Trade Secrets

by David Wishart

  Delivered in the most unpressing tones, which was fair enough: I had the distinct impression that Tithonus here would be glad to get shot of us and take up his afternoon snooze where he’d left off.

  ‘No, that’s OK, pal,’ I said. ‘I think I can remember.’

  We went round the corner of the villa. Fundanius and Doccius were sitting at the terrace table, on two of the three chairs; at least, Fundanius was sitting, and Doccius was sprawled, his arm across the chair-back and his feet resting on the third chair, completely at his ease. He grinned and gave us the high wave as we came in sight. Behind me, I heard one of the minders growl softly.

  ‘Corvinus,’ Fundanius said, and you could’ve used his tone to saw marble. ‘What exactly is the meaning of this, please?’

  Not a happy bunny, evidently. Still, I hadn’t expected to be welcomed with open arms, so that was absolutely fine by me.

  ‘Oh, I think you know,’ I said. ‘To begin with, the little matter of eight hundred amphoras filled with wine and oil belonging to Marcus Correllius, that should be under several fathoms of seawater but aren’t.’

  ‘I have not the slightest idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You,’ Marcus pointed at Doccius, ‘are dead, pal.’

  Doccius’s grin slipped just a little, and he took his feet off the chair.

  ‘Come on, Fundanius!’ I said. ‘We’ve got Doccius here cold. He arranged the shipment on a boat called the Porpoise, captain Titus Nigrinus, that went down just short of the point of delivery. That should’ve been the end of it with no one any the wiser, only I’ve talked to the crane operator who did the loading. According to him, he dropped some of the amphoras on the quayside and they were full of water.’

  ‘He’s lying,’ Fundanius said; he hadn’t even blinked. ‘Besides, even if they were, what business is it of mine? Or of yours, for that matter?’

  ‘Yeah, well, as far as the first bit’s concerned, squirrelling away eight hundred amphoras takes a bit of doing. Laughing boy here’s a natural second-stringer, and I doubt if he could hack it on his own.’ Doccius scowled, and he took his arm from the back of the chair. ‘As for the second part, there was a witness. A guy by the name of Gaius Tullius, an import-export merchant in Rome, who is definitely my business, because he was murdered twelve days back. You heard of him, maybe?’

  I could feel them stiffen, and Fundanius’s eyes flicked towards Doccius.

  ‘No,’ Fundanius said. ‘At least, I haven’t. Publius?’

  ‘He’s a new one on me,’ Doccius said. ‘And last time I looked this was Ostia, not Rome. Murders in Rome are no concern of ours.’

  ‘I said he had his business in Rome, pal, not that he was killed there. But then you knew that already, didn’t you?’

  Doccius shrugged. ‘It was a logical assumption. Why should I have heard of him? He isn’t anyone I ever had any dealings with.’ He gave Marcus and Quintus a level look. ‘When I worked for that fat slob Correllius, that is.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s just the point, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘The time your paths crossed you weren’t working for Correllius, were you? You were working for Fundanius here, or at least the two of you were partners in the wine and oil scam along with the Porpoise’s owner, Titus Nigrinus.’

  Doccius smiled. Then he laughed and set his feet back on the spare chair. ‘Corvinus,’ he said, ‘you are so full of shit it’s unbelievable. I told you: I’ve never even heard of this Tullius guy, let alone met him. And if he claimed that there was any funny business with the consignment then he was lying for reasons of his own, just like that crane operator of yours. As for Nigrinus, well, there was no scam to begin with, so there couldn’t’ve been a partnership, could there? I’m sorry for the man, he’s down one ship, but that’s one of the risks you take in this business, and at least if I’ve heard rightly he survived the accident.’

  ‘Publius is quite correct.’ Fundanius was smiling too. ‘I’m sorry, gentlemen’ – his look included the heavies standing behind me – ‘but all this is complete nonsense. As far as your accusation concerning the shipment is concerned, Corvinus, your only proof, correct me if I’m wrong, is the word of a drunken crane operator and an obscure Roman trader of whom neither of us has any knowledge and who is in any case now dead. As for the trader himself’ – he shrugged – ‘well, what more can I say? I know nothing of him whatsoever. Now if that’s your only business here—’

  ‘Fuck that.’ Marcus – obviously the spokesman of the duo – pushed in front of me. ‘You’ – he levelled a finger at Fundanius – ‘are going to be one sorry cheating bastard before much longer. The mistress told me to promise you that; she’ll see to it personally. And you’ – the finger shifted to Doccius – ‘I’ve already told you; you’re a dead man walking. Buy yourself an urn.’

