Finished Business

by David Wishart

‘Not at all; that’s no secret.’ Another grin. ‘It set me back all of five silver pieces.’ Jupiter! ‘Oh, it was all done perfectly legally: cash paid over in front of witnesses, proper signed bill of sale and everything. I can show you, if you like. The family – I mean Lucius Junior, of course – was furious, but there you are, he’ll just have to put up with it. And my Lucius added a clause guaranteeing access in perpetuity, so that’s all right. Naturally, it means that by sitting here I’m currently trespassing on his property, which might technically be actionable, so I’d be glad if you didn’t mention that when you do see him.’

  ‘Fine.’ It wasn’t, altogether, but there you go; at least she’d been upfront, and I could always get the other side of the story from Junior himself. ‘Why did he do it, do you know? Sell you the Old Villa for five denarii?’

  ‘Because he wanted to. It’s as simple as that.’

  ‘Is it?’

  She sighed. ‘Look, it wasn’t my idea, if that’s what you’re thinking. You can believe me or not as you like, it’s up to you, but that’s what Lucius told me himself. If you want my guess – and it’s only a guess – he liked me a lot more than he liked his son, let alone his wife, and he wanted to show it. Not just with money, but with part of his life. And this estate was his life – that and his hobbies. That was one reason he and Sullana didn’t get on. You know he was consul once? Or suffect consul, at least.’ I nodded. ‘Well. That was ten years ago, and he hasn’t been near politics since. He just gave that side of things up completely. No serving on committees, no speeches in the senate, no angling for inclusion on diplomatic missions, no sucking up to the Movers and Shakers’ lobby. Nothing. All he wanted was to live quietly. Sullana’s ambitious. She didn’t understand it, and it drove her up the wall.’

  ‘What sort of man was he? In himself, I mean. I know about his wife, but how did he get on with his sons? He had two of them, didn’t he?’

  ‘That’s right. The other one’s Marcus. I’m sorry – again I can’t tell you anything about him. I know he exists, and that’s his name, but absolutely nothing else. We’ve never met, of course, and Lucius only mentioned him once in passing. I suppose, if Lucius didn’t exactly disinherit him, he’ll have some claim on the property?’ There was the hint of a question in her voice.

  ‘Yeah, I’d assume so, but I’m no lawyer. Perhaps it’ll be in the will.’ Casually, I added, ‘Have you seen that?’

  ‘No. That side of things has nothing to do with me, or I assume not. The property sale was quite separate, and that went through while Lucius was still alive.’

  ‘And how about the elder son? Lucius Junior? What was his father’s relationship with him?’

  ‘Oh.’ She smiled. ‘That’s a long, sad story in itself. Junior’s one of nature’s strivers, not too clever but desperate to get on. You know he’s running for a city judge’s post this coming year?’ I nodded again. ‘If he gets it, it won’t be because he’s fit for the job. The poor sap’s never been really fit for any job he’s gone for, and it’s a miracle that he’s got as far as he has. The trouble is that his father has always known it and made sure he knows it too. So. That tell you something about how they viewed each other?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, it does.’ Like she’d said, it was sad. ‘So how was Surdinus with everyone else? Outside the immediate family? With you, for example.’

  ‘Exasperating.’ She gave me another straight look, and I was surprised to see the beginning of tears in her eyes. ‘Very, very kind, generous, and loving, but exasperating. Stubborn as a mule. Whether he was right or wrong, you couldn’t shift him, or stop him doing what he’d decided to do. He had very firm opinions and views on every subject under the sun, whether he knew anything about it or not. And he was always – in his own mind – right.’

  ‘He have any enemies?’

  ‘Absolutely none, or none that I know of, certainly. He never really had an opportunity to make any. He’d lots of friends, though. Or maybe not friends – professional acquaintances, rather. Men who shared his hobbies. You know he was interested in philosophy?’

  ‘Yeah. Naevia Postuma told me that.’

  ‘Not just abstract philosophy, although that was part of it. He was a … practical philosopher, if that’s not a contradiction. An astrologer. He cast horoscopes, and he was very good at it, too; so good it was frightening.’

