Wolf Whistle

Discarded clothes, rank with freshly clotted blood, were bundled into a sack, along with the piece of cloth in which Nemesis lay wrapped, then the knife was plunged into a bowl of warm water, where, to a gentle whistle, it was agitated until the water turned red. It was shaken, examined, then, with great reverence, Nemesis was raised high and twisted slowly to the left, then slowly to the right, so that all its deadly contours could be inspected and each wicked gem admired.

‘You are mine, Nemesis.’

Twisted to the left. To the right. A tunic slid to the floor. To the left. To the right.

‘And I am yours.’

Cold steel rippled upon hot flesh. To the left. To the right. Between the legs.

‘Oh, yes!’

Panting, sweating, sated, two hands clutched the hilt and held the knife aloft.

‘Good boy,’ the voice whispered. ‘Good boy, Nemesis.’

With a final hiss, the knife sliced through the air before the maroon cotton shroud concealed it from view. Until the next time it would be needed.

*

If the Forum is the heart of Rome, then the Palatine is the brain. It was from here the arch-strategist Augustus stamped out banditry, opened new trade routes, tightened up the law and consolidated the might of the Empire, and it was from here that he would have to unravel the mess left by the premature death of his close friend and Regent, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. All around, imposing architecture reflected the Palatine’s supremacy-the Imperial Palace, the semi-circular basilica where Augustus heard petitions, the temples honouring Victory, Apollo. In fact honouring anyone you could put a name to, really. There were marbles from Alexandria, limestones from Sicily, creamy corallina from beside the Sea of Marmora. A far cry from the days when the hill looked down upon the river and wide open spaces of its marshlands and the villagers huddled inside huts.

But the origins remained for all to see.

The shrine of the shepherd goddess who gave the hill its name might now be encased in gold and Numidian marble, but the Festival of Pales still smacked of country ritual. One single hut, with a thatch and walls of woven osiers, had been preserved as a national monument, a reminder of Rome’s humble past. And finally, facing the setting sun, was the Lupercal. Once a dank, slimy cavern famous only for being where the she-wolf suckled Romulus and Remus, Augustus had turned the site into a magnificent indoor grotto complete with bubbling spring, painted statues and a fig tree. Although the vast oak grove which once sheltered it lay beneath the Circus Maximus, gilded goat horns and acorns fashioned from gold studded the ceiling, goatskins and pan pipes hung on the walls as mementoes of its rural roots. It was behind the bronze she-wolf, between the statues of Faunus and of Pan, that the body lay in its lonely pool of blood.

‘Move along, now,’ the soldier addressed the gawping crowd. ‘There’s nothing here to look at-oh, it’s you, sir. Beg pardon, only I didn’t expect to see you at the crime scene.’

The legionary, a wily old footslogger called Ancus, hurriedly crossed the marbled floor to where the patrician Orbilio lingered at the entrance, his unfocused gaze taking in the misty hills across the river, and saluted.

‘Why’s that?’ he was asked.

‘This is quite straightforward, sir. Throat cut, no signs of sexual interference.’ Ancus stared down at folk hunched under their hoods and cloaks, hugging the walls of the great racecourse for shelter. ‘Probably find the boyfriend round the corner, his eyes cried out of their sockets, saying how he never meant to harm her, but when he realized she was dead, he tried to cover his tracks by making it look like the others.’

‘The young soldier-what was his name, Probus? — seemed convinced we’re dealing with another ritual murder.’

Ancus made a dismissive gesture. ‘As you say, sir, the boy’s young.’ From the escarpment, he could glimpse the murky flow of the Tiber, her ferries quiet, since the public parks on the opposite bank held very little attraction. Indeed, only a fool (or a soldier under orders) would be out of doors on a day like today. ‘You know what they’re like at that age, everything’s sensationalism. He sees a body bathed in blood and- Sir?’ The aristocrat was no longer at the cave entrance. Squinting, Ancus could see him hunched over the body.

‘Who found her?’

‘Don’t rightly know, sir.’ He had to raise his voice to carry beyond the gushing springwaters. ‘Me and Probus were on patrol when we heard people yelling, and by the time we’d got here, quite a crowd had formed.’

‘Was she like this when you arrived?’

Ancus scratched his head. ‘Dead, you mean?’

‘I mean,’ Orbilio said patiently. ‘Was she lying on her back?’

‘Oh. Er, no, she was propped against the podium of the she-wolf. Look.’ He held up the torch to reveal a puddle of blood at the base. ‘I pulled her away to look for the hair.’

‘What hair?’