Trade Secrets

by David Wishart

  ‘That’s right.’ I waited until he came back with the flimsy. ‘Whose was the cargo?’

  ‘Captain Titus Nigrinus, yes.’ He ran his finger down the page. ‘A single-owner shipment. Eight hundred amphoras, which would be the ship’s full capacity. Five hundred of oil, three of wine. Belonging to a Marcus Correllius.’

  ‘What?’ I stared at him.

  Shit!

  TWELVE

  It was late when I got home, and Perilla had gone to bed. Bathyllus was still padding around, though, buffing up the brasses, and since I’d told him to have the furnace lit just in case I managed the trip in a oner, I was able to have a long, luxurious steam in the bath while he sweet-talked a tray-load of cold cuts out of Meton. The accompanying half jug of wine went in with me; after fourteen miles in the saddle on top of the previous fourteen, that was a priority.

  Not that I was going to do much thinking while I sweated; I’d had plenty of time for that on the ride back, and it’d got me absolutely nowhere. However you sliced it, the business with the amphoras just didn’t make sense. On the one hand, if it hadn’t happened, like the quay-master was convinced it hadn’t, then why had Tullius gone to the trouble of inventing it? Or, since the only evidence for it had come from Annia, why had she? And most important of all if it hadn’t happened, then why – leaving aside the interesting question of how he’d known I was shoving my nose into things in the first place – should my wineshop pal Nigrinus tail me and try to beat my brains out?

  So it must’ve happened. Only it couldn’t have …

  Then, of course, there was the matter of Correllius. That had been a facer, and no mistake, and it had come completely out of the blue. Like it or not – and Marilla would be crowing when she heard, I knew – the stabbing at the Pollio had become relevant with a vengeance. I’d have to look into the Correllius business after all.

  Bugger!

  Clearly, I wasn’t just missing a few pieces of the puzzle; I’d hardly touched the surface. Worse, I couldn’t even make out the overall picture any more. Ah, hell. We’d just have to see whether Agron came up with an address for this Siddius guy. Meanwhile, I reckoned another talk with Annia was in order. Plus, of course, a visit to Decimus Lippillus in Tuscan Street for an update on the Correllius case. If he had anything new at all, that was.

  Bathyllus had laid the cold cuts and sundries out on the dining-room table for me, but after the bath and the wine I was too knackered to eat them. I dragged my still-stiff-and-saddle-sore carcase up to bed and crashed out.

  The bath must’ve done some good, mind, because although I was late up the next morning – even later than Perilla, let alone the kids, who were long gone on their day’s junketing by the time I surfaced – I wasn’t suffering too many ill effects. I had a good breakfast, brought the lady up to date with things as far as that was possible, particularly re the Correllius business, and set out for Ardeatina Gate Street …

  Or at least I started to.

  I was just in time to see the sign-painter who’d been working on next door’s garden wall pack up his paint pot, brushes, and ladder. He gave me a friendly nod and went off whistling down the street.

  Odd. It wasn’t election time, nor were we on the main drag where graffiti artists use your property as a billboard to tell the world about their current loves and hates. Besides, these bastards usually work unsocial hours. There hadn’t been anything clandestine about this guy; quite the reverse.

  Just out of curiosity, I went over to see what he’d been writing. In letters two feet high, the inscription read:

  MY NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR IS A CAT-KILLER

  Oh, shit. I went back inside and through to the dining room, where Perilla was just spreading her third roll with honey.

  ‘I’m afraid the, uh, feud with the Petillius household seems to have racked up another notch, lady,’ I said.

  She looked up, startled.

  ‘What?’

  I told her.

  ‘But that’s ridiculous! Can he do that?’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s his wall.’

  ‘It’s also defamation.’

  ‘Sure it is. On the other hand, if I go down to the city judge’s office and bring an action, I’m going to look pretty silly, aren’t I? Leaving aside the fact that to take the bugger to court would be a declaration of out-and-out war.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘What can we do? Send Bathyllus out under cover of darkness with a brush and a bucket of whitewash? That’d be almost as bad, especially if he got caught.’

  ‘The whole thing’s just silly!’

