perhaps my recognition of it struck a chord; without a word Helena rose, and we heard her walk into the next room where Julia Junilla was safe in her cradle. After a short pause as if she was checking on the baby Helena came back and resumed her seat, frowning. Her mood was dark, but she said nothing so Frontinus and I began discussing our work.

'This was found during the cleaning of the Aqua Claudia reservoir in the Arch of Dolabella.' Frontinus' manner and tone were businesslike. 'It came up in the sand in one of the dredging buckets. The work gang who discovered it were badly supervised; instead of reporting the find officially they displayed it in public for money.' He spoke as if he disapproved, yet didn't blame them.

'That caused today's riot?'

'Apparently. The Curator of Aqueducts was at the Circus, fortunately for him. One of his assistants was not so lucky; he was identified in the street and beaten up. There has been damage to property. And of course there is an outcry for hygienic supplies to be restored. The panic has caused all kinds of difficulties. An epidemic started overnight -'

'Naturally,' I said. 'The minute I heard the city's water might be contaminated, I started feeling dicky myself.'

'Hysteria,' stated the consul tersely. But whoever is doing this must now be found.'

Helena had heard enough. 'So inconsiderate!' She spoke too sweetly. We were about to be blasted. 'Some silly girl gets herself killed by a madman, and disrupts Rome. Women really will have to be deterred from putting themselves in this position. Dear Juno, we cannot have females being responsible for fevers, let alone damage to property -'

'It's the man who needs deterring.' I tried to ride out the tempest. Frontinus shot me a helpless glance and left me to cope. 'Whether his victims fall into his clutches through their own folly or whether he grabs them from behind in a dark street, nobody suggests they deserve it, love. And I don't suppose the public have even started to think about what he does to these women before he kills them – let alone the way he treats them afterwards.'