Lindsey Davis - Three Hands in the Fountain

Three Hands in the Fountain

Lindsey Davis was born in Birmingham but now lives in Greenwich. After an English degree at Oxford she joined the Civil Service but now writes full time. She was awarded the Crime Writers' Association Dagger in the Library award in 1995.

Seven of her novels featuring Marcus Didius Falco are available in Arrow paperback.

ALSO BY LINDSEY DAVIS

The Falco Series The Silver Pigs Shadows in Bronze Venus in Copper The Iron Hand of Mars Poseidon's Gold Last Act in Palmyra Time to Depart A Dying Light in Corduba The Course of Honour

THREE HANDS

IN THE

FOUNTAIN

Lindsey Davis

Published by Arrow Books in 1998 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Copyright (c) Lindsey Davis 1996

Lindsey Davis has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or deal, is entirely coincidental.

This hook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published in the United Kingdom in 1997 by Century Random House UK Ltd 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SWIV 2SA

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Random House UK Limited Reg. No. 954009

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Papers used by Random House UK Limited are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin

ISBN 0 09 979951 0

Typeset in Bembo by SX Composing DTP, Rayleigh, Essex Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham plc, Chatham, Kent

For Heather and Oliver my wonderful Agent and Editor (who really deserve a dedication each): with my thanks for the first ten - and here's to ten more!

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

a baby at the centre of attention

a new father, who is said to need a partner

his partner at home and at work, a new mother

her own mistress but a good dog

a landlady; Julia's doting grand- mama

her lodger; a troublemaker on the make

a troubleshooter, but in trouble

his wife, who has just shot him down Julia's grandfather, the idealistic senator

Julia's other doting grandmama who knows he wants to get married

who seems to have no idea what he wants

whose fortune is what Aelianus wants to marry

Falco's nephew, a lad about town his absentee father, who has turned up

a tunic braid twister, allegedly

tough but fair tribune of the Fourth Cohort of vigiles

loyal (but hopeful) stand-in for Petronius

jealous but relocated rival for Petro's job

whose punishments leave his victims half dead

the cohort doctor, who likes his patients alive

Lovers, Supervisors, Victims and Suspects:

Balbina Milviathe cause of Petro's trouble

Cornella Flaccidaher mother; positively awful (and

awfully positive)

FloriusMilvia's husband; completely nega

tive

Anona registrar of births; dead miserable

Silvius & Brixiusregistrars of the dead; happy types

S. Julius Frontinusyes; that Frontinus! a real person

Statiusan engineer; too important to know

or do anything

Bolanushis assistant, who knows it and does

it

Cordusa public slave hoping for a finder's

fee

Caius Cicurrusa corn chandler who has lost his

treasure

Asiniahis wife, a good girl, apparently

Piaher friend, a bad girl indisputably

MundusPia's lover, a ridiculously poor judge

of girls

Rosins Gratusa very old man who lives out of the

way

Aurelia Maesiahis daughter, who likes it that way

Damona slow driver with a fast reputation

Titusno; not that one; a lad about the

country

Thuriusa surly minion

Some Other Suspects:

250,000 people in the Circus Maximus

Everyone else who has a job connected with the Games All the inhabitants of Tibur, and the nearby countryside The man in the street

jurisdictions of the Vigiles Cohorts in Rome:

Coh I Regions VII & VIII (Via Lam, Forum Romanum) Coh II Regions III & V (Isis & Scrapis, Esquiline)

Coh III Regions IV & VI (Temple of Peace, Alta Scmita) Coh IV Regions XII & XIII (Placing Publics, Aventine) Coh V Regions I & II (Porta Capena, Caelimontium) Coll VI Regions X & XI (Palatine, Circus Maximus) Coh VII Regions IX & XIV (Circus Flaminius, Transtiberina)

The Circus Maximus Area

ROME: AUGUST-OCTOBER, AD73

'When [the water pipe] has reached the city, build a reservoir with a distribution tank in three compartments... from the central tank pipes will be laid to all the basins as fountains; from the second tank to the baths so they may yield annual income to the state; and from the third, to private houses, so that water for public use will not run short.'

Vitruvius

'I ask you! Just compare with the vast monuments of this vital aqueduct network those useless Pyramids, or the good-for- nothing tourist attractions of the Greeks!'

Frontinus, tr. Trevor Hodge

'Let's have a drink - and leave out the water!'

Petronius Longus of Falco CC Partner

I

The fountain was not working. Nothing unusual in that. This was the Aventine.

It must have been off for some time. The water spout, a crudely moulded cockleshell dangled by a naked but rather uninteresting nymph, was thick with dry pigeon guano. The bowl was cleaner. Two men sharing the bottom of an amphora of badly travelled Spanish wine could lean there without marking their tunics. When Petronius and I sloped back to the Party at my apartment, there would be no clues to where we had been.

I had laid the amphora in the empty fountain bowl, point inwards, so we could tilt it on the edge when we wanted to refill the beakers we had sneaked out with us. We had been at it a while now. By the time we ambled home, we would have drunk too much to care what anybody said to us, unless the wigging was very succinctly phrased. As it might be, if Helena Justina had noticed that I had vanished and left her to cope on her own.

We were in Tailors' Lane. We had deliberately turned round the corner from Fountain Court where I lived, so that if any of my brothers-in-law looked down into the street they would not spot us and inflict themselves upon us. None of them had been invited today, but once they heard I was Providing a party they had descended on the apartment like flies on fresh meat. Even Lollius the water boatman, who never turned up for anything, had shown his ugly face.

As well as being a discreet distance from home, the fountain in Tailors' Lane was a good Place to lean for a heart- to-heart. Fountain Court did not possess its own water supply, any more than Tailors' Lane was home to any garment-sewers. Well, that's the Aventine.

One or two passers-by, seeing us in the wrong street with our heads together, assumed we were conferring about work. They gave us looks that could have been reserved for a pair of squashed rats on the highroad. We were both well-known characters in the Thirteenth District. Few people approved of either of us. Sometimes we did work together, though the pact between the public and private sector was uneasy. I was an informer and imperial agent, just back from a trip to Baetican SPain for which I had been paid less than originally contracted, although I had made up the deficit with an artistic expenses claim. Petronius Longus lived on a strict salary. He was the enquiry chief of the local cohort of vigiles. Well, he was normally. He had just stunned me by revealing he had been suspended from his job.