No Cause for Concern

by David Wishart

  ‘Have you found him?’ she said.

  ‘That depends.’ I followed her inside.

  She frowned. ‘Depends on what?’

  Best get it over with. ‘Does Sextus Luscius have a son?’ I said.

  The frown deepened. ‘Yes. Yes he does. Why should you –?’

  ‘His name Titus as well?’

  ‘Yes, actually, it is. What does that have to do with anything?’

  Bugger. ‘And they’re roughly the same age? The two Tituses, I mean.’

  ‘Almost exactly.’ We were in the atrium now, all bronze and marble statues, gilt couches and pricey murals. Flash, flash, flash. I sat down on one of the gilt couches, and she sat opposite me. ‘There’s only two months between them. Corvinus, what’s this about? Did you see Titus or not?’

  Well, we might as well be absolutely clear about this. ‘Just a second, lady. Would this other Titus be about five eight, thinnish with dark curly hair?’

  ‘I can’t remember. I only saw him once, at the wedding, but he could be.’

  ‘Okay. How about your one. Any distinguishing features?’

  ‘Yes.’ She was looking mystified. ‘Quite a noticeable one, actually. He has a big chunk missing out of his right ear.’ Her finger dabbed at her own ear; the lobe and a half-inch or so above. ‘A dog bit him when he was five.’

  Hell; that was that, then. Proof positive: the Titus Luscius I’d seen had definitely had both ears intact.

  ‘Then the answer’s no, I’m afraid. I didn’t see him.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ She looked lost. ‘You’re absolutely sure he wasn’t there?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ I told her about my visit to the theatre and the conversation with Luscius.

  ‘But he could’ve been... I don’t know, inside one of the tents,’ she said when I’d finished. ‘Or behind the scenery somewhere. You didn’t look?’

  ‘No. But it isn’t likely. He can’t’ve known I was coming, so he’d have no reason to hide. If he’d been involved in the play – and he would’ve been, because he had acting experience – he’d’ve been out in the open with the rest, rehearsing. Those troupes don’t carry passengers. Look, Sempronia, I’m sorry.’

  She was quiet for a long time. Then she said: ‘That’s all right. At least it isn’t, but it’s not your fault. So if he isn’t with his uncle then where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I made up my mind. ‘It’s not the end of the world. We’ll just have to try something else, that’s all. He didn’t talk to you before he went?’

  ‘No! I told you!’

  ‘Gently, gently. Fine. Did he talk to anyone else?’

  ‘No. Not that I know of. Astrapton saw him go, but I don’t think –’

  ‘Who’s Astrapton?’

  ‘Father’s accountant. But he only saw him go through the gate, him and Lynchus.’ Oh, yeah; the body-slave. Occusia had mentioned that Titus had taken him with him. ‘I don’t think they actually talked. They wouldn’t. Titus ignored Astrapton, like he did all Father’s business employees.’

  ‘And Astrapton is where?’

  ‘He has an office in the east wing.’

  ‘Fine. Well, I’ll talk to Astrapton before I leave. Just to check. Now. How about friends? People he might’ve confided in?’

  ‘If he didn’t tell me where he was going, Corvinus, then he’d be hardly likely to –’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I know. But just in case. You got a name you can give me? Of a best friend?’

  ‘You could try Quintus Bellarius. They go out drinking together.’

  ‘And where would I find him?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s Titus’s friend, not mine, and we’ve only met once or twice.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Father doesn’t like me getting too involved with Titus outside the house, especially since my engagement to Liber, so I don’t really know any of his friends except by name. And of course we haven’t wanted to do anything that would make Father suspicious. Ask at the Three Elms, they go there quite often. You’d’ve passed it on the way here, down Pincian Road between the Gardens of Pompey and Lucullus. They might be able to help.’

  Yeah, and I remembered the place from the last time, four years back: pricey and pretentious as hell, but they’d had some of the best Velletrian I’d ever tasted. ‘Right. I’ll try that.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll find him? Titus, I mean.’

  I gave her the honest answer. ‘Maybe. I’ll do my best, anyway. If we’re lucky he may even be shacked up with that friend of his.’ I stood up. ‘I won’t disturb your mother, particularly since it’s bad news. You want to show me where this Astrapton hangs out?’

