No Cause for Concern

by David Wishart

  Well, I’d hardly been expecting him to come up with an admission. And if he was guilty – the jury was still well and truly out on that one – then I reckoned that as far as bars-rattling went I’d done a pretty good job. I got up, thanked him politely for his time, and pissed off.

  * * *

  The sun was into its third quarter when I came down Patricius Incline to the main drag. There was no point in rushing straight home, and besides a bit of quiet contemplation and retrenching was in order. Not to mention a light lunch: I’d skipped breakfast, and after walking across half of Rome my tongue was hanging out. So I found a little wineshop tucked away in a courtyard off Staurus Street and settled in with a half-jug of Praetutian, some Picenan bread and a plateful of goat’s cheese and olives.

  Right; so what had we got? More exactly, what hadn’t we got? Bars-rattling was all very well, but the Larus angle hadn’t proved too promising, to say the least. Publilius had been a crook, sure, but he was small-time and by his lights he’d struck me as honest enough; if we were looking for a destination for Astraptus’s crates then I’d bet a fairly hefty sum that he wasn’t it. He had too much to lose for a start; like Eutacticus had said, anyone who was on the shady side of things wouldn’t touch Astrapton with a bargepole, because they’d know that however big and tempting their cut of the deal was when Eutacticus found out they’d be swimming the Tiber with concrete sandals. My guess was that this Larus was an innocent who didn’t know what he was into, a shipper or a carter that Astrapton had contracted to transfer the goodies to a safe location, probably using a false name as well as the false description of the crates’ contents. In which case the chances of finding him were practically zilch: Rome and Ostia are full of small entrepreneurs who’ll gladly take on orders where not much actual bulk’s involved, and who wouldn’t ask too many questions so long as they get their money upfront, because why should they? All this assuming, of course, that Larus was a real name and not one that Astrapton had used for his own reference, avoiding the actual one for reasons of security and maybe even choosing it deliberately to point anyone snooping in the wrong direction, so that even ‘practically zilch’ was an optimistic assessment...

  Bugger. The more I thought about it the worse it got.

  Paetinius, though, was another matter. That guy I wouldn’t’ve trusted as far as I could spit, because as far as helping Astrapton to squirrel away his ill-gotten gains was concerned he had motive, means and opportunity in spades. For a start, he hated Eutacticus like poison, and making things easy for his accountant to smuggle a couple of million sesterces’-worth of bullion out from under his nose would’ve tickled his questionable sense of humour no end. Second, who else would Astrapton turn to? He’s working for the guy already, so he’s the natural choice; and if Paetinius didn’t object to his protégé doing a bit of moonlighting – which I’d bet he wouldn’t – he couldn’t do any better, because Paetinius would have the contacts to make the thing happen. And it would be yet another reason, besides the security aspect of things, for Paetinius to stiff him: if he knew what Astrapton had done with the money, then once the guy was safely dead he could collect himself and be another two million up on the deal.

  For much the same reasons I didn’t put too much credence into his denial of involvement in Luscius’s death, either: for him and his son to be responsible fitted both the facts and the theory like a glove. And that he wouldn’t’ve admitted to, never, no way, nohow. Screwing a competitor financially is one thing; however much Eutacticus foamed at the mouth and cursed the guy blue, he’d accepted that it’d been just in the way of business, or whatever you like to call it. But murdering one of the guy’s family was a whole different ball game. I’d heard Eutacticus on the subject, and if I’d gone back to him to report that Paetinius had admitted having Luscius killed it would’ve been war to the knife. Paetinius wouldn’t risk that, no matter how confident he was that he could look after himself.

  So Paetinius – or rather the Paetinii, father and son – were still firmly in the frame, and currently the only game in town. What I needed, though, was proof, and that was the bugger because I hadn’t the least idea how to get it.

  Ah, well. No doubt things would work out in the end. And Perilla might have some thoughts on the subject.

  I finished off the wine and nibbles – not too impressive, either of them; I wouldn’t be revisiting this place – and headed back to the Caelian.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  When I got home, the lady was pacing the atrium and fizzing. In her best togs, too.

  ‘Marcus, where have you been?’ she snapped.

