Solid Citizens

by David Wishart

  Gods! And I’d thought Priscus was bad! ‘You been talking to Alexis, pal?’ I said. Our clever-clever gardener had this theory that you could breed better peas by using a small brush to smear the pollen from one plant inside the flower of another one. The philosophy of it seemed fairly run-of-the-mill conventional, no problems there – something about each grain of pollen containing the element of bigness or hardiness or whatever embodied in the whole plant – but it wasn’t a comfortable thing to watch, especially when he explained it in terms of male and female.

  Clarus shrugged. ‘Yes, well,’ he said. ‘Like I said, it was only an idea. Never mind. It doesn’t matter. So. Back to the case. What comes next, Corvinus?’

  ‘Bread-and-butter procedural stuff,’ I said. ‘Just doing the rounds of the names on the list. I’ve got to see the guy who had the argument with Caesius a couple of days before he was killed. Quintus Roscius. Then there’s the elusive brother, the town drunk or whatever, and Publius Novius, our old pal the dodgy lawyer. Also, I’d like to know more about why exactly the nephew had his knife in. Like I say, there’re plenty of leads, and Caesius seems to have put a lot of people’s backs up.’

  ‘As long as you remember, dear, that we are on holiday,’ Perilla said. ‘And Priscus and your mother will expect to see something of you when they arrive. You can’t be away in Bovillae all day from breakfast to dinner. It isn’t polite. Particularly since it’s Priscus’s birthday while they’re here.’

  ‘Gods, Perilla, they only live up the hill from us in Rome! It’s not as if we don’t see them at other times.’

  ‘Not very often. Only for the occasional meal.’

  ‘That’s out of self-preservation, lady. It’s not so bad when they come to us. But when you go round to their place to eat you take your life in your hands.’

  ‘Nonsense, Marcus! Phormio’s an excellent chef.’ She paused. Perilla can be pretty dogmatic, sure, but at root she’s fair and honest. ‘In his way. By his own lights. Within certain parameters. It’s simply that he can be rather too … inventive at times.’

  Inventive. Well, that was one word for the bastard. It wouldn’t be the one that I’d choose, mind. Still, there was no point in starting an argument I knew I couldn’t win. ‘Oh, incidentally,’ I said, ‘I picked up something for the birthday boy when I was in town.’ I reached for my purse, took out the ivory plaque, and handed it over.

  ‘But that’s lovely!’ Perilla said, examining it. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘A little antiques shop near the market square. Owned by a guy named Baebius. Coincidentally, he was at daggers drawn with Caesius as well.’

  ‘We’ll give him that, then. I’d got him a copy of Varro’s Antiquities, but that’ll do for a Festival present. An antiques shop, you say? That’s quite unusual for a country town like Bovillae, isn’t it? Of course, there are a lot of incomers buying up the old estates, so I suppose there’s more of a market for luxuries these days.’

  ‘You know the Satellius one’s just been sold?’ Clarus said. ‘Trebbius was telling me.’ Trebbius was one of Clarus’s regular patients, a card-carrying hypochondriac and prime source of up-to-the-minute local gossip. ‘Some bigwig in the Roman civil service. At a pretty good price, too. Trebbius didn’t know the man’s name, but he’s converting the old farmhouse into a top-class villa. Three dining rooms, landscaped garden, the lot. The Satellius family’s been a fixture around here for generations, but the offer was just too tempting.’

  ‘I think it’s a shame,’ Marilla said. ‘All the little working farms are going. We’ll soon be just a holiday-home suburb of Rome.’

  ‘Well, that’s progress,’ I said. ‘You can’t …’

  Lupercus and Bathyllus came in together, both carrying loaded wine trays.

  ‘Uh … what’s going on, pal?’ I said to Bathyllus. ‘Serving the wine needs two of you?’

  He sniffed. ‘According to your instructions, sir, and in the interests of peace and harmony we have reached an amicable compromise. I will serve you and the mistress, while the … local staff will attend to the rest of the household. I trust that is acceptable?’

  Oh, gods, acceptable? It just sounded plain bloody childish and silly to me. Nevertheless …

  I looked at Clarus. He nodded wearily.

