Wolf Whistle

‘There were rope burns round her neck, proving she’d been lassooed like the others. That’s how he does it, you see. Noose around the neck, knocks them out cold while they’re struggling, then he ties, strips and…well, anyway, that’s what happened to Zygia. Dragged backwards, there were scuff marks on the floor of the Lupercal.’

As all four chariots approached the first bend neck and neck, the thundering of hoofs multiplied a millionfold by the stamping of feet on the boards and the seats. Green faction came out ahead, but Blue was hot on his wheels.

‘But the hair?’ Claudia’s larynx croaked. ‘If it’s so crucial to the ritual, why wasn’t Zygia’s hair cut off and laid in her lap?’

‘That’s what I’d missed,’ he said. ‘When I originally questioned Severina, I was concerned more with Zygia’s movements that day and details of her background. Only later did it sink in that there was nothing for the killer to chop off.’ He shrugged. ‘Zygia kept her curly hair cropped, like a man’s. No, it’s the method of killing that troubles me.’

Blue overtook on the inside down the straight, and having forced Green out to give way, made room for White to move up.

‘He may simply have bottled it? Perhaps he heard footsteps outside and panicked? Then, when they’d retreated, he realized he still had time to make his pretty patterns.’ An opportunity too good to miss.

‘Hmm.’ Orbilio’s gaze fixed on the obelisk. ‘Zygia left Severina in the morning, her body wasn’t found until the afternoon. What happened during those unaccounted hours? Suppose that, instead of going straight to Annia, Zygia calls on the murderer? According to Severina, Zygia had her suspicions.’

‘He lives in Rome, then?’

‘Or a short ride away,’ he said slowly. ‘Imagine: Zygia wants out, she says. Safe passage for Severina and herself, or she goes to the authorities. He agrees, or pretends to, but what he actually does is follow her and before she can warn Annia, because Zygia’s not the type to let an innocent girl be butchered’-Orbilio clicked his fingers-‘hey presto, he drags her into the Wolf Cave. No more blackmail, but sweeter still for him, she’s led him straight to another victim.’

‘Who, despite her sugary veneer and unquenchable confidence in you, my dear Marcus, is a very frightened young woman.’

‘So she should be,’ he said quietly. ‘Although once this business is over, I’ve no idea what the future entails for her.’

‘Marriage to you, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Orbilio laughed, and it was a rich baritone sound. ‘She’s a proper snob, isn’t she? That, more than the signet ring, convinces me she’s Daphne’s granddaughter.’ Sobering, he leaned towards Claudia. ‘But uppermost, she’s Penelope’s,’ he said softly.

For three and a half laps, Claudia listened spellbound as he talked about the girl with the laugh in her voice. The girl who took him scrumping, taught him how to play Twelve Lines, to leapfrog, to harden conkers with vinegar and hot coals. She heard about the husband who volunteered for the army and then died for it, and the desperation with which the young widow mourned. She heard how Daphne Lovernius wrenched baby Annia from her grieving mother’s arms. And finally how bubbly, blonde Penelope consigned her weighted body and weightier soul to Old Man Tiber himself.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, Claudia knew there was no way now she could turn Annia out of her house. Not the girl who’d been conceived amid such turgid desperation and then simply thrown to the wolves. And who might yet be prey to another, far deadlier predator…

Happily, though, there’s no law which says you have to like the person whose life it is that you’re protecting.

‘Sometime,’ he said-it was down to a two-chariot race, with White and Green still at the turning post while the other factions galloped full-pelt down the straight-‘I’ll have to confront her with the realities of patrician life, that you can’t just join like a club-’

‘She’ll argue she was born into the aristocracy.’

Orbilio’s sigh could be heard over the roar of a hundred thousand voices cheering on their favourite colour. Come on, Red! Blue! Blue! ‘Her mother was patrician,’ he admitted. ‘But as she had no legal father and since Daphne failed to claim her back before the time limit expired, Annia, like it or not, remains the property of the temple warden. The most she can hope for is freedom.’ He paused. ‘Provided she lives long enough for me to buy it for her.’