Old grey eyes gave me the grin I liked, all innocent—yet wicked with it. There was an advantage in marrying a man with a hidden past. “I thought we could just set out on spec,” he said, “then find somewhere we like the look of. I have heard of a place that stays open, somewhere below the Capitol.”
LVII
Of all the bars in all the world that pride themselves on being duds, the Centaur was a frontrunner. Even with so many to choose from, it throbbed with lack of promise. It made the Stargazer, which my family owns, look chic.
This popular local meeting point was more of a hole in the hillside than a winery. You could not go inside. It had grown like a weed in a dead-end alley that was stopped off by the ancient Servian Wall. Its seats were placed out in a dark passage. Any entertainment happened street-side, as did the lavatory functions of neighbourhood dogs. A beggar limped by, but he kept going.
While Tiberius had been resting at home, we had sent out Paris to find this place. I must have been past it many times, not on this case but in general life, because it lurked at the back of the Vegetable Market, near the Porta Carmentalis. This had been an ancient swampy area; at the Centaur we could still smell hints of damp. While less horrid than murex shells, it made me think of flooding, fevers and other misery.
We were arriving while it was still dark. Because of the Triumph there were plenty of people about in the streets, though being charitable, this may not have been the best time for the Centaur. With Tiberius in full fig, we could hardly appear casual, but we engaged in light-hearted banter. It was a ploy Tiberius and I sometimes used, mainly because we liked bantering. We had brought Paris with us; he just listened with a baffled grin.
“This is the kind of bar where your friend mutters, ‘Keep your hand on your purse!’”
“Uncle Tullius would say, ‘Keep your hand on your privates’—but he just likes being obscene.”
“He was quite well-behaved at our wedding.”
“You only think that because you walked out halfway through.” I decamped from our ceremony to interview a murderess. Well, she was leaving for the coast. Sometimes you just have to do it.
“If this is your idea of a marital treat, I should have run away for good … What happened to their signboard? It looks as if ten years ago a customer was sick on it and the cleaner can’t reach.”
“Half man, half horse—and difficult to say which end of him needs to be taken to a vet. I blame the painter.”
“He calls himself Sludge. This is his vomitorium period. Apparently the idea is to look unpleasant—it challenges hidebound preconceptions. Quite sought-after among knowing connoisseurs.”
“Not the art for me. I know what I don’t like…”
We need not have bothered with our glittering wit, because nobody took any notice. Hopeless customers slumped. The very few snack dishes were empty. Oil lamps were lit but dying. The owner did not waste money on waiters, since he could use his two grandsons for free. He believed in giving talent its head, which meant he never bothered with training them. When he came here the bar was his pride and joy, so for thirty years he had supposed that was all it needed from him. He intended to pass on this gem to his children, but was surprised to find none of them wanted it.
He was here tonight. It was beneath him to serve anyone, though he was trying to unbodge the wax in an amphora, banging away as if he had never done it before. While we waited for a sad serving-boy to wander close, Tiberius engaged the owner with his other brand of patter: offering to remodel what passed for a bar counter. “I don’t often see anything as bad as this! Your grouting is completely shot and this crack is a disaster waiting to happen … Someone did you a lousy job here. Ideally all your mock-marble needs to be taken out with care, then reseated properly. Don’t worry, we do this all the time. I run a specialist company. I can easily send my estimator to take a look for you…”
The bar-owner did not seem to find it odd that the conversation was with a well-shaved man who was formally togate, including a purple stripe and magisterial bearing. Well, we were coming up to a triumph. He probably thought it was fancy dress.
Tiberius did not really want to work here. In our house, “I’ll send a man to look at it” was a phrase we now used if somebody had a bright idea that someone else was intending to ignore.
A waiter passed within reach. Tiberius grabbed him; I ordered. The weary child claimed there was a list of wines on a wall inside, but when I craned over the counter I could not even see the board, let alone read it. Interior walls appeared to be rendered with primeval dirt. Cobwebs held up the beaker shelf. I nearly chose water for myself, but I opted for their house wine, so something stronger might kill whatever was swimming in the water. If not, whatever floated in the wine would have to die quietly inside me.
Paris helped collect seats and even a small table. He found the table with a leg off, but he and Tiberius pushed it back together. While we waited for our order, we all looked around. There were a few customers. Some had never managed to obtain a drink; they might yet go home without one. Patrons of the Centaur whom I had met would say they came for the company. They must all have very optimistic natures.
Perhaps lively ones came at lunchtime. After dark, subdued customers sat in small, desperate groups. Some hardly spoke. Others talked, but with the banalities of people who had been meeting each other for so long they had run out of anything to say. Newcomers did nod on arrival to those sitting there. It was friendly enough, but just dead.
