In at the Death (Marcus Corvinus Book 11)

by David Wishart

  Tyndaris - Mrs Petillius - was lying on one of the atrium couches with her maid trying vainly to bathe her temples with rosewater and getting most of it on the upholstery because the lady was drumming the couch-end with her heels. Hysterics was right. Yeah, well, that explained the screaming, okay. Not the thumping, though: there seemed to be a lot of that, coming from upstairs, like there was some sort of wild-beast hunt going on. Which was probably the case.

  A big woman, Tyndaris. Powerful lungs, too. The couch was beginning to buckle.

  ‘Ah...hi,’ I said.

  The screaming stopped like it’d been switched off. Tyndaris hauled herself erect and glared at me like an enraged hippo.

  ‘Get that...that THING out of here! This minute! And if it’s touched one hair of Alcestis’s head my Titus will –!’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, right. Got you.’ I backed away.

  ‘We’re terribly sorry,’ Perilla said.

  ‘So you bloody well will be!’

  ‘She’s, ah, upstairs, is she?’ I said. ‘Placida, I mean?’

  ‘Placida?’

  ‘Yes.’ Perilla said brightly. ‘That’s her name.’

  ‘Hah!’

  ‘I’ll show you the way, sir,’ the major-domo said.

  ‘Don’t worry, pal, I think we can manage.’ I headed at speed towards the staircase at the far end of the atrium, with Perilla trailing like a pale wraith, and took the steps two at a time.

  She was in the main bedroom, on the bed, although there wasn’t a lot left of that and what there was looked distinctly chewed. Half a dozen kitchen skivvies with assorted brooms and culinary equipment were cowering in the doorway. There was no sign of the cat, which was probably good news; although on the other hand...

  ‘Oh, shit,’ I muttered. Obviously the brute had had the time of her life because she was looking as pleased as hell and the room was something out of the stage set for the sack of Corinth. ‘Come on, Placida. Home.’

  I pushed through the massed minions, grabbed her by the collar and lugged her towards the exit. Half way there, she pulled away, bent her back, spread her rear paws, squatted and strained...

  ‘Placida!’

  That was Perilla. Too late. Yeah, well, after all the excitement it was only natural, I supposed. Even so, it was the icing on the cake. As it were.

  I looked at the goggling skivvies. ‘Uh...any of you lads have a shovel?’

  We went back downstairs and grovelled. You don’t want to know the next part. You really don’t. Suffice it to say that the upshot was the financial equivalent of Cannae. When the bill hit my banker’s desk we’d be living on boiled beets for a month.

  ‘Just needs a little getting used to, eh?’ I said to Perilla as we walked back with Placida ambling good as gold between us; but the lady didn’t answer.

  Fun, fun, fun.

  6

  I was up early the next morning, sneaking out of the bedroom just after first light; not that I needed to bother about waking Perilla, mind, because that lady could sleep through Etna erupting, and she isn’t one of nature’s early risers. I skipped the shave - I could always have a scrape at one of the booths around the edge of Market Square later if I had time - and went down to the dining room. No sign of Placida, but then after the previous afternoon’s escapade our friendly hellhound was in deep disgrace and relegated to a chained post in the garden. Not that I’d any sympathy, because if the day before had been anything to go by looking after the brute for two months would cost us an arm and a leg. Maybe we’d be glad of Natalis’s fifty thousand after all just to pay for the breakages.

  I was really, really looking forward to going out dogless today.

  Bathyllus was doing his pre-breakfast round of the bronzes with the special soft cloth he keeps for raising a shine on the various bums and bosoms. Sometimes I wonder about Bathyllus. All the same, if it keeps the little bald-head happy then who am I to complain?

  ‘Just get Meton to fix me an omelette in a roll this morning, sunshine,’ I said. ‘I’m off down to Public Pond, and I’ll eat it on the way.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Bathyllus sniffed: eating breakfast on the hoof in a public thoroughfare isn’t something the League of Major-domos approves of. ‘You’ll be back for dinner, of course. I understand Meton is serving fish.’

  Oh, gods! I hate fish days. Not the menu, no - what our anarchic chef can do with a few slices of tunny, a bag of clams and a dash or two of fish sauce would have old Lucullus crying his eyes out - but turn up even five minutes late for the off and you find yourself living on boiled cabbage and meatballs for a month. Meton gets very serious about fish. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be there,’ I said. ‘Incidentally, you happen to know where Mucius Soranus lives?’