  ‘Yeah, OK, little guy,’ I said. ‘So long as it works, do it however you like. But just be careful, because you’re skating on very thin ice here. Lupercus, you all right with this?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ I noticed that he didn’t look at Bathyllus. Still no love lost there, then. Well, we couldn’t have everything. And I’d settle for peace and harmony, even if it did mean getting childish and silly into the bargain.

  ‘Fine. Marvellous.’ I sighed. ‘We’ll give it a try, for what it’s worth. Now wheel in the main course, will you, before we starve to death. And no demarcation disputes over who pushes the bloody trolley.’

  Bugger. Life between now and the end of the festival, when we could decently go home and get back to normal, was going to be fun, fun, fun. Not only that, but we’d still got the joys of Mother and Priscus to look forward to.

  Thank goodness I’d got a case to work on. Say what you liked about a murder investigation: at least it was clean and straightforward. It’d get me out and about, anyway.

  SEVEN

  I went back into Bovillae the next day after breakfast.

  First on the list of things to do was talk to Quintus Roscius. Nerva had told me his farm was on the Castrimoenium side of town, so once Bovillae was in view I stopped to ask a guy clearing out the drainage ditch at the edge of a field next to the road for directions.

  The farmhouse turned out to be an old building a few hundred yards up a dirt track; quite a sizeable property for the extent of the holding, although most of it, of course, would be storage sheds plus roofed-over areas for the grape press and threshing floor. Roscius evidently kept it in good condition, despite its age; there were new tiles on the roof, the walls were whitewashed, and the yard in front was tidy and swept, with two or three plump chickens strutting about pecking for grain.

  I dismounted and knocked at the door. It was opened by a good-looking woman in her mid-twenties with a toddler clinging to the hem of her tunic and staring at me, thumb in mouth.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, lady,’ I said. ‘Is this the Roscius place?’

  ‘It is.’ She frowned and brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. ‘Was it my husband you wanted?’

  ‘If he’s around.’

  ‘He’s muck-spreading the top field. Just carry on as far as you can go.’

  I thanked her, remounted the horse and walked it up the track, past a dozen rows of vine-stocks, ditto of what were probably fruit trees, and a field that was bare at present but showed signs of having been tilled and got ready for the first season’s planting: small enough for a farm, sure, but altogether, like the farmhouse itself, well-managed and in pretty good shape – or so it looked to my townie’s eye, anyway. Certainly a lot of hard work had gone in there. Whatever else Roscius was, he was no slacker.

  As far as you can go, his wife had said. Sure enough, two or three hundred yards further along the track ended in a field where a guy with a fork was spreading manure from the back of an ox wagon.

  I tied the horse’s rein to one of the hurdles at the field’s edge and went on over. ‘Quintus Roscius?’ I said.

  He stopped, glanced up, frowned, and grounded the fork.

  ‘That’s me.’ The frown had settled into a scowl.

  ‘Marcus Corvinus. I’m—’

  ‘I know who you are.’ He was a big guy, easily six feet, and built like an ox himself, heavily muscled, dark-browed and broad as a barn door. He hawked and spat to one side. ‘Or I can make a good guess. I’ve been expecting you.’

  He didn’t sound or look too friendly, but that was natural under the circumstances. ‘Fine,’ I said easily. ‘No problem. That’ll save a bit of trouble. You got time for a chat?’

  ‘No
. But go ahead anyway. Get it over with.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ I paused. ‘You, uh, had a run-in with Caesius in town, so I’m told, a couple of days before he died. Care to tell me about it?’

  The scowl deepened. ‘“Run-in” isn’t what I’d call it,’ he said. ‘We had words, sure, him and me, mostly on my side. But it was no more than that. Just words. And I’ll tell you now, straight out, I’d nothing to do with his death.’

  ‘I’m not accusing you, pal,’ I said. ‘I’m just getting my facts straight, that’s all. So what were these words about? Something to do with a loan, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You like to elaborate, maybe?’