  Doccius was looking queasy again, but Fundanius hadn’t moved.

  ‘How fascinating,’ he said equably. ‘But Publius Doccius works for me now, and I look after my own. Do be sure to give my regards to Mamilia, won’t you? I think you know your way out.’ He nodded to me. ‘Corvinus.’

  I nodded back, and we left.

  ‘We’re stymied,’ I said to Perilla when we’d settled down later that afternoon on the terrace with a pre-dinner drink. ‘The bastards just sat there and laughed in our faces.’

  ‘It can’t be as bad as all that, dear,’ Perilla said. ‘There must be something you can do.’

  ‘Like what, for example?’ I took a morose swallow of wine. ‘They know I know the whole story, no argument, but they also know there isn’t a blind thing I can do about it. Not without some solid proof; Fundanius pointed that out, and he was right.’

  ‘But you have it, surely. As far as the scam aspect of things goes, at least. Your crane operator, what was his name, Siddius, confirmed that the accident on the quayside happened, and that the amphoras he dropped were filled with water. That’s confirmation in itself.’

  I sighed. ‘Perilla, I haven’t a hope in hell of getting a signed statement from the guy, which is what it’d need. How long do you think he’d survive if he crossed Publius Doccius, never mind Fundanius? He’d be signing his own death warrant, and he’d know it. Plus the fact that, a), it’d be his word against everyone else’s, and b), as far as the port authorities are concerned there was no accident to begin with because he didn’t fucking report one at the time.’

  ‘Gently, Marcus.’

  I took another swig of wine. Not that it did any good, mind.

  ‘Well, he didn’t,’ I said. ‘And the reason he didn’t was, he was paid to keep his mouth shut. You think he’d change his story now, in public, anyway? Why should he? What’s in it for him, barring a slit throat down an alley?’

  ‘You’re certain that Fundanius was in on the fraud?’

  ‘Absolutely; one hundred per cent. He knew about Siddius, for a start, and he couldn’t’ve done that if he wasn’t involved up to his eyeballs.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘Because when he mentioned the crane operator he used the word drunken. Which I hadn’t done. Oh, sure, clumsy, incompetent, cack-handed, any appropriate term you like given the circumstances; but the only way he could know Siddius had a drink problem is if Doccius had told him. QED.’

  ‘That isn’t much to build a case on.’

  ‘It’s good enough for me, lady. But with the only other witness being oh-so-conveniently dead unless by some miracle I can twist Nigrinus’s arm when he shows up and get a confession out of him we are well and truly screwed.’ I refilled my wine-cup. ‘The only consolation is that if I’m any judge of character Mamilia won’t let them get away with it. That is one very ruthless lady. Me, I wouldn’t be in Publius Doccius’s sandals for his weight in gold pieces, whether he has Fundanius’s protection or not.’

  ‘You can’t prove a connection between Fundanius – or Doccius, at least – and Gaius Tullius? That’s the other angle, surely.’

  ‘Uh-uh. For the same reason: n
o hard facts. Oh, they knew the name when I brought it up, sure, I’d bet a year’s income on that, because it came as a nasty facer; in fact, I thought at that point I had them. But then when I mentioned the partnership arrangement with Nigrinus, they—’

  I stopped.

  Oh, shit! Oh, holy gods!

  ‘Marcus?’ Perilla was frowning. ‘What is it?’

  ‘That was when the bastards relaxed,’ I said slowly. ‘Both of them at once, right then and there. Grinning their heads off. They’d been on the back foot up until then, but when I brought in Nigrinus you could almost hear the sigh of relief.’

  ‘But that doesn’t make any sense! Nigrinus had to be involved for the fraud to work. Didn’t he?’

