Deadly Election (7 page)

Junior gave me the family glare, a mix of blatant ingratiation and mild rebuke for
useless thieving bastard
. He would never get us to stop and, thanks to Uncle Petro, half Rome believed it was his real name.

‘Flavia Albia.’ His father had taught him to be reverently formal. This was supposed to set people at ease while loans they could not afford were seductively pressed upon them. It must work. They had pots of lucre to use for making more. Nothokleptes Junior had collected at least three priesthoods to show how highly the public valued being fleeced by him. ‘And how are you this fine day, Flavia Albia?’

‘Too hot. You can drop the fake politeness. I don’t need you. I’m solvent.’

He pretended to laugh. ‘So like your dear father.’ He turned to his own and shouted, ‘Look, oldster, it’s Falco’s daughter!’

Nothokleptes Senior dribbled with what might have been delight.

‘Didius Falco sends his regards,’ I told him gently. That was nothing like what Falco would have said, but the old man was past insulting.

‘So, daughter of the esteemed Marcus Didius, our favourite client,’ smarmed Junior, jumping up from the barber’s chair in the hope that he was tall enough to look down my tunic (he wasn’t but he never learned), ‘if you don’t want financial advice …’

‘Your advice is always “Borrow a lot of money from us at wincing rates of interest”! I can do without that kind of sorrow. No, I am working, Notho.’

I told him about both my lines of enquiry. The man found in the chest fascinated him more than the election rivals.

‘It’s always possible the deceased in the strongbox had reneged on a loan with one of your more vicious colleagues and was punished as an example,’ I suggested. ‘He looked respectable before he started rotting, so if you hear of any punter who’s gone missing unexpectedly I’d like to know.’

‘You don’t need the ones we
expect
to disappear?’

‘No point. Your flight-risk bankrupts will have planned their exile – besides, they will come sneaking back, once they get tired of hiding on Greek islands. This man has met a surprise fate, I believe. I have no clue to his identity. He could be anybody. Even, in fact, a banker.’

‘Flavia Albia, if a banker goes missing, everyone will know.’

‘Yes, you’re right. Cheers would resound from here to Tusculum.’

Junior was insulted too often to react. ‘I have been eagerly waiting for your proceeds from the Callistus sale, Flavia Albia, but who will bid, when the goods are contaminated?’

‘Fear not. Our staff say close contact with a corpse brings added value.’

He cheered up. ‘So, any plans to have a body in every sale?’

‘No. Restraint, Notho, is the motto of our house. Anyway, the market is too volatile – you can never get hold of a good gloopy cadaver at the right moment.’

He blenched. Changing the subject as a courtesy, I asked what he knew about the men standing for aedile. Even though Uncle Petro called him useless, he knew quite a lot. I obtained the names of all their bankers, plus confirmation that Dillius Surus had inherited the best wine cellar in Rome but it was now known to be empty, due to his diligent testing of vintages. ‘It doesn’t matter. He married a rich woman. Terentia wants to be the wife of a magistrate so, until he is one, she will humour him.’

‘Into his grave, by the sound of it.’

‘Could be her plan. They reckon he is about two days away from seeing eight-foot rats climbing walls. She’ll find a new husband easily. Horrible woman, but she has exceedingly pretty investments. I’d love to acquire a client with such placement in Baetican olive oil and shipping squid-in-brine. Her broker is a magician, even though his armpits are hairy and his feet stink … Which of the fine upstanding bastards are you working for, Flavia Albia?’

‘Vibius Marinus.’

‘Handsome lad? Are you trying to get him into bed?’

‘Notho, my father would kill me if I went to bed with a magistrate.’ Well, only if he found out. ‘No, his agent has employed me to dig dirt on the others.’

‘Oh, you’re going for easy labour, these days?’ We laughed. ‘What have you turned up so far?’

‘After one morning’s work and picking your brains, I think they are all unspeakable.’

Notho made an Egyptian gesture of amazement. ‘Even your client? Mind you, Falco’s customers were never up to much and I haven’t noticed you choosing better. You want to start earning real money and build up some decent savings, Albia, or you’ll never attract a new husband.’

‘I want one who thinks I have a wonderful mind.’

