Deadly Election (26 page)

‘I see. You did not consider that Dillius, Ennius, Gratus or Vibius Marinus could be issuing such threats?’

Trebonius let out a full-chested, derisive laugh. ‘A drunk, a wimp, a prig and a human grain bag?’

‘Right! One more thing. Have you ever worked with the agent who has also died, Titus Niger?’

‘Never.’ By now Trebonius could see I had run out of questions and was giving up. With the pressure lifted, he became more reasonable, even helpful. ‘I know of him. I can probably find out for you the names of people who have employed him. Get some of them to talk to you.’

I smiled wryly. ‘I hope this isn’t simply an election promise!’ He passed it off, openly accepting that those were empty vows. ‘That would be very helpful. Thank you, Trebonius.’

‘I’m a reasonable man. Please assure Callistus I hope he finds his old father holed up safely at Crustumerium, just too busy screwing a pretty little goat-girl to write home.’

I would keep the goat-girl comment to myself, lest it inflame the situation further. I was jaded. Otherwise I might not have felt so grateful for his cooperation, nor so reassured by his bland offer to deliver names.

I learned to distrust Trebonius Fulvo as soon as I left. Two men who clearly worked for him were in the street outside with mops and buckets, washing down the carrying chair that must have been used by Trebonius’s wife when she travelled around the city. Perhaps they were her bearers: they were sufficiently well built. Close to, the biggest looked as if he could pick up a bacon pig one-handed. The other was not small.

I recognised them. They were the two lark-about loafers who had parked themselves next to the strongbox when I was selling it on the first day of the auction.

W
hen I arrived at the Stargazer, Junillus conducted a little mime of amazement at my early arrival. He was deaf, but capable of interpreting a tetchy reply, so when Faustus came along some time later, Junillus acted out another mime for him, warning him to expect a wild beast with fangs.

Faustus bent and kissed my cheek very gently before he sat down with me, miming extreme caution. Junillus grinned and gave him double olives. Faustus took one of the olives and placed it between my lips delicately, pretending to be feeding a particularly nasty parrot.

Chewing morosely, I greeted him. ‘Tiberius.’

‘Albiola.’ He tipped his head to one side, also savouring a big purple Kalamata. ‘What’s the matter, darling heart?’

While I considered the endearment, I finished cleaning up the olive stone and flipped it onto a noggin saucer. ‘Tired out. Incitatus kept us all awake. I took him home, which was an excuse to grill his master. Trebonius denies killing Valens, points out we have no proof, says the Callisti threatened him and virtually accuses Primus of mental instability. Next, he comes over all sweet and helpful, yet as I leave his house with his smooth promises of assistance, Jupiter, I only spy that he owns two lowlifes who behaved suspiciously by the strongbox at the auction.
If
the first corpse was Callistus, I don’t suppose Trebonius put him in there, but he perhaps guessed who that body was.’

‘Does he have a motive for murdering Callistus?’

‘Not really. He looks a bully, but why bother? Yes, Callistus was heavily supporting a rival candidate, but the candidate withdrew because he lost his palace sponsor. It was nothing to do with Trebonius. All Trebonius and Arulenus have to do now is cruise to victory and try not to smirk too much.’

‘Did you tackle the two men who work with him?’

‘No, I needed to ponder what this means.’ Chin up, I admitted to Faustus: ‘Talk to you about it.’

He pushed the olive dish over towards me. ‘I can prod them. What do they look like?’ I described them. A big pig-lifter and a small one. ‘Have you spoken to the Callisti?’

‘I’m off to see Primus after this.’

‘Want me to come?’

I shook my head. ‘If you are not needed by Sextus, you could make an official visit to Trebonius, and double-check with Arulenus too. We have two corpses and those men have been publicly accused of killing one. I said you were bound to follow up.’

‘Did Trebonius know Niger?’

‘He said not. But he could be lying. He’s a politician − not intending any insult to you.’

‘Thanks!’

His food came and Faustus began eating, all the time surveying me. He did not actively soothe me. I would only have flared up angrily if he had tried. Nevertheless, I calmed down in his presence. As always, he seemed to be enjoying mine.

Neither of us spoke about Petronius and Maia yesterday.

