Solid Citizens (12 page)

‘Yeah. Maybe so.’ I took a swallow of the Alban; after the Arician I’d had in the wine shop it went past the tonsils like velvet. ‘Still, there’re plenty of other candidates with motives just as good or better.’

‘You’re getting very cautious in your old age.’

I nudged her in the ribs with my elbow. ‘Less of the old age, lady!’ Perilla’s got a clear eighteen months on me. ‘And I’m not being cautious, I’m being realistic. We haven’t touched opportunity. What Manlius and Canidius were doing at the time of the murder we don’t know yet, but at present where having the chance to belt Caesius as he was coming out of the brothel’s concerned, his brother and Quintus Roscius are the front runners, no doubt. Me, I’d put my money on Roscius. Losing his farm would hit him hard, and he’s a lot more physically capable of doing the murder than Lucius is.’

‘So how would it’ve worked in practice?’ Marilla was carefully putting together what was at least her third pork-and-pickle sandwich: the girl likes her food, always has done. ‘The murder itself, I mean.’

‘Marilla, dear,’ Perilla said. ‘I really don’t think you should get too much involved in all this. It isn’t proper.’ She turned to me. ‘And Marcus, you shouldn’t be encouraging her.’

Marilla paused in the sandwich-construction process long enough to stick out her tongue before reaching for a third slice of pork to add to the pile. I grinned:
proper
wasn’t exactly a word I’d ever have used in connection with our adopted daughter. We might not be related by blood, but there was a lot of me in the kid, and given her head she was a natural-born sleuth. As, indeed, was Perilla, if she’d only knuckle down and admit it.

Apropos of which …

‘Come on, lady!’ I said. ‘Give the girl a break!’

‘Very well, if you insist.’ Perilla sniffed. ‘Have it your own way, dear, as usual. But understand it’s under protest.’

‘Protest noted. For what it’s worth.’ I drained my cup and refilled it from the jug on the table. ‘OK. So, to the actual murder. No problems there, the scenario’s obvious. No premeditation, just sheer luck. Roscius comes out of the wine shop and sets off for home. He glances down the alleyway as he passes, sees Caesius coming out of the brothel at the far end, and decides to take the chance he’s offered. He hustles the guy back in and brains him.’ I took a swallow of wine. ‘Job done.’

‘What with?’ Clarus said absently, looking up from the olive he was dissecting.

I put the cup down. ‘How do you mean,
what with
, pal?’

‘Look.’ Clarus sighed. ‘He’d have had to use a weapon of some kind, yes?’

‘Yeah, well, naturally. So?’

‘So where did he get it from? Or do you think he was carrying a club on the off-chance?’

Bugger. There spoke the nit-picking wannabe forensics expert. ‘How the hell should I know?’ I said. ‘Maybe there was an iron bar or a loose tile or something lying around. Me, I can’t see that it matters all that much.’

‘Was there? And if so could he see it in the dark? There wasn’t much of a moon that night, and it was raining hard. Did he take it away with him, and if so why? And while we’re on the subject, given the general lighting and weather conditions, how did he know it was Caesius? Especially since it’s likely the man had his hood up.’

Jupiter bloody Best and Greatest, I didn’t believe this! And I’d thought Perilla was bad where splitting hairs was concerned! ‘Now look here …’ I said.

‘Actually, Clarus, he could’ve done it with his bare hands,’ Marilla said. ‘Oh, the recognition bit, you’re right, dear, that is a difficulty. But if he were a big man … is he, Corvinus?’

‘Uh, yeah.’ I frowned; things were slipping away from me rapidly here. ‘Pretty big.’

‘Fine. Then he could’ve picked Caesius up and smashed his head against the wall.’ She was still looking at Clarus. ‘That would’ve had the same result, wouldn’t it?’

Clarus nodded. ‘Yes, it would. It’d take a lot of strength, mind, and I’d’ve had to see the wound to be sure one way or the other, but yes, it’s theoretically possible.’

‘It might even have been an accident. At least, the actual braining aspect of things.’

‘True. True.’

Perilla had been looking at them, from one to the other, in growing disbelief, and I could just sense the ice crystals forming in the air and the spiders frantically legging it for cover. She opened her mouth to say something, but I got in first.

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘OK. So let’s leave Roscius and move on to Brother Lucius, yes? Same scenario and provisos apply, right?’

‘Wrong,’ Clarus said.

‘
What?
Why?’

