Three Hands In The Fountain

Our new colleague said he would ask the City Prefect to make enquiries of all the vigiles cohorts under his command. We let Frontinus take this initiative, in case his rank speeded up the response. Knowing how the vigiles tended to react to rank, however, Petronius also made a private approach to the Sixth, who patrolled the Circus Maximus and were now the hapless hosts of his old second in command Martinus. Since the murders seemed to be connected with the Games, the Circus might be where the victim had met her assailant. The Sixth were the most likely candidates to receive her husband's plea to find her. Martinus, in his unreliable sounding way, promised to tell us at once if it happened. Well, he wasn't entirely hopeless; he might eventually get round to it,

While we waited to hear something, we tackled the aqueduct issue. Petro and I presented ourselves at Frontinus' house early the next morning. We wore neat tunics, combed-down hair, and the solemnity of efficient operatives. We looked like the men for the business. We folded our arms a lot and wore thoughtful frowns. Any ex-consul would be happy – to have two such sparks on his staff.

Although; we were allowed to interrogate an engineer, the

Curator of Aqueducts had had the choice of which to send. The man he imposed on us was called Statius,, and we could tell he would be a nincompoop by the size of his back-up team: he brought; a couple of slaves with note tablets (to record what he said so he could check it minutely afterwards and send us corrections if he had inadvertently been too frank), a satchel-carrier,, an assistant, and the assistant's chubby clerk. Not to mention the, litter-bearers and the armed guard with cudgels he had left outside. In theory he was here to contribute expert knowledge, but he behaved as if he had been summonsed on a, full-blown corruption charge.

Frontinus asked the first question, and it was typically direct: `Do you have a map of the water system?'

`I believe a locational diagram of the, substrata and superstrata conduits may exist.'

Petronius caught my eye. His favourite: a man who called a spade a soil redistribution implement.

`Can you supply a copy?'

`Such classified information is not generally available'

`I see!' Frontinus glared. If he ever assumed a position administering water, we could tell who would be the first bad nut tossed out of the window.

`Perhaps, then,' suggested Petro, playing the sympathetic fraternal type (well, a big brother with a hard stick in his fist), `you could just tell us something about how things work?'

Statius had recourse to hiss satchel, wherein he had secreted a linen handkerchief to mop his brow. He was overweight and red in the face. His tunic crumpled around him in grubby-looking folds, even though it had probably been clean on that day. `Well, it is complicated to, explain to lay persons. What you are requesting is highly technical.

`Try me. How many aqueducts are there?'

'Eight,' admitted Statius, after a horrified pause.

`Nine, surely?' I ventured quietly.

He looked annoyed. `Well, if you're going to include the Alsietina -'

`Is there any reason why I should not?'

`It's on, the Transtiberina side.'

`I realise that.'

`The Aqua Alsietina is only used for the naumachia and for watering Caesar's Gardens

`Or, for the Transtiberina paupers to drink when the other aqueducts are dry.' I was annoyed. `We know the quality is filthy. It was only ever intended to fill the basin for mock trireme fights. That's not the point, Statius. Have any women's hands, or other parts of human corpses, been found in the Alsietina?'

`I have no precise information on that.' `Then you concede remains may be there?' `It could be a statistical possibility.'

`It's statistically certain that a watercourse somewhere is awash with heads, legs and arms too. Where there are hands the rest of the set tends to exist – and we haven't found any of them yet.'

Petronius weighed in again, still complementing me by playing the kind-hearted reasonable type: `Well, shall we call the tally nine? With luck some can be eliminated fairly quickly, but we must start by considering the whole system. We have to decide how a man, and his accomplices if he has any, are taking advantage of the aqueducts to flush away the relics of their hideous crimes.'

Statius was still bound up in irrelevance. `The water board accepts no responsibility for that. You cannot be suggesting that the notoriously unpleasant quality of the Aqua Alsietina is accounted for by illegal impurities of human origin?'

`Of course not,' said Petro grimly.

`Of course not,' I agreed. `The Alsietina is full of perfectly natural crap.'