Illegally Dead (12 page)

‘Marcus!’

‘– that you need perfectly well without your personal involvement. Which is what will happen from now on.’

He drew himself up like Scaevola getting ready to spit in Porsenna’s eye. ‘Suit yourself, Corvinus, you’re the boss. It’s your right to decide. Executive decision, like.’ He sniffed and inserted the finger again. ‘An’ if you’re fully prepared to take the responsibility an’ the consequences then…’

Pause. Long, long, ominous pause. What is known, in the trade, as a hanging minatory apodosis. Shit. I knew what the bugger was saying, we all did. It was the culinary equivalent of moving up the heavy artillery to point-blank range, cranking the winches and saying ‘Right, then; lads, on a count of three...’

Maybe I’d been just a little hasty here.

‘Ah...hold on, there,’ I said. ‘Maybe if we just agreed that you didn’t sort of loiter over the shopping, pal. Straight in, straight out, no messing, sort of thing. How would that be?’

‘Never fucking loitered or messed in my life. My shopping is constructive, Corvinus.’

‘Yeah. Yeah.’ I shot an anxious glance at Perilla, but apart from a slight tightening of the lips and two red spots on the cheeks the lady was keeping schtum. ‘Well, that’s very good, Meton, but –’

‘And what’s wrong with wanting to look smart? ‘S an inalienable human right, is that. Just because I’m a slave doesn’t mean I have to –’

‘Yeah, right, Meton, okay, pal.’ I was beginning to sweat myself. ‘Got it. Understood, no problem. Let’s just –’

‘I had that scent off Lysias since two Winter Festivals ago. It needed using.’

‘Yeah, that stuff does, or it rots the bottle. Ah...let’s just forget it, sunshine, okay? Perfume under the bridge. Water. Whatever. What’s for dinner?’

His eyes lit up. ‘Actually, you’re lucky there, Corvinus. I’ve got this marinade I’ve been working on for braised kidneys. Pepper, aniseed, mint and ginger in wine must and vinegar, although I have my doubts about the ginger. The original recipe says dates, but I thought if I replaced them with figs –’

‘Great. Great. That sounds great, pal.’ Whew! He was talking food again. Crisis over. I stood up, clapped him on the shoulder, turned him round and gave him a gentle shove kitchenwards. ‘Look forward to it.’

He ambled off. Perilla and I looked at each other.

‘Oh, well done, dear,’ she said. ‘Nicely handled again. Two nil to Meton, I would say.’

‘You want to live off gristle meatballs and mushy beets for the next month, lady? Because I don’t.’

‘You don’t think it’s a woman, do you? Remember all that trouble with Bathyllus?’

‘A woman? Meton?’ I considered the possibility. For about a tenth of a second. ‘Nah. No chance.’

‘That’s all right, then,’ Perilla said. ‘So long as you’re sure.’

We were having breakfast the next morning when a messenger arrived from Hyperion to say that Quintus Acceius had been knifed.

15

‘So what happened exactly?’

Acceius was sitting on a stool in his study, naked to the waist, while Clarus changed the dressing and bandages his father had put on the evening before. The guy still looked pale.

‘I was coming home from a late visit to a client,’ he said. ‘Near the old shrine of Juturna. You know it?’

‘Yeah.’ On the outskirts of town, in the direction of the Bovillae gate. Not the most densely populated part of Castrimoenium because of the smell from the tannery and slaughterhouse nearby.

‘He came out of an alleyway behind me after I’d passed.’ Acceius winced as Clarus carefully removed the blood-soaked pad of linen from the wound. ‘He must’ve got ahead of me and been waiting. No warning, he had the knife drawn already. I was lucky, I managed to turn as he struck, and the fact that I was wearing a full mantle helped.’

I looked while Clarus sponged the stitched-up wound clean. Yeah, he’d been lucky, all right: not a puncture wound but a long, deep cut running across his lower back all the way from side to spine. If it’d been the point of the knife that’d caught him, rather than the edge, he’d’ve had Trophius the undertaker in attendance this morning rather than Clarus.

‘You get a look at him?’

He grinned. ‘Are you kidding, Corvinus? I had more important things to worry about at the time than taking notes on the bugger’s physiognomy for future reference. Such as staying alive. I have never, ever been so bloody petrified in my life! Besides, it was dark.’

‘Yeah, well...’

‘He was about three quarters my height, perhaps a fraction more. Short, thick, wiry hair, no cap, fairly heavily built. Breath smelled of raw onions. Oh, and he wasn’t young.’

‘About the age of the guy who attacked you and Hostilius?’

Acceius considered. ‘No. I can’t be sure, of course, but...no, a bit younger. Middle-aged, and, as I say, in much better physical condition. Unfortunately.’

‘What happened then? After he stabbed you?’

