David Wishart - Last Rites

Finally she straightened. I’d expected she’d be crying, but her cheeks were dry. Well, you had to be tough to be a flutegirl. Slip of a thing or not, Harmy was no shrinking violet.

‘Okay, Corvinus,’ she said. ‘Tell me how much you know already and I’ll help all I can.’

I kept my voice neutral. ‘Myrrhine used you as an in to the rites of the Good Goddess so she could murder the Vestal. She left you the morning of the rite after you’d told her you’d cancelled out. Then when you reported in at the guildhouse and found out what had happened you made the connection, panicked and ran. That’s it, all there is. No big deal, and all perfectly understandable.’ Sure, I’d left Thalia out, but that was intentional: the kid had to have given Myrrhine Thalia’s name and address, but she’d be feeling guilty enough already without me throwing in my penny’s worth.

She glanced away and nodded. ‘Yeah.’ Her voice was dead. ‘That about covers it.’

‘You care to fill in some of the gaps for me, maybe?’ I said. ‘Like who this Myrrhine is?’

‘I don’t know much about her. We met at Maenalus’s and got talking. She said she’d been a player once down Capua way and asked about slots in Rome. She’d heard about the rites of the Goddess, and I told her I was playing at them.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘After that we… got quite friendly. One thing led to another and I invited her home.’

‘She volunteer any other information about herself?’

‘No. I asked her where she lived, but she said the let had fallen through and she was between places. I thought maybe that was part of the come-on, but I was interested myself by then so it was a plus rather than anything else so I didn’t push.’

Bugger. ‘She didn’t give any clues? Let anything slip? Nothing at all?’

‘No.’

‘Think, Harmy!’ Aegle squeezed the girl’s shoulders.

Harmodia frowned. ‘There was one thing. It probably isn’t important, though.’

‘Yeah?’ I said.

‘Just before we left Maenalus’s a fat guy came in. Really fat; a waddler. We’d split a whole jug of wine and we were at the giggly stage. I said to Myrrhine, “You ever see anything like that before?” and she said, “Sure. The Hippo at the Crocodile would make two of him.”’

‘“The Hippo at the Crocodile”?’

‘Yeah. Just that. These words, like it was a man and a place. I asked her to tell me more but she just laughed and changed the subject.’

Well, it was something, but nothing much. The Crocodile sounded like a club – aka cathouse – but there were hundreds of these joints in the city, some with a life span shorter than a mayfly’s, and it could be anywhere; maybe not even in Rome. If it even mattered. Still, I shelved it for later consideration. ‘Anything else?’

‘We weren’t together for very long. And she was more… physical than a talker.’ Harmodia dropped her eyes. ‘The only other thing that might help was the business on our way home that first day.’

‘Yeah? What business was that?’

‘We were going along Iugarius. There was a priest coming towards us; you know, one of those easterners from the Great Mother’s Temple, they look like long-haired women. Myrrhine took one look, grabbed my arm and pulled me across to the other pavement.’

‘She give any reason?’

‘She didn’t want to, but I insisted.’ Harmodia tried a small smile. ‘We were both pretty drunk, Corvinus. She’d made me bang into a guy in the road selling pendants and he wasn’t too pleased. Neither was I. When we got to the other side I asked her what she thought she was doing.’

‘And?’

‘You want me to quote?’

‘Sure. Go ahead.’

‘She said, “These fuckers are the dregs. Just breathing the same air they do makes me sick to my stomach.”’

Ouch. ‘Odd.’

‘I asked her why, but she wouldn’t say anything else. And that’s about all I can tell you. We did talk over the next few days, sure, but on her side it was mostly questions. A lot of them were about the rite; what went on, who’d be there, that sort of stuff. Now I know why, but then it just sounded like she was interested professionally. Any questions I asked about her and her background she just wouldn’t answer. I don’t even know how she came to learn the flute.’

I sighed; hell, I’d expected more, a lot more. It might not have been a completely wasted journey, but it was the next thing to it. Our phantom fluteplayer was as phantom as ever. ‘Okay, lady,’ I said. ‘Grilling over. What are your plans now, exactly?’

She glanced back at the oven. ‘I’ll stay here until after the Festival at least. Maybe for good. Mum’s snowed under; it’s one of her busiest times, my sister’s having a baby and she’s had to look after the stall herself. Anyway, I’m not going back home until Myrrhine’s caught.’

‘Yeah. That’s what I was going to recommend myself.’

She was quiet for a long time. Then she said, ‘Has she been round since? Myrrhine?’

‘Once.’ I was cautious. ‘Your neighbour’s husband sent her away with a flea in her ear.’

‘Good. I never want to see her again.’ She shuddered, then looked at Aegle. ‘I’m sorry about Thalia. Really sorry. If there’s anything I can do…’

Aegle hugged her again. ‘Hey, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘It’s not your fault.’

‘But it is. You know it is. It should be me that’s dead.’

Smart girl. And she was quite right. What could we say? We left.

We had a very late lunch in a cookshop in Bakers’ Square itself. Neither of us fancied the long walk into town, nor a litter, let alone another boat trip, but by the time we’d finished the sun was in its last quadrant so we walked as far as the Ostian Gate and picked up a public carriage from the rank. I took Aegle back to the Subura – she was pretty subdued all the way – and then gave the guy his orders for the Caelian.

So; what had we got? On the plus side, the murders were solved, at least as far as having the name of the killer was concerned. That was about it. Sure, I could go to Camillus tomorrow and give him Myrrhine’s name and description for the various Watch divisions, but I wasn’t under any illusions how effective that would be. The Watch was stretched as it was, and the city’s a big place. If she knew we had her tagged, Myrrhine could disappear into somewhere like the Subura or the Aventine tenement district and the chances of finding her would be as close to zero as made no difference. I’d half thought of playing it very dirty, using Harmodia as bait to bring her back to the flat in Transtiber, but I’d put that idea aside as soon as it came: I could be wrong about Myrrhine staking the building, and anyway it was far too risky for the kid. The bitch had killed three times already, we couldn’t cover all the angles and if I ended up responsible for a fourth corpse I’d never forgive myself. So no bear traps, not unless we were desperate. And we’d a way to go yet before that happened.

The Crocodile and a foreign priest. The first, although it sounded the more promising, was actually the weaker lead of the two. If it was a lead at all. Like I say, Rome’s full of cathouses with weird names, like the Jumping Gaul or the Three Ones; at least the less salubrious districts are. The Crocodile could be anywhere. Or nowhere, for that matter. The best shot I could give it was to ask Lippillus. If I struck really lucky he might know of it himself, because where Rome is concerned the guy’s knowledge is encyclopaedic. Failing that I could get him to put the word out round the other regions, although that was a clear second-best: Watch commanders aren’t all as efficient as that shit-smart dwarf, and some of them – I suspected including the guy responsible for Transtiber – are only in the job for the backhanders they get from the local night-time entrepreneurs. They would either not know, not care or ask for a non-returnable upfront contribution to the widows’ and orphans’ fund. Probably all three.