  ‘It’s simple enough. We do OK here, generally, but the profit margin is pretty small, and the past couple of years I’d been going through a bad patch. Three poor harvests in a row, stock dying, spoiled seed. One thing after another, and they just mounted up. Finally, I went to Caesius – his family and mine have links that go way back – and he loaned me a few thousand with the farm as collateral. No hurry to pay him back, he said; just as soon as I could manage. He was only too pleased to help me out. Only then, seven days ago, he sends round his bailiff saying he wants the debt settled by the end of the year or he’ll foreclose.’

  ‘You didn’t have a contract? Something in writing?’

  ‘Sure I had. For what it was worth. Only I’m no great reader, me, and nor is the wife. Letters, straightforward stuff, sure, no problem, but a legal document’s different. I haven’t got the head for that. I signed what he gave me and took him at his word about the no hurry business. It turned out that his lawyer pal had put in a clause about settlement being due on the first day of the new year or the property was forfeit, so he had me over a barrel.’

  ‘“Lawyer pal”? That’d be Publius Novius, would it?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the one. There’s another bastard. They’re all hand-in-glove, these nobs. Anyway, there was no way I could get the money together, not in hard cash, not a quarter of it. I went over to Caesius’s house right away to explain, ask for a bit of extra time, but he sent out word he was too busy to see me. So then when I saw him in the street the next day I went up to him and asked him to his face. When he tried to give me the bum’s rush again I lost my temper and told him straight what I thought of him, right there in the open where everyone could hear.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s all that happened, the long and short of it. The farm’s worth ten times the loan, easy, and Caesius knew it. What would you have done?’

  Yeah; fair enough. Me, I’d probably have punched the bugger’s lights out into the bargain and got into even worse trouble. ‘So what happens now?’ I said.

  ‘If we can’t pay, then like I said come next month we’re out. But my family’s been here for five generations, and I won’t go easy. Maybe now Caesius is dead I can cut a deal with his brother. We’ll just have to see. Meanwhile, whatever happens’ – he indicated the manure – ‘the jobs’ve got to be done, so I do them.’

  ‘A deal with Lucius?’

  ‘Sure, with Lucius. Who else? He’s bound to be the heir, isn’t he? Caesius didn’t have any other family.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Well enough to speak to, anyway. Most people do. Old Lucius Caesius isn’t a bad lad, for all he’s got a drink problem, and he’s been up against it himself these last thirty, forty years since his father threw him out. When things’re settled he’ll have more money than he needs to last him for the rest of his days without bothering about taking my farm from me.’ He reached for the manure fork. ‘Anyway, that’s what I’m hoping.’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, right.’ I hesitated. ‘You, uh, go into town often of an evening?’

  ‘Sometimes.’ The hand on the fork paused, and his tone was guarded. ‘For a cup or two of wine and a chat with friends, like anyone else.’

  ‘How about the night Caesius was killed?’

  ‘No. I was at home. You can ask my wife. She’ll tell you.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Well, he seemed pretty genuine, and I’d no cause from what had gone before to think any different. There wasn’t anything else I could do here at present. ‘Thanks for your time, pal. Sorry to disturb you. I’ll leave you to it.’

  ‘That’s all?’ The frown finally lifted, and he looked relieved.

  ‘Sure. Why not? I told you, I’m just getting my facts straight. I’ll see you around.’

  I collected my horse, rode back down the track, and carried on into town.

  OK, now for my old friend Publius Novius. His office, I remembered from the last time I’d talked to him a year and a half previously, was this side of the town centre, near the baths: a pretty up-market affair for a provincial law business, heavy on the marble – or marble facing, anyway – and obviously meant to impress on his clients that here was a guy at the top of his professional tree.

  Just inside the Tiburtine Gate – which was the one the road from Castrimoenium passed through – was a horse trough with two or three nags already in residence. This time of day, the town would be at its busiest, and if I was going to be using the back streets – which I was, to get to the baths – I’d do better on foot. I left my horse for later collection moored to a vacant iron ring and happily fraternising with the mare parked next to him and headed off in the direction of Novius’s.

  It wasn’t difficult to find: exactly where I remembered it, in the street that started opposite the baths and carried on down to the market square. I mounted the carefully scrubbed and polished steps, flanked by their marble-faced pillars, and went inside.