  ‘Sure he did. No argument.’ I was thinking hard. There was something there; there had to be. When I’d mentioned Gaius Tullius completely out of the blue, it’d been a shock, because up to then he hadn’t figured; everything I’d said, all the questions I’d asked and the accusations I’d made, had had to do with the scam itself or – previously – with the death of Correllius. Now for the first time with the mention of Tullius Fundanius and his new pal had lost control of the plot, and they were running blind. Only then they realized that I wasn’t as smart or as clued-up as they thought I was. Feared. Whatever. Because I’d made a crucial mistake.

  ‘Marcus …’

  I waved her to silence. So what was it? I replayed the conversation in my head.

  I’d said that when Doccius ran across Gaius Tullius he hadn’t been working for Correllius; that he’d been in partnership with Fundanius and the Porpoise’s captain Nigrinus …

  Only I hadn’t said captain, had I? I’d said owner.

  ‘Nigrinus didn’t own the Porpoise,’ I said.

  Perilla was still frowning. ‘But that’s silly, dear! Of course he did!’

  I shook my head. ‘Uh-uh. Oh, we assumed he did, sure, because he was the ship’s captain, after all, and that’s the way these things usually work. But that’s all it was: an assumption.’ I was trying to remember my original conversation with the clerk in the harbour master’s office, and with the quay-master Arrius. As far as I could recall, neither had said that Titus Nigrinus actually owned the Porpoise; like I said, that’d only been an assumption on my part, and it had gone uncorrected. ‘Nigrinus was only the hired help, not the third partner per se. No wonder the bastards were laughing up their sleeves. I’d got my facts wrong, and they knew it.’

  Perilla was staring at me. ‘Can you check?’ she said.

  ‘Sure. Easiest thing in the world. It’s too late today, but I’ll go round to the harbour master’s office first thing tomorrow morning.’

  Perhaps we were on to a winner after all.

  I walked into the harbour office bright and early next day, just after it opened. Everything hinged on the answer to one question, but I was pretty sure now what that would be. Or at least that it would be one of two possibilities.

  I found the clerk I’d talked to before at his desk. The guy didn’t exactly look over the moon to see me, mind. Not that I blamed him.

  ‘Good morning yet again, sir,’ he said. ‘And how perchance may I help you today?’

  Sarcastic as hell. But in the mood I was in sarcasm slid off me like water from a duck’s back. ‘It’s about the Porpoise again,’ I said. ‘I was wondering if you could give me the name of the owner. If he’s different from the ship’s captain, that is. And an address for him, if you’ve got it.’

  ‘Nothing easier, sir. It’ll be entered on the file I looked out for you previously. Unless, under the circumstances, it’s been destroyed, as it may well have been.’ Bugger; I hadn’t thought of that! Oh, gods, no; please, please, no! ‘If you’ll just wait a moment, I’ll go and check.’

  He went off, and I spent the next five minutes biting my nails. Then he came back holding the document. I breathed a sigh of relief. Thank heavens for bureaucratic inertia.

  ‘Here you are, sir,’ he said. ‘The Porpoise, ninety tons when it was a viable proposition.’ He chuckled: obviously a clerical in-joke. ‘Captain, Titus Nigrinus. Owner …’

  He told me the name. Well, well, well: bullseye!

  ‘I’ve only an office address for him, I’m afraid,’ the clerk said. ‘Will that do? It’s in Rome, naturally, the gentleman being Roman.’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, that’ll be fine.’

  He told me that, as well. Double bullseye! Case closed, barring the mopping-up.

  ‘Thanks, pal,’ I said. ‘I’m grateful.’ That was an understatement, if ever there was one. ‘You’ve been really, really helpful.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’

  ‘You mind if I take that with me?’ I pointed at the flimsy he was holding.

  ‘Not at all. As I said, it would have been destroyed in any case.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I took it and tucked it into my belt. I was turning away when another thought struck me. ‘Oh; one last question,’ I said, ‘and I’m out of your hair for good.’

  He sighed. ‘Really, sir?’

  ‘Yeah. I absolutely guarantee it. You know if anyone else was in here after the same information? It would’ve been the day the ship was being loaded.’

  He was frowning. ‘Yes, actually, now you mention it, there was,’ he said. ‘I can’t give you his name, though; I told you, I’m not too good with names, but faces I do remember. He was Roman, too, by the look of him. Youngish, smart dresser. The sort the ladies might take a fancy to, if you know what I mean. A friend of yours? Business colleague, perhaps?’

