Successio (25 page)

Part IV: Nemesis

XXX

‘Mama!’

I jumped. Sheets of paper fell on the floor. I’d been absorbed in a stack of Senate papers. Why they had to issue commission minutes in hard copy, I didn’t know. I could have easily signed them digitally.

Allegra bounced into my study, fine brown hair flying. Hallie followed less energetically, with a serious expression, no sign of her usual sunny smile. She bent down and picked up my papers and set them back on the pile.

‘We had to come and tell you immediately,’ Allegra said.

Her eyes shone copper brown, the green drowned out. Pink flooded her usually pale face.

‘What’s his name?’ I winced internally. She wasn’t going to be sixteen until November and I wasn’t ready to play the hardliner mother.

She batted that away with an impatient hand and frowned. ‘No, nothing like that. It’s Nicola. We think we’ve seen her.’

*

Pelonia kept her manner professional and calm, but her eyes gleamed as she heard the girls’ story. They’d been in the Macellum shopping mall, along with Hallie’s Praetorian who didn’t look much older than eighteen herself. Allegra said she was trying to stop Hallie buying a sweater that would make her look like a fat duck. Hallie tapped Allegra’s upper arm at that point and grinned. I coughed and they subsided back into decorous.

‘What made you convinced it was Nicola?’ Pelonia fixed on Allegra.

‘Her walk.’ Allegra looked at me, her fingers fiddling with the pass around her neck. She dragged her eyes back to the inspector’s face. ‘You know I spent some time with her, when Maia Quirinia and I were taken in.’ She coughed. ‘It’s really embarrassing now, but we used to watch her walk away from us at the school gate until she disappeared. We had it really bad.’ She darted a glance at me, but it was Hallie’s hand she grasped in comfort.

‘Well, a skilled operator
can
simulate a walk,’ Pelonia said, ‘so that’s not conclusive, but we can run some comparisons with vids of other women of her age and see what comes up.’

‘I know it was her, Inspector. I’ll never forget.’

*

Hallie and I sat behind Allegra as one of Pelonia’s team ran a series of short films showing female figures walking, their faces blanked out, only white file numbers flickering in a black box at the top right of the screen. The
custodes
always videoed people they detained; a few steps were all they needed for their files. A person’s natural gait
was
the most difficult thing to change. ‘I want you to tell me as soon as you think you recognise her,’ Pelonia instructed.

Some were from the public feed, most filmed in a custody suite or interview room. I jammed my lips together as I saw one walk into the courtroom, just seconds before Allegra shouted out.

‘That’s her!’

Not a muscle moved on Pelonia’s face. She nodded to the tech to continue. More, this time all inside. When Allegra identified two more, Pelonia signed the tech to finish.

‘Very well. We’ll run these against the public feed from the Macellum. It may take an hour or so, so perhaps your mother can take you for a coffee. I’ll call you when we’re ready.’

*

An hour later, a tall figure loomed over our mess room table.

‘Bruna.’

‘Hello, Lurio.’

He slouched into a chair opposite me next to Allegra and gave her a smile. ‘Well done, young lady, for observation. You got full marks on the vids.’ He paused, glanced at me before going back to Allegra. ‘But we couldn’t find anything in the public feed. Perhaps it was somebody who looked like her. You may subconsciously be associating that image with Nicola’s walk from before, when she was playing you.’ He took her hand. ‘Don’t feel badly about it, Allegra. It happens all the time. And to people a lot more observant than you.’

Allegra stuck her jaw out. ‘It was her, Uncle Lurio, it was.’ Allegra’s voice was shrill. She looked fierce, almost like Nonna.

‘I know it’s disappointing, but you have to accept it.’ Lurio’s voice was final. He stood up, nodded to me and left.

*

She was silent in the car on the way home and went straight to her room. She reminded me of those ‘virtuous’ men of old Rome and the early settlers of Roma Nova I’d read about who’d rather die than tell a lie or do something off the honourable path. I sighed for her; it couldn’t be comfortable being such a serious soul.

Conrad went and fetched her down for supper.

‘It’s hard, darling,’ he said, attempting to comfort her, ‘but it happens. Very few people get it right all the time.’ He glanced at me. ‘Even your mother, who’s got excellent instincts, has been known to fail.’

I opened my mouth to protest, but he gave me such a look, I said nothing.