  ‘Hi, pal,’ I said to the young clerk on the lobby desk. ‘Novius in and free at present?’

  ‘Did you have an appointment, sir?’ The clerk reached for the wax tablet beside him.

  ‘No. But the name’s Marcus Corvinus. He’ll know who I am. Silius Nerva of the senate asked me to look into the death of Quintus Caesius. I understand he was a friend and client.’

  ‘Indeed he was, sir. And you’re not unexpected.’ The guy got up. ‘Novius is in and alone, but I’ll just check to see if he’s free. If you’d care to wait a moment.’

  ‘Sure. No problem.’

  He crossed to the communicating door, knocked, opened it and went in. I listened to the murmur of voices while I inspected the mural on the wall behind the desk: Hermes, Greek god of eloquence, whispering in the ear of what was evidently a lawyer in a courtroom presenting his case. Slick-smart advocate though Novius undoubtedly was, I reckoned he was purblind when it came to irony: silver-tongued Hermes is also the god of thieves, tricksters, shysters and liars. Of course, it was possible that I might be doing the guy an injustice and he’d fully realized the double implication when he commissioned the thing, but from what I recalled of Novius, self-parody wasn’t his bag.

  The clerk came back out. ‘He’ll see you, if you’d like to go in.’

  I did, and he closed the door behind me. Novius was sitting behind his desk, the same little wrinkled prune of a man in a sharp mantle I’d talked to eighteen months before.

  ‘Valerius Corvinus,’ he said. ‘I heard that you were in town. And indeed why. Such a pleasure to see you again, even under these melancholy circumstances. Do have a seat.’

  Well, maybe I’d been wrong about the irony. Whatever he was feeling about seeing me, it certainly wasn’t pleasure, not after the last conversation we’d had in this room. Still, if that was how he wanted to play it then it was fine with me. I pulled up the visitors’ stool and sat down.

  ‘So how’s your pal Castor?’ I said.

  He didn’t blink. ‘Well enough, as far as I know, and living now in Pisa. I understand he married a rich widow up there.’

  ‘Bully for him,’ I said drily. ‘He meet her before or after her husband died?’

  Again, not a flicker; I got a look as blind as a marble bust of Homer’s. ‘That I really can’t tell you, Corvinus,’ he said. ‘I have no knowledge of the matter beyond the bare facts that I’ve just given
you. Or indeed interest in it.’ He moved the stylus on his desktop a few inches to the right. ‘Now. How can I be of service?’

  ‘No hassle. You being Caesius’s lawyer I just need some basic background information. At present, anyway.’ Still no blink; the sharp eyes were watching me benignly, like I was a performing dog. Which probably, as far as Novius was concerned, summed up his view of me pretty well. ‘First off: the heir. That would be his brother, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Lucius, yes.’

  ‘The town drunk.’

  He moved the stylus back again carefully to its original position and looked me straight in the eye before answering.

  ‘Corvinus,’ he said. ‘Let us be clear about this. The law is only interested in relationships, not character flaws, unless these are criminal ones. Lucius Caesius does, indeed, have a problem in that direction, but as the executor of his brother’s estate it is no concern of mine. Nor, forgive me, should it be one of yours.’

  Yeah, well, fair enough; maybe I had been out of order, at that. I let it go.

  ‘Caesius named him as heir in his will?’ I said.

  ‘No, as it happens he died intestate. Or rather, in his only existing will, made shortly after his marriage thirty-five years ago, he left everything, barring some small personal bequests, to his wife Vatinia, and should she predecease him to any children of the union. In the event, of course, there was no family, and his wife died two months ago. I’d advised him very strongly after her death – and naturally several times on previous occasions over the years – to draft a new will, but as far as I’m aware he had not yet done so.’

  ‘Yeah? Why would that be, now?’

  Novius shrugged. ‘Quintus, I’m afraid, was the lawyer’s nightmare, the chronic procrastinator. The situation was made even more complex by the fact that he genuinely could think of no alternative principal heir, and so put things off sine die. As a result – and I agree that the result is an unfortunate one, which Quintus himself would have deplored – under the circumstances the estate reverts to the nearest male relative, who is his younger brother.’