  ‘You like to give me an example?’

  She was quiet for a long time, staring at a point on the far side of the garden. Then she said, in a small voice: ‘Yes.’

  I waited. Nothing. Finally, she turned to me, and this time the tears were definitely there.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I haven’t mentioned this to anyone else, and I won’t. But I’ve decided that I like you, right, and I feel someone should know, besides me.’ I said nothing. ‘Five days ago, Lucius came to me to say he’d just finished casting his own horoscope for what was left of the year. It was quite clear, he said. Before the year was out he’d be dead.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He was quite calm, perfectly reconciled. He said that he’d had a good life, on the whole, and I wasn’t to be upset when it happened. That he’d done his best according to his own beliefs and was glad to go. He thanked me and hoped that I’d be happy. Those were his exact words. He wouldn’t say any more on the subject, even though I pressed him very hard, begged him, in fact, and it was the last time I saw him alive.’ She stood up. ‘Now, that’s all I can tell you. You’d best be getting up to the house.’

  And she walked back through the gate, leaving me staring.

  Shit!

  FOUR

  The villa, like I say, was huge: a central block with two flanking wings reaching out to enclose symmetrical hedged walks studded with bronze and marble statues. In front of the main entrance was a big fountain: Centaurs and Lapiths fighting, with the water coming out of their mouths. Impressive as hell. I glanced over at the wing to the left: it was older and just a bit shabbier, and sure enough it wasn’t properly integrated with the main building. Also, it had an entrance of its own. No sign of Tarquitia, though, and the place looked deserted.

  What the two entrances had in common was that both of them were hung with greenery, the sign of a house in mourning.

  There was a bell-pull to the right of the door. I pulled it, and the door was opened immediately by a slave in a mourning tunic.

  ‘Marcus Valerius Corvinus,’ I said. ‘I’m here at the request of your dead master’s niece, Naevia Postuma.’

  He didn’t answer, but bowed and stepped aside, opening the door wider. I went in. The vestibule was bigger and more expensively fitted out than our atrium.

  ‘The young master is in the library, sir.’ The door slave took my cloak and laid it on top of an inlaid chest that could’ve belonged to one of the Ptolemies. ‘If you’d like to follow me?’

  The library, it transpired, was on the first floor, and getting there took us a good two minutes’ walk. The slave opened the cedar-panelled door, bowed me inside, and said to the guy standing by the window: ‘Marcus Valerius Corvinus, sir.’

  ‘That’s fine. You can go,’ the guy said. Then, as the slave bowed again and went out, closing the door behind him: ‘Pleased to meet you, Corvinus.’ Yeah, well, he didn’t sound it, and the look I’d got when the slave had given him my name would’ve frozen the balls off a Riphaean mountain goat. ‘Sit down, please.’

  I did, on one of the reading couches. Perilla would’ve loved the place, because the walls were lined with book-cubbies, and all of them looked occupied. I hadn’t seen anything like it outside the Pollio Library.

  Lucius Naevius Surdinus Junior was tall and thin, with a dissatisfied twist to his lips that reminded me of the old emperor. Tiberius. The Wart. The nickname would’ve suited Junior here, too – all in all, not one of Rome’s best lookers, particularly since, being in mourning, he hadn’t shaved. Wading birds in moult came to mind.

  ‘I’m …’ I began, but he held up a hand
.

  ‘Yes, I know exactly why you’re here,’ he said. ‘Cousin Postuma sent a messenger yesterday afternoon. She’s a very forceful lady, besides, as you know, being the wife of a man to whom the emperor granted the honour of a suffect consulship for the latter half of the year, and both of these facts make her difficult to refuse.’ The dissatisfied twist became an actual scowl. ‘That doesn’t mean that you’re particularly welcome.’

  Shit, I wasn’t having this. ‘Look, pal,’ I said. ‘Just remember that coming here wasn’t my idea, right? Judging from what Naevia Postuma told me, I’d say she was off with the fairies and your father’s death was a complete accident. But, like you said, she’s a hard lady to refuse. So if you’d just cut me a bit of slack and let me go through the motions to my own satisfaction, then we can all get on with our fucking lives with a clear conscience. OK?’