‘That’s why you have been single for the past ten years.’ Notho was wrong. I could have been married. I simply preferred to keep looking for a man whose habits and personality did not fill me with rage. ‘Marinus, you say … I still fail to place him, Albia. Is he the wife-beater?’

‘I hope not!’

‘Well, somebody mentioned that one of them is. I forget exactly. Maybe it’s Marinus whose dog bit a priestess of Isis. And on her birthday, poor slut! The word is, she ended up with gangrene and has only days to live.’

‘Ooh − lovely details. Thanks for that, Nothokleptes. I’ll trace the dog and ask for his side of the story …’

Notho went on to say I had been misled about Dillius Surus suing his grandfather (the sick man who would not live to see justice); Notho claimed that was Trebonius Fulvo, one of the bullies. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Hard-arse who does weight-training? My cousin has the grandfather’s account. It was all he could talk of last Saturnalia.’

‘Thanks again, then … May I ask whom the banking fraternity have decided to support? I presume you have put your heads together and chosen your favourite?’

‘Trebonius and Arulenus.’

‘Surely not! They look like dangerous men.’

‘Exactly.’ Notho Junior was unrepentant. ‘Looks are not everything – though Arulenus would do well to get that eye fixed. Weird appearance puts people off more than he thinks. But we cannot be complacent, Flavia Albia. These men are tough. They know how to govern. Firm hands on the tiller, that is what Rome needs. Not whimpering simpletons who will fail to collect any fines.’

Ah! Bankers would be involved in investing fines income – or even, when some aedile believed public office existed to help him amass bribes, they would launder the money. Either entailed fees for them.

Trebonius and Arulenus were perfect for bankers. Apparently they gave legendary dinners for their supporters and had promised they would change the law to allow higher interest rates.

They looked unbeatable. But were usury laws even in the aediles’ remit? I would consult Faustus. If not, Vibius Marinus could gain ground by announcing that his rivals not only sued their granddads and cheated on their fancy women but made impossible promises. Shocking!

All right. I am not that naïve. But if he accused them of lying, everyone would believe it. The rivals would never sue him; defamation had to diminish the plaintiff’s reputation. Nobody would think any the less of Trebonius and Arulenus for the customary sin of fibbing.

There were probably no votes in this. But Vibius Marinus would look like a man who was enticingly outspoken. Rash claims about opponents can only help.

Slander was promising, but sleaze would be better. I must try to find some.

T
alking to your own banker is hard, but it’s nothing like trying to squeeze information from somebody else’s. Juno, you might almost imagine that bankers are bound by confidentiality rules. This cannot be true. My father has many tales of ravenous creditors learning exactly when he had a few denarii – information only his banker could provide.

Yet they are picky who they speak to. Do you, an ordinary person, desire to check whether someone is creditworthy? Ask their tailor or their fishmonger. Their banker will never help, not even if the person in question owns vast unmortgaged estates and squillions in a strongbox in the Forum – no, not even if he wants you to believe he is sound so has himself given you his banker’s name as a guarantee.

To tell the truth, if someone offers his banker as a reference, all the investigators in my family assume he has prepaid the banker to lie.

Nothokleptes and Nothokleptes certainly counted fake credit ratings as a service they provided. Rates were in their business prospectus. It came in cheaper than them sending bail money to get you out of prison. If you pleaded for that, the bastards charged a sky-high fee. Best of all for the Nothos was producing a witness statement in a claim for divorce − which they did
pro bono
because if they saved your dowry from a grasping spouse it enhanced your value to them.

How do I know these things? Because I am the one person in Rome who always scans notices and price lists. If words are written, I read them. Helena Justina brought me up that way.

Perhaps I should have clarified earlier that Notho and Son were not
my
bankers. They believed they were. Even my darling papa presumed it, although my mother was more astute. So the Nothos continued to suppose that if I ever had money to save I would tuck the coins into my father’s strongbox, as an unmarried or widowed daughter ought to do − while (surprise!) no funds of that sort ever materialised.

