Lindsey Davis - Last Act In Palmyra

Accepting my motives, he had calmed down. 'It means?'

'If it was the same man, he is from our company and she knew him. So did Heliodorus. But unlike him, Ione was quite off her guard. Her killer had no need to surprise or subdue her. He was a friend of hers – or more than a friend.'

'If her killer was the person she had been prepared to name to you, it was rash to arrange to meet him just before she spoke of it to Helena.'

'Yes. But an element of danger appeals to some -'

'Marcus!'

Helena herself suddenly said my name in a low voice. A reveller with a conscience may after all have reported a disturbance. We were being joined by one of the sanctuary servants. My heart sank, expecting inconvenience.

He was an elderly attendant in a long striped shirt and several days' growth of whiskers. In one dirty claw he carried an oil flagon so he could pretend to replenish lamps. He had arrived silently in thonged slippers, and I knew straight away his chief pleasure in life was creeping about among the fir trees, spying on women frolicking.

When he shuffled into our circle both Musa and I squared up defensively. He whipped aside the stole and had a good look at Ione anyway. 'Another accident!' he commented in Greek that would have sounded low-class even on the Piraeus waterfront. Musa said something curt in Arabic. The curator's home language would be Aramaic, but he would have understood Musa's contemptuous tone.

'Do you suffer many deaths in this place?' My own voice sounded haughty, even to me. I could have been some stiff-necked tribune on foreign service letting the locals know how much he despised them.

'Too much excitement!' cackled the lecherous old water flea. It was obvious he thought there had been dangerous fornication, and he assumed Musa and I, Helena and Byrria, were all part of it. I ceased to regret sounding arrogant. Wherever they are in the world, some types cry out to be despised.

'And what is the procedure?' I asked, as patiently as I could manage.

'Procedure?'

"What do we do with the body?'

He sounded surprised: 'If the girl is a friend of yours, take her away and bury her.'

I should have realised. Finding a girl's naked corpse at the site of a promiscuous festival at the end of the Empire is not like finding a corpse in the well-policed city sectors of Rome.

For a second I was on the verge of demanding an official enquiry. I was so angry, I actually wanted the watch, the local magistrate, an advertisement scrawled in the forum asking witnesses to come forward, our own party to be detained pending the investigation, and a full case in court in half a year's time… Sense prevailed.

I drew the greasy curator to one side, palming across as much small change as I could bear.

'We'll take her,' I promised. 'Just tell me, did you see what happened?'

'Oh no!' He was lying. There was absolutely no doubt about it. And I knew that with all the barriers of language and culture between Rome and this grubby pleasure ground, I would never be able to nail his lies. For a moment I felt overwhelmed. I ought to go home to my own streets. Here, I was no use to anyone.

Musa appeared at my shoulder. He spoke out in his deepest, most sonorous voice. There was no threat, simply a clean-cut authority: Dushara, the grim mountain-god, had entered this place.

They exchanged a few sentences in Aramaic, then the man with the oil flagon slithered away into the trees. He was heading for the noises at the far end of the reservoir. The merrymakers' lamps looked bright enough, but he had his own unsavoury business there.

Musa and I stood. The night's darkness seemed to be growing and as it did the sanctuary felt colder and ever more sordid. The frogs' chorus sounded harsher. At my feet were the ceaseless, restlessly lapping waters of the reservoir. Midges swarmed in my face.

'Thanks, friend! Did you get the tale?'

Musa reported grimly: 'He sweeps up leaves and fir-cones, and is supposed to keep order. He says Ione came alone, then a man joined her. This fool could not describe the man. He was watching the girl.'

'How did you get him to talk?'

'I said you were angry and would cause trouble, then he would be blamed for the accident.'

'Musa! Where did you learn to bully a witness?'

'Watching you.' It was gently said. Even in a situation like this, Musa sustained his teasing streak.

'Lay off! My methods are ethical. So what else did you screw out of the poolside peeper?'

'Ione and the man were acting as lovers, in the water. During their passion the girl seemed to be in trouble, struggling towards the step; then she stopped moving. The man climbed out, looked around quickly, and vanished into the trees. The unpleasant one thought he had run for help.

'The unpleasant one did not offer such help?'

'No.' Musa's voice was equally dry. 'Then Helena arrived and discovered the accident.'

'So it was this gruesome brushman whom Helena sensed was watching her… Musa, Ione's death was no accident.'

'Proven, Falco?'

'If you are willing to look.'

I knelt beside the dead girl one final time, drawing back the cover just as far as necessary. The girl's face was darkly discoloured. I showed Musa where the beaded chains of her necklace seemed to have dragged at her throat, leaving indented marks. Some pairs of the heavy stone beads were still trapping tiny folds of skin. Trickles of kohl and whatever other paint she used disfigured her face. Beneath the necklace burns and charcoal smears, numerous small red flecks showed on her flesh. 'This is why I examined her so closely earlier. The necklace may simply have dragged at her throat as she thrashed in the water, but I think it shows pressure from a man's hands. The tiny red clusters are what appear on the corpse of somebody who has died in particular circumstances.'

'Drowning?'

'No. Her face would be pale. Ione was strangled,' I said.

The rest of that night, and the following day, passed in various struggles that left us exhausted. We wrapped the corpse as best we could. Helena and Byrria then rode together on one animal. Musa and I had to walk, one either side of the donkey that was carrying Ione. Keeping the poor soul decent, and firmly across the donkey's back, was tricky. In the hot climate her corpse was already stiffening fast. On my own, I would have strapped her methodically and disguised her as a bale of straw. In company I was expected to behave with reverence.

We stole lamps from the sanctuary to light our way but even before the end of the processional road we knew it would be impossible to recross the entire city with our burden. I have done flamboyant things in my time, but I could not take a dead girl, her hennaed hair still dripping and her bare arms outflung to the dust, down a packed main street while merchants and local inhabitants were all out strolling and looking for somebody else in an interesting predicament to gawp at. The crowds here were the type to form a jostling procession and follow us.

We were saved by the temple outside the city gate which we had passed earlier. Priests had turned up for night duty. Musa appealed to them as a fellow professional with colleagues at the Temple of Dionysus-Dushara, and they agreed to let the body rest in their care until the next day.

Ironically, the place where we left lone was the Temple of Nemesis.

Unencumbered, we were able to travel more quickly. I was now riding with Helena side-saddle in front of me again. Byrria had consented to go with Musa. They both looked embarrassed about it as he sat extremely upright on his shaggy beast while she perched behind him, barely willing to hold on to his belt.

Squeezing back through the town was an experience I would have paid a lot to miss. We reached our camp in darkness, though the streets were still busy. Merchants play hard and late. Grumio was still standing on his barrel. With nightfall the humour had grown more obscene and he was slightly hoarse but gamely calling out endless cries of 'Anyone here from Damascus or Dium?'