‘Someone from the Palace was looking for me last evening. Tiberius, I wonder if it’s a message from Claudius Laeta. The person left strict instructions I was not to bother him at work in case his reputation is fouled by contact with an informer.’

Faustus grinned. ‘I could go there for you.’

‘I have enough men taking over my life, Aedile, thank you.’

Faustus, who had been dipping his bread in olive oil, wiped his hands on a napkin. At the Stargazer this was not wise unless you brought your own. Most customers rubbed greasy hands up and down their work tunics. Even napkins in the clean-linen basket were habitually slept on by whatever flea-ridden cat the bar gave a home to at the time. I was going to mention it, when Tiberius dropped one of his wiped hands onto one of my own and held it.

Then he just sat there.

My cousin Junillus was about to come and clear the dishes, but decided not to. His disability had made him observant and given him tact. In this, he stood alone in our family.

Even if I had not been a sleepyhead that morning, I could have sat for a long time holding hands like that. In the end I could not help myself but blurted out, ‘Are we in love?’

That question you should never ask. In my head I could hear Julia and Favonia screaming in pain to have a sister who so badly broke the rules.

‘Of course!’ Tiberius seemed surprised I needed to ask.

‘Just like that? No uncertainty and misunderstandings? No misery? No endless analysing words and actions? No flouncing in a huff, no writing unreadable poetry?’

‘Not our way.’

I took a breath into lungs that felt squeezed by iron bands. Tiberius Manlius smiled at me. It was his special smile for me. He had smiled like that when he watched me at last waken peacefully, the day he was sure that, through his care, I had survived my illness.

He released my hand so he could pay Junillus. We both had business at the Caelian, so we walked there together, side by side but never speaking. We went different ways that morning. There were questions that needed to be asked and we were the people to do it. Eventually we would meet up and compare what we each had discovered. That was how we worked together.

It was another hot day, so the sun was shining. The glorious sun in Rome: shining, shining, shining.

Sometimes people asked me whether I felt glad I had been plucked from the wet, badly gravelled streets of my childhood and brought here to Rome. I was always glad. Even if I had had no other cause to say it (and there were plenty), Tiberius Manlius Faustus had given me reason today.

Then I reminded myself he was political. I ought to be careful, whatever he said. Even if this reticent man had spoken the truth about his feelings, eventually he would do what was best for his social position and his own career.

Who cared? Everybody thought we were having an affair. Sooner or later we would be.

W
hen I saw Callistus Primus, he made reference to him breaking down in sobs yesterday. He acted as if he assumed I had come to ask after his cousin Firmus, given that our auction had provided the occasion of his wounding. For a mad moment, Primus seemed on the verge of wanting to sue us. I shot him an evil look, then reminded him whose guards had hit Firmus and who had told them to do it, in my hearing. We settled on him telling me Firmus was slowly recovering and me telling him Trebonius denied having killed Valens.

‘Trebonius claims
he
received death threats and he assumes one of your family sent them.’

‘No.’

‘On oath?’

‘All the gods are my witness.’

‘Can you vouch for your brother and cousin?’

‘Yes. And my father. Why would we?’

‘I agree. It would have been stupid. While he was in the running, Volusius Firmus was favourite. You had no need to blackmail or beat up anybody else. And neither, as I see it, did anybody lean unfairly on you. Firmus dropped out due to—’

‘Reasons beyond our control.’

‘In dealing with the Emperor, Primus, reasons are beyond anyone’s control, as even the admired Abascantus has been shown … So, talk to me sensibly, please, about why you suspect your father has been murdered. Start at when he left Rome.’

Primus confirmed what I had mostly worked out. His father had set off on a normal summer visit to their estate in the country, at Crustumerium. When he failed to send back messages as usual, the brothers had despatched a slave, who returned to say Valens had never arrived at the farm.

‘Something was very wrong,’ I prompted, as Primus fell silent, musing. ‘You were shocked and anxious, so you wanted someone other than a slave to go. You hired Niger to look into it? Someone more responsible who, you hoped, would check more carefully. But why didn’t you or your brother go yourselves if you were so worried?’

‘We had no idea it was so serious, and we were tied up here. My father had left us work, trying to make good our losses after the useless bid by our cousin. Firmus as well; too many tasks in Rome. Your auction was only one of our schemes – and bear in mind, this action was what my father wanted.’