  She got up too. ‘Yes, of course. I’ll get a slave to take you.’ She raised her voice. ‘Celer!’

  One of the bought help materialised out of nowhere. Right; sign of an efficient household and top-rate bought help. You don’t see them until you need them, and then they’ve been there all the time.

  ‘Yes, miss,’ the slave said.

  ‘Take Valerius Corvinus to Astrapton’s office.’

  ‘Yes, miss. This way, sir.’

  I went to talk to the accountant.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘Office’ was dignifying things: it was hardly bigger than a cubby-hole furnished with desk, chair, visitor’s stool and wax-tablet-filled bookshelves. Astrapton was sitting on the second of the list. The guy was your typical sharp-as-they-come-and-going-places young Greek: thick, blue-black curly hair under his freedman’s cap scented with oil I could smell from two yards away, limpid blue-black eyes, blue-black designer stubble, a snazzy Greek-style tunic and a selection of rings on his fingers that must’ve cost half of his yearly income.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said when I walked in. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Valerius Corvinus,’ I said. ‘Your boss’s wife asked me to trace her missing son.’

  He blinked. ‘Oh, yes? Then I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t help you there.’

  ‘You were the last one to see them, I understand.’ I pulled up the stool and sat down in front of the desk. ‘Him and his slave. Going out of the gate. That correct?’

  ‘Ah…yes. Yes, it is.’

  ‘Did you talk to them at all?’

  ‘I didn’t talk to Titus at any time. Or rather, he didn’t talk to me.’

  Yeah, well. Fair enough. Sempronia had already said that the guy didn’t mix with his father’s business underlings on principle. ‘Okay. Just the details, then. Were they on foot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Carrying anything?’

  ‘The slave had a couple of bags.’

  ‘And you weren’t suspicious?’

  ‘Why should I be? Where they were going, if they were going anywhere, and what they were carrying was none of my business. And even if I had asked Luscius wouldn’t’ve told me.’

  ‘Fine. And what time was this exactly?’

  ‘Just before dawn.’

  ‘Before dawn? That not a little early for you to be going out on business, pal? I assume it was business.’

  ‘Yes, it was. But no, it wasn’t unusual. The master wanted me to see someone urgently, and the person concerned wasn’t free later in the day. That happens quite often in my job. The hours aren’t what you’d call regular.’

  Yeah, well: considering the nature of Eutacticus’s business concerns perhaps it wasn’t an avenue I wanted to explore. ‘So you saw which direction they took? Titus and the slave?’

  He looked fazed for a moment. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘If you followed them out the gate, pal, then you must’ve seen which way they went. Left or right? Away from the city centre or towards it?’

  He frowned. ‘Oh. Oh, yes. I see what you mean. But I can’t help you there either. I didn’t go out of the gate immediately. I realised I’d forgotten a document I needed, so I went back for it.’

  ‘Pity.’ Well, maybe the gate slave’d remember. I could ask him on my way out. ‘So. You’re a
bsolutely sure about all this?’ For what it was worth. Jupiter!

  ‘Yes. Yes, I am.’

  ‘Anything else you can tell me?’

  ‘No.’

  I shrugged and stood up. ‘Fine. Thanks for your time.’

  ‘You’re very welcome,’ he said, and went back to juggling the books.

  I left. But I left puzzled. Eutacticus’s tame books-juggler had been forthcoming enough, sure, if you could call giving me practically zilch in the way of information being forthcoming. All the same, there’d been something slightly wrong about that interview: there was the hesitation over the answers for a start, and I’d definitely seen a flash of relief on his face when he’d picked up the pen at the end of it. Astrapton had more beans to spill, I’d’ve bet a dozen of Eutacticus’s Falernian on that. Trouble was, I was damned if I knew what they could be, and why he hadn’t spilled them.

  * * *

  On my way out, I stopped by the muscle-bound gorilla who doubled as gate-keeper.