  ‘Uh…’

  ‘You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?’

  ‘Forgotten what?’

  ‘Dinner with Lippillus and Marcina, of course.’

  Oh, hell. She’d got me bang to rights. It’d been arranged a month ago, Meton squared and everything. We didn’t go out much, but dinner with my Watch pal Decimus Lippillus and his wife, either at their place or ours, was a regular event. And this time it was at their place on the Aventine, which made matters worse because we’d have to get there.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, lady,’ I said. ‘Things intervened.’

  ‘Well, you’re here now. You’ve no time for a bath, just a quick wash and brush up. I’ve told Bathyllus to lay out a clean party mantle, and the litter’s ready and waiting. We can still make it if you hurry.’

  ‘What about Agron and Cass?’ My other long-term pal, the big Illyrian and his Alexandrian-Greek wife Cassiopeia, who’d been invited as well. Like they always did when they came up to Rome, they’d be staying over with us.

  ‘They arrived hours ago and went on ahead. Now move!’

  I moved.

  * * *

  We made it with nothing to spare, the litter-slaves pulling up outside Lippillus’s tenement, nostrils flaring and sweating like thoroughbreds. Not that I had much sympathy for the bastards: they weren’t exactly overworked, and all of them could use a couple of inches off the waistline.

  The tenement was new, built for the upper end of the market, and Lippillus had only just moved in, so this was the first time I’d seen the place. He’d done a deal with the owner for a long lease on two first-floor apartments, and used his Watch Commander contacts with the city’s Department of Buildings and Public Works to convert them into a single flat with more going for it than you usually find, even in first-floor top-of-the-range properties. No internal plumbing, of course, but at least from what the guy had told me there was more than enough room to swing a cat, which was rare in any tenement block, and the architect had even managed a small kitchen. Considering that there were no kids to complicate matters – unlike the situation at Agron and Cass’s place in Ostia, where they were five up and counting – he and Marcina were pretty well set up.

  We climbed the stairs. Lippillus must’ve been watching from the window, because the front door was open and he was waiting for us.

  ‘Hey, Marcus, how’s the boy?’ he said.

  ‘Not bad.’ I handed him the jar of Setinian I’d brought with me. ‘Housewarming present.’

  He beamed: Lippillus was almost as fond of a good wine as I was, but Watch Commanders’ pay doesn’t stretch to jars of the top-grade stuff. ‘You mind if we don’t open it now? Only Agron’s brought along a jar he and Cass got from one of his brothers-in-law, and I’ve got some of that ready mixed. From a vineyard near Massilia.’

  ‘No problem, pal.’ I’d mental reservations, sure – Agron’s thing was cheese, not wine, and neither he nor Cass were serious wine drinkers – but a guest doesn’t dictate what booze his host serves. Besides, I’m always up to try something new, and Gallic wines in general were coming along nicely, as long as they travelled.

  ‘And these are for Marcina.’ Perilla, a step or two behind me, had been carrying a tray of custard pastries with glazed fruit and nuts on top. ‘Meton made them specially, from a Syrian recipe he’s been meaning to try.’ Marcina, like Cass, had a sweet t
ooth, although unlike in Cass’s case the consequences didn’t show: Marcina Paullina could still’ve modelled for Praxiteles’s Athena, easy. Not just round the waist, either.

  ‘Great!’ Lippillus kissed her on both cheeks. ‘We can have them for dessert. You could use Marcina’s pastries for doorstops. Come on in.’

  We did. The living-cum-dining-room wasn’t big, but this was a tenement flat after all, and with what had been a couple of the original partition walls taken away there was more than enough floor space for the usual three couches and central table. Agron and Cass were stretched out on one of the couches with wine cups in front of them, and the starters were already in place.

  ‘Hi, Corvinus,’ Agron said. ‘You made it, then?’

  ‘On two wheels. Eight feet, rather. My fault entirely.’

  ‘Marcina’s in the kitchen putting the final touches to the main course,’ Lippillus said. ‘You want to take that tray straight through to her, Perilla? We’re just about ready to eat.’

  ‘Yeah. I’m sorry about that, pal.’ I lay down on the other side couch. ‘Something came up.’