My work rarely produced large sums. Such as it was, I needed my income right away for essentials, like laundry bills and food. Not to mention new earrings to cheer myself up. I had a secret place in Fountain Court where I stashed any spare cash – which was what most ordinary people in Rome did. It was the easiest way to please your neighbours in the burglary profession.

But years ago, when Lentullus and I first took up together, we had been given money by both Father and Quintus Camillus, for whom Lentullus worked. Once the family stopped viewing us as a ludicrously incongruous couple, they surprised us with a dowry. It was more cash than either of us had ever conceived of owning, and we regarded it as magic gold. We felt it wasn’t really ours. We lived rent-free at Fountain Court and our outgoings were so modest that when my husband died only two years later, with us both still young, we had never touched the dowry money. Nobody wanted it back. I asked Uncle Quintus, who said that it remained mine. He was a lawyer, so he should know. I left it where I had put it.

That was, in a bank owned by a quiet Greek widow who had inherited this business from her own husband, a man who had died of apparently natural causes on a trip he made to Sardinia for reasons that were never explained. His will had left everything to Arsinoë, with instructions that she should marry one of their freedmen. That was traditional. Greek bankers did not want their widows to be left undefended. And I am assured there are Greek widows who do see being alone with large sums of money as a curse.

Amazingly, tragedy struck twice. As if poor Claudia Arsinoë had not enough to contend with, only four days after she heard her husband was dead the freedman she was promised to went out to buy a mullet for a nice Greek dinner and mysteriously disappeared. Ever since, Arsinoë had borne her sadness bravely; she ran everything herself and, like Penelope, fended off other suitors with pleas that she could not commit herself to them, sweet as they were, in case her missing fiancé one day reappeared.

She was cheerful despite being left in the lurch and I found her an excellent businesswoman. My dowry had trebled in the past ten years, thanks to her investment skills. I left it with her, accumulating. On the rare occasions when I had a love-life, I always forgot to mention that I possessed this money.

My love-life since Lentullus had died on me had been pitiful. I could not boast about it. Men who were attracted to the idea of a rich auctioneer’s daughter soon fled once they met Falco. Even I could see this saved a lot of heartache. Father always kindly explained the situation to me. He was a thoughtful man and good with words. Words like ‘A complete wastrel arse. Just dump the bugger, Albia.’ In most cases dumping was either pre-empted by the wastrel having fled of his own accord after a chat with Falco, or I had seen through him anyway and already told him to get lost.

I intended to visit Claudia Arsinoë to pick her brains, which I knew were of fine quality. But first I went through the normal process. I tried the men with whom the candidates banked. It had to be done, though the results felt like waking in the middle of the night with unbearable heartburn.

Trebonius Fulvo and Arulenus Crescens both used the same firm. It was one of those money tables in the Clivus Argentarius where the proprietor never puts in an appearance; the slippery owner is always off somewhere, having mint tea and sticky Greek sweetmeats with equally sticky cronies, leaving peculiar underlings to run his bank. For him, that is the point of prosperity: he no longer has to engage in the dirty trade that established him.

The business was traditionally Athenian. The workers were completely unhelpful to a Roman woman. The banker had them trained to deflect questions. I dare say plenty of gossip was exchanged elsewhere over the pastries, because bankers need to do that, but not here. And even if I tracked him down, the best I could hope for was a ferocious Athenian grope, getting honey and crumbs on my dress. I skipped that.

What the flash banking table did tell me of its own accord was that the hard men, Trebonius and Arulenus, must be rich. Only people with serious assets can interest that kind of bank, or afford its rates.

They imported wine and oil. Nothokleptes had told me. Say no more.

Dillius Surus, the candidate with the drinking habit, banked with a fellow from Antioch, who also wasn’t there. Maybe they drank together. Maybe the Syrian was sleeping it off.

The rich wife of this Dillius, his real financial backer, invested her large fortune with a scruffy-looking Gaul called Balonius, who favoured tunics with huge sleeveless armholes. These gaping spaces demonstrated that Notho had not lied. The broker had extremely hairy armpits, where his hirsute arms met hideous knobbly shoulders. He smelt as foul as he looked. He had extremely ugly feet too, clothed in the shabbiest sandals I had ever seen on a professional man. One had a broken strap so it hung off his instep.