Trade Secrets

by David Wishart

  ‘What is it, Marcus?’ Perilla said.

  The niggle at the edge of my mind was back, and this time it’d had something to say for itself. I shook my head. ‘Nothing. Just an idea. Or half of one, if that. Forget it; it’ll wait until I’ve talked to our cack-handed crane operator.’

  Fundanius and Publius Doccius, eh?

  Hmm.

  There was still plenty of the afternoon left when we arrived at the stonemason’s yard. Like Agron had said, it was just down the road a shade from his place, in the town’s top right-hand corner near the river, where a lot of the commercial enterprises are located: handy for trans-shipping the stone, and not all that far from the Roman Gate and the Appian Road beyond with its flanking line of roadside tombs where most of it would finally end up.

  ‘You need me any longer?’ Agron said.

  ‘No, that’s OK, pal.’ He was obviously anxious to get on, and unlike me he had a living to earn. ‘Thanks a lot. Dinner in a couple of days, all right? I’ll ask Meton to do fish.’

  ‘Great.’ He walked off, and I went through the yard gates.

  Obviously a thriving business, this: there were at least half a dozen workmen busy on pieces of stonework in various shapes and sizes and a good few finished slabs and pillars waiting for delivery or purchase by the end-users’ heirs. Monumental sculptors’ yards have always seemed pretty sad places to me; your average concern is stocked with ready-made tombstones showing tradesmen or shopkeepers going about their everyday business or kids playing with their goat-carts, with an empty space underneath for the inscription to be added. The thing is, said tradesmen and kids are currently still alive and breathing, not knowing that their own personal tombstone is sitting there waiting for them.

  Sad, like I say. Sad, and just a smidgeon eerie. The thought of it sends a shiver down my spine every time.

  Still, the guys who work there don’t seem to mind. I buttonholed the nearest workman, who was chipping out the already-lined-in inscription on a tombstone showing a cutler standing in front of a rack of his wares. He was humming to himself while he did it; evidently a man happy in his work.

  ‘Excuse me, friend,’ I said. He stopped humming and looked up. ‘You happen to have a Gaius Siddius working here?’

  ‘Siddius?’ he said sourly. ‘Sure. If you can call it working. That’s him over there.’ He nodded in the direction of a weedy unshaven runt in a threadbare tunic who was sitting on a block of dressed stone drinking from a leather flask. ‘Skiving off like he usually does when the boss isn’t around.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. I went over. The guy looked up and lowered the flask.

  ‘Your name Siddius?’ I said to him.

  He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘What if it is?’ he said.

  ‘No hassle, pal. I just wanted to ask you a few questions.’

  ‘I’m on my break.’

  I sighed. So, it was going to be like that, was it? I pulled out my purse, opened it, and took out a couple of silver pieces. His eyes followed every move, and he put the flask down.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’m Siddius. Questions about what?’

  ‘You used to work as a crane man at the docks, right? Until twelve or thirteen days back. Quay Twenty-five.’

  ‘Yeah, I did. So?’

  I added another silver piece. ‘There was an accident the day before you left. You dropped a load of amphoras.’

  He scowled. ‘What the hell is this?’ he said. ‘You from the port office? Because if you are, you can—’

  ‘No. I told you. No hassle. I’m just checking something out privately. Someone almost got hit. Name of Gaius Tullius.’

  I was watching his expression. Wary; definitely wary, and his eyes flickered. Then he laughed. ‘Almost hit, nothing,’ he said. ‘The bastard was nowhere near me. He was a dozen yards up the quay.’

  Uh-huh. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Sure I’m sure. The accident happened, no point in denying it, it’s no skin off my nose now, but if he’s a friend of yours trying it on with a claim then he’s lying through his teeth.’

  ‘The ship you were loading was the Porpoise. Master Titus Nigrinus.’ This time the flicker was unmistakable. ‘You know him?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said grudgingly. ‘I know Nigrinus. He’s a regular. And it might’ve been the Porpoise right enough, for all I remember.’ His eyes went to the purse, and to the silver pieces I was holding in my other hand. I added another couple. ‘So what?’