‘But it
was
her,’ Allegra muttered into her soup.

*

School routine and public exams took her life over for the next few weeks and she thawed out of her frozen certainty. But a doubt nagged at me. Allegra was pretty smart and noticed things others didn’t. I’d finished a boring meeting with my accountant, and needed some light relief so I headed over to the
Custodes
XI Station.

Sertorius’ application for a warrant to detain Nicola had been granted within two weeks, but as nothing had happened, Pelonia had put the case on hold.

‘We’ve been monitoring it from time to time, but I’m afraid we’ve got more active cases.’

‘Sure, I understand, ‘I said, ‘but Allegra is pretty sharp for her age. I know you’re pressured on resources, but do you have any objection to me sounding out a few of my former contacts?’

She paused for a few moments, her face serious and studying the papers on her desk. I guessed she was working out how to politely say, ‘Butt out, you’re a civilian now’.

She brought her eyes up and suddenly smiled as if she’d made a decision. ‘Why not?’

*

I should have known better. I was out of the game. I had no legal warrant. But a frisson of excitement ran up me as I volumised my hair and changed into clubwear; short black skirt, silver strap top, what Conrad called my ‘minxy’ short boots, feather short jacket. He came in as I was applying the tenth layer of mascara.

‘Jupiter, where are you going? You look like some tart.’ His eyes ran over me, slowly. They drooped halfway shut and I saw an appreciative gleam in them as his lips parted.

‘Going to see an old friend,’ I said.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m not even going to ask, but you will be careful?’ His hand came up and he stroked my cheek with the backs of his fingers. I know he would have come with me if he could. He must be so frustrated. Thank Juno, his hearing was due the week after next. Hopefully, he’d lose the damned tag.

*

I breezed past the bouncers by waving Philippus’s token in their face and a heavy took me straight to him.

He sank his head in his hand in true Greek drama mode then looked up. ‘I knew it was a shit day today, but what have I done to deserve another visit?’

‘Don’t be such a grouch.’ I looked around. ‘Much better, Phil. Good soundproofing and I like the bigger bank of monitors. So you used my voucher?’

‘Yeah. I picked the most expensive they had.’

I just laughed. He gave a little smile.

‘Did you get what you wanted from the lead I gave you?’ he asked.

‘Yes, and a whole load of grief. I lost my job.’

‘So a good result.’

‘You bastard.’

‘Sorry. Their loss.’ He glanced away, then brought back a serious expression. ‘So what now? If you were stuck, I’d offer you a pitch here, on favourable terms, obviously. There’s always a demand for well-preserved maturity,’ he smirked. He paused when I didn’t reply to his off-colour suggestion. ‘But I don’t think you’re looking for a job.’

‘No, more for a limb of Hades.’

I gave him the background, without mentioning Allegra by name or her relationship to me.

‘You must trust your informant’s judgement to be so sure.’

‘She’s been a victim of this bitch. It’s scarred all over the back of her mind. I feel instinctively she’s right, but none of the formal proof stacks up. But if I find this woman, she’d better kneel in the sand and say her last prayers.’

*

Philippus promised to put out feelers for me. He’d found her once, but Nicola had moved on, learning Latin, the way things worked in Roma Nova and she had contacts in our criminal world. She’d lost none of her internal violence nor her external brutality, as I well knew. Maybe it was the time it was taking me to recover my full fitness or maybe frustration at not finding her, but I felt helpless and despite Philippus’ willingness to help, more than a little depressed.

I’d graduated to longer runs now and Flavius took me out to the PGSF open country training ground. As we wound in and out of trees and dips and ran up long hills, I gave him the whole story in between grabbing air for my struggling lungs. We got to the top of Muscle-Death Hill and stopped to recover.

‘Lurio has a good point, but from talking to her previously, I’d say Allegra’s likely to be right,’ Flavius said, ‘but the scarabs can’t do a thing.’

‘I guess. But how in Hades can Nicola hide like that from the public feed? I know she’s skilled, but surely not that good?’

‘Oh, please! You used to do it all the time. C’mon, remember that bet we ran years ago to see who got picked up first by the scarabs?’

I’d forgotten. We’d run book on trying to outdo the public CCTV. I’d slated it as a legitimate training exercise, but the local scarab commander almost had a fit. She wanted to throw us all in the pit for wasting their time and resources. But it had been fun as well as useful. I’d lasted over the two week deadline before they’d detected me. I remembered now they weren’t too gentle when they’d brought me in. But I’d won the book.