  Bathyllus raised an eyebrow, which in Bathyllus-speak is strong stuff, certainly well beyond ordinary sniff-class: just because the guy’s a slave doesn’t mean he doesn’t keep up with the gossip, and where moral rectitude is concerned you could lay him flat and use him to draw lines. Even so, and on his uppers or not, Soranus was one of the Mucii who go back to the time when Scaevola played his trick with Porsenna and the brazier, and any prime-class major-domo worth his buffing rag would chew his own leg off before admitting that he didn’t know where one of the top five hundred hung out.

  ‘On the Cipian, sir. The big old three-storey property opposite the Porch of Livia.’

  Hmm; not all that far away, then. If it didn’t risk breaching the three-line fish whip I might be able to take Soranus in last thing. Mind you, a talk with that bastard immediately before dinner could well put me off my feed. I’d have to see how things went. ‘Great. Thanks, pal. Now go and organise that roll, okay?’

  Bathyllus soft-shoed out and I helped myself to an apple and a few grapes from the table. Early morning, preferably the crack of dawn but I was no masochist, was the best time to catch Decimus Lippillus because he’d be at the Watch-house reading through the reports his deputy on the night-shift had left on his desk. Then over to Julian Square to check up if the loan-shark Publius Vestorius was back from Ostia, a talk - if he was available - with Papinius’s boss Laelius Balbus, and finally round to Soranus’s, ditto. I reckoned that with all these bases successfully covered I’d’ve done my duty by Natalis, and barring any surprises - which I didn’t expect - we could call it a wrap...

  ‘I’ve brought the dog, sir.’

  I turned. Bathyllus was standing in the doorway with my portable breakfast in one hand and the other holding Placida’s lead. The brute was grinning at me.

  Oh, gods. This I did not deserve. ‘You have what, Bathyllus?’

  ‘For its walk. The mistress was most insistent. She told me last night not to let you leave without it.’

  Jupiter sodding Best and Greatest! ‘Listen, little guy,’ I said, ‘I have about as much intention of spending a second day in that brute’s dubious company as I have of tap-dancing naked up the Sacred Way. When Perilla wakes up you can tell her –’

  ‘Tell me what, dear?’

  She appeared in the doorway behind Bathyllus and gave me a bright smile. I goggled. Shit, this was a conspiracy: nothing, but nothing gets that lady out of bed before the sun’s properly up.

  ‘Ah...’ I said.

  ‘I have explained already, Marcus. Very clearly. I promised Sestia Calvina that we’d look after Placida properly, which means regular walks. And since you’re walking anyway then you may as well take her along. I’m sure she’s marvellous company, really.’

  ‘Lady, that thing is fucking hell on legs! I’d as soon walk a wolverine!’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate.’

  ‘Perilla...’

  ‘Besides, after yesterday’s little episode with Alcestis we can’t risk leaving her in the garden, can we? She’d have to be chained, which wouldn’t be fair. And she is getting used to you.’

  I opened my mouth, then closed it again: when Perilla’s in this mood there’s no point in arguing, and where logic’s concerned you can forget it. Bugger.

&n
bsp; Now I knew how Orestes must’ve felt when he was stuck with the Furies.

  I held out my hand for the lead.

  Sure enough, Lippillus was standing at his desk, reading over a wax tablet and chewing on an omelette roll of his own. He looked up when I came in...

  ‘What the hell is that?’

  I sighed. ‘Rare Parthian coarse-haired hornless antelope? No. Mutant Numidian hamster? I don’t think so. Hyperactive, totally uncivilised Gallic fucking boarhound? Why, I do believe it is.’ I pulled up a stool and sat while Placida squatted and lolled her tongue at him. Jupiter, I was knackered. Caelian to Public Pond in just shy of twenty minutes. Someone should explain to canines the meaning of the word ‘walk’ and how it differed from, say, ‘bolt’. ‘And don’t, don’t ask about the bag-lady, the cheese-seller, the woman with the poodle or the cat on the flagpole.’

  Lippillus was grinning. ‘You’re tetchy this morning, Corvinus. She yours? You’ve never exactly struck me as the dog-owning type.’