‘Corvinus, Lucius is an old man. Oh, yes, he could’ve killed Caesius, given a weapon, but not in the way Marilla describes. At least, I don’t think so. So in his case we’re back to the weapon problem.’

‘It could have been both of them, of course,’ Marilla said, ruminatively taking another bite of her sandwich. ‘After all, they left the wine shop together, didn’t they?’

‘Yeah, they did,’ I said. It was a fair point, and it’d make sense, too: both would’ve had to walk past the alleyway to get where they were headed, Lucius to his room above the bakery and Roscius because it was in the direction of the Tiburtine Gate, so the chances were that if they’d left the wine shop in company when they got to the alley they’d still be together. And if they’d just spent the evening slagging off their mutual bugbear Caesius, which seemed the most likely topic of conversation between the pair of them, then the bond of solidarity would already have been forged …

Uh-huh. I’d go for that, certainly as a working theory. I turned to Perilla. ‘What do you think, lady? Possible?’

She reached for her cup of fruit juice.

‘It might be,’ she said frostily. ‘I’m not going to speculate, dear. The three of you seem to be managing quite well enough already on that score without me becoming involved.’

I shrugged. ‘OK, suit yourself, sourpuss. But as a scenario, it’s valid. Lucius certainly has motive and to spare in his own right. Double motive, in fact: with Vatinia’s death he’s now his brother’s only heir, and he’s just been told by Novius that Caesius is cutting him loose altogether, money-wise. I’d say by the looks of the guy when I talked to him he was living right on the edge already, and without his monthly allowance he’d be up the financial creek good and proper.’ I frowned. ‘That’s an angle worth looking into, by the way. From what he said – or hinted at, anyway – most of the family’s income as such was his sister-in-law’s rather than Caesius’s. Campaigning for censor – particularly against a seriously well-off guy like Manlius, desperate for the job – won’t have been cheap. Me, I’d like to know for completeness’ sake exactly how the woman died.’

Perilla set her cup down. ‘Marcus, that is sheer nonsense!’ she snapped. ‘You have absolutely no grounds whatsoever for even
thinking
that Caesius might have killed Vatinia! Nothing we know about the man suggests that he’d be capable of anything like that; they’d been married for over thirty years, happily, or reasonably so, as far as we know or can assume, and he was a long-term politician. Of course she’d support him financially in running for office! As his wife, what else would she do?’

I smothered a smile. Got you! I knew she couldn’t keep it up. Which was partly why I’d let loose that particular lame hare in the first place. Mind you, lame or not the theory was something worth checking, just on the off-chance. I’ve always been suspicious of so-called ‘ordinary’ deaths that happen too close to murders. Also, more important now I came to think of it, Caesius as the perp wasn’t the only possibility. If Lucius had planned to kill his brother in pursuit of his inheritance, to get where he was going he would’ve had to take Vatinia out of the picture as a first stage …

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Point taken, lady. Maybe it was a bit over the top, at that.’

‘Well, then!’

‘If we’re working through the suspects, what about the nephew?’ Marilla said. ‘Mettius, wasn’t it?’

‘Yeah.’ I picked up my wine cup and took a contemplative swallow. ‘He’s a distinct possible, too. If he’s on the level about his uncle and Caesius’s dodgy legal pal Novius cooking up the charge between them that got him relegated, then he’s got good reason to bear a grudge. Plus, of course, he’s only recently come back to the town, so the timing fits.’

‘That’s a bit odd in itself, isn’t it?’ Marilla said. ‘I mean, if it was me Bovillae would be the last place I’d choose to live, even when I could go back. He isn’t exactly popular locally, is he?’

I nodded. ‘Right. Oh, sure, from what I know his mother’s still there, but there’d be nothing else to bring him. Quite the reverse. So why take the trouble to come where he’s not wanted, unless he reckons he’s got unfinished business?’

‘Maybe he wanted to make his peace,’ Clarus said. ‘Bury the hatchet.’

‘From the impression I got, pal, the only place he’d want to do that was in his uncle’s head. With Novius for seconds. Which may well be what he did, more or less. The guy’s fully capable of it, if I’m any judge.’

‘But why should Caesius and Novius want to fabricate a charge against him in the first place?’ Marilla again.

I turned to Perilla. ‘You like to answer that one?’ I said easily.

She frowned. ‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? At least, the simple explanation is. Lucius claimed his father’s will disinheriting him was a forgery. It was. Mettius was working for Novius at the time. He found out and tried to blackmail the guilty parties, so they got rid of him. And we all know, don’t we, from past experience, that Novius has been involved before in dubious practices concerning a will. Not directly, admittedly, and it was suppression rather than actual forgery, but still.’

