I, Claudia Read online

  The cat and Claudia had been together for seven years, long before Claudia took up as a dancer in Genoa, and having found each other, both of them lonely and starving and living off their wits, there wasn’t a single secret they hadn’t shared since.

  ‘Prrrrrr.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  Melissa had burned the evidence, Julia and Flavia had provided the perfect alibi. All the same…

  She drained the goblet in one swallow. She’d seen some sights in her time, but many moons would wax and wane before Claudia, inured as she was, would forget the corpse of Quintus Aurelius Crassus, a stab wound to the heart and two bloody, raw holes where his eyes should have been. This made the fourth such murder in the past six months and each of the victims had been a respectable, high-ranking official. The authorities, under that foul-mouthed midget Callisunus, were no doubt sweating their sandals off in the search for a common link. So far they hadn’t found it, but Claudia knew what—or rather who—that link was.

  Her.

  ‘We’ve got a problem here, poppet.’

  The cat snuggled up under her ear and drew a long, deep, contented breath.

  ‘It can only be a matter of time before they latch on to us, then dear old Gaius will know what we’ve been up to. Now we can’t have that, can we?’

  ‘Mrrow.’

  Gaius Seferius was old and he was fat and his breath smelled, but he was frightfully rich and, praise be to Hymen, he didn’t pester her for sex. His family was grown up, and he didn’t want another, although his position as one of the most successful wine merchants in the city had dictated that he ought to remarry. So why not take pity on the young and lovely widow of a judge from the Northern Provinces, grieving for an entire family wiped out in the plague? Providing she didn’t interfere in any of his activities, commercial or personal, Claudia had everything at her disposal. She bridged her fingers in concentration.

  ‘Shame patricians were out of the question, eh, Drusilla?’

  Too bloody canny, that’s why. Never dream of taking anyone on face value, no matter how tragic the circumstances. Pity, really, because Claudia was hellbent on having aristocratic children. She might not make the grade herself, but by Jupiter she’d get at least one son in the Senate if it was the last thing she did. One million sesterces, that’s what it needed. One measly million. Still. She had settled for a leading light in the equestrian order, the next best thing, and although the marriage hadn’t been consummated, compensation came in the knowledge that Gaius’s chest pains occurred with increasing regularity. It could only be a matter of time before tragedy struck and she was widowed ‘again’—and then she could think about bearing sons for promotion to the Senate.

  Yes, indeed. It was merely a question of waiting… Unfortunately, after less than a year of mixing with empty-headed matrons with whom she had nothing whatsoever in common, Claudia realized, somewhat to her disquiet, that wealth, social standing and a life of luxury were nowhere near enough. It wasn’t that she regretted the wheeling and dealing that had been necessary to hook Gaius, far from it, it was simply that she’d been living on the edge for too long to suddenly give up the thrills. In short, she needed stimulation. Thus to feed the giant cuckoo she had hatched, Claudia had resorted to her old business activities.

  ‘What do you think we should do?’

  Drusilla’s rough tongue was abrasive on her cheek, but she made no effort to draw away.

  ‘So do I, poppet. Because if we don’t find out who’s knocking off our clients, someone else will and that’ll really put the fox among our comfy little chickens.’

  She kissed the cat between its ears and swallowed a whole goblet of warm, honeyed wine. Drusilla lifted her face, twitched her ears in the direction of the door and let out a short, guttural growl. Claudia tapped the side of her mouth thoughtfully.

  ‘Yes, that had crossed my mind, too.’

  The cat’s eyes had become mere slits. ‘Rrrrow.’

  ‘I know, Drusilla. Irrespective of who he is, we’re going to have to kill him, aren’t we?’

  III

  ‘There’s a very handsome gentleman to see you, madam. Gives his name as Marcus Cornelius Orbilio.’

  Claudia glanced at Melissa in the mirror. ‘To see me? Not my husband?’

  ‘You, madam.’

  She was in a good mood. They had just returned from the Field of Mars, where, victorious from his campaign against the Alpine tribes in Gaul, Augustus unveiled his testament to success, the magnificent Altar of Peace. Watching the Tiber roll gently past as the Emperor expounded on a glorious age of sunshine and gold, where civil war was a thing of the past and expansion of the empire the only way forward, there wasn’t a Roman left standing who wasn’t bursting his tunic with patriotic pride. Mighty restorations had already begun—roads, bridges, temples, the lot. Why, in Rome alone eighty-two major renovation works were in progress. Day and night hammers reverberated round the city, turning brick into marble, clay into stone.