‘That was five years ago, Flav. The system’s updated several times over since.’

‘But you said yourself she was good.’

I shrugged, took a swallow from my water bottle, and stood up, my eyes ranging over the far mountains and forest and the green fields and city below.

‘I love this country. My ancestors struggled for it. I’m not going to let some throwback poison it. End of.’

*

Sertorius was at his most pompous at Conrad’s hearing as he delivered an eloquent pleading on his behalf, but the accusatrix’s representative hardly bleated. The magistrate declared that in light of Conrad’s previous service to the state, the character witnesses’ testimonies and the malign influence he’d been subject to, his punishment would be light. But the judgement stood; he would never be able to hold any public office again. He swallowed hard as he heard these harsh words, but he said later he didn’t expect anything else. A lousy end to a great career, I thought.

He was placed under probation for three years, a novel idea for Romans, but better than rotting in the pen. He’d wear a midnight to six curfew tag for the first six months and report to the
custodes
every month as well as undergo supervised counselling. Juno, it was humiliating, but the judge said as a member of the Twelve Families he should have behaved better.

I felt a hot, red wave rise in me at this public humiliation of a man who had given so much and done one stupid thing, but Helena pulled me back down to my seat. The magistrate fixed me with her fierce eyes for several seconds. I had to give way and she went back to her condemnation. If Conrad incurred anything more than a parking offence, the conditional release would be revoked and he’d be in the central military jail for the rest of the period.

‘At least I can get out of the house now, thank Mars,’ he said. ‘And thank you, love, for not rejecting me, for helping me fight my way back.’ He took my hand kissed the back, kissed my cheek and my forehead. He was well again, back with us in the family and free. I had to be content.

*

Conrad went to visit Stella that same afternoon. Nothing was said at supper, but he hardly spoke a word. After the children and Helena had gone, we sat together on a couch in the atrium, his arm along the back and his other hand cradling mine.

‘She didn’t rush into my arms or sit beside me, but she didn’t pull her hand away when I took it. I apologised for letting her down, but she started mumbling one back to me. I’ve never felt so awkward with her. I thought that was it and we’d sit the rest of the visit out in guilty silence. But when I asked her about her work at the centre, it was as if a cold corpse had sprung into life.’ He pressed my hand. ‘You know something? I think we’re all a bit irrelevant to her now. She is so centred on her work. Anything or anybody outside it doesn’t count.’

XXXI

The festival of Floralia hit us in May and now her exams were over, I let Allegra out to go to the less wild parties her school friends were putting on over the next three days. She was fifteen. She wouldn’t want to hang around a crowd of boring adults. I drew the line at being out after midnight, though; it got rowdy after that in the public squares. After the circus, open air theatres, processions and dancing, the all-night street parties meant drunk crowds and less inhibitions.

On the last night of the festival, around twenty-five of us were at home, sprawled around on couches and easy chairs in the atrium, a full dinner and several bottles of Brancadorum champagne inside us. Helena had brought her latest squeeze. We were in full flight solving the world’s problems and dissecting the characters of our favourite pointless celebrities. Conrad smiled lazily at me, his fingers playing with my hair. I smiled back, the most relaxed with him I had been since the trials. He still had black moments that made me anxious. When my sympathy was thrown back in my face, I’d become annoyed and shout at him, then feel so guilty. He always apologised abjectly which I found embarrassing for him. But these incidents were becoming rarer, thank Juno.

I was speculating on what might happen later on tonight then there was a loud thump, followed by boots clattering on the marble floor of the vestibule hallway. The noise grew louder and two blue-uniformed figures marched across the atrium, one holding the waist of a slighter one between them.

Conrad jumped up and stared at the two
custodes
.

‘What in Hades is this?’

It was Allegra, weeping and with a bandage across a bloodied nose.

Conrad pulled the distraught child into his arms, stroking her head as he half-carried her to a couch. I signed the release and we all listened while the
custodes
Senior Justiciar recited the details.

Allegra had been found in a street off the Cardo Max, lying in a heap on the ground between two dumpsters. They thought she was just another teenage drunk until they saw the blood on her face and the bruising on her arms. A paramedic had checked her out and said she could go home if there was a responsible adult there. If not, she would be hospitalised. Allegra was awake enough to insist on being taken home.