  ‘A case?’ Lippillus was ladling wine from the mixing bowl on another table to the side into a third cup. He handed it to me. ‘Here. See what you think.’

  I sipped. Not bad; not bad at all. Not quite Alban standard, but close. Very close. ‘I’m impressed.’

  Agron grinned. ‘Cass’s brother Timon had it as a gift from a customer,’ he said. ‘The guy deals in kitchenware, mostly, but he knows his wines and he owns a small vineyard just north of Massilia. Not a commercial setup, just for his own use, so he can afford to concentrate on quality. Surrentine vines, yoke trussing, low yield. We did a deal over a repair job.’

  Yeah, that made sense: what with Ostia’s shipping trade in decline, Agron’s carpentry business mostly dealt in carts these days, but Cass’s family had been involved with ship-building and ships in general for generations and ship repairs were still an occasional sideline. Particularly where family was concerned. Timon, I knew, like most of Cass’s considerable number of male siblings and cousins in both Ostia and Alexandria, was in the shipping trade itself, and deals in that direction tended to be in kind and/or favours owed rather than cash.

  Lippillus filled a cup for himself and lay down on the top couch. ‘So,’ he said. ‘What’s the case?’

  I gave him the basic rundown. He frowned when I mentioned Eutacticus – organised crime bosses aren’t exactly flavour of the month with Watch Commanders, particularly when they double as clients – but he didn’t comment. ‘That’s about as far as I’ve got at present,’ I finished. ‘The Paetinii are in it up to their eyeballs, that I’d swear to, but proving it’s another matter.’

  ‘It adds up, certainly. I don’t know anything about the son, barring that he’s in with a pretty fast set socially, but Paetinius Senior’s no wide-eyed innocent, that’s for sure.’ Lippillus chewed on a stuffed olive. ‘And he may not be quite in Sempronius Eutacticus’s league yet, but he’s getting there fast. If you do manage to nail him, Marcus, I’d be very interested. And, of course, anything I can do to help just let me know.’

  ‘There is something,’ I said. ‘It may not be important, because as far as I know it has nothing directly to do either with the Paetinii or with young Luscius’s death, but it’s the only lead I’ve got at present and I may as well chase it. The dead accountant. Astrapton. He left a record of a contact he was using to squirrel away the bullion he’d been creaming off the top of Eutacticus’s profits. Or at least I think that’s how it worked, assuming it isn’t a false trail. Name of Larus. Ring any bells?’

  ‘“Seagull”? No, not offhand, although I can ask around. Leave it with me.’

  ‘You’re sure he’s a person, Corvinus?’ Agron said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Only Seagull’s a common name for a boat.’

  Everything went very still. ‘Is that so, now?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. In Ostia, anyway.’

  Oh, gods! ‘You happen to know of any in particular?’

  ‘Sure. A good dozen, at least.’

  Bugger. Still, it was a start, and I felt the first prickle of excitement. ‘Could you make me a list?’

  ‘Hold on. It’s not that bad. You’re talking merchantmen, right? Not small fishing boats?’ I nodded; for this to work it would have to be a merchantman, big enough to carry crates, at least. ‘Going where?’

  I shrugged. ‘Pass. Does it matter?’

  ‘It would narrow the field. Most have their own routes, and they tend to stick to them. South along the coast or across to Gaul and Spain are the usual ones. To the south as far as Sicily, maybe even Mauretania and Africa, although barring grain barges most of the real long-distance ships work out of Puteoli. If you don’t have a destination I can think of two possibles. For Ostia, at least.’

  ‘Three,’ Cass said.

  Hey, great! Three I could live with. ‘Namely?’

  ‘Titus Secundus, for one. He works the Tyrrhenian circuit. Corsica, Sardinia, down to Lilybaeum and Panormus then back home via Naples. Then there’s Gaius Imber. He’s Massilia/New Carthage, like Timon.’ He turned to Cass. ‘Who’s your third, love?’

  ‘Gaius Florus.’