  ‘Then don’t just stand there, girl. Show him into the garden.’

  She dabbed scent delicately behind her earlobes, prodded a wayward curl back into place and slid another gold ring on her long, slim finger. As an afterthought, she clipped a black onyx brooch to her tunic.

  He was sitting on a white marble bench in the shade of a sour apple tree. High patrician nose. Firm square jaw. And a mop of dark, curly hair which showed no signs of thinning. Claudia doubted whether there was an ounce of fat on his body and conceded he’d make a formidable adversary, although at the moment he seemed to have met his match.

  Back arched and hackles raised, Drusilla advanced sideways, growling menacingly in the back of her throat.

  ‘Pretty kitty.’

  Claudia thought his voice lacked a certain conviction.

  ‘Mrrrrow.’

  ‘There you are, poppet.’ She scooped the glowering cat into her arms and turned to her visitor. ‘I see you’ve met Drusilla.’

  Marcus Cornelius Orbilio stood up. ‘Claudia Seferius?’

  ‘Do I look like one of the slaves? What do you want?’

  Orbilio glanced at Drusilla, who was scowling at his face as though she’d like to shred it to pieces, and squared his shoulders.

  ‘I’m empowered by the Security Police to investigate the murders of four high-ranking officials—’ He paused, and Claudia’s quick wits sent her bending to park an indignant Drusilla on the ground, knowing it would pass off the flood of colour to her face.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I wondered whether you could spare me a little of your valuable time.’

  Valuable time! Claudia clapped her hands and called for wine and figs and some pecorino cheese, which was her favourite. Then she forced herself to stare him out. Drusilla jumped up on to the sundial and copied her mistress.

  ‘Yes, well… Perhaps I can begin with asking you how well you knew Crassus.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Quintus Aurelius Crassus, the senator whose body was found in, shall we say, unusual circumstances last Saturday.’

  ‘Oh, him. Hardly at all. Why?’

  ‘Didn’t he dine here a week or two back?’

  That was a shot in the dark, she thought. If he knew for certain, he’d name the date. ‘Everybody dines here at some stage,’ she said. ‘Was he the one who’d just come back from some dire little outpost?’

  She turned to the dark-skinned slave girl hovering with the tray who was obviously hanging on every word. ‘Clear off, you. I’ll see to this.’

  A smile twitched at the side of Orbilio’s mouth. ‘Something like that, yes. Did you know where his body was found?’

  ‘I heard a rumour.’ She thrust a glass of wine in his hand. ‘I heard it was in some ghastly slum.’

  ‘Then you heard right. It was one of the buildings owned by Ventidius Balbus. You know him, I presume?’

  ‘Everyone knows him,’ Claudia said, making a great show of helping herself to raisins. ‘What’s this got to do with
my husband and myself?’

  Orbilio leaned back to rest his spine against the bark of the tree. ‘Now who said this has anything to do with Gaius ?’

  Had the sun gone in? It seemed rather chilly all of a sudden.

  ‘Come to the point, Orbilio.’

  He fished in his pouch and came out with a torn scrap of apple-green cotton. ‘This is the point,’ he said quietly. ‘It was found on the door of the room where poor old Crassus was killed. Looks like you caught it in your hurry to leave.’

  Claudia took the proffered scrap. ‘It’s not mine,’ she said, tossing it over her shoulder where it landed to adorn a rosemary bush.

  ‘Oh, but it is.’

  ‘Rubbish. I wouldn’t be seen dead in that colour.’

  ‘I rather thought it would suit you,’ Orbilio replied, smoothly retrieving his evidence. ‘It would complement the tints in your hair.’

  Claudia narrowed her eyes. ‘Then perhaps I should order some,’ she said sharply.

  Orbilio smiled. ‘But you already have, remember? I know, because I spent all yesterday traipsing round mercer after mercer to see who sold this particular cotton in this particular colour and Gratidius, now—Gratidius remembers quite clearly it was the wife of Gaius Seferius who was so taken by the subtlety of the shade.’