  He gave me a suspicious look. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘No problem, pal,’ I said. ‘I was just hoping that you could cast your mind back to seven days ago. Just before dawn, the morning young Master Titus disappeared.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You were on the gate then?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Well, I supposed that the fact that he could talk at all was a minor miracle in itself. And a vocabulary of one syllable is better than nothing.

  ‘You saw them go out, right?’

  ‘Could’ve done.’

  Hey! A variation! ‘Fine. Which direction did they –?’

  ‘I said I could’ve done.’

  Gods! ‘Which is it, pal? Did you see them go or didn’t you?’

  ‘Could be either.’

  Bugger; we were definitely verging on the philosophical here. ‘You care to choose one, maybe?’

  He stood up slowly. He topped me by a head and more than the corresponding width between the shoulders.

  ‘Look, sir,’ he said. ‘Strangers coming in I notice, right? That is my job, because if they don’t have no legit business they don’t go no further. You ask me about strangers coming in, I’ll tell you. I got a good memory for strangers coming in. Family going out, that’s a different thing. The master, the mistress, the kids, they’re in and out of here like a high priest in a brothel every fucking hour of every fucking day in the calendar. And when you’re a gate slave one fucking day is the same as another. So the answer where your seven days ago is concerned is I could’ve done. You get me?’

  I sighed. ‘Yeah, I get you, pal. Could’ve done it is.’

  ‘Fine.’ He sat down again. ‘So long as we’re clear about it. Have a nice day, sir.’

  Well, that was that. It would’ve been nice to have got a bit of corroboration, though, because when push came to shove I didn’t trust Astrapton more than half. Then again, maybe I was imagining things and the guy just had the ordinary guilty conscience natural to all creative accountants.

  Okay. Next stop the Three Elms to see if I could trace Titus’s pal Quintus Bellarius. It was getting on for half way through the day in any case, and I reckoned I was due a half jug of wine. Or maybe just a cup, unless they’d lowered their prices since last time.

  * * *

  It wasn’t far, just down the hill: a swanky place that you’d’ve taken for a private residence if it hadn’t been for the dozen-odd tables on the lawn and the waiters going back and forth with trays of food and drinks. We hadn’t quite hit the lunchtime spot yet, so apart from a couple of elderly narrow-stripers cornering the sylphium market between them I had the place to myself.

  A waiter came over. ‘Good morning, sir. What can I get you?’

  ‘A cup of your best Velletrian would do fine, pal,’ I said, pulling up a stool at the nearest table.

  His delicately-trimmed eyebrows lifted. ‘Just a cup?’

  ‘As ever is.’

  ‘Anything to eat?’

  ‘No, no, I’m fine.’

  ‘A cup of wine. Thank you, sir.’ He sniffed and turned to go.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. He turned back. ‘You happen to know someone by the name of Quintus Bellarius?’

  ‘Of course, sir. He’s a regular customer.’ With just the smidgeon of a stress on ‘regular’.

  ‘Know where I can find him?’

  ‘His father’s house is just down the hill. About two hundred yards, on the right.’

  Well, that couldn’t be handier. ‘Thanks, pal.’

  The Velletrian was as good as I remembered it. And as expensive. I took my time over it, then headed off towards the Bellarius place.

  * * *

  Quintus Bellarius was a little chubby guy who looked like he’d roll back up if you pushed him over. When the slave showed me through, he was sitting in a gazebo in the garden, holding a wax tablet and chewing on the blunt end of a stylus. His tunic was scruffier even than my own personal favourite that Perilla had unilaterally got rid of in one of her sporadic clothing purges, and its predominant colour was ink.

  Not in the running for Snappily-Dressed Playboy of the Month, then.

  ‘You don’t happen to know a two-syllable synonym for “besotted”, do you?’ he said before I’d even spoken.

  ‘Ah... “Stricken”?’

  He beamed and made a note on the tablet. ‘Yeah. “Stricken” is perfect. I like “stricken”. You’re a poet?’

  ‘Uh, uh. Not me. That’s my wife’s department.’

  ‘Your wife?’

  ‘Rufia Perilla. I’m -’

  He set the tablet down on the table beside him. ‘Wow! Ovidius Naso’s stepdaughter?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s her.’

  The slave who’d brought me was still hovering.

