Part 15 (1/2)

'Who was making advances?'

'n.o.body.' Phineus looked annoyed. 'Don't twist my words. I never said that.'

I changed tack. 'Did you meet her father - afterwards?'

Now it was Phineus who jumped. 'Why? What's her father said, Falco?'

'Touchy! It was a straight question.'

'I met him,' stated Phineus. 'I was polite to him. He had lost his child and I sympathised. There simply wasn't anything that I could do to help the man. I know nothing about what happened to Marcella Caesia.' He paused then. I could not tell what he was thinking - but once again I felt there were things Phineus kept hidden. 'Except this, Falco - if Caesia really disappeared the night before we left, this is a certainty: none of the male clients on that tour harmed her. It would have been impossible. All of them were with me all Day Four, from when we left the women in the morning - with Caesia among them, perfectly all right.'

x.x.xII.

It had taken Aquillius and me a long time to find Phineus, and it had been a hard walk. Talking to him had scrambled my brain too. I knew he was bamboozling me. After I left him, I felt unsettled. Looking up at the crag, with its distant temples dreamily far off, I was filled with inertia. I lost interest in climbing the acropolis today.

I went back to the Elephant, learned that Helena had gone shopping, and fell back on an informer's honest standby: writing up my notes. (There are other excuses, less useful, though often more fun.) The good work just happened to occur in the courtyard of the Bay Mare, where eventually I was offered lunch. Since I was occupying their table, it would have been discourteous to refuse.

When Helena came and found me looking guilty with a bowl and goblet, I escaped censure due to guilt of her own. She carefully arranged the folds of her light skirt and graceful stole - a delaying tactic that I recognised. Then she admitted she had been purchasing ancient vases. We could afford these antiquities, for which Corinth had once been famous, but her intention was to export most back to Rome for my father's business. I said what I thought of that. Helena thought I was unfair to Pa. We had a satisfying wrangle about the meaning of 'unfairness', after which, since none of our party was around, we slunk off to our room, threw off our clothes, and reminded ourselves of what life together was all about.

Nothing that is anybody else's business.

Some time later, I remembered to give Helena the letter that Aquillius had brought from her brother.

Our vagrant scholar was as trusting as ever that we would have rushed out to Greece when he whistled. How he guessed we might come through Corinth was not revealed. Aulus wrote a blunt epistle, void of frills; explanations were not his strength. It boded ill for his career as a lawyer, should he ever take it up.

He must have reasoned we would go to Olympia because that was where the deaths took place, then since Corinth was roughly in a line with Athens, we would rest here on our way to see him. He had convinced himself that if we were in Greece we were coming to find him. That he, Aulus Camillus Aelia.n.u.s the layabout law student, might not be my priority during a murder hunt never struck him. There was a time when I disliked this fellow; now I just despaired.

After hoping we were well (a courtesy which meant he must be running short of funds already, he dropped into cipher for a resume. Neither Helena nor I had brought codebooks with us, but apparently Aulus always used the same system and Helena Justina could work it out from just one or two points she remembered. I relaxed on the bed, playing fondly with parts of Helena that strayed within reach, while she frowned over the scroll and cuffed away my playful hands; she broke the code far too quickly for me. I told her I was glad I had never kept a diary with details of liaisons with buxom mistresses. Helena chortled that she knew I kept no diaries (had she looked for them?, and said how fortunate, too, that since she always used an extremely difficult code, I could not read hers. We got down to business eventually.

Aulus had decided Tullius Statia.n.u.s was innocent. I wondered if that meant Statia.n.u.s loved hunting and dinner parties, just like Aulus? Playboy or not, the bereaved husband now felt he must take responsibility for solving his wife's gruesome death. Statia.n.u.s was addressing this not by using our process of logical investigation, but by travelling to Delphi to consult the oracle.

'Oh nuts!'

'Don't be sceptical,' Helena cautioned. 'Many people do believe in it.'

I restricted myself to the scathing remark that many people were idiots.

'Just to be doing something may calm him, Marcus.'

'Doing this will waste his money and drive him crazy.'

We were dealing with travellers who had come to Greece in search of its ancient mysteries, so Statia.n.u.s' pilgrimage was in character. Even I conceded that he must be deeply shocked and devastated by the cla.s.sic feelings of helplessness. Aulus had tried to promise our aid, but had to confess the possibility that his letters had never reached us. So the two men had gone across to Delphi together. There they had discovered what is rarely spelt out in the guidebooks: only one day each month is a.s.signed for prophecies - and, worse, only nations, major cities, and rich persons of extreme importance tend to be winners in the inevitable lottery for questions.

'Apollo's oracle has a queue?'

'Truth is valuable, Marcus. They have to ration it.'

Given that by tradition no one can understand the prophecies, this seemed doubly harsh on the desperate.

