Read Online Graveyard of the Hesperides by Lindsey Davis - Free Book Online Page B

you knew the barmaid called Rufia?” They gave me the common verdict: everyone knew Rufia.
    â€œWhat was she like?” They looked vague. I tried specific questions, which worked better. Rufia was the normal height and build for a waitress, with no special characteristics. “Black eyes? Brown eyes? Skinny or curvaceous? Did she nick olives out of the customers’ titbit bowls? Would she commandeer all the tips?” This got me nowhere further. Anyone would think that when ordering the dish of the day, I had asked if the chef could leave out the oregano. “Nipius and Natalis, either you are utterly unobservant, or you’re playing up. If she was a customer, I would expect you to say, ‘We see so many, we can’t remember’—but Olympus, you worked with this woman!”
    Possibly they looked shamefaced.
    â€œRight, you hopeless pair. Tell me what happened when she disappeared. Her duties must have fallen on you, so please don’t pretend you knew nothing about it.”
    They stared. I glared. They decided they had better say something or I might become cantankerous. Wise boys. They were the kind who would make sure they never looked your way when you signaled for your bill; still, when someone finally grew angry, they deigned to notice. (You don’t believe bar staff accidentally fail to meet your eye?) “We just came in one morning and she was no longer here.”
    â€œWhat did the landlord say?”
    â€œOnly ‘the bitch isn’t here’ and that we had to cover for her.”
    â€œWas that how he always described her?”
    â€œNothing unusual.”
    â€œOld Thales sounds unpleasant!”
    â€œHe was a normal landlord.” Every time Natalis spoke to me, he looked shiftier.
    â€œReally?”
    â€œYes, he really thought himself special—though he wasn’t,” Nipius told me with some venom, fiddling with his pebble necklace.
    â€œExpand, Nipius.”
    â€œThales was a bully and a bore. He traded on his reputation.”
    â€œWhich was?”
    â€œBeing a wonderful character.”
    â€œI’ve met some of those!”
    â€œHe just hung around cadging drinks off the customers.”
    â€œHe had a horrible laugh!” This detail from Natalis, the one with the bracelets, came unexpectedly. “And what he laughed at was usually not funny.”
    â€œHow was he with his staff?” The waiters hung back from answering. “Grabby?” I guessed.
    â€œThere was a whole lot more than grabbing,” grumbled Nipius. I felt unsurprised.
    â€œOnly the women?”
    â€œHe preferred the women. He was never choosy.” Both folded their arms, a defensive position, as if they had been groped by Thales when young. Maybe even after they grew up. Maybe worse than groped.
    â€œDid that include Rufia?”
    They both guffawed. “Sounds like you know nothing about Rufia!”
    â€œI would, if somebody told me!” I snapped back. I was growing tired of this. “Thales is supposed to have murdered her and buried her, right in that spot over there.” I gestured to where the ground had been disturbed; the pickaxe Sparsus had been using yesterday still leaned against the wall. The waiters looked away, as if they feared Rufia was still decaying in the garden. “You two have been treading on the poor woman on a daily basis. The least you can do now is help me find out what really happened to her, so we can give her ghost some rest.”
    At that, they said that no ghost of Rufia’s would ever lie easy in Hades. She would be organizing the other spirits within an inch of their lives, or what had once been their lives. Nipius joked caustically that he was surprised there had been no reports of Underworld protests.
    â€œNow I am starting to imagine her! She bossed you around, I take it?” Actually I was on her side. This pair of loafers were bad enough now; as aimless youngsters in their