David Wishart - White Murder

At least the weather was good. Standing around twiddling my thumbs in the rain has never been my idea of a morning well spent.

It was a long wait right enough, but finally just after noon Uranius came out, nodded to Cement-Features and came walking towards me. I let him pass, then tagged along behind at a safe distance. Inside the city proper at that time of day the streets are heaving, but even though it does connect with the Aemilian Bridge Triumph Road’s comparatively empty; of foot traffic, anyway. The last thing I wanted was to have him turn round and see me following.

For the Aventine, you turn right at Marcellus Theatre and go through the old vegetable market to Cattlemarket Square and Public Incline beyond. Uranius didn’t. He kept on going. Onto Iugarius.

My scalp was prickling. Renatius’s wineshop was in the next block, and coincidences like that just didn’t happen.

Tailing the guy was money for jam. Wherever he was going, he obviously wasn’t worried about the secrecy angle, which might’ve persuaded me that the whole thing was innocent after all if I hadn’t known he’d had six months to lose any nervousness. Still, I couldn’t afford to get cocky. The road was pretty full now with the usual city-centre mélange of donkeys, mules, litters and pedestrians – we were past Renatius’s and almost within spitting distance of Market Square – so I narrowed the gap to just three: an old biddy with a string bag almost as big as she was and full of onions, a tunic carrying a load of assorted kitchenware on a pole, and a plain mantle so fat that if Uranius did happen to glance behind him for starters he’d have four horizontal feet of blubber to spot me through.

Then the old biddy suddenly decided to stop for a breather. She set the bag down next to her, effectively blocking the pavement, and after the resulting confusion I realised he wasn’t ahead of me any more.

Shit. I pushed past the woman as politely as I could, jumped the bag, elbowed past the kitchenware man and Tubby Titus, took the next corner into the side street at a skid and was just in time to see Uranius disappear into the entry of a low tenement fifty yards further down.

I stopped. Okay; so what did we do now? As far as I could see I had three options. I could wait for the guy to come back out, or I could go home and nail him later at the stables, or I could follow him in. There wasn’t much point to the first, and I’d had enough of hanging around for one day. Ditto for the second, which just meant putting things off.

That left the third…

Whatever god looks down on footsore sleuths was smiling. A seriously-crinkled old biddy who could’ve been the sister of the one who’d blocked Iugarius had just disgorged from the tenement entrance and was stomping her single-minded way towards me. I stepped out in front of her.

‘Sorry to bother you, grandma -’ I began.

‘Then don’t, son.’ A pair of rheumy eyes set above a nose that could’ve belonged to an unlucky prize-fighter glared up at me and a seriously bony elbow caught me in the ribs. ‘And watch where you’re standing.’

Jupiter! I skipped aside and walked backwards while she plodded on up the pavement like a single-minded warthog. ‘Uh…yeah. Right. Only that guy who went inside a moment ago. You happen to see which flat he was after?’

‘I ain’t blind. And I’ve the dinner to buy.’

‘First floor? Second?’

‘Second. Theogenia’s.’

‘Great. Thanks a lot.’

‘You’re welcome. Now bugger off.’

I stepped off the pavement into the gutter and watched as she crossed the road, pushed her way between a couple of loungers on the far side and disappeared round the corner. She didn’t break stride once. Why the legions bother with battering rams and tortoises when they could recruit little old ladies with string bags and lethal elbows beats me completely.

Second floor. And a woman by the name of Theogenia. Yeah, well, maybe innocent wasn’t so far out after all. Certainly it might explain the secrecy.

I took the stairs two at a time, reached the second landing, chose a door at random and knocked. A minute or so later it was opened by an unshaven guy holding a dead chicken up by the feet. The mind boggled.

‘Yeah? What is it?’ he said.

‘This Theogenia’s flat, by any chance?’

‘No. Hers is the one opposite.’

‘Right. Thanks.’ I was talking to the woodwork. I crossed to the door on the other side of the landing and tapped. There was a shuffling noise, the door opened and a frail old woman peered out.

‘Yes?’

‘Uh…is your name Theogenia?’ I said.

‘It is. What can I do for you?’

She had to be eighty, at least. Okay; so scratch the romantic interest. ‘I’m looking for a guy called Uranius.’

Her eyes shifted. ‘I don’t know anyone called -’

‘Lady, I don’t want to cause any trouble, right? I just want to talk to him, and I know he’s here.’

She hesitated and glanced behind her. Then she said: ‘Very well. You’d best come in.’

She stepped back. There was only one room, with a bed, a low table, a dresser and a couple of stools. Uranius was sitting on one of them. He looked up at me, his jaw sagging.

Sitting on the other stool and overhanging it considerably on both sides was a girl. She wasn’t a looker, that was sure. A wall-eye swung in my direction, and her face would’ve done service for the back of a cart. Behind me, the old woman closed the door and shuffled over to the bed. She sat down and stared at me in silence.

Uranius had finally managed to get his mouth closed. ‘What are you doing here, Corvinus?’ he said.

‘I was meaning to ask you the same question, friend.’

‘It’s no business of yours, but this is my fiancée Galatea.’

‘She is what? ’ I said, when he told me the next bit.

‘Titus Natalis’s daughter,’ Uranius repeated. He was actually blushing.

‘So what the hell’s she doing in a Iugarius tenement?’

‘It’s the only way we can meet.’

Gods alive! The Greens’ faction master’s daughter and the lead White driver, eh? Things were beginning to make sense. Complicated sense, sure, but still… ‘He doesn’t know, then? About the engagement?’

‘Dad would kill me,’ the girl said simply. She might not have anything going for her in the looks department, but she had a nice voice. ‘He’d certainly kill Uranius. Literally.’ She stretched out her hand and took his. ‘He thinks I’m visiting my old nurse – that’s Theogenia here-- which of course I am.’

‘There’s been no hanky-panky.’ The old woman spoke for the first – and what turned out to be the only – time, and from her tone I’d’ve bet she was hell over eating up the spinach. ‘I haven’t left them alone for a minute. And she’s always been a good girl.’

‘Theogenia, please! ’

Jupiter! the star-crossed lovers’ bit. It was Bathyllus all over again. Maybe they were putting something in the water. There wasn’t another stool, so I leaned against the wall for support. ‘So this has been going on for the past six months, has it?’

‘That’s right,’ Uranius said. ‘We met the first time by accident. I’d seen Galatea on and off at the racetrack with her father. Then I bumped into her in Critias’s bookshop in the Argiletum and we got talking. It sort of…took off from there.’

‘Meeting at Theogenia’s was my idea,’ the girl said. ‘I’ve visited her once a month for years, ever since Dad gave her her freedom. We didn’t have to make any special arrangements. And when Uranius’s fourth choir practice meeting was cancelled it seemed the perfect opportunity to get together regularly without anyone knowing.’