  He’d blinked and bridled, but the scowl had faded.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Anything you can tell me, basically. And then if you’d let me take a look at the scene of the incident, maybe let me talk to any of the staff who might’ve been around the place and seen something, that should more or less do it.’

  He grunted. ‘That seems fair enough. Although as for myself I can’t tell you very much.’

  ‘You weren’t here at the time?’

  ‘Yes, I was, in fact. But in my own suite, in the east wing.’

  ‘Alone?’

  The scowl was back. ‘I’m not married, if that’s what you mean. I was, but my former wife and I decided to part company.’ Jupiter! Marital discord and divorce seemed to be par for the course in this family. ‘So, yes, I was alone. We’re talking, by the way, about very early morning, halfway through the first hour, four days back. At least, according to the slaves, that’s when my father went out. And his body was found an hour or so later, when the workmen arrived.’

  ‘He made a habit of visiting the tower that early? When there was no one around?’

  ‘Not the tower, specifically. He liked to walk around the grounds after he’d breakfasted, if the weather was good. And the tower was on his usual route. He generally stopped off there, just to see how the work was progressing. If he wanted to talk to the workmen about anything in particular, then of course that was a different thing.’

  ‘So where is this tower exactly?’

  ‘In our south-east corner. In fact, it’s part of the boundary wall.’

  ‘And he was found exactly where?’

  ‘At the base, next to the entrance. The block of masonry that fell on him was beside the body. It’s still there, of course. The workmen have checked, and it came from the parapet directly above.’

  ‘No one was around at the time?’

  Junior shrugged. ‘None of the workmen, certainly. As I said, they don’t come until later, and then only if the weather is good. And none of my outside slaves has reported seeing anything, which is not surprising. The gardens where they all usually work are mostly on either side of the main drive, or around the house itself.’

  ‘Anything else you can tell me?’

  ‘About the accident? No, I think that’s all.’

  ‘About your father, then.’

  That got me a long, slow stare. ‘Nothing that’s relevant,’ he said at last. He turned away, towards the window. ‘Apropos of which, I notice you were talking to the woman Tarquitia before you arrived.’

  ‘Yeah? How did you know that?’

  He indicated the window. ‘The view from here is superb, which is why it’s one of my favourite rooms. You can see right down the drive, almost to the main gate. You can certainly see as far as the rose garden.’

  ‘All right. Yes, I met her and we talked. So?’

  ‘Let me be clear about this, Corvinus. As far as I am concerned, that woman has no connection with our family, and no claims on it. She’s a troublemaker and a gold-digger, and my advice to you would be to take anything she says with a very large pinch of salt.’

  ‘Would it, now?’ I said. ‘So does that mean she’s not the owner of your west wing? What she called the Old Villa?’

  The scowl was back in spades. ‘At present, unfortunately, yes,’ he said. ‘But I’m contesting her ownership. And that is frankly none of your business.’

  ‘Does she feature in your father’s will at all?’

  ‘Valerius Corvinus!’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s just that, if she is a gold-digger, I thought that she might. And that’d be quite interesting. If, which it won’t, of course, the death turned out to be murder after all.’

  Again I got the long, slow, considering look. ‘As a matter of fact,’ Junior said finally, ‘she is one of the beneficiaries, and quite a substantial one. My father left her the interest on fifty thousand sesterces, the capital to be hers absolutely on marriage.’

  Shit! Fifty thousand sesterces was a hell of a lot of gravy, particularly to an ‘entertainer’. And the interest, at the average rate of eight to ten per cent, would come to just shy of five thousand a year. Quite a respectable income, to put it mildly.

  ‘Does she know?’ I said.

  ‘I expect so. There’s no reason why she shouldn’t; he was open enough with her where everything else was concerned. But, of course, you’d have to ask the lady herself. If you can trust her to give an honest answer.’

  I let that one pass. Still, it was something that needed serious thinking about. By the gods, it did. I stood up.

  ‘Well, if that’s all you can tell me, Naevius Surdinus,’ I said, ‘I won’t take up any more of your time. Thank you for talking to me, and of course my condolences. If I could just have a look at the tower?’