  ‘No, not exactly.’ I’d never seen Tullius in the flesh, so the description didn’t tell me much; but it’d been him, all right, I was as certain of that as of the next day’s sunrise, and it explained everything. If I needed further explanation at this point, which I didn’t. ‘Perfect. Thanks again for your help, friend. I’ll see you around.’ I caught the look on his face. ‘Or perhaps not.’

  ‘Goodbye, sir. Have a nice day.’

  I left.

  Back to Rome, ASAP. Perilla would be disappointed to cut short the holiday, sure, but into every life a little rain must fall. And we might well take that villa.

  The case was cracked wide open.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Next day I left Perilla organizing her more leisurely return, sent a skivvy round to Agron’s to apologize for cancelling the dinner invitation – I doubted that, under the circumstances, Fundanius’s to me still held good, so that one I didn’t bother about – and rode straight back to Rome.

  I had a couple of bread-and-butter arrangements to make before I confronted Tullius’s killer. The first of these was to call in on Gaius Memmius, the Aventine Watch Commander who’d been handling the case, explain things to him, and borrow a couple of his squaddies, including the one who’d originally been dispatched to the scene of the crime. I’d only get one shot at this, and I wasn’t taking any chances.

  The Shrine of Melobosis in the alleyway off Trigemina Gate Street was exactly as I’d left it the last time I’d been there; the little bunch of wild flowers – withered, now – lay undisturbed where I’d put them on her altar, and it didn’t look like anyone had been inside the gate since. Not the courting couple who’d found the body, certainly: they’d’ve gone somewhere else for their evening meetings.

  Sad.

  I swept the top of the altar clear with my hand, filled the lamp from the small bottle of oil I’d brought with me, lit it with a fire striker, ditto, and burned a pinch or two of incense: there’d been a strong sea connection in this case, and who was I to say that a sea-nymph like Melobosis hadn’t been helping out behind the scenes? At any rate, a drop of oil and a couple of pinches of incense wouldn’t break me, and I reckoned I owed the lady something, at least. Just on the off-chance.

  The two squaddies had been watching me curiously. I turned and went over to the right-hand wall, directly under one of the buildings which flanked the shrine precinct.

  ‘This was where the body was lying, right?�
�� I said to the guy who’d been there before.

  ‘Yeah.’ He pointed. ‘Down there. Just clear of the wall.’

  Uh-huh; I could still see the traces in the long, partially flattened grass. I looked up at the building; there was a window two floors directly above us. Check. It fitted, all the way along the line. Last box well and truly ticked.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let’s go and get it over with.’

  The address the clerk at the harbour office had given me was on the second floor. We climbed the stairs. I pushed open the door and went in.

  ‘Good morning, sir. What can I—?’ The chief clerk in the outer office froze when he saw the squaddies behind me. The other clerks gaped, pens poised.

  ‘The boss around, pal?’ I said.

  He swallowed. ‘Yes, sir. I’ll just see if he’s free.’

  ‘No, that’s OK. We can manage.’ I pushed past him and opened the communicating door.

  Quintus Annius was at his desk in front of the window. If I’d gone over and looked through it and down, I’d’ve seen Melobosis’s shrine.

  ‘Corvinus, this is a surprise,’ he said. He smiled at the squaddies. ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘You killed Gaius Tullius,’ I said. ‘Or maybe your pal Doccius did.’

  The smile disappeared. He stared at me. ‘That’s nonsense,’ he said. ‘Who the hell is Doccius?’

  ‘Uh-uh. It’s not nonsense. And you know who Doccius is perfectly well.’ There was a stool next to me. I pulled it up and sat down while the squaddies stationed themselves either side of the door. ‘You want to tell me the story yourself, or should I save you the trouble?’

  He leaned back against the wall. ‘This is silly,’ he said.

  I shrugged. ‘OK. Have it your way. Let’s start with the Porpoise.’ His eyelids twitched, but he just stared at me. ‘Captain Titus Nigrinus. You’re her owner, for what that’s worth, because she was a worm-eaten tub that was held together by no more than spit and a lick of paint. Which, basically, was the whole idea, because the Porpoise is at the bottom of the sea off Corsica. Or rather, close enough to Corsica for Nigrinus to have got himself and his crew safely ashore.’