  ‘So there’s one thing puzzling me, pal,’ I said. ‘According to the clerk in the harbour office the Porpoise’s cargo was oil and wine. Drop a few amphoras of that on the quay and it’d make quite a mess. Only I talked to the quay-master and he said there was no sign of one. And that there’d been no accident at all, at least none that was reported, either by you or by Nigrinus. You care to explain, maybe?’

  Siddius licked his lips. He looked round nervously. ‘That depends,’ he said.

  ‘Depends on what?’ I tipped out more coins into my palm. One of them was a half gold piece. His eyes went to it and stayed there, and he licked his lips again.

  ‘No hassle, you say?’ he said.

  ‘None at all. Cross my heart.’ I jingled the coins absently. There was enough money there to keep him drunk for the rest of the month. Even so, he was hesitating, which, if my theory was right, made a lot of sense.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll make it easy for you. I’ll tell you what I think the explanation was. All you have to do is say whether I’m right or wrong, and we’ll take it from there. Deal?’

  He swallowed. ‘Deal.’

  ‘There was no mess because there was nothing to make it. The amphoras were empty. Throw the broken bits over the side, and everything’s neat and tidy again. And Captain Nigrinus wasn’t likely to kick up a fuss with the authorities, was he, because he knew damn well that there was no oil or wine there to begin with.’

  Another swallow. Then, slowly, Siddius nodded. ‘That’s more or less it, yeah,’ he said. ‘Not spot on, but more or less.’

  Glory and trumpets! I kept my face straight.

  ‘Only,’ I said, ‘you’d’ve had to know that too, wouldn’t you? A load of empty amphoras hanging at the end of your crane-hook’d feel a lot different from a load of full ones.’

  ‘Yeah, they would.’ He grinned. ‘Only the buggers weren’t empty, were they? They’d been filled with water. So I didn’t know they was dodgy until they smashed, did I, clever Dick?’

  Well, at least he was talking, and the precise detail didn’t matter much; in fact, if the amphoras had been full it made more sense. At any rate, the theory held good, in spades.

  ‘What about the water?’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t somebody notice that?’

  He shrugged. ‘Been raining that morning, hadn’t it, so the quay was wet in any case. Nothing to notice, except if you were there at the time. I had that crooked bastard Nigrinus over a barrel. How he managed the switch or swung things in the first place, I don’t know and I don’t care, but it was a pretty good scam. Contract for a big consignment, swap the amphoras for ringers, load them onto a leaky tub like the Porpoise that’s long overdue for the breaker’s yard, stage a fake accident, and you’re laughing.’ He gave me a sharp look. ‘The Porpoise went down, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yeah. Just off the Corsican coast.’

  ‘And the crew got ashore safe?’

  ‘Yeah, they did.’

  He nodded with satisfaction. ‘There you are, then. The perfect scam. No one’s crying but the guy who owned the original cargo, and you may be down one leaky old tub but you’re up eight hundred amphoras’ worth of oil and wine.’ He frowned. ‘Mind you, it’d take a lot of organizing. Just the shifting and storing would be a major job, big-time stuff. I wouldn’t’ve thought Nigrinus’d be up to that. You live and learn.’

  Yeah, I’d agree. Still, I had my own thoughts on that score.

  ‘The cargo’s owner was Marcus Correllius, right?’ I said.

 
; ‘Yeah. He didn’t handle things himself, mind. Guy’s too ill to involve himself much with everyday business these days, or so I hear. He left the nitty-gritty to his manager, Publius Doccius. Now there’s a real hard bastard. If Nigrinus was putting one over on him then no wonder he was sweating when I dropped the load.’

  Bullseye! ‘Doccius wasn’t there himself at the time?’

  ‘Nah. Saw the loading started, then buggered off to the nearest wineshop for a drink.’

  ‘The guys doing the loading. They were Correllius’s?’

  ‘Sure. Doccius always uses a company team. It’s cheaper that way.’ Yeah, Cispius had told me that was how it worked. ‘He would’ve used one of his own men for the crane, too, but he’d broken his wrist.’ He laughed. ‘Bad luck on Doccius’s part, of course, because then the accident might not’ve happened. I was pretty hungover that day.’

  ‘And none of the team – the loaders – noticed that there was something funny going on?’