‘I caught him a good sock in the face.’ He held up his right hand: the knuckles were bruised and cut. ‘Sheer bloody luck again that I connected, but I must’ve loosened a tooth or two at least. Then he...well, I think he’d’ve tried a second time but just then there was a noise from one of the houses nearby, someone opening a window and calling a cat in. That must’ve panicked him because he turned and ran.’

‘You didn’t follow him?’

He laughed, then winced. ‘Corvinus, don’t do that, please! It hurts even to breathe at present. No I bloody well did not! I never even thought of it. I just stood there with my back against the wall feeling grateful that I was still alive and would be allowed to stay that way. Besides, I was beginning to hurt. I didn’t, at first, but now I was.’

‘So what did you do then?’

‘Went straight round to Hyperion’s. There was no point doing anything else. I knew I was bleeding like a stuck pig but so long as I kept moving the actual pain wasn’t too bad, and it wasn’t all that far, closer than home and much more sensible. I hammered on his door and fainted on the bloody doorstep.’ He grinned. ‘Bloody being the operative word. He patched me up, sent round to my house for slaves and a litter, and here I am.’

‘You hadn’t thought of taking a litter originally? To the client’s house, I mean? Or slaves, at least?’

He shook his head. ‘This is Castrimoenium, not Rome. As far as distance goes you can walk from one side of it to the other, Bovillan to Caban gates, in fifteen minutes, and where street crime’s concerned it’s more likely to take the form of a straying mule than a footpad. Besides, I prefer walking about on my own, without dragging a pack of slaves along. Even after dark. I always have.’

Yeah, well, I could appreciate that. I was the same, and walking around town after dark without protective muscle in Rome was a whole lot riskier than out here in the sticks. Even so... ‘You were the one who said you were being watched, pal,’ I said. ‘And you’d been attacked once already. Or your partner had.’

‘Yes, I know.’ He drew his breath in sharply as Clarus pressed the new dressing over the wound while he made a start to the bandaging. ‘Corvinus, I know! It was stupid, I fully admit that, it almost got me killed, and I won’t make the mistake again. But you don’t think, do you? You imagine yourself immortal.’

True: Perilla was always complaining that that was how I looked at things.

‘A couple of questions,’ I said. ‘Since I’m here.’

‘Of course. Ask away.’

‘When was the last time you actually saw Lucius Hostilius?’

‘To talk to, you mean?’

‘Does it make that much difference?’

Acceius smiled. ‘Oh, yes. We...tended to avoid one another, as a rule, even when we were both in the office. Unless there was a reason not to, and then I was careful to be formal, polite, unconfrontational and brief. So I suppose it would be the day after we were attacked, five days before his death, when I went round to see him at his villa. He hadn’t felt strong enough to come into town and there were two or three relatively urgent bits of documentation I knew he’d want to look at and discuss, so I took them up myself. Not that it was a long meeting, naturally, no more than half an hour if that. As I say, all our dealings latterly were wholly confined to business.’

‘You said the documents were urgent?’

‘Relatively urgent, yes.’

‘Mind telling me what they were about?’

‘In detail? Oh, they were a ragbag, Corvinus, and relatively urgent doesn’t preclude trivial. The only really important one was a letter from Publius Novius over in Bovillae - he’s the arch-enemy, in case you didn’t know, the rival firm - saying that a client of his who was selling property, hopefully to a client of ours, had decided to up his asking price by ten thousand.’ He grinned. ‘Which made Lucius absolutely livid, because our client had written to him originally quoting what was now the take-it-or-leave-it price as the maximum he was prepared to pay. Still, these things happen, and the locals around here are far more aware of what their property will fetch than they were twenty years ago.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, right.’ I was frowning. ‘You discuss anything else? Like the Maecilius case, maybe?’

‘No. Not at all. There isn’t a lot to discuss about the Maecilius case, barring how to get Fimus out the other side of it with as much of his patrimony intact as possible. When it comes to court next month it’ll be a straightforward head-to-head, and I’m afraid that any exchange between me and Lucius on that subject latterly took the form mostly of mutual commiseration. It was one of the few topics we still saw eye to eye on.’

‘Right. Right.’ I’d been standing next to one of the pedestals with a portrait bust on top, the one of the young woman. Now I half-turned and caught it gently with the edge of my arm. The bust rocked a little and I put out a hand to steady it. ‘Sorry, pal. I’m getting clumsy in my old age.’

‘No harm done,’ Acceius said.

‘That, uh, your first wife?’

Clarus had finished winding the bandage and was slitting the end and tying it in place. He hadn’t said a word all the way through, although I’d’ve betted he was listening hard, but our eyes met and he half-grinned at me over Acceius’s shoulder. A smart cookie, Clarus.

Acceius hesitated, just for a moment. Then he said: ‘Yes, that’s Tascia. How did you know I’d been married before?’

I shrugged. ‘Someone mentioned it to me. Maybe it was Aunt Marcia. She’s a devil for family histories, especially when they don’t concern her.’

