Three Hands In The Fountain

When the torches came down we could see we were in a long, vaulted tunnel, over twice as high. as us. It was lined with cement and at the point where we had entered it the water out in the channel was easily shin-deep. In the centre the current raced, a fine tribute to gradient. In the shallows along the edges we. could see brown weed, wavering all in one direction as it was pulled by slower currents. Underfoot was, paved with slabs like a road but there was a great deal of detritus, sometimes rubble and rocks, sometimes sandy areas. The torchlight was not strong enough to let us see our feet properly. The gang leader told us to be careful how we trod. Immediately afterwards I stepped into a hole.

We waded along towards a bend in the tunnel. The water grew deeper and more worrying. We passed an inlet from a feeder channel, dry at present. We were deep under the Forum of the Romans. All this area had once been marsh, and was still natural wetland. The fine monuments above us raised their pediments to baking sun but had damp basements. Mosquitoes plagued the Senate, foreign visitors, lacking immunity, succumbed – to virulent fevers. Seven hundred years ago Etruscan engineers had shown our primitive ancestors how to drain the swamp between the Capitol and the Palatine – and here their work still stood. The Cloaca Maxima and its brother under the Circus kept the centre of Rome habitable and its institutions working. The Great Drain sucked down standing and surface water, the overflow from fountains and aqueducts, sewage and rainwater.'

Then last night some bastard had dragged up an access cover and chucked down a human head.

It was probably Asinia. Her skull had lodged on a sandbank, where a low beach of fine brown silt jutted into the shallow current.

The condition was too poor for even somebody who had known her to be certain, though some hair and facial flesh survived. Rats had been here in the night. I was prepared to make an identification despite that. There were other black women in Rome, but as far as I knew only one had disappeared a couple of weeks ago.

We could be fairly accurate about the timing: this skull was put into the Cloaca last night. We were told the public slaves with their baskets had worked their way downstream cleaning out the channel yesterday, and they saw nothing then. She must have been dumped just before or just after her torso was disposed of There was not enough depth of water in the Cloaca to have carried the torso down this way to the Tiber. Anyway, I remembered that it was found upstream of the outlet. It must have been thrown into the river direct, off the embankment or over the parapet of a bridge, the Aemilian probably:

So the head and body had been dumped separately. A distinct pattern was emerging the killer disposed of body parts in several different locations, even though it meant there was more chance of his being spotted doing it. He had wheels; last night he started out carrying at least the head and the body, plus maybe limbs we had not found yet. He could drop a parcel and run. On to another location, then quickly heave the next piece down a manhole or over a parapet. For year after year he had been doing this, learning to look so casual that any chance witnesses, thought nothing of it.

Water tumbled past Asinia's head so the sand ran away from beneath her in rivulets, to be replaced by more. Left alone, she might bury herself on the bank or she might suddenly break free and roll along the channel to the great arch of peperino stone that gave on to the river,

`Have you ever found heads before?'

'Occasional skulls. You can't tell where they come from or how old they are – not normally. This is more…'The gang leader faded out politely.

`Fresh?' Not quite the. word, Anacrites. I gave him a disapproving look.

The gang leader breathed, deeply uncomfortable. He made no reply.

He reckoned there was another sandbank like this further down. He said we could wait while he took a look. We could hear Martinus shouting in the distance, so his lad went back to the ladder to confirm we were all right. That left Anacrites and me together in the tunnel.

It was quiet, smelly, safe only to the point where hairs curled on your neck. The cold water continually raced past our boots as they sank slightly into the fine mud while we stood still.; Around us was silence, broken by infrequent quiet drips. Asinia's skull, a parody of humanity, still lay in the silt at our feet. Ahead, lit from behind by wavering torchlight, the black figure of the gang leader walked away towards a bend in the tunnel through deeper and deeper water, eerily diminishing. He was alone. If he walked round the turn in the tunnel we would have to follow him. Going out of sight alone in a sewer was unsafe.

He stopped. He was leaning against the side wall with one hand, bending over as if inspecting the area. Suddenly I knew; `Too much for him. He's throwing up.' We stopped watching.