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Lindsey Davis

Graveyard of the Hesperides

I

Everyone knew a dead barmaid was buried in the courtyard.

The Garden of the Hesperides was a large but otherwise typical eating house on a busy street corner, with two marble counters, five pot-holes for containers of food, three shelves of cracked beakers, an unreadable price list on a flaking wall and a faded picture of nude women. The daub seemed to have been painted by a shy artist who had never seen anyone naked. In a nervous line of three, his nudes huddled beneath gnarled boughs from which dangled dingy fruit. Hercules set about his scrumping task, watched by a bored snake instead of by Ladon, who ought to be a fearsome, hundred-headed, never-sleeping dragon. A snake was easier to draw, no doubt. The legendary Golden Apples were so pockmarked I personally would not have sent Hercules to climb the tree for them. Hard to tell with all the dirt whether it was just poor art or the paint was now peeling off the wall.

No doubt when the bar was open for business it had waiters who were very slow to serve anyone and pretty girls who did all the work. A room upstairs was used for assignations; you could bring your own or hire the staff.

Its landlord, a famous local character-that horrible type-was believed to have murdered the missing woman years before, then hidden her body in the courtyard, where customers could sit outside under a pergola. Regulars referred to the tragedy matter-of-factly, only adding lurid details when they wanted to get into conversation with newcomers who might buy them drinks. Anybody sensible thought it was a myth-yet it was odd how the myth did specify that the barmaid’s name was Rufia.

About six months before I first went to this bar, the old landlord died. The new one decided to make improvements. He had been waiting for years for his predecessor to pass on, so he was full of ideas. Most were terrible. Instead, a firm of renovation contractors convinced him he needed to pretty up the courtyard; his bar was, after all, named for the most famous garden in the world.

What he should do, they assured him earnestly, was to improve the dank, uninviting area by creating a delightful water feature that would tempt drinkers to linger. They said it could easily be done. If he really wanted to be authentic he could plant an apple tree …

He fell for it. People do.

They promised to give him a good price for a timely job. In the way of their trade, that meant they would overcharge, delay forever and mess up the works until, after weeks of not being open to customers, the despairing owner would be left with a leaking canal in a garden that now had no room for tables. The tree, if one was ever supplied, would die the first summer.

All normal so far.

Not long after the old landlord had his last drink on earth, the owner of the building company died too. I am a private informer and she had been a client of mine. About five months later, the man I had just set up house with decided that at close to forty years of age it was time he found his first job. Perhaps he feared that keeping me in Lucanian sausage might not come cheap. He may even have noticed that I, who did have work as an informer, was just as wary of him possibly sponging off me. Whichever it was, since he knew my ex-client’s heir, he bought her empty house, together with her decrepit builders’ yard and failing construction firm. It appeared to be a mad idea, though in fact he had his reasons because he was that kind of man. Also, as my family pointed out, if he took up with me, he must be brave.