Acceius was reaching for his tunic. ‘Thank you, Clarus. That’s very comfortable.’ He pulled it over his head and said: ‘She died a long time ago, Corvinus. More than twenty years, now, before I moved here. It was...she died in childbirth; something went wrong, she wouldn’t stop bleeding. She was only eighteen.’ His head reappeared; there was a trace of tears in his eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

He stood up. ‘Nonsense. I told you, it’s twenty years ago and more. Water under the bridge, long forgotten. Now; is there anything else I can tell you?’

‘Uh-uh.’ I shook my head. ‘That’s it for the present, pal. Glad to see you’re not too much the worse for wear. Clarus? Walk you back?’

‘Fine.’ Clarus took a box of pills from his belt-pouch and set them on the table. ‘To help if the pain gets bad, sir,’ he said. ‘And to help you sleep. They’re quite strong, so only one in four hours.’

‘Thank you. And thank your father, too.’

‘He’ll call in ten days to remove the stitches. One of your own slaves can change the dressing for you - daily, please - but if there’s any inflammation of the wound you’re to contact us at once.’

‘Understood. Thank you again. Goodbye, Valerius Corvinus.’

We left. There was no sign of Seia Lucinda - hadn’t been, when I’d arrived - but it was early, so presumably she was in the family rooms having her hair done and her makeup applied. I wondered if Tascia had been anything like her replacement; probably not, from the fresh, girlish look of her portrait.

Clarus didn’t speak until we were well clear of the door. Finally, he said: ‘Is Acceius still on the suspect list, Corvinus?’

I grinned. ‘Pal, at this stage of the game I am not ruling anyone out.’

‘Well, he most certainly didn’t stab himself. Or have himself stabbed to get himself off the hook. Dad says if the knife had gone in he’d’ve died for sure. He almost did, anyway, the amount of blood he lost.’

‘What about that description of the attack? It work out?’

‘Sure.’ Clarus frowned. ‘Upward-slanting wound, left lower back, deeper nearer the spine than at the side. If the man came from behind and held the knife low, underarm stab upwards from the right, and Acceius had twisted to his left then that’s how it would’ve happened. The description of the man’d work too: tall, but not as tall as Acceius, capable of a fair degree of force.’

‘Also no amateur,’ I said. ‘Real knifeman’s punch, no overarm shit.’

He nodded. ‘You noticed that.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Perhaps you should forward the description to Quintus Libanius. Not many strangers in Castrimoenium, and if Acceius belted him in the mouth it’ll make him even easier to recognise.’

I looked at him sideways. ‘Fancy going and telling your granny to suck eggs, son?’ I said.

Clarus laughed. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘That’s okay. No offence.’ We walked on for a bit in silence: Hyperion’s house - and his surgery - were near the temple of Juno; south of the market square, in other words, and as Acceius had said not all that far from the Bovillan gate. ‘You noticed the business with the bust.’

‘Yes. I didn’t know he’d been married before. How did you find out?’

‘Gabba. He said there’d been nothing funny about the death that he’d heard of, and childbirth deaths are common enough, but a sudden widower getting hitched again practically before his wife’s bones’ve cooled is bound to be suspicious. Especially to a stunner - a rich stunner - like Seia Lucinda.’

‘And did he? I mean, that quickly?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know exactly, but it couldn’t’ve been that long after.’

‘You’ve got a nasty mind, Corvinus.’

‘Yeah. Still, what kind of wife-murderer keeps a bust of the victim in his private study? And those tears weren’t fake.’

We were almost at Hyperion’s door now. Clarus stopped. ‘Any idea who attacked him?’ he said.

‘Uh-uh. My best guess is the obvious one: a friend or relative of the guy who attacked Hostilius. Of course, then we’ve got the question of why. Was it because originally both partners were targets or out of revenge because Acceius had killed the man’s pal?’

‘Could it have been Castor?’

I looked at him sharply. ‘Why the hell should Castor want Acceius dead? It was Hostilius he had the trouble with. Besides, if it’d been Castor Acceius would’ve said so.’

‘Yes. I suppose that’s true.’ Clarus hesitated. ‘It was just an idea, and he is missing, after all.’

‘Jealousy’s a terrible thing, pal,’ I said, grinning. ‘Don’t let it warp your judgment.’

He grinned back and ducked his head. ‘Fair point. You coming in?’

‘No, I think I’ll get on. I wanted to have another word with Veturina. Oh, one thing more, before I go.’

‘Yes?’

‘Publius Novius, the lawyer over in Bovillae. He got any sort of reputation locally?’

‘Not really, in the sense that you mean, at least that I’ve heard of. He’s been in the business for years, of course, and you don’t get to be a successful lawyer without knowing when to take the main chance. You have any particular reason for asking?’

‘No. Or rather, maybe, but it’s just an idea at present. Thanks, Clarus. You coming round for dinner this evening?’

‘I might be.’

‘Fine. See you then.’

I set off for Veturina’s.