Aulus had never been famous for sticking-power. Since the oracle seemed a waste of time, he gave up. With no sign of hypocrisy, he wrote to his sceptical sister that he now felt it proper to honour his parents' wishes and make his way to university. Helena guffawed. I amused myself imagining their parents' reaction. We a.s.sumed that once Aulus had seen the Statue of Zeus at Olympia and explored the Delphic sanctuary, it was time for him to add the glorious Parthenon to his wish-list of fancy sights.

Statia.n.u.s, the distraught bridegroom, had been left behind, still looking for a chance to submit a lead tablet asking 'Who murdered my wife?' to the Pythia; she was the frantic priestess who, even in these modern times, sat on a tripod chewing bay leaves until the G.o.d (or the bay leaves) overwhelmed her with unintelligible wisdom and a bad headache afterwards.

If Statia.n.u.s did not rejoin the travel group soon, someone would have to go to Delphi and gather him up. I bet I knew who that would be. It might be easier to extract him when I could answer his tragic question myself, so I filed the obsessive widower in my 'do later' pigeonhole.

'As an oracle, you are a lazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Falco!' Helena commented.

'O woman of disbelief! As an oracle, I am hot stuff. I prophesy this: seek for him who comes and goes amongst those who go and come.'

'You think Phineus is the murderer? But Phineus told you he was occupied with other people at the crucial times, so that's impossible.'

'Phineus is a blatant liar,' I prophesied.

x.x.xIII.

Since no other delaying tactic struck me, next morning I did set out for the acropolis.

I crossed the Forum on its north side, in my hiking gear and with Nux at my heels. At one point I noticed Phineus outside a shop. He was deep in conversation with another man, one of his many contacts, no doubt; I put my head down and got by unseen. Then a voice hailed me. It was just Cleonymus, the freedman; he was sitting on the central rostrum on his own, waiting for the wine shops to open. His wife and their two companions were all asleep with hangovers, so he said he would come up the crag with me to see the views. Nux was wagging her tail at company, so I agreed. Cleonymus was wearing a ma.s.sive belt buckle against his richly embroidered tunic, with such heavy gold bangles on his muscular forearms that I thought it a duty to remove him from the envious crowds.

We walked over to the east end, and climbed a short flight of steps which led to a row of about six individual temples to minor divinities. This town was certainly pious. Next we pa.s.sed through some small shops, emerging opposite a much larger temple in the Roman style which had the standard air of an imperial family dedication. Its columns had elaborate acanthus-leaved Corinthian columns; belatedly it struck me that the florid Corinthian style of capital was actually named after this city. I had never liked it. Glancing back, I saw the more straightforward Doric Temple of Apollo, exquisitely outlined against the deep blue waters of the Saronic Gulf and a l.u.s.trous sky. Its Greek austerity tugged at my old-fas.h.i.+oned Roman core.

'That's handsome, but I don't take to Corinth, Cleonymus - too much religion and too much shopping.'

'Oh you can never have too much shopping, Falco.'

Over on our right where the land dropped away lay the theatre; to the left was a gymnasium where I knew Young Glaucus had already established his credentials. We pa.s.sed a very old fountain, into which Jason's young wife was supposed to have thrown herself to quench the pain of Medea's poisoned robe; beyond that was another fountain, a sanctuary of Athena, and a sanctuary of Aesculapius.

'So Turcia.n.u.s Opimus could have brought himself here! Then he could have died where the Roman governor might arrange to s.h.i.+p him home.'

'Epidaurus was even more beautiful - though not very peaceful when the sacred dogs all had a yap.' Cleonymus had spotted the stone money box for donations; he dropped a silver coin in the slot. 'Show willing.' It was like his generosity in buying wine for everyone. He thought he should share his own good fortune. Few owners of a vast inheritance retain so much benevolence.

We soon felt we ourselves might have to offer the G.o.d of medicine some votive statuettes of lungs. The road took us upwards, its steep incline challenging our stamina. Nux chased to and fro around us, heedless of the slope, a small excited bundle of fur with ears pressed back by her own momentum and eyes turned to slits in the wind she created. Eventually I put her on a lead, fearful the crazed animal would leap off the cliff. As the views became ever more spectacular, I was less and less minded to climb giddily down the rockface to rescue Nux from some tiny ledge. The mad dog would probably topple me over into oblivion in the act of welcoming me.

Initially Cleonymus proved a surprisingly good walker, considering his wine intake, though it was soon clear I had more long-term stamina. We puffed up in silence for a while then got talking as we settled into our stride. I let him guide the conversation. He told me a little of his travels, before I asked how he and Cleonyma came to be hooked up with Minucia and Amaranthus.

'Oh we just met them on this trip.'

We climbed on, then I prodded again. Helena Justina thinks Minucia seems a bit restless with Amaranthus.'

'Minucia doesn't say much, but she seems to miss her family.'

'She dumped a husband? Children too?'

'I believe so, Falco. Plus aunts, sisters - and a puddle full of ducks! She's a home-lover who made a run for it to prove she could,' Cleonymus told me. 'Now she's hankering to see dough rising in her own crock again.'