  Agron nodded. ‘Old Florus. Right. I’d forgotten him. He’s practically retired. He used to work the Sicily route until he lost his son in a storm off Cape Peloris, but he does mostly inshore work on the northern side now, up as far as Genua.’

  Yeah, well; all three sounded fair bets. Certainly Genua, Sicily and the coasts of Gaul and Spain would all be far enough away from Rome and Eutacticus to provide Astrapton with a reasonably secure bolt-hole for whenever he wanted to use it, particularly since getting his loot to any one of them need only have been the first step to disappearing into the tall timber. That was always assuming I wasn’t chasing moonbeams here to begin with, naturally, or that as far as Titus Luscius’s murder was concerned finding Larus – the Larus – wasn’t irrelevant. But you have to make certain assumptions, and like I said as leads went it was the only game in town at present. I couldn’t afford to be picky, and I’ve always believed in the maxim that if you keep digging then sooner or later you’re bound to turn something up.

  Besides, I’d got an itch at the back of my neck, and that’d always been a good sign.

  ‘So how would I find these guys?’ I said. ‘They in port currently?’

  ‘That I don’t know. I can find out, sure, and if they are I can talk to them myself, but it’d take time, I wouldn’t know what questions to ask, and I’d have to get back to you. It’s likely enough, though, because there’s less than a month of the sailing season still to run, so if any of the three of them haven’t actually made their last round trip of the year already they’ll be on the inward leg. But if you’re really interested then the best plan would be to come down to Ostia yourself and stay on until you’ve got what you need.’

  ‘We can put you up,’ Cass said. ‘It’d be no trouble.’

  ‘Ah –’

  Agron grinned. ‘Not at the flat, Corvinus. I wouldn’t do that to you. The family upstairs from us has just moved to Capua, and we haven’t found replacements yet. You could use that, and welcome. It’s no palace, but it’s clean and furnished.’

  I breathed a mental sigh of relief. Bunking down in a tenement I didn’t mind, particularly in the short term – I’d done it before, years back, in Aelius Sejanus’s time, and for a lot longer than a few days – but just the thought of sharing a flat sine die with five screaming kids brought me out in a cold sweat. I wouldn’t be exactly slumming it, either: Cass, as the tenement’s live-in owner, had pretty exacting standards where conditions and the choice of tenants were concerned. The outgoing family would’ve been vetted from the start six ways from nothing, and if they’d been allowed to leave the place in anything but pristine condition I’d eat my sandals.

  ‘Fine, pal,’ I said. ‘I might well just take you up on that.’

  …which
was when Marcina and Perilla came back in from their mini kitchen klatch, and I had to drop the subject for the duration. Don’t ask me why, because it makes no sense, but the lady has a deep-seated aversion to talking murder at dinner parties, and if she’d caught me at it there would’ve been hell to pay later. Lippillus would’ve got it in the neck, too, from Marcina, for allowing it.

  Still, things were moving again. Or at least I hoped they were.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  We’d just settled down to breakfast on the terrace the next morning – Agron and Cass were staying over for another couple of days – when Bathyllus buttled in to say I had a visitor.

  Oh, shit: Laughing George again. Didn’t that guy work regular hours like everyone else? ‘Okay, little guy,’ I said wearily. ‘Show him through.’

  But it wasn’t Satrius this time. It was Sempronia’s maid.

  She was looking more scrunched-up than ever: a little mouse of a girl who radiated apology for existing. She followed Bathyllus through the folding doors like she was going to her own execution and stood beside the table, eyes lowered and silent.

  ‘Uh…Cleo, isn’t it?’ I said.

  ‘Cleia, sir.’ I hadn’t heard her speak before, and her voice was as quiet and mousey as the rest of her.

  ‘Right. Sorry.’ Perilla was looking at me with amusement. Agron and Cass were just looking. ‘So what can I do for you?’

  ‘It’s difficult, sir. If I could just talk to you in private?’

  ‘Sure. No problem.’ I got up. ‘We’ll go inside.’

  I took her arm – she was shivering – , led her into the atrium and plonked her down on the nearest couch.

  ‘Now,’ I said. ‘What is it? A message from your mistress?’

  ‘No, sir. At least, she did send me, but it’s something I had to tell you myself.’