Читать «Scandal takes a Holiday (мдф-1)» онлайн - страница 185

You've got his notes?" demanded Damagoras. I gave him a tantalising smile. We got on well. I trusted him, Falco. I told him all about my past, and when he had had a drop to drink, he told me what was on his own mind. He had troubles."

His aunt had been killed. He blamed the fire-fighters, not the vigiles, the builders" guild."

You're right. He had come to Ostia to do something about it."

Is this how he came to grief?"

All I know," said Damagoras, is that he started working for one of the builders. He got himself a job as a carrier for a concrete maker, Lemnus."

Lemnus from Paphos!" I shouted, leaping up. Lemnus, the bow legged Cretan who attacked me at the Damson Flower, then scarpered .. Petronius had reckoned he had a conscience about something… Well, Petro could pull him in now, if he could still find him. Lemnus was freelance, though. Whose contract were they working on?"

I don't know, Falco." Lies. The old pirate was far too busy making sure he did not look too shifty.

Not good enough, Damagoras! Tell me the contractor."

You can't touch the man; he is too big in this town."

Nobody is too big for me." I grabbed Damagoras by the front of his white tunic and hauled him from his chair. He was taller than me, but he quailed. It was the man Diocles blamed for his aunt's death, wasn't it?" I shook him. Damagoras dropped his voice. Shh! He's always hanging around here, he wants the contract to rebuild this station house He drew a finger across the top of his head, to signify stranded hair. Privatus." I let the old man stagger back and find his seat. I believed the story. The scribe's working tunics had been covered with mortar splats. Privatus ran the guild. He made a lot of noise about that. If the builders" guild bootboys had been fatally incompetent, Privatus would seem responsible. Diocles may simply have wanted to expose the guild, but if he talked about his plans, word would have got back. If he complained to Lemnus, Lemnus may have snitched. For Privatus, Diocles spelled awkward trouble. In his personal anguish, Diocles may not have realised how much Privatus had to lose. Threatened with the loss of his social standing in Ostia, the builder might have reacted more viciously than some senator Diocles accused of sleeping around. The scribe had misjudged the danger. But Privatus had contracts all over the place, both at Ostia and Portus. Unless I could identify where Diocles had been employed when he disappeared, there was little hope of discovering his fate. I strode out into the yard. Members of the Fourth were making efforts to clear away abandoned equipment. I left a message for Petronius about Lemnus. Collecting Nux from her long snooze at the bath house, I went home. Life there was normal, the aftermath of tantrums. Little Julia was now sitting very quiet and sucking her thumb with a tear-stained face. Albia looked flushed. Helena looked harassed. As far as I knew, neither woman ever used the threat of waiting until Father came home to dole out punishment… Well, not yet. I asked what Julia had done. She had found the empty note-tablets left by Diocles, and covered the boards with wild scribbles. Because of the risk that they would ruin important case-notes, we had a family rule that the children should only play with writing equipment when they were supervised. There had been incidents with inkwells, for one thing. You could not expect a three-year-old to remember and obey a family rule. Mind you, I would probably be saying the same thing when Julia and Favonia were twenty-five and married. Helena had rescued the tablets. Julia had only defaced the empty ones; the ship's logs and the scribe's notes were safely put away in a chest with the scribe's sword. The only tablet where my daughter spoiled something significant was the one on which Diocles had sketched what we had thought was a board game.