‘But that’s terrible!’ she said. ‘They ought to be stopped! Isn’t there anything you can do?’
‘Uh-uh. They haven’t broken any laws, they were careful about that. As far as the original property sales were concerned, everything was done in due legal form, with Surdinus’s consent all the way down the line. The same goes for Tarquitia’s resale of the Old Villa to Surdinus Junior; she was the legal owner, and so long as he was willing to pay the asking price, she could charge what she liked. The will’s legal, too, so Hellenus gets his third of the estate and because she’s already fulfilled the marriage clause, she has the fifty thousand clear to do as she likes with.’
‘At least she’s giving that to Otillius. I feel very sorry for him, Marcus.’
‘Don’t be.’ I took a swallow of the wine. ‘The guy’s had a lucky escape, and if he is genuinely in love with her, he’ll get over it. Fifty thousand sesterces is one hell of an incentive.’
‘You think she and Hellenus will marry? Really?’
‘Yeah. I think they probably will. Oh, sure, they’re crooked as they come, both of them, but they go together like fish sauce on beans. And for all they’ve got a cold streak a mile wide, I think they’re honest by their lights. At least, they’d claim to be. In theory, Tarquitia could walk away from the guy with the whole boiling, but I don’t think she will, because she knew exactly what she wanted and she’s already got it.’ I shrugged. ‘Anyway, they’re out of it. For the foreseeable future, at least.’
‘So what about Cassius Longinus? Did you manage to see him?’
‘Yeah.’ I frowned. ‘That was strange, if you like.’
‘How so?’
‘He claimed the affair with Sullana never happened at all.’
‘Interesting. You believe him?’
‘Perilla, I don’t know. On the one hand, the lady said it did. Unprompted. Why should she invent a thing like that?’
‘Where her husband’s concerned, the answer’s obvious. Like she told you, she’d been trying to get him to divorce her for years, and he wouldn’t agree. Confessing to an affair with one of his closest friends might well do the trick, as indeed it did.’
‘Surely he’d’ve checked with the man first? Confronted him in his turn?’
‘Marcus, how could he? Longinus was in Asia at the time, and as far as anyone knew, he might be kept in office for years. Governors frequently are, and they’re forbidden to leave their provinces without formal permission from the emperor. Besides, if Surdinus’s wife confessed to him, out of the blue and unprompted, that she’d committed adultery at some time in the past, why should he disbelieve her? Particularly when their marriage had never been a happy one. Personally, if it was an invention, I think it was an extremely clever one; Sullana picked on someone who was not only a prime possibility in circumstantial terms but whom she knew wasn’t in a position to give her the lie. You’d never have known Longinus’s side of things if he hadn’t been unexpectedly recalled to Rome. And as for repeating to you the lie she told her husband, if Sullana wasn’t aware of the current situation – and there’s no reason why she should be, since his return is so recent – then the same argument applies. She could be perfectly truthful and at the same time perfectly safe from being found out.’
‘She’d’ve been found out eventually, when Longinus’s term expired and he came back to Rome, lady. By Surdinus, I mean, if he’d still been alive and believed his friend over her.’
‘Of course she would. But that wouldn’t matter, because she’d already have her divorce. My guess is that then she’d simply have told Surdinus the truth, that the whole thing was a fabrication. I mean, what could he do about it? And naturally Longinus himself would be completely off the hook.’
Yeah; fair enough. Even so …
‘Even so,’ I said, ‘the guy couldn’t wait to get rid of me. That’s after welcoming me with open arms.’
‘Are you surprised, dear? You’d just accused him in front of friends of seducing the wife of a friend and colleague, not to mention siring her first child. Don’t you think, whether the accusation was well-founded or not, he might be just a little peeved?’
‘Hang on, lady! I hadn’t actually got round to Surdinus Junior. He never let me get that far.’
‘Nonetheless.’
‘In any case, that wasn’t the really interesting part of the interview.’ I told her about the change of atmosphere when I’d said I was looking into Surdinus’s murder. ‘That was weird. There’s something going on there, I’d bet my back teeth.’