‘We think somebody tried to rob her but beat her up when they found she didn’t have anything on her.’ The SJ looked at me, her eyes neutral but mouth straight. She didn’t quite sneer. ‘Such a young girl shouldn’t be out by herself on the last night of Floralia.’

‘She was driven to her friend’s house earlier this evening and was due to be collected at midnight. She shouldn’t have been anywhere near the street,’ I said, stung by her tone. I called the chauffeur. He was still parked outside the friend’s house, waiting to bring Allegra back.

‘Very well, Countess,’ she said and looked at her el-pad, ‘but this is the second time she’s been found inappropriately on the street.’

‘Now wait a damned minute—’

‘Leave it, Carina.’ Conrad stepped in front of me, centimetres away from the SJ. ‘Your business here is finished. Our thanks for bringing our daughter back, but I suggest you take yourself off and find some genuine law-breakers. There’s enough of a choice out there tonight.’

He was as biting as if admonishing some recruit who’d fouled-up on the simplest task a ten year-old could have done. The Senior Justiciar’s cheeks turned a dull red. She took a step back.

‘We’ll be copying our report to juvenile services.’

‘You’d be better occupied in finding out who did this to Countess Allegra, than writing specious reports,’ Helena piped up and came to stand by me and stare at the cop.

*

‘Specious? Why do you teachers have to use weird words?’ But I smiled at Helena. If her gaze had been any hotter and crosser, the SJ would have been a pile of ash. She’d followed the two
custodes
to the door, not quite stepping on their heels and stood, arms crossed, while the porter sealed the pad activating the electronic bolt behind them.

We put Allegra to bed; the doctor was on his way but it looked like bruising only. Allegra’s poor face, now cleaned, would ache in the morning. Our guests slid out tactfully to their beds.

‘Before you ask,’ Helena said, ‘it was Maia Quirinia’s party—’

I groaned. Not again.

‘—and Countess Octavia assured me she and her husband were going to be there the whole time, but in the back. They wouldn’t let them outside tonight, they said, even for half an hour. They were going to watch the street show from the house balcony.’

My cell phone rang, interrupting us. Helena’s eyebrow went up in question. I shook my head.

‘Yes, yes, she’s fine, Octavia, apart from the black eye, the swollen nose and bruises all over her arms. Do you have any idea how she got outside?’

I looked at Conrad’s face as I listened. His frown deepened when he realised who I was talking to.

‘Okay. I’ll be over first thing. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell Maia I’m coming. I want to get her impression fresh. And I’ll need a list of who was invited.’

‘Well?’ Conrad asked.

‘It was Octavia who alerted the
custodes
. Her husband and two of the male staff went outside to look when Maia said she couldn’t find Allegra. Maia thought Allegra was playing some hiding game, but realised after a while she’d disappeared. There were around fifty kids there in the house.’

*

Helena’s hand on my arm woke me next morning around seven. I glanced over from my pull-out bed at Allegra; her eyes were still closed. The doctor had given her a sedative once he was satisfied nothing was broken or torn. There was no sign of sexual attack, thank Diana. As I sat up, Helena tilted her head, signalling me to retreat with her into Allegra’s sitting room.

‘How is she?’ she asked.

‘Woke once in the night and I gave her some more panalgesic.’

‘Poor chick, she’s had a shitty year, what with that Nicola business, Aurelia dying, her father and you. She’s been so worried about you, Carina.’

I looked at Helena and found I had nothing to say. I would have torn my heart out for Allegra not to have worried about me. Conrad came and sat with Allegra while I went to Domus Quiriniarum. He said I’d do better on my own with Maia.

*

Octavia Quirinia jumped up from her easy chair in the far corner of the atrium. She swallowed as I approached her. Her brown eyes, full of worry, searched my face. I bent to give her a formal kiss.

‘Don’t worry, Octavia, I’m not going to eat you. I’m thankful for your intervention in calling the
custodes
.’

‘Gaius and the men couldn’t find her anywhere; the
custodes
found her four streets away.’ She turned her face away. ‘Juno knows what would have happened to her if they hadn’t.’

‘Presumably the doors were secured?’

‘Gods, yes! Only Gaius and I, the porter and the steward knew the code for the evening. You know how silly and headstrong these girls can be. I wouldn’t put it past any of them to try and sneak out for a dare on the last night of the Floralia.’