  ‘Callias, fetch us some wine, would you?’ Bellarius said to him. ‘And a stool for...?’ He looked at me inquiringly.

  ‘Corvinus. Valerius Corvinus.’

  The slave left.

  ‘You think you could give me an introduction?’ Bellarius said. ‘To your wife, I mean.’ He was practically salivating.

  I grinned. No ulterior motive there: the guy’s interest was purely artistic, I was sure of that. Definitely not your standard sharp lad about town, this one. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I could manage that.’

  ‘Great! Now. What was it you wanted again?’

  ‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me something about your friend Titus Luscius.’

  ‘Titus? What about him?’

  ‘You know he’s disappeared?’

  ‘How do you mean, “disappeared”?’

  I shrugged. ‘Just that. He left home seven days ago without telling anyone he was going, and he hasn’t been back since. His mother’s asked me to find him. You happen to know where he might be?’

  He was staring at me. ‘Not a clue.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’

  ‘We had a jug of wine together at the Three Elms. That’d be, what, about ten or twelve days ago. You say he told nobody?’

  ‘No one in the family, anyway.’

  ‘That’s not like Titus. He doesn’t get on with his stepfather, sure, but his mother and stepsister are a different thing altogether.’

  ‘He didn’t even drop any hints to you? When you last saw him, I mean.’

  ‘Uh-uh.’

  ‘And he didn’t seem, ah, worried about anything in particular? Or out of the ordinary in any way?’

  ‘No, he was fine. We just chatted, like we always do.’

  The slave came back with the stool and the wine tray. I sat down. The wine was Caecuban. Good Caecuban. I didn’t know what Bellarius Senior did for a living, but he obviously wasn’t short of a silver piece or two.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Let’s go over the possibilities. Where could he have gone? If, say, he’d had a bust-up with his stepfather and decided to leave home in a hurry.’

  He shot me a look. ‘That what happened?’

  ‘Probably. The bust-
up, certainly, the day before he left.’

  ‘Over the adoption business?’

  I nodded. ‘He told you about that?’

  ‘Oh, sure. That’d been going on for months. Years, even, practically since his mother’s wedding. Titus wasn’t having any of it. His stepfather’s a crook. Not just someone who’ll cut a corner to make a bit of extra profit, every businessman in Rome does that, my father included, but an actual crook. Titus has no time for him. He doesn’t want to be any more involved than he has to be.’

  Yeah, that’s what Sempronia had told me, and it was nice to have it confirmed. Speaking of which: ‘Ah... He gets on well with his stepsister, does he? Sempronia?’ I couldn’t break a confidence, but there was no harm in fishing.

  ‘Sure. In fact, from the way he talks about her I’d say better than well.’

  ‘He talks about her a lot, then?’

  Bellarius took a swallow of his wine before answering. ‘No. No, he doesn’t, hardly at all, which is pretty odd, really, particularly when he’s so upfront where his mother and Eutacticus are concerned. But when he does... Titus isn’t one for girls, Corvinus. Not that he’s the other way inclined, I don’t mean that at all, it’s just that he takes them too seriously.’ He grinned. ‘Unlike me. And if he is interested in Sempronia then I don’t blame him because by all accounts she’s a stunner. So I don’t pry, and when he gets a bit carried away over a cup or two of wine I just play dumb and change the subject. Right?’

  Right. Bellarius might not know a synonym for “besotted”, but ingénu or not the guy was no fool.

  ‘Besides, she’s engaged to Statius Liber, down in Beneventum. Which is a pity, really. I’ve met him – our fathers do a lot of deals together – and he’s a complete prat.’

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘Let’s get back to these possibilities. About where he might be.’

  ‘You could try his uncle Sextus. He heads an acting troupe, and Titus’s said more than once he wouldn’t mind joining up with them if things got too bad. I don’t know where you’d find him, though.’

  ‘Bacanae. I was there a couple of days ago. No luck.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry. That was my best shot. In fact, it was my only shot. Titus isn’t really your outgoing type, he doesn’t have any other relatives that I know of or even any particular friends apart from me. Certainly not one he’d ask to put him up if he left home.’