  I sighed. ‘Yeah. No arguments there. But you know Petillius and Tyndaris; they aren’t rational. Me, I’d be inclined just to ignore it, let things blow over.’ I kissed her. ‘Anyway, I’ve got other fish to fry at present. I’ll see you later.’

  It was raining slightly when I came back out: May in Rome can be a pretty unsettled month, and although we’d been lucky so far there’d been some wet days earlier on. Still, it wasn’t too bad, and although Ardeatina Gate Street was a fair hike I reckoned I’d do well enough with my ordinary cloak. As it was, by the time I’d reached the edge of the Caelian ridge and was on the downhill slope towards the Metrovian Gate the sky had cleared and the sun was out again. Good walking weather.

  I knocked on Annia’s door and the door-slave took me through to where the lady was sitting in the atrium. She was alone: no brother this time, which made a pleasant change.

  ‘Back again, Corvinus?’ she said. ‘I understood you were going down to Ostia.’

  I pulled up a stool and sat down. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I was. I did, yesterday.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Funny thing, that. According to the quay-master in charge of the wharf where your husband was supervising that shipment that day there was no accident at all.’

  She frowned. ‘That’s nonsense! There must’ve been!’

  I’d deliberately hit her with it point-blank, and the puzzled look on her face seemed genuine enough. Even so—

  ‘He’s absolutely certain,’ I said. ‘And, believe me, lady, if there had been then he’d’ve known. These things all get reported, seemingly.’

  ‘But Gaius told me distinctly! He wouldn’t’ve made something like that up. I mean, why should he?’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘It’s an oddity. You care to go over again just what your husband said? Exactly, word for word, if you can.’

  ‘If you want me to.’ She took a moment to think. ‘He said he was walking along the quay towards the bit at the end where the ship carrying his cargo was berthed. While he was about to pass another ship that was being loaded the crane that was doing it dropped a netful of amphoras right in front of him. I said something fatuous like, “Good heavens, you might’ve been killed!” and he laughed and said, “No, I was just lucky, that’s all.” And then he changed the subject and asked me how my day had been.’

  I played the words back in my head, but they still didn’t make sense.

  ‘Hang on, lady,’ I said. ‘He said, “No”. You’re sure about that? “No”, not “Yes”?’

  ‘That’s right. “No, I was just lucky”. I remember thinking was a bit strange at the time, but it was clear what he meant.’

  Strange was right, and the more you thought about it the stranger it got. I filed the problem for later reference. ‘The chances are that the other ship was called the Porpoise. Ring any bells?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How about the name Nigrinus?’

  ‘No, I’ve never heard of him. Who’s Nigrinus?’

  ‘The Porpoise’s captain. It doesn’t matter. How about Correllius? Marcus Correllius?’ She shook her head. Again, there hadn’t been the slightest twitch of an eyelid. ‘Fair enough. Leave it. Another strange thing. Your husband’s partner, Poetelius. He told me he didn’t know anything about the incident.’

  ‘Did he?’ Annia didn’t sound too surprised, or indeed interested. ‘Well, that’s no great wonder. Gaius and
Publius didn’t have very much to say to each other outside actual business, from what I understood.’ She got up. ‘But I’m being inhospitable, Corvinus. I’ll have Timon bring you a cup of wine.’

  ‘No, that’s OK, lady.’ I got up too. ‘I only dropped in. I have to be getting on.’

  I needed to think.

  I might as well go over to Tuscan Street, while I was at it, see if Lippillus was around. That meant going back up Ardeatina, cutting left onto the Appian Road, then along the Palatine side of the Racetrack. Which was what I started to do.

  There’d been another change in the weather, very much for the worse; black clouds were moving in from the west, and the first drops of rain were falling. Big ones, too. Bugger. The detour was possibly a mistake after all: the centre was a long way off, and this wasn’t good wineshop country. I wrapped myself in my cloak and headed as fast as I could towards the Appian junction.