  I shuddered and made the sign against bad omens: with my current run of luck Sestia Calvina over in Veii would be trampled to death by a freak runaway elephant and we’d be stuck with the brute forever. Not that I’d’ve thought too badly of the elephant, mind. ‘No, we’re just looking after her. At least it seems I am. You know the way Perilla’s chain of logic works.’

  ‘She’s a beauty. Aren’t you, girl?’ He reached over and ruffled Placida’s ears, which put the two of them practically eyeball to eyeball. There isn’t much of Flavonius Lippillus in vertical terms, and his no-clout name doesn’t do him any favours either with the pukkah Establishment, but you don’t get to be Watch commander for one of the toughest districts in Rome without a pretty good reason, and for once the broad-stripers in the City Prefect’s office had got it right. What Lippillus didn’t know about Watch work you could drop down a hole and forget.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said sourly. ‘She’s got a lovely nature. At least, that’s what they keep telling me.’

  ‘So why the visit? Not that you’re not always welcome.’

  ‘Do me a favour?’

  ‘Sure.’ He laid the tablet on the desk.

  ‘The name Sextus Papinius mean anything to you?’

  ‘Kid who threw himself out of a tenement window two or three days back?’

  ‘That’s him. You happen to have the details?’

  ‘Not as such. It’s not my patch, Corvinus. The tenement was across the line in Thirteen. Head of Old Ostia Road between the hill and the river.’

  ‘Yeah, I know that.’ Bugger. Well, I shouldn’t really have expected anything else: these guys don’t poach, and they’re very careful about treading on each others’ toes. ‘Still, anything you can give me would be appreciated.’

  Lippillus was watching me carefully. ‘Why the interest?’ he said.

  ‘It’s probably nothing. You remember Minicius Natalis, the Greens boss? He’s an ex-client of the boy’s grandfather. He asked me to look into the death.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Lippillus sucked at a tooth, and his eyes didn’t waver. Then he said: ‘The Thirteenth’s Titus Mescinius’s patch. If you want to talk to him I can give you an introduction. How would that do?’

  ‘Great!’ I didn’t know Mescinius, and as a general rule Watch commanders aren’t too appreciative of sassy purple-stripers butting in. An introduction from Lippillus would go a long way towards pre-emptively smoothing any ruffled feathers. ‘He - ah - liable to be informative?’

  ‘He’s okay. No ball of fire, mind, but he’s straight as a die and he won’t hold out on you, so long as you don’t get up his nose too much. That I do not advise.’ He reached for a clean wax tablet and stylus, scribbled a sentence or two and handed it over. ‘There you are. You owe me one.’

  ‘Dinner tomorrow?’

  ‘Make it the day after, with fish. Marcina can’t cook fish worth a damn.’

  ‘You’ve got it. Come on, Placida. Heel.’ I stood up and turned to go.

  ‘Oh, and Corvinus?’

  I turned back. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Enjoy your walk.’

  The Watch-house for the thirteenth region was on Old Ostia Road itself, and not far from where the tenement must be. There was a slave outside brushing down the steps.

  I hauled on Placida’s lead and dug my heels in until she decided to stop. ‘Boss around, pal?’ I said. The chances were he would be: Decimus Lippillus didn’t spend much of his time behind his desk, but then Lippillus was the exception. Most Watch commanders preferred to leave the wearing out of sandal leather to their squaddies.

  ‘Yes, sir. In his office.’ The slave pointed through the open door. ‘Straight ahead of you.’

  ‘Thanks. Uh...you mind looking after this for me?’

  Before he could answer I’d slipped him the leash and was past him. I didn’t glance back, even when I heard the scream.

  The door gave onto a lobby with an unoccupied desk and another door behind it. I went up to it and knocked.

  ‘Come in.’

  I did.

  ‘Yes?’

  Well, we weren’t talking lean and mean here, anyway. He was a big lad, Titus Mescinius, with the proportions - and probably the blubber content - of a beached whale. He’d set down the stylus he was holding and was blinking at me suspiciously.

  ‘The name’s Marcus Valerius Corvinus,’ I said.

  ‘That so, now?’

  Friendly as hell. ‘Ah...Decimus Lippillus over at Public Pond said you might be willing to talk to me about a suicide a couple of days back.’ I handed him Lippillus’s note.

  He read it in silence. Then he looked up. No smile, but you couldn’t expect miracles.

