Three Hands In The Fountain

Bolanus had joined us. For a moment we all watched the water rushing into a diversion pipe that currently fed the aqueduct. I turned round and scanned the woods, almost as if I suspected the killer, might be lurking up there watching us.

`I'll tell you what I think happens,' said Bolanus in a sombre voice. Then he paused

He was upset. The isolated spot had worked on him; in his imagination he was sharing the last moments of the women who had been brought so far from, home to a terrible fate, possibly, killed, mutilated and dismembered very near to where we stood.

I helped him out. `The killer lives somewhere locally. He abducts his victims, in Rome, probably because he is not known there and he hopes he won't be traced. Then he brings them forty miles back here.'

Bolanus found his voice again. `After he has finished whatever he does to these girls, he drives back to Rome to dispose of their heads and torsos in the river and the Cloaca -probably to minimise the chance of anything pointing to him locally. But first he cuts off their limbs and throws them into the river -'

`Why doesn't he just throw all the parts into the Anio, or take everything to Rome?' Frontinus asked.

`I imagine,' I said slowly, `he wants the large pieces as far away as possible because they look like identifiable human remains for longer. So he takes them back to Rome but while he's disposing of them in the sewer or the river he's vulnerable. He wants just a couple of large parcels which will sink out of sight quickly if he's being observed. But he thinks he's safe chucking the smaller limbs away, here because they will quickly deteriorate beyond being recognised. Thrown into the stream, they could be eaten by carrion birds or animals, either here in the hills or down on the Campagna. And anything that went over the cascade at Tibur would be well smashed up.'

`Right, Falco,' said Bolanus. I don't think he ever intends that they should-turn up in the water supply in Rome. But sometimes smaller and lighter parts- hands, for instance – find their way into the Novus basin, and then on into the-channel. The killer may still be unaware that this happens. If they happen to float out of the filtration system, the body parts will travel on to Rome. At the end of the run, two aqueducts join on, one arcade; the Novus is carried above the Aqua Claudia, with switching shafts. And the Claudia also has an interchange with the Marcia, as I showed you both,-'

Frontinus and I nodded, remembering how we saw' the torrent crashing from one aqueduct to the other.

`So we can see how these small relics might move around once they reach Rome. The only puzzle,' said Bolanus slowly, `is the first hand, the one that Falco found, which was supposed to have been pulled out on the Aventine, in a castellum of the Aqua Appia.'

It seemed a long time ago that Petro and I had shared a drink in Tailors' Lane. `Are there no links between the Aqua Appia and any of the Tibur channels?' I asked.

`There are possibilities. The Appia source isn't underground; it starts at a reservoir in some ancient quarries on the Via Collatina.'

`So anyone could have driven past one day and thrown in a package?'

Bolanus didn't like it. `More likely your public fountain has two jets, drawn from different aqueducts. It enables us to maintain a supply by a swap if needs be. It's true the Appia serves the Aventine; the terminus is by the Temple of Luna. But there could be a second feed from the Aqua Claudia '

`So it all fits,' Frontinus interrupted. `And it all starts here.’

`But who is this bastard?' fretted Bolanus, for whom the hunt was starting to be personal.

`All I found back along the road,' I reported, `was a trio of cheerful brothers who – apparently – have not been to Rome for ages, with a few slaves, plus an old man who looks too feeble to go anywhere.'

`So what do you suggest?' asked the Consul `We know what the bastard does, and we know he does some of it here. Unless we act, at the next festival he will be here doing it

again.''

'If we were very cold-blooded,' I answered him slowly, `when the Augustan Games start they were only a week away – we would station your public slaves behind trees all the way up this valley from here to Sublaqueum, telling them to make themselves look like twigs until they spot someone chucking something suspicious out into the Anio:

`But to do that and catch him in the act – '

`- a woman has to die first.'

Frontinus took a deep breath., `We shall do it if we have to.’ Pragmatic to the end, it seemed.

I smiled. `But if we can, I want to catch him earlier.' `Good, Falco!'

`We have a few leads. Before the Augustales begin, I want us to be set up for trapping: him in Rome. We haven't much time. I'll stay, at Tibur for one more day, and give our suspects list a final look-over. I want to be quite sure we haven't missed anything. We know the killer is prepared to travel long distances. Maybe he actually lives at Tibur but, comes, up into the hills when he starts butchering the bodies.'