  Five minutes later, the heavens opened good and proper and the rain came battering down as if Jupiter had opened the celestial stopcock as far as it would go. What pedestrians there were – and there weren’t many of them – were running for cover. The downpour wouldn’t last, sure, but in the meantime I was getting soaked. There was a stonemason’s yard just up ahead, with a roofed-over section for the carts. I put up the hood of my cloak and made a dash for it.

  I wasn’t alone. A punter behind me had obviously had the same idea, and we both reached it together. Once inside, I took off my waterlogged cloak to shake it out.

  ‘Lucky this place was here, pal, right?’ I said to the guy. ‘Another couple of minutes and—’

  Which was as far as I got before he went for me. I just managed to bring my cloak round before the knife he was holding drove at my stomach and the hood fell back from his face.

  Nigrinus.

  There was no time for niceties. It was a heavy cloak, made heavier by a couple of gallons of rainwater. When the knife went through it I threw myself to one side and let it fall over his arm, tangling round it in a sodden bundle, then piled in hard with my full weight while he was off-balance. We went over together, with me on top, and things got pretty busy for a while, mostly where I was concerned involving a desperate effort to keep the bastard’s knife-arm immobile with my left hand while I tried to force his windpipe through the back of his neck with my right.

  Not that I was having much success either way. The guy had muscles like rocks held together with steel cables, and he plainly wanted me dead. It was only a matter of time …

  ‘Hey! What’s going on there?’

  I glanced up and round. A couple of seriously beefy guys – obviously the proprietor himself and one of his slaves – were coming towards us from further in in the yard. They were carrying hammers, and they didn’t look happy. With a sudden effort, Nigrinus heaved me off and stood up. I thought he’d try to knife me again – I could see him thinking of it – but his hand and arm were still tangled with the cloak, and the guys with the hammers had broken into a run. He took to his heels.

  ‘You all right, mate?’ the proprietor said to me as I picked myself up.

  ‘Sure. No permanent damage.’ I looked towards the road, but Nigrinus was long gone. ‘Thanks, pal. Things were getting pretty bad there for a minute.’

  ‘What the hell happened?’

  ‘Robber. After my purse. I caught him at it and he turned nasty.’

  ‘A robber? In broad daylight?’

  ‘Yeah, well. Maybe they work shifts.’

  He gave me a nervous look. ‘Uh … right. Right. Well, so long as you’re OK that’s all that matters. We’ll be getting back to work.’

  ‘Thanks again,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ the stonemason said.

  They left, quickly.

  Lippillus was at his desk, writing what was presumably a report. There was a stack of note tablets at his elbow. Yeah, well, he’d said he was snowed under at present. The joys of being a Watch Commander in the modern Watch.

  ‘Oh, hello, Marcus,’ he said absently. ‘Be with you in a minute. How do you spell “concupiscent”?’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Fair enough. Pull up a stool.’ He wrote on for another couple of minutes, then looked up.

  His eyes widened.

  ‘What the hell happened to you?’ he said.

  ‘A brush with a guy by the name of Sextus Nigrinus. Long story.’

  ‘Part of the current case?’

  ‘Yeah. Very much so, although how he fits in I don’t know yet. He’s an Ostian. At least, that’s where he’s based.’

  ‘Is he, now?’ Lippillus put the pen down. ‘Interesting.’

  ‘More interesting than you know, pal. It turns out that your Marcus Correllius was the person shipping the amphoras that nearly fell on top of my victim at the Ostia docks, three days before he was actually murdered.’

  ‘What?’

  I told him the story; at least, the relevant bits. ‘You got any more information from your side?’

  ‘Yeah, actually. I was going to send you it,’ he said, ‘but I thought there wasn’t any real hurry. We’ve a witness to the stabbing after all, at least we probably have; a lady’s maid by the name of Picentina. Mistress was occupied in the Danaid Porch, seemingly, and she’d sent the girl out into the garden while she got on with things.’ Right; no prizes for guessing what the ‘things’ would entail: the Danaid Porch next to the Pollio is one of Rome’s principal pick-up points, where your better class of would-be adulterers and adulteresses troll for prospective soul-mates. ‘We got her through a complete fluke. The mistress had lost an earring in the Porch and she’d sent the girl to ask at the library desk if it’d been handed in. The freedman on duty was smart enough to check with her on our behalf whether she’d seen anything, and that was that. Not that I’ve had time to interview the girl properly yet.’ He indicated the pile of note tablets. ‘As you can see.’