  ‘Gratidius is old and he’s a fool with it. I’ll have you know, I’m not in the habit of visiting malodorous slums, Marcus Orbilio—’

  ‘Then you won’t mind if I have a look around, will you?’

  Claudia jumped to her feet. ‘Yes, I bloody well would! How dare you come in here, you jumped-up little mongrel, and presume to search my house!’

  Orbilio studied his thumbnail. ‘Would you prefer someone with higher status?’ he asked indifferently. ‘Someone, say, like Callisunus, who would bring his soldiers with him?’

  ‘That sounds suspiciously like blackmail, Orbilio, and I don’t like blackmailers.’

  Orbilio sighed. ‘Sit down, Claudia, and try to remember I’m investigating the brutal murders of four of our most prominent citizens. Just to refresh your memory, that’s one prefect, one aedile, one retired senator and a jurist.’

  ‘Which you assume gives you the right to trample over decent folk in the process.’

  ‘For pity’s sake, woman! I’m busting my baldrics in the hope of reaching this lunatic before another unfortunate sod has his eyes gouged out and if that offends your sweet sensibilities, I couldn’t give a stuff!’

  Realizing one of the slaves might be watching, Claudia seated herself with a show of indifference and nibbled an olive. He was whistling in the dark, she decided. He couldn’t prove she’d bought the fabric, and besides, if push came to shove, she could always slip Gratidius’s assistant a spot of silver—between them, they could manage to persuade the old mercer his memory was at fault here and she’d done nothing more than simply admire the colour.

  No. What really irritated her was the fact that she’d slipped up. By heaven, she’d chop that wretched Melissa into pieces for not checking the stola was intact!

  ‘I’ll be discreet,’ he added, reaching up and plucking a sour apple.

  ‘Young man,’ she said. It sounded so pompous when he was virtually the same age as herself. ‘There’s no way in the world I’m having your greasy little fingers poking around in my underwear and that’s final.’

  ‘Would you mind, then, if I requested your husband’s permission?’

  He was up to something, the bastard. She could smell it. He knew damn well she didn’t want Gaius involved.

  ‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Junius!’

  A muscular young slave appeared as if by magic.

  ‘Junius, fetch my husband, will you?’

  ‘I’m sorry, madam, but the master’s already left for the baths.’

  She shot Orbilio a glance. ‘How long ago?’

  ‘About an hour,’ the boy replied.

  Curiously enough, it was shortly after that when Marcus Cornelius Orbilio came to call. Well, well! What a coincidence. She dismissed Junius with a curt nod. When she first thought this man would make a formidable adversary, she hadn’t expected him to be hers. No matter, she could be as sharp as a wagonload of monkeys when she chose. Four and a half years of easy living might have softened her physically, but Claudia Seferius had never once afforded herself the luxury of letting her guard drop. She picked a pink, sniffed deeply, then gave Orbilio her sunniest smile.

  ‘Why don’t we compromise?’

  That seemed to shake him.

  ‘MELISSA!’ As did the pitch of her voice. ‘Ah, Melissa. See this,’ she pointed to the snippet of green cotton, ‘do I have anything in this colour?’

  ‘No, madam.’

  The investigator frowned and pressed the fragment into the girl’s palm. ‘Look carefully,’ he said, his eyes darting from slave to mistress for signs of hidden communications. ‘It’s very important.’ Claudia studied her onyx brooch, careful that her eyes never once met Melissa’s.

  ‘Madam has nothing in this colour,’ the girl said, looking him coolly in the face before turning back to the house.

  Claudia let her breath out slowly. ‘Anything else, Orbilio? I mean, you don’t want to turn the house upside down to see whether we’re concealing a chest full of eyes as well, do you?’

  Orbilio pursed his lips sullenly. ‘No. That’s all for the moment, thank you.’

  ‘Good.’ Claudia swept to her feet and flounced along the shaded colonnade. ‘Then you can see yourself out,’ she called over her shoulder.

  IV

  Orbilio heaved himself off the naked, glistening body of the girl beneath him and rolled on to his back. Mother of Tarquin, he had difficulty remembering who was who these days! Was this Vera, the Sardinian fish-trader’s daughter or Petronella from the locksmith’s place? He wiped his brow with the back of his hand and wondered whether the locksmith either knew or cared who his woman slept with. He reached for the flagon, but it was empty.

