Lindsey Davis - Graveyard of the Hesperides

I felt that if he knew anything at all about Rufia, his surprise would be slight. Surely he must have suspected the workmen would find something? Since the skeleton seemed incomplete, a curious informer was bound to wonder whether he had actually made an attempt to find and remove evidence before any work started. I asked Faustus; he knew of no prior digging, but he had not been in charge of the project at its start. I told him to question his foreman. He meekly promised to do so.

The landlord was one Publius Julius Liberalis, as we knew from the building contract. Three names, all Latinate-a free citizen. Rome’s finest, and somewhat typical: a short man with a large head. On it was robust silver hair, which he parted in the middle. That suits nobody. Two silver horns of hair sat over his temples with matching sideburn points. He enhanced the four horns by twiddling them when he was nervous. I tried not to dismiss him as a wrong ’un just because he had a bad hairstyle. But it set the tone for me.

He looked between thirty and forty. That mattered, because according to my impression of the timescale, he would have been young when Rufia vanished. Possibly even too young to go into bars, though boys start young in the Subura. Drinking is not the only thing they start early, either.

I had met him casually on-site, though he showed no recollection of it. This time, Faustus gave me a proper introduction, as if he might have caught my frosty glance just now at the bar. “Flavia Albia is an informer who works with me when something needs special investigation. We are about to be married, I am delighted to say, so I’ll have even better access to her expertise. There is a problem at your bar. We need to talk to you.”

Liberalis had at first assumed Faustus needed a decision from him on something to do with the renovation. Faced with the unexpected threat of special inquiries, he grew flustered, gabbling that he never had visitors so had left his apartment in a terrible mess. I just reached in and helped him with his latch-lifter while Faustus pushed the door. When somebody is reluctant to admit an informer, it only makes us more determined to get in. Did he have an ulterior motive?

Actually, no. When we pushed past the quavering Liberalis and stormed his citadel, it was indeed stupendously untidy. Tangles of clothes and old wine flagons covered every surface, no rubbish had been emptied for weeks, sandals lived on the windowsill, lopsided pictures dangled off bent nails, and if you wanted to sit down you had to forage for a stool and then offload armfuls of detritus. Whatever you moved had to be added to teetering piles of other stuff. He probably claimed he knew where everything was, as idiots do, but that would be impossible.

“Well done!” I exclaimed, since there was no point pretending not to notice. “I’ve known adolescent boys who would envy what you have achieved here.”

“An old biddy comes and does, since my mother passed away, but she’s been off color…” I saw her point. This was clearly not a man whose mother had taught him he must tidy up before the cleaner came.

There was no wife. So long as this remained his bolt-hole, there would never be. To me he had a distinct mother’s-boy air, old-fashioned, innocent, probably selfish, ill at ease in company. Like many people who hanker to run a bar, he was poorly equipped for it. Perhaps the Hesperides had been there so long it would run itself despite him. He wanted success and was not tight with his money, as we knew from the work he was having done. I presumed he could afford it because he had no social life and no other calls on his cash.

Since refreshments would never be forthcoming, Faustus and I sat ourselves down, waited a moment in a friendly fashion for Liberalis’ nerves to settle, then waded in.

“The workmen have found a human skeleton, or parts of it. I had to stop them working so we can investigate. Fortunately Flavia Albia has a talent for this, so if I don’t have time, she will conduct some checks. People have mentioned a disappearing barmaid, someone called Rufia?”

Faustus had begun, while I watched the way Liberalis received the news. He took it like any householder with a project: “Will this hold up the job?”

Faustus ignored that, as if waiting for our news to sink in and Liberalis to speak more decently. “Is the barmaid story familiar?” he asked sternly.

Liberalis became more guarded. “I may have heard rumors.”

“Do you know when she is supposed to have vanished?”

“Oh, I’m not sure. Many years ago.”

“You knew her?”

“Yes.” So going by his age, her disappearance could not have been quite as long ago as the rumors suggested.

“And people believe somebody killed her?”

“Hazard of her job.”

“It didn’t put you off taking on the bar?”

“Not at all.”

“You thought it was merely a rumor?”

“I am not afraid of ghosts.”

I leaned forward as I suggested gently, “I think you ought to tell us more about your connection with the Hesperides, Liberalis. Were you waiting for your predecessor to pass on so you could take over? I have the impression you had been planning how to renovate, once you obtained the premises. Is that correct?”

“We were distant cousins. He was older. He had no one else to leave it to. We always knew it would come to me one day. Yes, he’d had the place a long time so he probably lost interest in change, while I sometimes thought about better ways to run the place. I used to have dinner there. I would look around and imagine what I could do with it; that’s natural.”

“No animosity?”

“I wouldn’t have wanted to upset him. It was harmless daydreaming that I don’t suppose he even noticed. I think he was glad to know his place would stay in the family. But we rarely spoke about it.”

“What was his name?” Faustus interjected.

“Thales. Everyone always called him ‘Old Thales.’”

Thales was a Greek name. So the barkeeper may have been Greek. Or more likely not. The Greeks are famous for traveling abroad to resettle for economic reasons, yet I could not imagine they would come to a notorious part of Rome and buy a dingy bar. Immigrant Greeks were either slaves who became very high-class secretaries or financiers in high-end trade or banking.

“Thales was a well-known local character?” I asked, concealing how much I despise such types.

“Oh yes.” Liberalis looked a little jealous. “Everyone knew Old Thales. He had a great reputation.”

“What as?” asked Faustus, keeping it light.

“Oh, you know.”

We sat quietly, with raised eyebrows, implying that we did not know. The truth would emerge if I started asking around, but it would have been useful to know first how Liberalis assessed his predecessor. They must have been opposite types.

“A rather colorful landlord?” I hinted eventually, determined to extract more.

“Larger than life,” agreed Liberalis with another tinge of envy. I tried not to groan.

“So what exactly is this story about his missing barmaid?”

Liberalis shrugged. Faustus and I again waited for him to elaborate. Finally he caved in, though he was sparing with real facts: “Rufia was a waitress at the Hesperides. Everyone who went there knew her. One day she suddenly disappeared, without any warning. Nothing more was ever heard of her. Old Thales was the owner at the time. That is all I know.”

“So people thought the landlord did her in?” I demanded bluntly.

Liberalis shrugged again.

“Unfounded rumors or grain of truth?” Faustus tried, but it still took him nowhere. “How long ago was it? Did you know Rufia yourself?”

“I told you, everyone who patronized the Hesperides knew Rufia.”