  ‘That’s OK. I can do it for you, if you like. You got an address?’

  ‘The mistress’s name is Publilia Clementa. Married to a Turius Gratus, with a house not all that far from your place. On the edge of the Carinae, just past the Head of Africa junction with the Sacred Way.’

  ‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘How about Correllius’s address in Ostia?’

  ‘You’re going back over there?’

  ‘Seems I’ll have to now, doesn’t it?’ And for much longer, this time. Which meant bunking down for the duration on Agron’s floor. Bugger!

  ‘Fine. Like I said, the family property’s on the Hinge, about halfway between the Market Square and the Laurentian Gate.’

  ‘Got you,’ I said. ‘Family, you say?’

  ‘According to Mercurius – that’s the slave Correllius had with him, if you remember – he has a wife called Mamilia. That’s all I’ve got, I’m afraid.’

  ‘No problem. It’ll do to be going on with, anyway.’ I stood up. ‘In the meantime, anything else and you know where to find me.’

  ‘Sure,’ Lippillus said. ‘Good luck, Marcus.’

  At least when I went back outside the weather had improved. Not that it mattered much: what with one thing and another, both my cloak and my tunic were pretty well sodden, and caked with mud into the bargain. Before I did anything else a complete change of clothes was called for.

  I set off back to the Caelian.

  THIRTEEN

  ‘But how did he know?’ Perilla asked when I told her about Nigrinus and we’d gone through the usual Oh-Marcus-you-could’ve-been-killed routine. Me, so long as I come out the other end of things with all my bits still in working order, I’m pretty good about being attacked. It shows I’m doing something right somewhere. Not that it’s too pleasant at the time, mind. ‘How to find you, I mean,’ she added.

  I’d changed out of the soaking, mud-stained tunic and was stretched out on the couch with a restorative cup of the Special. When he’d seen the condition my cloak was in – Nigrinus had dropped it when he ran, and it’d been lying in the
gutter further up the street – Bathyllus had sniffed and consigned it to the rag-bag. A pity: I’d liked that cloak.

  ‘Yeah, good question,’ I said. I’d wondered about that myself. Seriously wondered. ‘Oh, sure, the Ostia side of things could’ve been accidental. The guy works at the docks there, so it’s just possible that he could’ve got wind of a nosey purple-striper from Rome asking awkward questions and trailed me to the wineshop. The business in Ardeatina Gate Street, though, that’s a different thing altogether. He couldn’t’ve tracked me there from Ostia off his own bat, no way.’

  ‘You mean he was acting on instructions from someone in Rome.’

  ‘And on information received. Yeah. It’s the only logical explanation. It’d still be tricky, mind, and it’d involve some fancy footwork, but it’s feasible. X in Rome – could be Annia, could be the brother, could be Poetelius, or a combination – knows I’m going to Ostia, and that the chances are I’ll stumble across the connection with the Porpoise, which for reasons unknown they really, really don’t want me to do. So they—’

  ‘Hold on, Marcus! I’ll allow you Annia and her brother, yes, but not Poetelius. He didn’t know you intended going to Ostia at all.’

  ‘Sure he did. Maybe not when, but he knew I knew about the accident, and he knew I’d be looking into it. That’d be enough. So X sends to Nigrinus, warning him that I’m coming, telling him to look out for me and to take appropriate action.’

  ‘It still doesn’t explain how this Nigrinus knew you’d be over at Ardeatina Gate Street this morning.’

  I shrugged. ‘I gave Annia my address right at the start, and either of the other two could’ve got it from her easily enough, even if she isn’t involved herself. Given that X’s instructions to Nigrinus were to follow things through at the Rome end if need be – which they must’ve been – that’d be all he’d need to be able to tail me. Then it’d just be a case of jumping me and finishing the job the first chance he got.’

  ‘Do you think Annia is involved?’

  Yeah, that was the question I’d been asking myself, and I still didn’t have a definite answer.