  ‘Certainly.’ There was a bell-pull beside the door. He walked past me and pulled it. ‘My estate manager, Leonidas, will show you it. I’ll have him fetched. Good day, Corvinus.’

  FIVE

  Despite his Greek name, Leonidas turned out to be a bustling little Sicilian, officious and desperate to be of use, who prattled all the way. Which was absolutely fine with me.

  ‘He was a lovely man, sir. A lovely man, and a lovely master. No one could’ve asked for a better, I’m sure. And so quiet-living. Give him his books and charts and his astro-what-d’ye-call-’em thingies, or a couple of them clever friends of his to sit with over dinner and a cup or two of wine of an evening, and he was happy as a sandboy.’

  ‘You happen to know any of their names?’ I said.

  ‘The friends? Well, now, let’s see.’ He stopped. ‘There was the two Julii, Canus and Graecinus. No relation, although as you’ll guess from the family name, they was both Gallic gentlemen originally. Graecinus, he’s one of the city judges this year. Then there’s Aemilius Rectus. Rectus by name and Rectus by nature, you might say. He’s a proper stiff one, that gentleman. Comes of being a … what’s-its-name, begins with an S. Sort of philosopher.’

  ‘Stoic?’

  He beamed. ‘The very word, sir, well done! Comes of being a Stoic, like. They all was, the master included, come to that, but he was the real article, right down the line, accept no imitations. Not that he couldn’t be affable enough when he was in the mood. A senatorial gentleman, like Graecinus, been a city judge himself in the past. There was plenty of others, on and off, but them three was what you might call the master’s regulars.’

  We set off again, along a side path off the main drag. ‘Your master wasn’t political himself?’ I said.

  ‘Bless you, sir, no, not these many years. He gave that sort of thing up altogether after he’d done his consulship.’

  ‘You know why?’

  ‘No, sir, I don’t. Not for sure. But between you and me I think it had something to do with the troubles after that bastard Sejanus was chopped. Pardon my Greek.’

  ‘Is that so, now?’

  ‘They sickened him. That’s my view, anyway, for what it’s worth. All those men dead, some of them no more guilty of treason than I am, just because they were too friendly
with the man or they were some sort of relative of his. A witch-hunt, my master called it. You heard of a gentleman by the name of Blaesus?’

  ‘Junius Blaesus, sure.’ He’d been Sejanus’s uncle, and the Wart had forced him into suicide.

  ‘Well, he and the master had been thick together for years, and he said Blaesus hadn’t a treasonous bone in his body. Very upset over the death, he was. My belief, it finished him with politics, and after that he hadn’t a good word to say about the old emperor, or the whole boiling of them. Here we are, sir. You can see the tower just ahead.’

  From this distance, it didn’t look too bad: like Postuma had said, it was an old watchtower, thirty or so feet high, at the corner of the boundary wall, pierced with three sets of windows, one above the other. It was only when we got closer that I noticed the poor condition of the masonry, the gaps between the stones where the pointing cement had crumbled away, and the ragged line of the top. The ground in front of the entrance had been cleared, and there were the usual signs of building activity in progress: piles of dressed stone, a stack of wooden props and planks, and a mixing trough with several water buckets beside it. This being November, the bags of cement themselves and the workmen’s tools would be inside, under cover.

  ‘The master was lying here.’ Leonidas walked over to a spot just in front of the entrance and stopped. His voice had lost its chatty tone and he spoke softly, like he was standing next to a grave. Which, in a way, I supposed he was, or the next thing to it.

  I joined him. Two feet or so out from the threshold and slightly to one side there was a large block of dressed stone, with old masonry covering its exposed top and edges. I stood beside it and looked up at the parapet above. Sure enough, I could see a matching gap.

  Bugger. Well, it had to be done.

  ‘Can I get up there?’ I said.

  Leonidas’s eyes widened. ‘You’re not serious, sir!’

  ‘Sure I am. Unfortunate, but there it is.’

  ‘It’s dangerous. And I don’t think the young master would allow it.’