  ‘Damn.’

  He slumped back on to the bed, his hair falling across his eyes. He couldn’t go on like this much longer, he was burning himself out. Eighteen hours a day, seven days a week for the past six months he’d searched for clues that would bring him closer to trapping a demented killer, seeking solace at night in wine and women—and finding it in neither.

  If only he could get a break, and, Juno’s skirts, it wasn’t for the want of trying. There had to be a connection between the four men. There had to be. That foul-mouthed, sour-faced boss of his didn’t think there was, but then again, Callisunus hadn’t exactly risen through the ranks because of his brains, had he, the oily bastard? A propensity to take full credit for his officers’ findings if they were successful and to swiftly disown them if they fell short had secured his position as Head of the Security Police. That his men might despise him mattered not a jot to Callisunus. Small and squat with pug-like features, he sat like a spider in his web of complacency knowing that even if Orbilio’s theory happened to prove sound, he could still come up smelling of lavender. Except in this instance, Callisunus was convinced the killings were random, leaving Orbilio to follow his nose…providing it was during his own free time. No matter. There was a link, he was sure of it—but what?

  His mind ranged back over the information to date, but so far he hadn’t found one single shred of evidence to link any of the men with the others, particularly Crassus who, having retired from the Senate, had recently completed a long stint in Isauria. He’d driven himself into the ground, delving into every business transaction they’d ever entered into, and so far he’d found bugger all.

  Of course, there were plenty more leads to follow, but assuming there was no professional connection, what other motives were there? Someone with a grievance? Crassus had been a miserable old curmudgeon with a reputation for cheeseparing, but Tigellinus, the man responsible for the metropolitan water supply? Horatius, organizer of the Megalesian Games? Such occupations attracted laurels rather than grud
ges. Fabianus the jurist might have been a possibility, had he not been widely respected for his sense of balance and perspective. Nevertheless, he might have offended someone—a man with a twisted sense of justice… Orbilio groaned and rubbed his eyes at the thought of the enormous number of trails still left to follow. And why were there no witnesses to any of these crimes?

  ‘Mother of Tarquin, is the man invisible?’

  How much simpler if he could have unearthed (as he’d hoped) a conspiracy to assassinate the Emperor. Now that would have sent him winging up his ladder of ambition faster than a bolting steed—and the kudos, oh, the kudos! Unfortunately, the conspiracy theory held as much water as a leaky sieve and he was left without a single suspect and the barest minimum of clues.

  Regardless of the amount of effort he’d put in, hadn’t Callisunus remarked that very morning, in his inimical silver-tongued fashion, that if Orbilio didn’t stop farting around with dead-end theories he’d put Metellus on the case instead? The worst part was he’d follow through, dammit, because if Callisunus suspected this dissent was halfway contagious he’d ditch him at the earliest opportunity.

  ‘I want evidence!’ he’d stormed at the briefing. ‘Concrete fucking evidence, not pansified piffle: The Emperor would kick my butt from here to Hades if I trotted out your far-fetched farrago, so I suggest you get your arse back to work before I lose patience completely.’

  ‘Well screw you, Callisunus,’ Orbilio said aloud. ‘You’ll see I’m right, you just wait.’

  ‘Huh?’ Petronella—or was it Vera?—lifted her head. ‘Did you say something?’

  ‘No. Go back to sleep.’

  Cupid’s darts, what was he doing here, night after night? It was like when he was a kid. No matter how many of those saffron yellow honey cakes you ate, they never filled you up. Well, this is pretty much the same thing, isn’t it? He turned his face to the window and stared at the silver semicircle of the moon. I ought to marry again, he thought. Start a family. Work is work, but at the end of it a man needs something good to go home to. I want to be surrounded by laughter and squabbling. I want to be getting involved in my boys’ schooling, my wife’s family and my own duties as a senator. Because I will make the Senate, make no mistake, I’ll be there! Being born into the nobility helps, but it’s by no means a foregone conclusion. You still need to apply yourself—and Marcus Orbilio had certainly done that. Two years’ legal duties, two years as a tribune and eighteen months working in criminal justice. Six more months and I’ll be eligible to put myself up for a quaestorship, with automatic admission to the Senate—just the right amount of time to ensure people wouldn’t forget.