  ‘Papinius, eh?’ he said. ‘Tragic affair. Tragic. He was only nineteen, you know.’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I did.’ There was a stool in front of the desk. I pulled it over. ‘Mind if I sit down? I’ve had a busy morning.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’ He laid the tablet to one side. ‘So you’re representing who, Corvinus? Decimus doesn’t say. Or are you a relative?’

  ‘Uh-uh. But there’s no hassle, I promise. Minicius Natalis, the Greens’ faction master - he’s an old friend of the family - and the boy’s mother asked me to find out all I could about the death. Why the boy killed himself, I mean. I just wanted to get the facts straight right at the start.’

  Mescinius nodded. He didn’t look precisely gruntled, but I reckoned that was his normal expression. At least we were over the hump, and Natalis’s name seemed to have registered. Maybe the guy was a Greens fan. ‘Very commendable. And perfectly reasonable, under the circumstances. I’d be delighted to assist as far as I can. Just let me consult my notes.’ He pulled out a drawer in the desk, scrabbled through it and brought out a set of tablets. ‘Ah. Here we are.’ He untied the laces, opened the tablets and read. ‘Yes. Three days ago, two hours or so after noon, at the Carsidius tenement. Several witnesses, particularly the stallkeeper on the opposite side. Death was instantaneous, of course.’

  ‘Carsidius is the tenement owner?’

  ‘That’s right. He’s a senator; Lucius Carsidius. He has several properties in the area run through a factor by the name of Lucceius Caepio. The man has a flat on the first floor.’

  ‘Papinius was visiting Caepio?’

  Mescinius frowned. ‘Actually, no, not that day, at least, although he had done on other occasions. Caepio was in at the time - he came downstairs when he heard the shouting - but he’d no idea the young man was in the building.’

  ‘So why was he there?’

  That got me a look like I was a retarded prawn. ‘Surely the reason’s obvious from what followed, Corvinus. The boy was mentally disturbed, and he’d decided to kill himself. Under these circumstances I don’t think we need look for another explanation, do we?’

  We were only at the information-gathering stage here, and theorising could wait for later. Still, I could feel the tingle of cold at the base of my neck that I always got when things didn’t quite add up. />
  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘So what exactly happened? You said there were witnesses?’

  ‘Certainly. A whole streetful. Although no one saw the actual fall.’

  ‘He didn’t cry out? Scream? Anything like that?’

  ‘No. Not as far as anyone reported.’

  ‘And he didn’t leave a note?’

  ‘No again. Not in the room, at any rate. He had a tablet and stylus with him when he fell. We found them near the body, but the tablet was blank.’

  ‘The top flat. It was empty?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So how did he get in?’

  ‘He had a key on him. We found that too.’

  Jupiter on skates! ‘He had a what? Where the hell did he get it from?’

  Mescinius stiffened. ‘I’m afraid I can’t say. Presumably from the factor, Caepio, on one of the previous occasions.’

  ‘Why would Caepio give him a key to an empty flat?’

  ‘For the purposes of damage assessment, naturally. You know that Papinius was with the Aventine fire commission?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I knew that.’

  ‘There you are, then. Although the tenement itself wasn’t directly affected, the roof would certainly have been exposed to blown embers from properties further up the hill, and of course the top flat lay immediately under the tiles.’

  I was staring at him. Sweet immortal gods! This guy was a Watch commander? ‘But you didn’t check,’ I said neutrally. ‘As to whether Caepio had given him the key or not.’

  The drop in temperature was almost physical. Mescinius leaned forward slowly and put his hands flat on the desktop. He wasn’t looking friendly at all now. ‘Valerius Corvinus,’ he said. ‘Do you realise just how busy this section of the Watch is? I’ve two regions under my jurisdiction and precious few men to deal with them, and I can’t afford to spend time chasing up every apparent anomaly in an incident, especially where the incident is obviously a suicide and the anomaly will no doubt prove to be only apparent. Now. The flat the boy fell from was empty. He had clearly gone there with the intention of killing himself and secured the means of access beforehand. How he did that I don’t know, but no doubt there’s a perfectly rational explanation. I am very sorry for the lad’s family, and I wish you every success in your investigations, but young Papinius’s reasons for committing suicide, as such, are not my concern. Under the circumstances I have to regard the matter as closed. You understand me?’