Lindsey Davis - Three Hands in The Fountain

I was still intending to go home to dine with Helena, but somehow bolstering Petro took longer than I expected. He was deeply depressed. He was missing his children. He was missing the vigiles even more. He was furious with his wife, but unable to rant at her since she wouldn't speak to him. He already harboured suspicions about working with me. Uncertainty about his future had started to gnaw at him, so instead of being full of anticipation about his new life he was beginning to grow truculent.

I let him take the lead with the wine, a role he assumed with panache.

Soon we had both drunk enough to start arguing once more about the dismembered hand. Then there was nothing for it but to brood on the condition of society, the brutality of the city, the harshness of life, and the cruelty of women.

'How did the cruelty of women creep in there?' I pondered. 'Fusculus says that hand is almost certainly a woman's – so it was Probably hacked off by an angry man.'

'Don't be pernickety.' Petro had plenty of theories about how brutal women were, and was liable to relate them for hours if I allowed it.

I sidetracked him with my abortive enquiries at the Atrium of Liberty. 'So that's it, Petro. Some poor bitch is dead. Dead and unburied. Jointed like a roast, then flung into the water supply.'

'We ought to do something.' It was the violent declamation of a man who had forgotten to eat, although he remembered what a wine cup was for.

'What, for instance?'

'Find out more about this corpse – like where the rest of it is.'

'Oh, who knows?' My head was swimming more than my conscience liked. I felt none too keen on tripping down six flights of stairs then up a few more on the opposite side of the street to reach Helena and home.

'Somebody knows. Somebody did it. He's laughing. He thinks he's got away with it.'

'He has, too.'

'Falco, you're a miserable pessimist.'

'A realist.'

'We're going to find him.'

It was now clear we were going to get very drunk indeed. 'You can find him.' I tried to rise. 'I have to go and see my wife and baby.'

'Yes.' Petro was magnanimous, with all the despairing self-sacrifice of the newly bereaved and the heavily drunk. 'Never mind me. Life has to go on. Go and see little Julia and Helena, my boy. Lovely baby. Lovely lady. You're a lucky man, a lovely man -'

I couldn't leave him. I sat down again.

Thoughts persisted in my old friend's head, spinning round and round like off-balance planets. 'That hand was given to us because we are the lads who can sort this.'

'It was given to us because we stupidly asked what it was, Petro.'

'But that's it exactly. We asked the question. That's what this is all about, Marcus Didius: being in the right place and asking the apt question. Wanting answers, too. Here are some more questions: how many more bits of body are there floating like shrimps in the city water supply?'

I joined in: 'How many bodies?'

'How long have they been there?'

'Who will co-ordinate finding even the other parts of this one?'

'Nobody.'

'So we start from the opposite end of the puzzle. How do you track down a missing person in a city that never devised a procedure for finding lost souls?'

'Where all the administrative units remain strictly pigeonholed?'

'If the person was killed, and if it happened in a different part of the city from where the severed hand turned up, who ought to be responsible for investigating the crime?' 'Only us – if we're stupid enough to take the job.' 'Who will bother to ask us?' I demanded.

'Only a friend or relative of the deceased.'

'They may not have any friends – or any who care where they are.'

'A prostitute.'

'Or a runaway slave.'

'A gladiator?'

'No – they have trainers who want to protect their investment. Those bastards keep track of any missing men. An actor or actress, perhaps.'

'A foreigner visiting Rome.'

'There may be any number of people looking for lost relatives,' I said sadly. 'But in a city of a million people, what are the chances they will hear we found an ancient mitt? And even if they do, how can we ever identify something like that?'

'We'll advertise,' Petronius decided. He thought that was the answer to everything.

'Dear gods, no. We would get thousands of useless replies. What would we be advertising for, anyway?'

'Other parts of the puzzle.'

'Other parts of the body?'

'Maybe the rest is still alive, Falco.'

'So we're looking for someone one-handed?'

'If they're alive. A corpse won't answer an advertisement.' 'Neither will a killer. You're drunk.'

'So are you.'

'Then I'd better stagger across the road.'

He tried to convince me that I ought to stay there and get sober first. I had been on enough bouts to know the folly of that one.

It felt extremely odd, finding Petronius Longus acting like a reprobate bachelor who wanted an all-night party, while I was the sober head of household seeking an excuse to scuttle off home.

The activity of running down six flights of stairs ought to be enough to clear a tipsy head, but it just leads to bruises when you fail to negotiate the corners. Cursing the damage can attract unwanted attention.

'Falco! Come here! Tell me I ought to leave Smaractus.' 'Lenia, don't just leave him. He's a household pest; knock him down and jump on him until he stops squeaking.' 'But what about my dowry?'

'I told you: divorce him, and you can keep it.'

'That's not what he says.'

'Him? He told you if you got married you would have prosperity, peace, and a life of uncloying happiness. That was a lie, wasn't it?'

'It's a lie even he never tried on me, Falco.'

Maybe I should have stayed in the laundry and tried to console my old friend Lenia. In the old days I had spent half my time in the cubbyhole she used as an office, drinking bad wine with her and moaning about injustice and lack of denarii. Now, since she was still married to Smaractus, there was every chance he would roll in to join us so I tended to avoid the risk. Besides, I had a home of my own to go to, when other people stopped distracting me.

What I didn't know was that my home had been invaded by another pest: Anacrites.

'Hello, Falco.'

'Help! Fetch me a broomstick, Helena; someone's let a disgusting roach in here.' Anacrites was giving me a quiet tolerant smile. It really wound up my rope to straining point.

Helena Justina scrutinised me sharply. 'How was your friend?' She had obviously decided that having Petronius camping out in our spare apartment could threaten our domestic life.

'He'll be all right.'

Helena deduced that meant he was in a bad way. 'There's a pine nut omelette and rocket salad.' She had eaten hers already. My dinner was set out in a dish. There was slightly less than I would have served for myself, the omelette had gone cold, and it was accompanied rather pointedly by water.

Anacrites cast a few yearning glances, but it was made clear he was excluded. Helena was ignoring him. She disliked him as much as I did, although she had no strong views on his efficiency or character. Helena simply loathed him for trying to kill me. I like a girl with principles. I like one who thinks I'm worth keeping alive.

'Any chance of Petronius Longus going back to his job?' Anacrites had come straight to the point of his visit. Before his head wound he would never have been so obvious. He had lost his social guile and his sleek, seditious confidence. But his eyes were as untrustworthy as ever.

I shrugged. 'Balbina Milvia's a very pretty girl.'

'You think the infatuation is serious?'

'I think Petronius Longus doesn't take kindly to being told what to do.'

'I hoped there was a chance you and I could work together, Falco.'