I noticed a lot of empty plots over the other side of the junction. Is that builders on a redevelopment plan?"
Could be. No sign of much happening. I reckon it will be years before they start."
Any hint of foul play in all this? Do the builders ever deliberately help fires to start?" Both mother and son swore they had never heard it suggested. They had a less cynical attitude than me. So the night Vestina died, who did turn up to fight the flames?"
Locals," said the fishmonger. We had to get water from the baths, and they were closed so that took time."
Wasn't there a vigiles guardhouse hereabouts?"
Oh them!"
Would they not turn out?"
No, Diocles asked them." The son had been terse; the mother elaborated. They just laughed at him. He begged in vain."
First most of us knew, he was running about from place to place screaming for help."
Well, you know why he was so upset," said his mother. I turned to her and she said flatly, It was all his fault. He was always feckless; some men are, you know. He caused the fire."
Accident?" I asked her, still thinking that Petronius Longus would wonder if the scribe was an arsonist.
Oh yes. He let a lamp fall off a shelf, he admitted it. The poor man was hysterical about that. His aunt had been such a nice woman quite cultured, you know; she had worked for an empress when she was a young girl. I think Vestina and Diocles were the only family each other had, freed slaves but perfectly respectable, with royal connections. He was left all alone when he lost her. And such a terrible way for her to go…"
Have you ever seen him back again? Has he been this year at all?"
Oh no. I don't expect he'll ever come here again," said the fish monger's mother. He wouldn't want to remember what happened, would he?" I sorted out more crayfish thoughtfully. Some were just large prawns but they would still be tasty. Now I had the full picture, my anxieties about Diocles were leaping up again. Whatever work motives had brought him here, he was asking for mental anguish. Or were his motives personal?
I'm worried about him," I told them. He stayed in lodgings by the Marine Gate this summer. Then he disappeared suddenly."
He'll be dead in a ditch," said the fishmonger's mother. He couldn't take the nightmare any longer, if you ask me. He'll have done for himself. I can see him now, his torment was shocking. Tears streaming down his face, all blackened from the fire where he had tried to get back in the house. People had to drag him away. There was nothing he could do, the heat had got too intense. So he sat in the street then, whimpering to himself, over and over, the bastards, the bastards," He meant the men who laughed at him, those ones in that guardhouse. He meant, they could have come to help when he begged them, but they just let Vestina die."