‘Who were the men? Do you remember?’
‘They were all broad-stripers. Pretty much Longinus’s age and class.’ I thought for a moment. ‘A couple of Gauls … uh, Julius Graecinus and Valerius Asiaticus. The third was a guy called Anicius Cerialis. Graecinus is a philosopher pal of Surdinus’s, that I know, although whether it’s relevant I can’t say. The other two I’ve never heard of. Any bells?’
‘I know Graecinus, at least. More than just his name, I mean: he’s a philosopher, yes, Stoic, you won’t be surprised to learn, and a good friend of Marcus Vinicius’s.’ Yeah, right: I knew Vinicius, or at least I’d met him. One of the lady’s more high-powered literary acquaintances, and despite the fact that he was the husband of the emperor’s sister Livilla, he was pretty human on the whole. ‘We’ve talked at one or two of Vinicius’s get-togethers. Charming man, very intelligent.’
‘Solid?’
‘If you’re implying, could he possibly be the kind of man who would arrange for a block of masonry to be dropped on a friend’s head, Marcus, then he certainly is no such thing. That sort of person, I mean. Absolutely not.’
I grinned. ‘OK. What about the others?’
‘I can’t help you there at all, dear; I’ve never heard of either of them. I know Longinus himself, of course – or at least I did, very slightly, before he went to Asia, again on the literary side of things, although his prime interest is jurisprudence. He’s a recognized expert, with several technical books to his credit. Rather an old-fashioned man, with old-fashioned values.’ She smiled. ‘That isn’t a criticism, by the way, far from it; he’s a practising Stoic, in the best sense of the word. Our republican ancestors would have loved him, and for the right reasons, which makes a change.’
‘So you don’t think he would’ve dropped a hunk of stone on a friend’s head either.’
‘No. Definitely not. Nor, for that matter, carried on a clandestine affair with his wife, even when invited to do so by the lady in question. I told you as much when you originally suggested it. The idea’s completely ridiculous.’
Bugger. Well, the lady had been wrong before in her assessment of character. Not all that often, mind. We’d just have to see. And there were still the other two to check up on, Asiaticus and Cerialis. I reckoned another visit to Secundus was in order.
There was a respectful knock at the door. Only one person knocks like that.
‘Yeah, Bathyllus,’ I said. ‘Come in, we’re decent.’
He did.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, sir. Madam,’ he said. ‘But a message has just arrived. From Naevius Surdinus.’
‘Uh … that’d be Surdinus Junior, would it?’ I said. Given Naevia Postuma’s wacky spiritual interests, it was just as well to check these things.
Bathyllus gave me his best fish-eyed stare; humour is something that the little guy does not believe in. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘Of course. Naturally. He was wondering if you could drop by tomorrow. Whenever is convenient, but the morning would be best. He has something important to tell you.’
Hey! Maybe things were moving after all. One of his bought help might even have identified our mystery freedman. Although if that was the case then it cast serious doubts on Junior being responsible for the murder himself. Still, we’d cross that bridge when we came to it.
‘He supply any more details?’ I said.
‘No, sir. That was the message in its entirety.’ The barest of sniffs: the imp
lication being, of course, that had there been any Bathyllus would bloody well have told me them up front. Yeah, well, fair enough. ‘And Meton says that since you’re back earlier than usual he is prepared as a great personal favour to bring dinner forwards. Should you prefer it.’
‘Good idea, pal. Tell him yes, that’d be great.’ Early though it was, I’d covered a fair stretch of Rome that day on foot with nothing since breakfast but a sesame-seed roll, and I was starving. ‘OK with you, lady?’
‘Certainly.’
‘In about an hour, then, sir.’ He went out.
So I’d have to take another long hike up to the Vatican. I was getting my fair share of exercise on this case, and no mistake. Still, I wasn’t grousing.
This looked promising.
