Lindsey Davis - Three Hands in The Fountain

'So have we come up with anybody suitable?' I asked.

'No.' Helena looked despondent. 'Very few fit that category. I thought we had one – a Roman, living here for twenty years, goes to Rome for all the major festivals – but it's a woman: Aurelia Maesia. She has a villa near the Sanctuary of Hercules Victor.'

'I remember her.' Frontinus had done the interview. 'A widow. Decent background. Never remarried. Came home to a family estate after her husband died, but now goes into Rome to stay with her sister whenever there is a major event to patronise. She is well over fifty -' His tone hinted that that was a gallant estimate. 'She was suspicious of our enquiry, but surely incapable of murder. Besides, she stops in Rome throughout the Games. Our killer seized Asinia after the opening ceremony, then put at least one of her hands into the water supply very soon afterwards. That means if Bolanus really has found where he does it and it's up here, the man must have returned to Tibur virtually the next day.'

'That's another knot in the pattern,' I warned. The killer goes to Rome for festivals – yet evidently he comes back after the opening ceremony. But he doesn't stay here. He must go back to Rome a second time, because the torsos and heads are then dumped in the river and the Great Sewer. It's rather distinct behaviour.' An obvious explanation struck me. 'Aurelia Maesia must have litter-bearers, or a driver. Does her litter drop her at her sister's in Rome, return here, and then fetch her at the end of the Games?'

'She uses a driver.' Frontinus was touchingly keen to show off. 'I remembered to ask her. She travels in a carriage, but the driver stays with it at a stables just outside Rome. She likes it to be available in case she and her sister want a country drive.'

Aurelia Maesia was no good then, but at least we had found one person who came near to fitting our profile. It encouraged us to believe there could be others somewhere.

'Don't be disheartened,' I said to Frontinus. 'The more folk we rule out, the easier it will be to spot who we want.'

He agreed, yet threw in a different problem. 'If our man Bolanus is right that the dismembered body parts are entering the aqueducts at source then Tibur itself isn't the place to be.'

'Tibur is supplied from the Aqua Marcia,' said Helena, 'but that's an incoming branch which ends here. The main conduit that goes to Rome starts miles away.'

'Halfway to Sublaqueum,' I added, not to be outdone with supplying facts. 'Only another thirty miles of territory where we have to identify every house and farm, then ask the owners nicely if they happen to be murderers!'

By arrangement Bolanus reported to Frontinus the next day. I met them both at the house where Frontinus was staying. Bolanus was wearing the same ancient tunic and belt he had had on when I first met him, to which he had added a brimmed hat to guard against the weather and a knapsack for travelling. His plan was to drag Frontinus and me all the way to Sublaqueum, for reasons which I suspected had more to do with a wish to see the dam on which he had once worked than our search. But as a public servant he knew very well how to make a pleasant site visit sound like a logistical necessity.

Frontinus had sent a message to ask Petro if he wanted to be driven to the villa to help us take stock, but my partner refused quite shamelessly. 'No thanks. Tell his honour I'd rather laze about here counting geese.'

'Flirting with the neighbour's kitchen maid, you mean,' I growled.

'Certainly not!' he exclaimed, with a grin. I was right. He had spotted that she was plump in all the right places, eighteen years old, and given to looking over our boundary fence in the yearning hope that something masculine would glide up for a chat. I myself had only noticed the girl because I had had a perfectly sensible conversation with Helena Justina about the meagre amount of herb-plucking and goat-milking that the little madam was given to do. Helena took the view that she was trouble, while I feebly tried to argue that unseemly habits don't inevitably end in tragedy.

Petronius Longus was turning out to be more of a typical informer than I had ever been. He just would not take work seriously. If there was a flagon to drink or an attractive woman to moon at, he was in there. He seemed to think the freelance life was about lying in bed until he ruined his reputation, then spending the rest of the day enjoying himself. If that left me doing all the work, he just laughed at my stupidity.

It was a complete reversal of his dedicated approach in the vigiles. Even as a lad in the army he had been more conscientious. Perhaps he needed a supervisor to kick against. If so, as his friend I would never be able to issue orders, so that was out. And he knew how to dodge the Consul.

'Petronius Longus not with you?' was the first thing Frontinus asked me.

'Sorry, sir. He's feeling a little off-colour again. He wanted to come but his auntie put her veto on allowing him out.'

'Oh really?' responded Frontinus, like a cockerel who knew he was having his tail tweaked by pranksters.

'Really, sir.'

Bolanus grinned, understanding the situation, then quietly took the heat of by talking about our trip into the hills.

Frontinus was driven there in a fast, practical carriage, while Bolanus and I rode mules. We first took the Via Valeria, the great road through the Appenines. It climbed through gentle, attractively wooded slopes, accompanied by the graceful arches of the Aqua Claudia. At this point they followed the River Anio, though below Tibur they took a long sweep south-east, to avoid the escarpment and its sudden drastic drop in height.

The Sabine Hills run basically north and south. We started out heading in a north-easterly direction for most of the first day. The valley of the Anio widened and became more agricultural, with vineyards and olive groves. We bought a snack, then pressed on to where the river took a turn to the south and we had to leave the main road. This was near the by-way north which I was told led to Horace's Sabine Farm; as a part-time amateur poet I would have liked to divert and pay tribute at the Bandusian Spring, but we were seeking a killer, not culture. For informers, that's sadly routine.

We stayed the night in a small settlement before turning off the highway on to the little-used country road down the Anio valley to Nero's retreat at Sublaqueum. Once there next day, we braced ourselves to be amazed. There was a new village, grown from the workshops and huts provided to house all the builders and craftsmen who created Nero's villa. The place was discreet and tidy, much emptier than it would have been then, yet with inhabitants still clinging on.

The location was splendid. At the head of a picturesque forested valley, where the river collected its feeder streams and first became significant, had once been three small lakes. Nero dammed the waters and raised their levels to create the fabulous pleasure lakes around his magnificent marbled summer home. It was a typical Roman extravagance; given beautiful scenery in a private and peaceful spot, he added architecture of such astounding scope that now nobody came here to look at the views, only at the last villa complex built by a vulgar rich man. A remote, contemplative valley had been destroyed to make Nero's holiday playground, where he could amuse himself with every kind of luxury while pretending to be a recluse. He hardly ever came here; he died soon after it was built. Nobody else wanted it. Sublaqueum could never be the same again.

Bolanus proudly advised us that the middle dam, on which he had worked, was the largest in the world. Fifty feet high, the top was wide enough to drive ten horses abreast, if you were that kind of ostentatious maniac. It was paved with special tiles, with a dip in the middle to act as a spillway so the waters could continue on their natural route downstream.