Solid Citizens (18 page)

So that’s what I did.

P
ontius’s is in Castrimoenium’s main square, which sounds a lot more impressive than it is, because the place isn’t all that big; maybe ‘village’ is overstating things a bit, but it’s only half the size of Bovillae, if that, and Pontius’s is the only wine shop on offer. Not that I’m complaining: Pontius himself is a good lad, he serves a more-than-decent jug of wine, and in general his regular customers are an OK bunch. All in all, as an occasional home-from-home and a relaxing watering hole for when we come down to the villa, I couldn’t ask for better.

It didn’t look like I was going to be shooting the inconsequential breeze with Pontius’s other drinkers after all, mind. Maybe it was something to do with the weather – we were getting wintry showers turning to hail again, and the regulars had probably decided to stick by their own hearths – but the place was almost deserted, the only punter in evidence being Gabba, the barfly’s barfly and Castrimoenium’s leading opportunistic entrepreneur, whom neither wind nor hail nor gloom of night could deter from getting his daily skinful. The gods knew what the bastard did when he wasn’t propping up Pontius’s counter, which by my reckoning had to cover a good ten hours out of the daylight twelve, but if he was central to the local Alban Hills economy then rural Italy was in serious financial trouble. Apart from the retail wine trade, naturally.

‘Hey, Corvinus.’ He raised his cup as I walked in. ‘I heard you were back. Good to see you again. How’s the lad?’

‘OK,’ I said, easing myself on to a stool: all that unaccustomed horse-riding to Bovillae and back was taking its toll. ‘Make it half a jug of the usual, Pontius. And a small plate of your cheese and olives.’ It wasn’t all that long until dinner, but I’d had an energetic day, and a few preliminary nibbles wouldn’t hurt.

‘Holidays again, is it?’ Gabba topped up his own wine cup as Pontius filled my half jug from the flask behind the counter. ‘All right for some. Ready for the festival, are you?’

‘More or less. Yourself?’

‘Looking forward to it, consul, looking forward to it. As ever. The wife takes the kids off to her mother’s in Caba, so I get a bit of peace and quiet for a change.’

‘Is that so, now?’ Like I said, Gabba spent most of his day perched on one of Pontius’s bar stools, so he couldn’t’ve seen much of his wife under normal circumstances in any case. Me, I was surprised that they’d had the time and opportunity to have kids in the first place.

‘Indeed it is.’ He took a swig of his wine and smacked his lips. ‘Best and sweetest time of the year, this. So. How’s things up at the big house? You bring that fancy chef of yours with you?’

‘Meton? No. He’s back in Rome.’ Pontius put the wine and nibbles down on the counter in front of me. ‘Staying there, too,’ I added pointedly.

‘Pity. He’s got talent, that boy, and it needs proper handling. Since them talks on cooking he gave last year I’ve had quite a few of the local ladies at me asking about a follow-up.’ He winked. ‘He could do pretty well for himself there, particularly this time of year when the little darlings’re looking for something a bit special to put on the table.’

‘Gabba, I’ve got enough trouble keeping Meton’s ego within manageable proportions without you agenting for the bastard, right? Trust me. As far as celebrity cheffing goes, the world just isn’t ready.’ I took a large swig of my wine; not the best name that the Alban Hills could offer, Castrimoenian, by any means, but it had its merits, and Pontius’s was top of the range.

Gabba shrugged. ‘Suit yourself, Corvinus. Your loss. But it’s a crying shame.’ He reached over and took an olive from my saucer. ‘Oh, by the way, I hear you’re mixed up with another murder, over in Bovillae.’

‘Where did you get that from?’ I said sharply.

‘Word gets around. No particular secret, is it?’

‘No, but …’

‘There you are, then.’

‘One of the nobs, wasn’t he?’ Like he often did when it was quiet, Pontius filled a wine cup of his own, came round to the front of the counter, pulled up a stool and sat down. ‘Senator, magistrate or some such?’

I sighed. Well, I supposed it was fair enough, and out here in the sticks you had to make your own amusement, which included milking any gobbet of current scandal for what it was worth. And a murder was scandal in spades.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘An old guy by the name of Quintus Caesius. The censor-elect. He was—’

The door opened, and we turned round.

‘Oh, bugger!’ The newcomer was staring at me like Perseus must’ve stared at Medusa, but without the benefit of the polished shield. ‘
Corvinus?
What the hell are you doing here?’

After the initial shock of recognition, I was grinning. ‘Hi, Crispus,’ I said. ‘I could say the same. Lovely to see you again, pal. Small world, isn’t it?’