Not in my house they wouldn’t, but I didn’t say so.

She handed me an el-pad. ‘This is a list of those invited and the acceptances. You’ll know most of them.’

I scanned it quickly, but mailed it over to Helena to double-check; she might recognise any names I should be worried about.

Octavia led me upstairs to Maia’s room. It was more like a luxury apartment. A living room was complete with every kind of electronic device and screen, expensive laminated panels instead of traditional curled edged posters of rock stars and film actors, a huge pile of pastel, mostly pink, plush toys. The fine birchwood furniture was marred by coffee rings and scratches. Magazines, hair ornaments and empty glasses and even a bottle lay on the carpet. And I smelled stale smoke. Through an alcove, I spotted a workstation, a shelf of books above, paper and pens on the desk. A schoolbag leaned at perfect right angles against the desk leg. A little used and undisturbed area.

Maia sprawled in her bed, quilt thrown back covering only her lower legs. One arm curled around her head, the other was folded against her chest, hand under her face. One leg was bent at the knee, her left buttock exposed. And she snored.

I strode over to the window and pulled back the drapes, letting the harsh sunlight fall on to her face. Octavia handed me a glass of water.

‘Maia.’ I stroked her face and gently shook her shoulder. ‘Wake up.’ I shook harder and she opened her eyes, shut them and a second later opened them wide. She sucked her breath in.

‘Here, drink this,’ I said.

She struggled to hold the glass, but drank the lot in urgent gulps. She held it out to her mother who re-filled it. She stared at me like a terrified rabbit.

‘I didn’t see anything. When I saw Allegra wasn’t there, I thought she was hiding or had gone off somewhere,’ she gabbled before I could ask anything. ‘She’s got so serious these days. She’s not much of a laugh.’ She clamped her hand over her mouth. Her eyes bulged with fright. ‘I didn’t mean—’

‘Relax, Maia. Tell me about the whole evening from when you greeted your first guest to when you fell into bed.’

*

Allegra had refused to stay in bed, Helena said, but she submitted to resting on the couch waiting for me to return. Conrad had brought her downstairs and now sat with her, the two of them reading books.

Both faces jerked up as I entered the atrium, one frowning, the other with bruises set against an abnormally pale skin. I kissed both, sat opposite in an easy chair and sipped the coffee Junia slid on to the table for me.

‘Is it very sore?’

She waved her hand, exposed the black bruising on the top of her forearm. I looked down at the table and jammed my lips together.

‘How was it at Quirinia’s?’ Conrad asked.

‘I’ll come to that later. First, I want to hear from Allegra.’

She’d been fine for the first two hours, happy to laugh and hang with the others and watch the street show together from the balcony. As she turned to go inside, she’d caught a face in the crowd.

‘I looked again. It was true. I stopped hearing the others calling me in. Maia pulled my arm, but I couldn’t move. It was Nicola.’

Conrad and I exchanged glances. He nodded at Allegra.

‘Nobody had believed me before, so this time I wanted to make sure before I called. I knew Aunt Octavia would have locked the doors, so I looked for a window. The only open one was one floor up, but it had a downpipe just by it.’ She gave me a little smile. ‘Just like in the movies.’

I closed my eyes.
Please, no.

‘It was really easy. When I got to the ground, I crept along the side of the building.’ She glanced at me then quickly away. ‘I kept in the shadows. At the corner, I stayed behind that huge column base they have at the front. And the street was so full of noise, nobody would have heard me. She was still there in a red costume and stupid head-dress. But I knew her. It’s the eyes, they’re so like Dad’s—’

Conrad hugged her to him.

‘She was laughing and flirting with some guy in an old legionary costume, then somehow, she stopped and stared right in my direction as if she knew somebody was watching her. I pulled back, but I knew she’d seen me and knew who I was. I ran back to the drainpipe and was part-way back up it, when she pulled me off. She grabbed my arm and hit me on the nose. Then she started slapping and punching me. She said some really bad things about Dad, but she said she hated you, Mama, and would finish you off next time.’ Tears poured down Allegra’s face now.

‘I don’t remember much more,’ she said and sniffed. ‘I know she dragged me away from Aunt Octavia’s but I couldn’t see much. And my nose hurt. She threw me on the ground in a dark place and kicked me. Then it all went black.’