SIXTEEN
I was off and away fairly bright and early the next morning, except that this time I made sure I had a decent breakfast inside me first. Normally, unlike Perilla, who can really sink it, I don’t bother much beyond a roll dipped in olive oil, but this time I had Bathyllus rustle me up a three-egg omelette stuffed with mushrooms, plus a bit of cheese and a couple of apples from the store to take with me for later. The weather wasn’t too bad – evidently, fortunately, we’d hit a comparatively dry spell, although the sky was pretty overcast – and the temperature was a bit on the chilly side, but fine for walking.
So. What did Junior want to see me about? Not to confess to the murder in a sudden fit of abject guilt and remorse, I was sure of that, and I reckoned we’d all drawn a line under the Tarquitia business. Personally, I suspected that although it’d cost him an arm and a leg in the end, he’d simply be relieved to see the back of her and his brother and get on with his everyday boring life. And, looking on the bright side of things, foreign travel was always a risky business. There was always the chance that, when he did set out on his eastern tour, Hellenus would be lost at sea or get himself fatally pirated. I couldn’t see that causing too much grief in the family.
So there wasn’t much left for him to tell me about. I was really, really keeping my fingers crossed that he’d found our freedman friend. If so, then how he’d managed it I didn’t know, but with Cilix having provided a description and the bought-help network on to it, that was at least a possibility. And if we were going to crack the case, then finding the guy was crucial.
I crossed the river at the Sublician and made my way through the immediate built-up area towards the Janiculum and the open countryside. By the time I’d reached it and taken a right along the road to Vatican Hill, what with the increased gradient I was sweating; now the sun was properly up it was beginning to feel positively warm, and the sky was clearing fast. Well, I needn’t’ve bothered bringing my cloak, need I? I took it off, removed an apple from the inside pocket, bundled it up and tucked it under my arm.
I’d only gone a couple of hundred yards further when three men came out of the bushes ahead and fanned out across the road, waiting for me. Two of them – the ones at the sides – had knives in their hands, and the guy in the centre was hefting a nail-studded club.
Shit; muggers, in Rome, don’t usually work during daylight hours, but of course out here in the wilds there was no reason why they shouldn’t put in a bit of overtime. And they’d chosen their spot well: no villas in sight on this stretch, with inconvenient gate guards who might decide to step in and spoil the fun, while the chances of another pedestrian turning up and complicating matters were practically zilch.
I reached for my purse, unfastened it from my belt, and threw it towards them.
‘OK, guys,’ I said, ‘you’ve got me fair and square. Drinks are on me. Enjoy.’
The man with the club grinned and took a step forwards. The other two followed him. None of them had even glanced at the purse. I felt a chill run down the back of my neck.
‘Fuck that for now, Corvinus,’ he said. ‘We’ll leave it until after you’re dead. Right, boys.’
They moved forwards again; not quickly, but like they had all the time in the world and meant to enjoy themselves. The guys on the wings moved slightly further out to cut me off if I made a dash to one side. They were professionals, I could tell that from the relaxed, confident manner and the way they held their weapons. All in a day’s work, then.
Fuck. Double fuck. Running wasn’t an option, since they’d be on me before I’d got five yards; I’d no knife myself, and the ground round about was spectacularly empty of hefty branches that I could use as a club of my own, or at least to fend them off with. The best I could do was wrap my cloak round my left arm as a shield and trust to luck …
Something whirred past me two or three feet to my left, and the guy on that side went down like a poleaxed ox, his forehead, suddenly, a pulped mess of blood and bone. The other two stopped, complete astonishment on their faces. Me, I must’ve looked the same.
There was another whirring sound, this time to my right. The other knifeman jerked backwards, slumped to his knees and slowly collapsed. The left-hand side of his face had gone, and I could see his cheekbone protruding through the mangled flesh.
Chummie with the club glanced sideways at him, then shouted and launched himself at me. I threw the apple I was holding straight into his face, and he flinched and ducked; not much of a movement, but the distraction had been enough to break his stride and his speed and let me get inside his guard. I got in one good punch to the throat and a not-so-good one, with my cloak-wrapped left hand, to his chest, then wrapped my arms round him and pitched myself forwards. He went down with my full weight on his ribs, and I heard the thud as the back of his head hit the gravelled roadway. He slumped unconscious.