‘Bloody microscopic, seemingly. And none the better for that, either.’ Caelius Crispus, upwardly mobile foreign judges’ rep and Rome’s foremost authority on the top five hundred’s communal dirty linen basket, closed the door carefully behind him like it was made of glass. ‘I asked first. Just answer the question, OK?’

‘I’m practically one of the locals,’ I said. ‘Been coming here for years.’

‘Oh, fuck.’ Crispus hadn’t taken his eyes off me. ‘You’re kidding, right?
Please
say you’re kidding.’

‘Why should I do that? Cross my heart, hope to die. Perilla’s Aunt Marcia had the villa just up the road, and our adopted daughter and her husband have it now. You can ask Pontius here, or Gabba, if you don’t believe me.’

‘He’s right, squire,’ Gabba said. ‘Back and forward all the time. I hate to say it, myself, because I’m no fan of purple-stripers, but there you are.’

‘She here as well? That wife of yours?’

‘Perilla? Of course she is. Wouldn’t go anywhere without her.’

‘Shit.’ Crispus moved across to the counter like he was a ghost walking on eggs and sat down. ‘Double shit.’

‘What can I get you, sir?’ Pontius said.

‘A carriage back to Rome would be favourite. Failing that, slip some arsenic into this bastard’s drink.’

‘He doesn’t mean it.’ I was still grinning. ‘Me and Crispus, we go way back. Been friends for years.’ An overstatement, if you like: if I died I suspected he’d quite cheerfully piss in my urn. Even so, our paths had crossed professionally quite a few times since I’d saved him a couple of years pre-Perilla from a boyfriend’s irate daddy with a very sharp knife hell-bent on cutting his bollocks off, and we’d developed a cautious respect for each other based – on his side, at least – on scrupulous avoidance. He was OK at root, was Crispus, and, like I say, where the dubious alleyways of upper-class Roman society were concerned, the expert’s expert. ‘Give him a cup of your best Alban, Pontius. My tab. Come on, Crispus! It’s not as bad as that.’

‘Yes it is. Worse. If I’d known that you and that hellcat’d be staying anywhere near me I’d never’ve bought the sodding place.’

Aha! The penny dropped. ‘So,’ I said. ‘You’re the civil service bigwig who’s bought the Satellius estate, right? My son-in-law was talking about that a day or so back. Pushing the boat out a bit, aren’t you?’

‘Certainly not.’ He glared at me. ‘I have a position to keep up, remember. These days, a small country
pied-à-terre
close to Rome where one can entertain friends and professional acquaintances in proper civilized comfort is practically
de rigueur
for a public figure
.
’

Yeah, right; I’d forgotten that our erstwhile sleazy scumbag of a gossip trader had been working seriously at his social transformation from plebeian duckling on the make into upper-class swan. Even so. ‘“Small” isn’t what I heard, pal,’ I said. ‘We’re talking major renovations here, on top of the original purchase price. And that wouldn’t’ve been peanuts, either. Where did you get the cash?’

He sniffed. ‘That is none of your business.’

True. And I probably wouldn’t want to know, either: Crispus’s private sources of income were murky at best, and if the guy hadn’t made sure that he was triple-ring-fenced life insurance-wise he would’ve been drifting down the Tiber with a knife in his back years ago. Several knives, all with aristocratic crests on them. The Satellian villa with all the improvements to it that Clarus had mentioned probably represented the profits from a whole warehouseful of family skeletons prised from their cupboards and kept under wraps for a consideration mutually agreed on between Crispus and their owners.

Pontius set the cup of Alban down on the counter, and Crispus sank it in a oner. Yeah, well, seeing me away from the context of the praetors’ offices in Rome where he usually hung out must’ve come as a shock, at that, but at least he was looking a bit brighter now. Or a bit less grey, at least. I motioned to Pontius to give him a refill: his best Alban wasn’t cheap, but Crispus was a guest, in a way, and he needed it. Besides, it was the festival.

‘So, pal,’ I said. ‘How’s the department? Keeping you busy, are they?’

‘Busy enough, thank you,’ he said stiffly.

‘Work for the government, do you, sir?’ Pontius hefted the jar of Alban. ‘There’s nice. Finance, would it be?’

‘Crispus here’s attached to the foreign praetors’ office,’ I explained. ‘Travelling rep.’

‘It’s good to have friends,’ Gabba said. He pushed over his cup. ‘Especially if they’re buying.’

‘Nice try, Gabba.’ I reached for my own cup and took a swallow. ‘Bugger off.’

‘You’ll be involved with the murder case, then,’ Pontius said, sipping his own drink. ‘When they catch whoever’s responsible.’

