of it.
9
I nformers have ridiculous rituals. One is that if anyone connected with a case dies, especially if it is your client, you must go to the funeral. Everyone pretends this action symbolises our good nature and fine feelings. Diligent nurses brought us up from the cradle to have elegant manners. We not only sympathise with the bereaved, we ourselves are troubled souls who share their sorrow . . .
The real reason is a myth – nothing more, believe me – the myth that you chance seeing the perpetrator wailing beside the pyre. Sometimes they are indeed present, if only because most murders are committed by a member of the victim’s family. If so, you can give up immediately. The person you are looking for has exactly the same snub nose and bad breath as all of their innocent relatives, and the same gormless expression. If they brazen it out, you will never home in on the guilty and catch them.
The funeral myth presupposes your killer is an idiot, who will be drawn to the scene, yearning to witness the grim results of their crime and daring you to identify her or him. It also implies informers have powers of prophecy and can tell, without using spells or magic talismans, exactly which of the off-putting mourners is really going crazy with guilt.
I have never met any informer who has achieved this feat of recognition. I go, but I never expect results.
Roman funerals comprise two events, over a week apart. Traditionally, informers attend the gloomy outdoor interment, not the jollier feast nine days later. Whoever wrote our rulebook must have been depressing – although, let’s be fair; if you were to wait nine days and enjoy the feast, all the villains would have got their acts straight and any evidence would have vanished; also, anyone who might have paid you to investigate has learned they will inherit an olive grove, so they have lost interest in causing upsets.
The will is supposed to be read on the day of the feast, but anyone who hopes for a legacy has already popped the seal off the scroll by lamplight and peeked. You, the unlucky informer, will be granted no opportunity to spot a suspicious reaction. If anyone is going to froth with rabid rage at an outrageous bequest, it happened several nights ago, in the library, with no witnesses but moths.
Perhaps there is nothing to cause offence in any case. Most wills have been put together by lawyers, and some lawyers can do a decent job of advising a client (I know it hurts to hear that). Besides, people planning for their deaths have a besotted wish to be well thought of, so many wills adopt a shamelessly conciliatory tone. The slave who expected to be riven with disappointment because the horrid master fails to give him his freedom has in fact been freed, with an almost adequate pension and enough money to put up a dear little plaque praising the master’s liberality. The pinched sister tormented by fears of neglect has acquired the villa at Laurentium. The disgruntled wife is praised as the most deserving of women. Business partners are delirious because they will now get their hands on the legendary wine cellar . . .
All these thoughts ran through my head as we said farewell to Salvidia. It was the next evening, out in the necropolis on the Ostia Road. Roman funerals involve a long period of standing about; unless you roll up late, exclaiming that the roads from Tarentum are terrible, you have to wait for hours, from the arrival of the bier until the body burns sufficiently for some sad mourner to scrape up the ashes. Winter is worst, but even in April the wood at this funeral was green and claggy. Although undertakers have covert ways of making fire take hold quickly, it seemed as if Salvidia was reluctant to go.
Metellus Nepos was there of course, carrying out the offices of chief mourner. Most of the mourners appeared to be Salvidia’s home and business workforce, rather than friends or neighbours. It did not surprise me that she had no real social
9
I nformers have ridiculous rituals. One is that if anyone connected with a case dies, especially if it is your client, you must go to the funeral. Everyone pretends this action symbolises our good nature and fine feelings. Diligent nurses brought us up from the cradle to have elegant manners. We not only sympathise with the bereaved, we ourselves are troubled souls who share their sorrow . . .
The real reason is a myth – nothing more, believe me – the myth that you chance seeing the perpetrator wailing beside the pyre. Sometimes they are indeed present, if only because most murders are committed by a member of the victim’s family. If so, you can give up immediately. The person you are looking for has exactly the same snub nose and bad breath as all of their innocent relatives, and the same gormless expression. If they brazen it out, you will never home in on the guilty and catch them.
The funeral myth presupposes your killer is an idiot, who will be drawn to the scene, yearning to witness the grim results of their crime and daring you to identify her or him. It also implies informers have powers of prophecy and can tell, without using spells or magic talismans, exactly which of the off-putting mourners is really going crazy with guilt.
I have never met any informer who has achieved this feat of recognition. I go, but I never expect results.
Roman funerals comprise two events, over a week apart. Traditionally, informers attend the gloomy outdoor interment, not the jollier feast nine days later. Whoever wrote our rulebook must have been depressing – although, let’s be fair; if you were to wait nine days and enjoy the feast, all the villains would have got their acts straight and any evidence would have vanished; also, anyone who might have paid you to investigate has learned they will inherit an olive grove, so they have lost interest in causing upsets.
The will is supposed to be read on the day of the feast, but anyone who hopes for a legacy has already popped the seal off the scroll by lamplight and peeked. You, the unlucky informer, will be granted no opportunity to spot a suspicious reaction. If anyone is going to froth with rabid rage at an outrageous bequest, it happened several nights ago, in the library, with no witnesses but moths.
Perhaps there is nothing to cause offence in any case. Most wills have been put together by lawyers, and some lawyers can do a decent job of advising a client (I know it hurts to hear that). Besides, people planning for their deaths have a besotted wish to be well thought of, so many wills adopt a shamelessly conciliatory tone. The slave who expected to be riven with disappointment because the horrid master fails to give him his freedom has in fact been freed, with an almost adequate pension and enough money to put up a dear little plaque praising the master’s liberality. The pinched sister tormented by fears of neglect has acquired the villa at Laurentium. The disgruntled wife is praised as the most deserving of women. Business partners are delirious because they will now get their hands on the legendary wine cellar . . .
All these thoughts ran through my head as we said farewell to Salvidia. It was the next evening, out in the necropolis on the Ostia Road. Roman funerals involve a long period of standing about; unless you roll up late, exclaiming that the roads from Tarentum are terrible, you have to wait for hours, from the arrival of the bier until the body burns sufficiently for some sad mourner to scrape up the ashes. Winter is worst, but even in April the wood at this funeral was green and claggy. Although undertakers have covert ways of making fire take hold quickly, it seemed as if Salvidia was reluctant to go.
Metellus Nepos was there of course, carrying out the offices of chief mourner. Most of the mourners appeared to be Salvidia’s home and business workforce, rather than friends or neighbours. It did not surprise me that she had no real social
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