  ‘Must’ve done. But they weren’t going to get involved, were they? That might just lead to trouble.

  Uh-huh; Cispius again. He’d said that shoving your nose in and asking questions when you worked for Correllius was a bad idea. And given my suspicions – more than suspicions, now – where Doccius was concerned they’d probably have been right.

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘What happened then?’

  ‘I finished the loading, nice as pie, and then went to Nigrinus to put the bite on. Like I say, the guy was sweating. He grumbled, sure, but when I threatened to take the story straight to Correllius he paid up like a lamb. Five gold pieces I got from him for keeping my mouth shut, and cheap at the price. They came in handy, as well, because next day that bastard of a quay-master Arrius sacked me.’

  Which had probably, in fact, saved his life: me, I wouldn’t’ve given a copper quadrans for it once he’d told Nigrinus what he’d seen. The sacking had been lucky for both of us.

  ‘The other guy who witnessed the accident. Gaius Tullius,’ I said. ‘You happen to know what he did then?’

  ‘Nah. Not a clue. I hardly even noticed him, and like I say he was nowhere near me when I dropped the load. Probably just went about his business.’

  Yeah; that I’d believe. Only Tullius’s business, I’d bet, had comprised putting the bite on himself. Which, if I was right, was exactly why he’d ended up dead.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘Forget it.’ I handed over the coins. ‘Thanks, pal. That’s been a great help.’

  He pocketed them. ‘Any time.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  So; next major port of call, as it were, Publius Doccius. Only before I did that I needed a little insurance of my own.

  Siddius was right: disappearing eight hundred amphoras and selling on their contents would take organization and manpower, and if Nigrinus didn’t cut the mustard in that department then I’d bet Doccius couldn’t’ve managed it either; not off his own bat, at least. For a heist like that, he’d’ve needed a partner with real clout, and there was only one obvious candidate; Publius Fundanius. Fundanius made all kinds of sense: he’d have the organization that could cope with something on that scale, he’d’ve jumped at the chance to do the dirty on his long-time business rival, and – which was really the clincher – I’d seen Doccius at his villa, where presumably he’d gone straight off when Mamilia threw him out on his ear. Where, again presumably, I’d find him now.

  Only, especially after Agron’s repeated warnings, I wasn’t going to walk in blithely and accuse them both to their faces, was I? Oh, sure, I was a Roman purple-striper, with all that entailed where the authorities were concerned, but that hadn’t seemed to cut much ice with the bastards so far, had it? Not when their hitman of choice Sextus Nigrinus had tried to zero me on at least two occasions. So insurance of a very physical kind it had to be, plus an ally who had the same kind of clout that Fundanius had; and my best bet on that score was the injured party, Mamilia. Persuading her re the whys and wherefores shouldn’t be difficult, given that she already knew that Doccius had been on the fiddle. And as far as Fundanius himself was concerned, if she had an axe to grind it was one I’d bet she would cheerfully have smacked him between the eyes with. So Mamilia it was.

  No time like the present. I headed across town in the direction of the Hinge.

  The Tullius side of things was obvious, too. If Gaius Siddius, coincidentally and fortunately for him, had disappeared into the woodwork after conducting his business with Nigrinus, Tullius hadn’t been so lucky. He wasn’t to know, of course, that he was messing with some pretty hard guys, or he might’ve thought twice about trying on a bit of blackmail, but the whole thing had been done off the cuff; he’d seen a chance to make a dishonest silver piece or two, and he’d taken it. Who exactly had done the actual killing – the captain’s brother Sextus or Doccius himself – I didn’t know, and it wasn’t crucially important at this stage; nor were the precise circumstances of how he’d been lured to an out-of-the-way spot like the Shrine of Melobosis off Trigemina Gate Street. What was important was I knew now who was behind the murder, and why.

  Case solved. Or almost, bar the shouting.

  ‘Valerius Corvinus! This is a surprise!’ The lady actually gave me a smile; clearly our relationship had moved up a notch, which was all to the good under the circumstances. ‘What brings you back so soon? I was just about to go out, but I can spare you a few minutes.’

