Three Hands In The Fountain

With me home in her arms, Helena slipped into a doze. The baby was awake, briefly clean, charming, kicking her feet contentedly, hardly a dribble in sight. I caught her looking up at me as if she was deliberately testing her audience. She had Helena's eyes. If we could bring her safely through the dangerous childhood years, when so many lost their hold on life, then one day she would have Helena's spirit too. She would be off out there, freeborn in her own city, probably half the time without telling us where she had gone.

Women should take care. The sensible ones knew that. But Rome had to allow them to forget sometimes. Being truly free meant enjoying life without the risk of coming to harm.

Sometimes I hated my work. Not today.

Julius Frontinus came for a conference that afternoon. I loved him for his blunt approach, but the constant fear that his honour would walk in did cramp my style. Still, he had had the courtesy to let his night-patrol take their rest first.

I stepped out to the porch and whistled across to Petronius. There was no response, but almost immediately he came loping up the street. I signalled; he joined us. We all sat together, accompanied by the quiet sound of Julia Junilla's cradle as Helena gently worked the rocker with her foot.

We spoke in subdued voices. Petro and I reported on our negative results last night.

`I have seen the Prefect of Vigiles; this morning.' Frontinus could be relied on to chivvy and chase.' `He had a round-up from his officers. They caught various minor offenders who might have got away with it if we had not had the Circus surrounded and the city gates watched, but nobody who seems implicated in our quest.'

`Have any women been reported missing this morning?' I asked. I sounded hoarse, not wanting to hear the answer.

`Not so far.' Frontinus was subdued too. `We should be glad.' We were, of course, although having nothing further to go on gave us no material help.

'At least we didn't miss someone being snatched.'

`You have nothing to reproach yourselves with,' said Helena. Seated in her round-backed wicker chair she seemed slightly apart from the conference, but it was understood she was listening in. In my household debates were full-family affairs.

Helena knew what I was thinking. I had once cursed myself bitterly when a young girl was murdered and I had felt I could have prevented it. That was in the past, but I still sometimes tortured myself turning over whether I should, have acted differently. I still hated the killer for leaving me with his crime on my own conscience.

1 had been brooding too much recently about Helena's dead uncle, the man whose corpse Vespasian had had me dispose of in the Great Sewer. It was his daughter, Helena's young cousin, who had been killed. Sosia. She had been sixteen: bright, beautiful, inquisitive, blameless and fearless – and I had been half in love with her. Ever since then, I had never quite trusted my ability to protect: women.

`I had a message from the man we sent to the Porta Metrovia stables,' said Petro, interrupting my thoughts. `Apparently Damon, the driver we're suspicious about, has been staying there full time. It's exactly what he is supposed to do. He goes to the chop-house next door, buys himself a drink, and makes it last for hours. He does try to chat up the waitress, but she isn't having it.'

`And he was, there all last night?' asked Frontinus, yearning to hear something which would implicate the driver.

`All night,' Petro gloomily confirmed.

`So that exonerates Damon?'

`Only for last night.'

`Damon should not be your killer,' Helena reminded us quietly. `Damon is said to remain at the Porta Metrovia in case his mistress requires her carriage. Whoever, killed Asinia abducted her in Rome yet threw her hand, into the Anio within a matter of days – and then he drove back here to dispose of her head and torso at the end of the Games. If he follows the same pattern during these Games, maybe the vigiles can catch; him among the traffic through the Tiburtina Gate – though at a fatal price for some poor

woman, I'm afraid.'

`Only commercial traffic left last night,' Frontinus assured her. He must have really dragged details out of the Prefect of Vigiles.

`Can't the killer be a commercial driver of some sort – one who just happens to come from Tibur?'

`He's a private driver. He is delivering somebody for the festivals, then fetching them home again afterwards,' I said, convinced of it. `That's why he makes two trips.'

`But not Aurelia Maesia, apparently,' Petro added with a grunt.

`No. Helena's right. We're letting ourselves be distracted by Aurelia and Damon. We're too desperate; if we aren't careful we'll miss something.'

`This morning when I was waiting for you to wake up,' Helena said, `I had a thought. I knew from the quiet way you came in that nothing could have, happened last night. Yet it – was the opening of the Games, and you had been certain that that would be when he struck.'

`So, my love?'