I smiled to myself. It worked every time: give Perilla a chance to show how smart she is and she can’t resist it. Oh, it had taken a while on this occasion, sure, and it had been touch-and-go in places, but the lady had cracked in the end. It looked as if we had her with us on the team after all.

She was all right, Perilla, at base. Besides, I’d known that she knew the answer as well as I did.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That’s more or less how I saw things. Proving it, mind, is another story, and Mettius himself isn’t saying. Which is fair enough if the blackmail side holds good.’

‘But why should he do it?’ Clarus said. ‘Novius, I mean. Surely he’d be taking a terrible risk? If the truth got out then he’d be facing criminal charges himself. Caesius, too. As with Manlius and Canidius, socially at least as far as Bovillae was concerned they’d both be finished.’

‘Sure they would,’ I said. ‘No arguments there, let alone explanations. Still, it’s a lead to be followed.’ I reached for the wine jug and poured myself more of the Alban. ‘Getting back to Mettius himself, though, there’s one more thing that makes him a prime contender.’

‘Which is?’

‘He’s the only one on the list, as far as we know, at least, definitely to patronize the brothel. That gives him opportunity in spades, even more so than Roscius and Lucius had. If Mettius was the killer, then it clears the ground of a lot of dead wood. He could’ve been there, on the inside, the night his uncle was killed and seen him leave. He could even have planned the murder in advance, if he knew Caesius would be a visitor.’

‘But surely that would mean the likelihood that the brothel owner was involved.’ Perilla was twisting her lock of hair. ‘Andromeda, wasn’t it? And if so then why should she be?’

‘Pass, lady,’ I said. ‘Another lead to follow. They’re friendly, sure – they were together at the funeral – but whether enough to warrant her helping out with a murder is as much your guess as mine. Also, it wouldn’t have been strictly necessary. Oh, sure, on her part there’s the professional confidentiality angle, but you can get round that, easy. She couldn’t be responsible for her staff, and if the girl I talked to was anything to go by they’re not the sharpest knives in the drawer. A word in the wrong place from one of them would’ve been enough. Still, it’s early days yet. There’s a lot of digging to do before we’re done.’ I looked round; Bathyllus and Lupercus had just come in. ‘Hi, little guy.’

‘We were just wondering if we could clear away, sir,’ Bathyllus said. ‘If you’re finished, that is.’

‘Sure. Go ahead.’ We waited while they loaded the dishes on to trays, studiously – I noticed – ignoring each other. Bathyllus removed my plate and Perilla’s; Lupercus did the same with Clarus’s and Marilla’s. The serving ones were carefully shared, turn about. I sighed: truce it might be, but it was an uneasy one, and well on the childish side at that. Fun, fun, fun.

‘There’s one person you haven’t mentioned, Marcus,’ Perilla said when they’d gone. ‘The antiques collector.’

‘Oh, yeah. Baebius,’ I said. ‘That’s because I still don’t know anything about him, barring what his freedman in the shop told me. I was planning to get his address tomorrow, pay him a visit, see how much in the running he actually is. Mind you, I’m not hopeful. The guy sounds like another Priscus. Can you imagine Priscus stalking a rival collector and beating his skull in? Because I can’t. Mother, now, sure.’

‘That’s not fair, dear. Vipsania’s a perfectly charming woman, even though she can be a little … overpowering at times.’
Overpowering!
Me, I’d back Mother against a German berserker swinging a battle-axe any day. She’d probably insist he go back outside and wipe his feet. Get her way, too. ‘And you may be surprised. Not all collectors are as harmless as Priscus.’

Yeah, true. We’d just have to wait and see what tomorrow brought. In the meantime, I thought I deserved a quiet afternoon, maybe involving a stroll into town and a gossip with the punters at Pontius’s wine shop.

I was on holiday, after all. Sleuthing isn’t everything.

I
had a leisurely breakfast the next morning before heading into Bovillae as usual. It wasn’t far, sure, but I don’t ride by choice, and covering the eight or so miles there and back was becoming a pretty tiresome routine.

I parked the horse by the market square water trough and set off gratefully on my own two feet. First things first: Baebius’s address. I called in at the antiques shop, renewed my acquaintance with the old freedman who ran it, and came away with directions: Baebius, it seemed, lived up at the top of town, near the Alban Lake Gate.