Part 22 (1/2)

Then I found something else. Flat against the bottom of his leather pack, where it would be safest from knocks, lay a modest square of parchment. At first I thought it was sc.r.a.p; there was half an old inventory inked on one side. But I should have known better. When I was a struggling informer, in my grim rented apartment at Fountain Court, I used everything from old fish wrappers to my own poetry drafts as writing material. This inventory had been re-used on its good side by some ten-minute sketch artist.

For one wild moment I thought the bridegroom had left clues. This drawing was nothing so helpful - yet it wrenched my heart. The couple must have succ.u.mbed to one of those scribble-you-quick cartoonists who hang around on quaysides and embankments, trying to earn the fare back to their home village after their career fails. The youngsters had bought a drawing of themselves. leaning against one another but looking out at spectators, right hands intertwined to show their married status. It was not bad. I recognised him. Now I was seeing her. Valeria Ventidia was wearing the meander ring that I held in my hand. a fearless, impertinent kind of girl, with small, pretty features, a complex set of ringlets, and a direct stare that made my heart lurch. She was not my type now, but when I was much younger, her self-confidence might have made me call after her saucily.

I knew she was dead, and I knew how terribly she died. Meeting her fresh gaze, so sure of herself and so full of life, I could see why Statia.n.u.s wanted to find the man who killed her.

I left the room and gave Helena the portrait. She groaned quietly. Then a tear dashed down her cheek.

I faced up to the landlord. I was certain he was holding something back. I did not touch him. I did not need to. My mood now was obvious. He realised he should be afraid.

'I want to know everything. Everything your lodger said, everyone he spoke to.'

'You want to know about his friend, then?'

'Another young man was with him when he first arrived,' Helena interrupted impatiently. Her thumb moved gently on the double portrait. 'He left Delphi for Athens. I can tell you everything about him - he's my brother!'

'I meant the other one,' the landlord quavered.

Ah!

'Statia.n.u.s had another friend here?'

'He came three nights ago, Falco.'

The landlord gave us a rough description. a man in middle life, in business, ordinary-looking, used to inns. It could have been anyone. It could have been Phineus, but the landlord said not. It could simply have been someone Statia.n.u.s met, with whom that lonely young man just fell into conversation, some stranger he would never see again. Irrelevant.

'Would you call this man expensively dressed?'

'No.' Not the killer from Corinth, therefore - unless he had dressed down for travelling.

'Did he look like an ex-boxer or ex-wrestler?'

'He was a lightweight. Run to seed a bit, big belly.' Not the killer from Olympia either - unless different witnesses saw him differently. As they so often do.

The landlord could be lying. The landlord could be un.o.bservant (as Helena put it) or blind (as I said.) 'Did he ask for Statia.n.u.s?'

'Yes.'

Not a pa.s.sing stranger, then.

At first, the landlord pretended he had not heard any conversation between the two men. He admitted they had eaten together at the inn. It was Helena who demanded swiftly, 'Do you use a waiter to serve food?'

There was a moment of bl.u.s.ter.

'Get him!' I roared.

It was the waiter who mentioned Lebadeia.

'I reckon he's gone to Lebadeia.'

'What's at Lebadeia?'

'Nothing much.'

Wrong. Something bad. Something very bad.

This waiter had heard Statia.n.u.s say the name to his companion, who seemed to reply with encouragement. As the waiter told us at first, Lebadeia was a town on the way to other places.

'So why do you think Statia.n.u.s would go there?'

This weary tray-carrier was a plump, acne-disfigured fellow with slanty eyes, varicose veins, and a visible yearning to be paid for his information. His employer had lost him any hopes of a bribe; I was too angry. I screwed out of him that Statia.n.u.s had talked excitedly to his visitor, and the name of Lebadeia had been overheard.

'Did you know the second man?'

'No, but Statia.n.u.s did. I thought he had come from the travel firm.'

'What? Was it Phineus? Do you know Phineus?'

'No, it wasn't him. I know Phineus.' Everyone knew Phineus. He knew everyone - and everywhere too; if Ledabeia boasted any feature of interest, Phineus would have it on his list of visitable sites. 'I a.s.sumed,' whined the waiter beseeching us to agree with him, 'this one might be Polystratus.'

This was the second time recently his name had come up. Helena Justina raised her eyebrows. I straightened up and told her, 'That's right. The Seven Sights 'facilitator.' The man you didn't like in Rome. The man Phineus is supposed to have sent over here to persuade Statia.n.u.s to return to the group.'

'So do we think Statia.n.u.s has gone back to Corinth, Marcus?'

'No, we don't. Why has he abandoned his luggage, in that case?'

'He was very worked up,' murmured the waiter, now anxious that he might have got into trouble. 'People heard him pacing his room that night, and in the morning he was just gone.'

'There's nothing to say he went to Lebadeia, though.'

'Only,' admitted the waiter nervously, ' the fact that he had asked me the way.'

I gripped him by the shoulders of his greasy grey tunic. 'So what's he gone there for? He must have had a reason. I can tell by your s.h.i.+fty eyes that you know what it was!'

'I suppose,' said the waiter, squirming, 'he must have gone to try the oracle.'

XLVII.

When we looked at the map Helena always brought with her, we saw why even the waiters of elegant Delphi disparaged Lebadeia: it lay on a major route from Athens to Delphi, the processional way taken every year by dancing maids who indulge in winter rites to Dionysus. But Lebadeia, a town close to the Copais Lake, was in Boeotia. I had read enough Greek comedies. I knew that for the xenophobic Greeks, Boeotia represented the world's unwashed armpit. The district was barbarian. Boeotians were always represented as brutes and buffoons.

'Well, my darling,' Helena murmured heartlessly, 'you'll fit in well there, won't you?'

I ignored that. I pointed out hotly that Lebadeia was miles away. Well, twenty as Apollo's crow flies - though much more, allowing for one or two d.a.m.n great mountains. One of those was where the maddened maenads tore King Pentheus to shreds in Bacchic frenzy; just the kind of bloodsoaked spot where informers like to dally, terrifying themselves with history.