‘What murder case?’ Crispus said suspiciously.

‘Over in Bovillae. They’ve got Corvinus here looking into it for them. That’s right, isn’t it, Corvinus?’

‘Yeah, well, I …’

‘Nothing to do with me.’ Crispus set the empty cup down. ‘And I’ll tell you now, you conniving bastard –’ this to me – ‘it won’t be, either. You won’t get me mixed up in one of your investi-gations, not this time. It’s the festival, I’m on holiday, and moving in or not, now I know you’re here if you and that fury of a wife of yours even
think
about dropping round for a housewarming I’ll set the dogs on you. In fact, I’ll buy in an extra lot just in case. I might even invest in a leopard.’ He stood up. ‘Clear?’

‘Oh, come on, pal! Aren’t we overreacting just a tad?’

‘No.’ He made a move for the door. ‘Thanks for the wine, have a good Festival, give my regards to the hellcat. And now just stay out of my life until hell freezes, OK?’

Well, I’d tried to be nice. Perilla would’ve been impressed. The wine hadn’t been cheap, either. ‘Suit yourself,’ I said. ‘I’ll see you around.’

‘Not if I see you first.’

I turned back to my drink. The door opened.

‘So, Corvinus,’ Gabba said. ‘What about this Quintus Caesius, then?’

The door closed, slowly.

‘Caesius?’ Crispus said from behind me. ‘That who the dead man was?’

I turned round again. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘You know him?’

‘If it’s the same person.’ He was looking sick. ‘It’s not a common name. Oldish guy? Silver hair, mid-sixties, thereabouts?’

‘That’s him.’

‘Jupiter! We were talking just a few days ago. Well, maybe a bit longer now. Makes you think, doesn’t it?’

He came back over to the counter and sat down.

‘Where was this?’ I said sharply.

‘Rome, of course. At one of the clubs I use. The Crimson Lotus.’

Yeah, well, it added up. Anthus had told me that Caesius went through to Rome pretty often on business, and if he was in the habit of using the local brothel in Bovillae then the odds were he wouldn’t be averse to putting his feet up and letting his hair down in the far more salubrious fleshpots of Rome. The fact that he shared a club with Crispus, mind, came as a bit of a surprise, given Crispus’s predilections, but there again any self-respecting Roman club of that nature would cater to a fairly wide clientele. Particularly in these experimental days, when said clientele as individuals would have pretty catholic tastes.

‘So where’s this Crimson Lotus, then?’ I said.

‘On Pallacina Road. Mars Field end.’

Between the Quirinal and the Pincian. Right. Good address. ‘You, uh, knew him well?’

‘Hardly at all. I only met him a couple of times. We chatted about property here in the Alban Hills; in fact, he was the one who put me on to the Satellian estate originally. Nice man. Civilized. A cut above some of the riff-raff you get in these places.’

The barest sniff; there spoke our wannabe swan.

‘Did you know he was from Bovillae? Or that he was a magistrate?’

‘No. That he was only visiting Rome, certainly. But he didn’t say, and of course I didn’t ask.’

‘No?’

‘Certainly not. No more than I’d’ve acknowledged prior acquaintance with him if we’d ever met on his home ground, or he with me on mine. The club does have rules, you know, Corvinus, and some things just aren’t done. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be getting along.’

Gods!
This
pillar of respectability was the Crispus we knew and loved? Yeah, well, tolerated, anyway. Evidently, he’d joined the milk-and-water, poker-rectumed Establishment with a bang. He’d be giving up muck-raking next, and we’d be looking up at herds of flying pigs.

‘Come on, Crispus,’ I said. ‘Truce, OK? It’s the festival. We’ll split a fresh jug and I swear to you that neither me nor Perilla will go anywhere near your property. Especially when you’re entertaining prats like the foreign judges’ panel. Deal?’

He fizzed for a bit. Then he shrugged and held out his hand.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Deal. But only because it’s the festival. And it doesn’t apply outside the town limits.’

‘Fine with me,’ I said. I shook, and made a top-up sign to Pontius.

‘That’ll be a jug of the Alban, then, will it, Corvinus?’ Pontius said.

I groaned. Bugger. Well, I couldn’t weasel out without tarnishing the image. And he had given me a lead. Of sorts, anyway.

It might be an idea, for completeness’ sake, to get a picture of Caesius off his home ground. I had to talk to Opilia Andromeda again, sure, but I didn’t have much else planned where the case was concerned at present, and Rome wasn’t far. Maybe a quick visit to the big city wouldn’t go amiss, at that.