  We were in the atrium again, and the lady had obviously just been having her make-up freshened: the maid was putting away the bits and bobs, and Mamilia herself was done up to the nines.

  ‘It, uh, might take a little longer than that,’ I said. ‘But it’s important.’

  That got me an interested look. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘How intriguing. In that case you had better sit down and we’ll take it from there. That’s all, Chloe. You can go.’

  The maid left.

  I sat. ‘Your husband sent a shipment of wine and oil to Aleria shortly before he died,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. We did.’ Uh-huh; no pretence, this time, of being ignorant of Correllius’s business affairs, I noticed. And the ‘we’ didn’t escape me, either.

  ‘You know the ship – the Porpoise – sank just short of the Corsican coast?’ I said.

  She frowned. ‘Yes, I did, as a matter of fact. The news came a few days ago. Unfortunate, but these things do happen, and we can stand the loss. So?’

  ‘There was no wine or oil on board. The amphoras were filled with water.’

  ‘What?’ She stared at me. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Hundred per cent certain.’ I told her the whole story, barring a mention of Tullius. ‘It was a scam. The cargo had been switched.’

  She was quiet for a long time. Then she said, and I could hear her teeth grind: ‘That bastard Doccius.’

  Right; no fool, Mamilia. And there was no fluffy softness there, either, none at all. Not a comfortable lady to cross, this one.

  I almost felt a pang of sympathy for Publius Doccius. Almost.

  ‘That was my guess, yeah,’ I said. ‘Him and Publius Fundanius, working together.’

  ‘Fundanius.’ She sat back in her chair. I could see her thinking. ‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘Yes, that would make perfect sense. I’m in your debt, Corvinus. Thank you for telling me.’

  ‘Actually, Mamilia, I’ve business of my own with Doccius. Not immediately connected with the scam, or not directly. But he has other questions to answer.’

  ‘Has he, indeed? Then he had better answer them.’ She smiled, and it wasn’t a nice smile, either. She got up. ‘Excuse me a moment. I’ll be right back.’

  She went off through the peristyle, and I twiddled my thumbs. A few minutes later, she was back with a couple of heavies who could’ve been brothers to the guy on the front door, and probably were.

  ‘These two gentlemen are Marcus and Quintus,’ she said. ‘They have my every confidence, and they are fully apprised of the situation. If you we
re thinking of paying a call on Publius Doccius, who, I understood from what you said during your last visit, is currently with Fundanius at his villa, then they would be delighted to accompany you. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble either getting in or leaving.’

  Yeah, I’d believe that: the pair of them looked like they’d stepped straight off a temple pediment showing the Battle of the Titans. The marble aspect of things was about right, too.

  ‘They have their own instructions, naturally, since I have reasons of my own to make contact with Doccius. But since our interests seem to coincide at this point you’re very welcome to make use of them. Clear, gentlemen?’

  ‘Yeah, madam. Clear.’ The guy on the right flexed his hands. I could hear the knuckles crack.

  ‘Off you go, then. As I said, I was just about to go out myself. You’ll forgive me, Corvinus.’

  ‘No problem,’ I said.

  ‘Goodbye. And thank you again.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  She left, and I looked at the two fugitives from the pediment.

  ‘Which of you is which?’ I said.

  ‘I’m Marcus,’ the hand-flexer said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Yeah. Likewise.’ Well, at least they’d been nicely brought up. ‘Shall we go?’

  ‘After you.’

  We went.

  ‘We’re here to see Publius Doccius,’ I said to the old guy on the gate.

  He looked doubtfully at my two tame Titans.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, I don’t think we have a—’ he began.

  I held up a hand. ‘Don’t even think of it, sunshine,’ I said. ‘Just go and tell him. And if your master’s at home then we’ll see him at the same time. Off you go, spit spot.’

  He opened his mouth to say something, took another look at Marcus and Quintus standing – looming – behind me, and wisely decided to close it again. Then he hobbled inside, closing the gate behind him.

  He was away for a good ten minutes, by which time Mamilia’s lads were definitely chafing. Finally, though, he reappeared.

  ‘They’ll see you, sir,’ he said. ‘On the terrace, as before. Would you like me to show you the way, or can you find it for yourself?’