Wolf Whistle

‘The acoustics in this room are really quite remarkable,’ the visitor replied, running his fingertips over the relief of Adad’s sacred bulls. ‘You know, Arbil, you and your son have much in common.’

‘I am very proud of Sargon,’ the Babylonian said stiffly. Not once had his eyes left his visitor’s face.

With an extravagant flourish, the man in grey shook Arbil’s paper knife down the sleeve of his cloak and sent it twanging into the maplewood desk. ‘Oh, but I was referring to your other son,’ he said slowly. ‘Shannu.’

‘Shan-?’ The colour drained from Arbil’s face to leave two bright spots of rouge above the beard line. ‘Shannu?’ Before he could recover his powers of speech, the visitor had unhooked the shutter and had his long leg halfway over the sill. ‘Magic,’ he laughed, twirling his cloak.

Within seconds, his camouflage was complete and, as Arbil poured a glass of strong, fermented date liquor with a hand which trembled badly, he was left wondering whether he had imagined the entire episode. The same way he couldn’t get it up and hours blanked out, his mind, also, played tricks.

Then Arbil saw the knife, quivering upright in the wood.

When he shivered, he was not sure whether it was from the cold coming in through the open window or from the spectre of his youngest son. Shannu.

Wringing his hands, Arbil fell on his knees and thanked Marduk for his daily round of schedules.

Only his schedules kept him sane.

VIII

By the time Claudia had brought up her breakfast, her supper and possibly even yesterday’s lunch, the crowd of ghouls on the Argiletum had all but dispersed. Not out of shame, or because every fibre of their clothing was waterlogged, or even because they had better things to do. It was simply that now the undertakers had left, there was nothing more to gawp at. One or two among them sneered, the way people do when they think they’ve been short-changed, but the majority trickled quietly away as Orbilio began to question the neighbours. Each time he drew a blank. Even from Zosi, the speech seller who discovered the body. Zosi was a disenchanted, middle-aged bachelor with a penchant for the grape and he was adamant. Yes, his room was directly overhead. No, he didn’t hear a thing. Well, possibly a scuffle, but he keeps himself to himself, and all right, maybe he did hear a small boy calling for his ma, but it wasn’t any of his business what goes on, same as that chap whistling his dog.

‘What dog?’ Orbilio’s ears pricked up. ‘When was that?’

But Zosi couldn’t say, and in the end all Orbilio had for certain was that Zosi had heard a whistle, three short notes in succession, and that it was some time after midnight. As he said, just some chap calling for his dog. Whit-whit-whit.

Wiping her mouth with her handkerchief, Claudia straightened from her groggy knees. What kind of mind can slash a girl unrecognizable? Could stand there, perhaps laughing at the pain he was inflicting, but far more likely aroused by his own sadism? She looked round for Junius, couldn’t see him, and stumbled into a bookshop to wait. The instant he returned, she’d be off, and that wasn’t a reaction to the crime down in the alley, more to the man who was investigating it. This was the first time she’d seen him on home turf, his face grey and pinched with anger at the atrocities committed, mastering his fury and masking his revulsion in his ordered questioning, his note taking, his painstaking attention to detail as he searched the scene of the crime, demonstrating both his professionalism and, at the same time, his vulnerability. It struck a chord Claudia did not wish to hear. Picking up a wax tablet from deep inside the bookseller’s, she flipped open the hinge.

‘Claudia?’

This was not a voice tinged with a Gaulish accent and so she lifted the book to cover her face.

‘I do believe,’ the baritone continued, taking the tablet from her hands, ‘that to truly appreciate the poetry of Virgil, it helps to hold it the right way up.’

‘Clog off.’

‘Clogs,’ replied Marcus, sucking in his cheeks, ‘are two shops down, on the left. Come. I’ll walk you home.’

‘You will not.’ Claudia flounced out of the shop. ‘I kept my side of the bargain, now we’re even.’

‘There’s something I want to talk over.’ Orbilio let her scan the dripping shopfronts for a whole minute before informing her that he had taken the liberty of dismissing her bodyguard.

‘And he went?’ She’d have that young Gaul’s giblets! ‘Just like that?’

‘Junius and I have an understanding.’

‘Then I hope you’ll both be very happy,’ Claudia replied, sweeping down the street, her skirts swishing with the speed of her stride.

Orbilio’s laughter made the vellum-maker scratch his calfskin. ‘You can come to the wedding,’ he said, catching her by the elbow and spinning her round. ‘Providing you live long enough.’

He pushed her into the shelter of a shopfront. Dammit, it was the slipper-maker whose sales pitch she’d pretended to listen to earlier.

‘For gods’ sake, you need protection,’ Orbilio was saying.