Three Hands In The Fountain

As far as I knew no Vestal had ever in living memory offered a stray kitten a lift. A woman could be giving birth in a gutter and the Virgins would loftily ignore her. So with no money, once she left Pia that fatal night, Asinia would almost certainly have stayed on foot. This was no place for a lone woman. I imagined how it must have been: a black girl, very pretty but endearingly unaware of it, looking nervous perhaps, shyly pulling her stole close and staring at the pavement. Even if she walked quickly she would be easily marked as vulnerable. The quick walk might actually attract attention. Maybe whoever stalked her had already been gawping at Pia, but had been beaten to it; then when Asinia demurely set off on her own, so much more respectable than the friend she had rashly abandoned, he cannot have believed his luck.

All around the arena tonight prostitutes were plying their trade with gusto. The working girls looked vicious, but once they gathered that my business was nothing which involved them they left me alone. They had too much to do. These long hot nights meant there were good denarii to be made under the shadow of the Circus. Being obnoxious to me would be a bad advertisement – and, more important, a waste of earning time.

What struck me about the other young women, and the not-so-young ones too, was that many were more threatening than the bands of youths. A row of sauntering, swearing maidens swinging their yellow parasols, all whitelead eyelids and looking for action, scared even me. At their approach, any sexual inadequate who found women difficult would jump behind a pillar and wet himself.

I saw nobody who fitted that description. But down there in. the Street of the Three Altars, I began to feel certain someone like that must be habitually drawn to this spot. I could imagine him being scorned and insulted. And I could understand how his brooding spirit might savagely foment thoughts of revenge.

THIRTY THREE

Petronius and I planned to spend every evening of the remaining Ludi Romani outside the Circus Maximus. We might have been near the killer all the time. He could have passed so close his clothes brushed ours, and we would not have known.

We needed to find out more. We were working with too little information. It was beginning to look as though only when another woman was murdered would we stand any chance of uncovering more clues. We could not wish that on anyone. It remained unspoken, but both Petro and I wanted Asinia – whose name and sweet nature we had learned to be the last to suffer.

The day after we started the surveillance, the young Camilli were all struck down with the after-effects of an underdone grilled chicken; unable to visit the Circus they sent a slave to offer their tickets to Helena and me. Somehow, even at short notice, she fixed up young Gaius to sit with the baby for a few hours. It was a welcome chance to go out together on our own. Well, on our own apart from a quarter of a million noisy companions.

Helena Justina was not the world's keenest chariot race follower. I was happy, because the Blues' were doing well that day. While I squirmed in my seat, yelled at their drivers' incompetence or screamed at their successes, and munched too many figs during the tense moments, Helena sat patiently letting her mind roam elsewhere. When I leapt to my feet cheering, she picked up my cushion and placed it ready for when my backside hit the bench again. Nice girl. You could take her anywhere.' She knew how to let you know that only an idiot would be enjoying this, but she did not openly complain.

While I relaxed, she attempted to solve the case for me. Helena understood that we were looking for somebody about whom we could only put together the sketchiest of details. During a quiet interval she produced a summary:

`The nature of the crime, especially what Lollius told you

about the mutilations that are carried out, indicates you, are looking for a man.’

`The killer could-be anyone, senator or slave. The one thing about him that you can safely deduce is that he does not look suspicious. If he did, the dead women would never have gone with him.

`You know something about his age: these deaths go back years. Unless he started in his cradle, he must be middle-aged or older.

`You and Petro both think he's a loner. If he was working with someone else, then after all this time one or other would either have made a mistake or let slip part of the story. That's human nature. The more people involved, the greater the chance of one getting drunk, or being spied on by his wife, or attracting notice from the vigiles on an unrelated charge. Shared knowledge, spills out more easily. So you reckon it's one person.

`You think he finds it hard to make social contact. The nature of the crime suggests its motive is sexual gratification, excitement through revenge.