‘So you chose Niger. A man of affairs who acted as an agent for various people here on the Caelian. He had a good reputation, but had not worked for you before. How were you introduced to him?’

‘My sister-in-law, Julia Laurentina, obtained his name from someone who recommended him. He seemed reliable. Efficient. Diplomatic. He went out to our estate for us but came back with bad news, worse than we thought: not only my father but his whole entourage seemed to have utterly vanished on the journey. Niger could not even find the litter he went in. Someone along the route claimed to have seen it standing empty by the roadside, but by the time Niger went there it had disappeared. Some farmhand has appropriated it. It’s been cut up for firewood or turned into a hay wagon,’ Primus concluded bitterly.

I thought it not impossible the farmhand could be tracked down. Now we knew the gravity of the situation, more stringent enquiries might flush someone out. Faustus might organise it. ‘Who was with your father? Slaves? Would they have turned on him?’

‘Oh, no.’

‘If something bad happened, say an ambush or robbery, they may have simply run away.’

‘Possibly.’

‘Did he have valuables in his luggage?’

‘Nothing significant. He doubles everything he needs at the estate and here. He goes so frequently, he travels light. It’s a one-day journey if you really push it – he expected to reach his own bed that night. He had no need to carry cash.’

‘Thieves might not know that.’

‘No, but he has made the same journey many times for forty years.’

Primus looked so miserable I was gentle with him. ‘I am sorry. Sorry about your father, and sorry to have to press you for answers. But you do want to know what has happened. So, tell me, what made you fear the body in the strongbox might be him?’

‘By the time you told me a corpse had been found, I knew something terrible must have happened to my father. If he’s alive, why have we not heard from him? If he was taken ill, he would have sent a slave back to tell us. If he was kidnapped, where is the ransom demand? He must be dead. And whoever did that knows something about us, knew we had a chest in storage. Our father, put in our strongbox: some twisted person thinks that is neat.’

‘Apparently so. But who?’ I asked. ‘You were in such confusion over your father going missing, you genuinely reckoned Trebonius and Arulenus might be responsible?’

‘Before Firmus had to drop out of the election, they did bluster and make menaces. Arulenus offered to break my cousin’s legs. Plenty of people heard him.’

‘You could have made a formal complaint.’

‘We did! Father wanted to sue the swine. Arulenus knew we intended to do it. The only reason we refrained is that everyone knows he is already bankrupted by legal suits from that mistress he preyed on and lied to. But fear of a court case seemed another reason those two might go after our father.’

I thought not. A defendant doesn’t usually kill his opponent, or they won’t get any compensation in the case.

‘Well, they still deny it. I myself have only spoken to Trebonius Fulvo but the pair seem to back each other up. Arulenus is to be formally questioned. Did your father have any other enemies?’

‘Let me tell you, my father was the sweetest man on the Caelian.’

Primus spoke so fervently I believed him. ‘Yes, everyone I speak to seems to have liked him. And, Primus, I can see how terribly his absence has affected you.’

Partly to distract him, I asked Primus if his mother was alive. She had died a couple of years ago. Before that, the couple had been married for over thirty years, a long and loving partnership that produced a close, happy family. Their sons were clearly decent. Their nephew also; Firmus had always lived with them because Callistus Valens and his father, whose name was Callistus Volusius, were brothers; after both his own parents died, Firmus was treated like a third son by Callistus Valens.

As I already knew, all three in the younger generation were married. Secundus had no children. Julia Laurentina, wife of Volusius Firmus, was expecting her first child, although so far it was only known to close members of the family. ‘She has yet to tell her mother!’ I commented, thinking of Julia Verecunda declaring to Sextus Vibius that she had no daughters pregnant.

‘Laurentina doesn’t get on with her mother!’ answered Primus, rather forcefully.

‘I gather few people do. When their paths crossed at the auction, I gained the impression the ferocious Verecunda thinks little of her son-in-law?’ I meant Firmus, though in the Forum she had behaved the same to Vibius. Primus humphed and told me I was correct. I said that must have made life difficult while Firmus was standing for aedile, as a rival to her son. Primus agreed it had, though he implied no one regarded Ennius, then or now, as a meaningful candidate. I asked, ‘Do you mind if I ask how Firmus and Julia Laurentina came to be married? Was it against her mother’s wishes, or have relations deteriorated since?’