I stood up, breathing hard, and looked round. A big guy, easily six foot four and built to match, was coming towards me. There was a sling tied to his wrist, and a shot-pouch plus an efficient-looking knife attached to his belt.
‘Thanks, pal,’ I said. ‘You arrived just in the nick of time.’
He ignored me, and without even a glance at the two dead men reached down and hefted my live one into a sitting position. Then, still without speaking, he knelt behind him, took a firm hold of his head with both hands, and gave it a sudden twist to the side. I heard the neck-bone snap.
The slinger let go of the body and stood up.
I’d been watching in horror.
‘What the fuck did you do that for?’ I said.
‘It’s neater that way.’ He unfastened his sling and put it in the pouch.
‘I’d got the bastard cold,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t going anywhere. The other two, fair enough, but that was murder.’ He shrugged and began to walk away back the way he’d come. ‘Hey! Come on! We need to report this!’ No answer; he didn’t even slow down. ‘I need your name, for a start!’
I was talking to his back, and for all the reaction I got he could’ve been stone deaf.
Shit.
Well, at least I was alive, which was something that I wouldn’t have bet on five minutes ago. I lugged the three corpses off the road and into the undergrowth; you can’t have bodies promiscuously impeding the public highway and, like I’d said, I’d be reporting the whole thing to the local Watch commander on my way back, so no doubt they’d be cleared up eventually. I’d had a good look at their faces in the process, to check for birthmarks. The club man and the guy who’d been on my left and got it in the forehead were clean, but of course I couldn’t tell where the one on my right was concerned because the whole left cheek was missing. I hadn’t noticed any distinguishing marks while he was a viable entity, sure, but there again at that point I’d had other things to occupy my attention.
Once they were decently housed, I picked up my fallen purse, reattached it to my belt, and carried on up the road.
I was thinking hard. They’d been no ordinary muggers, that was obvious: muggers don’t usually bother to learn the names of their victims beforehand, and unless they’re complete head-bangers (it does happen), they’re usually quite grateful when the punter surrenders with good grace and
without giving them any trouble. I mean, why piss the Watch off more than you need to? And zeroing a purple-striper unnecessarily really tends to get you noticed.
So they’d been waiting for me, presumably because they’d been paid to. The first big question, of course, was who by? And, equally of course, the answer was obvious. The only person who’d known I’d be out in the wilds of Transtiber this morning, because he’d arranged it himself, was Surdinus Junior.
When I got to the villa I’d nail his fucking hide to the door.
The other big question was who was my pal with the sling? Not a passer-by, obviously: you don’t get many passers-by on the west side of the Janiculan Hill. When you do, they don’t carry slings loaded with seriously injurious military-grade lead shot, and they don’t break unconscious men’s necks for them with no more compunction than a priest killing a pigeon. Plus there was the fact that he’d appeared out of nowhere; there hadn’t been anyone on the road behind me, that I knew, because I’d turned round a couple of times on the straighter stretches just to see if I’d got any company. So he’d been tailing me, keeping out of sight, probably off-road, which wouldn’t’ve been difficult, given the terrain. As to why, or who for, or how the hell he knew I’d be out this way, I hadn’t the faintest idea.
Not that I wasn’t grateful, mind.
I reached the villa, and this time I went straight to the main entrance.
‘The master’s in his study, sir,’ the door slave said. ‘If you’d like to wait a moment I’ll have someone take you.’
Bought-help number two led me through the labyrinth; not upstairs this time, but to a room on the ground floor at the back, overlooking a small garden. Surdinus Junior was there, sitting behind a desk, talking to Leonidas, the estate manager. They both looked up as I came in.
‘Valerius Corvinus!’ Junior said. ‘This is a surprise!’
‘Yeah, it probably is, at that.’ I nodded my thanks to the slave as he went out. ‘Because I should be lying by the roadside somewhere between here and the Janiculan with either my throat cut or my head bashed in, right?’
Finished Business Page 11