I recognised several, from questioning them up on the Arx and the Capitol. One priest on his own raised a beaker to us; he called over that it was very quiet tonight. He reckoned everyone who worked on the tops would be going up there in the morning, to look down at the procession. They were saving themselves now.
“You can have too much jollity, can’t you?”
Not at this bar, sunshine.
* * *
The landlord must have sorted the amphora bung; he sat down with us to see why we had landed at his bar. His tunic needed pensioning off, so he hid it under a grimy apron. That was on its last legs too. A towel was stuffed into it to make him look professional; it must have been the wrong kind of towel. One corner of his mouth quirked up as if he was constantly sneering.
“I know who you are!” he declared to me, as if claiming a prize.
“Flavia Albia.” I played it demure. Tiberius and Paris exchanged glances.
“That’s right, Flavia. You are the crazy who has been trotting all over the Capitol, asking questions. Did anybody tell you anything? No, I thought not. Never mind, you finally got down here to the Centaur with me, Honest Romulus. I’ll give you any answers you want.”
I murmured, “Thank you, Romulus.”
Tiberius joked that he hoped the landlord was not descended from the legendary founder of Rome, since his own watchword as a country man was, “Never trust a shepherd.” That broke the ice, for this Romulus was utterly a man of the city. His alley accent said it all. Luckily I had lived in Rome long enough, so I could more or less translate.
Some Romans are brusque. We had a chatty one. At least we could occupy ourselves while he talked at us, because our drinks came. Paris tried asking for a bowl of nuts; he was more of a comedian than we had realised.
The wine was the kind of vinegar Fornix used to clean his griddle. My father and Uncle Lucius would have called it “promising,” meaning its subtle undernotes made promises of after-midnight acid reflux.
“You want to know all about what happened when Gabinus topped himself!” Honest Romulus informed me. I did not mention that we no longer viewed it as suicide. I kept my cool, letting him run. It seemed he did have useful things to say. “Well, it was all going down at the Centaur that evening, I can tell you! You’re on about the Naevii, aren’t you? They were in. They came in late, though that was usual for them. Old Lemni was ranting. That was him, though. He rocked it out, then afterwards he let go of it, whatever was bugging him. Absolutely might never have ha
ppened. Nicest fellow. He never let anything eat him up—that was one reason everybody liked him. Always a pleasure to speak to, old Lemni.”
“What about Gemellus?” I managed to chip in.
“Not the same.” Honest Romulus had a decisive way of speaking that made me want to show him up, but I played nice. “Ab-so-lutely not the same. The opposite. Gemellus sits and broods to himself. He has been doing it a lot lately, all on his own, since Lemni passed. Well, he would, of course. He misses old Lemni, the way we all do. That was horrible, I have to tell you. Lemni never deserved to die like that. Ask anyone who comes here, we were all shocked.”
“So the night before Gabinus died—”
“The night before that bastard popped off, those two brothers come in for a drink, don’t they? Lemni is furious, spitting fire.”
“And Gemellus?”
“Gemellus just looked dark.”
“Could you tell what they were upset about?”
“That’s your job, isn’t it?” Honest Romulus really knew how to get on my bad side. I could see Tiberius grinning. “Well, everybody knew, of course. For one thing we could hear what the two of them were saying and, anyway, nothing that happens on the tops is a secret. Gabinus had had visitors—we all knew what he was playing at with those murex people. And then he tried it on with the girl but she gave him the brush-off—well, we knew about that afterwards, though come to think of it, we may have heard the tale from Lemni while he was here, ranting. Took her down to his house first, so he could tell Gemellus he would be late due to looking after her. Then the brothers came in here some time afterwards. Both steaming about what Gabinus had done.”
I tried to speed up his story. “Did the Naevius brothers stay long?”
“No. No, not long. Well, not Lemni. He had to be up with Larth next morning for bird-spotting, so he went home to bed. He had calmed down by then. He told Gemellus they would sort it, the nasty business with their sister. That was nothing new either. Those brothers always wanted to do something for her, but she never let them. So it seemed the same thing all over again—I mean that they hated how her husband was, but they were stuck. ‘All in good time,’ said Lemni, after he calmed down. He was always reasonable. Old Lemni. Such a loss. I really liked him.”
“And what did Gemellus do?”
“He stayed on here for a bit. Staring at his cup as if he thought we’d put poison in it. They had asked me for the reckoning, so both put down their share of it. Normally they left together … Well, they lived close, in case you don’t know that. But on the night, Gemellus sat longer, all on his own, moving the money around on the table. My boy didn’t like to disturb him, so he didn’t take up the cash as normal. You can’t leave it sitting there, it’s asking for someone to swipe it … Then suddenly Gemellus jumped up and left quietly, without a word to anyone. If I didn’t know better,” opined Honest Romulus, “I’d say he was off to do Gabinus in that very night. Only of course Gabinus jumped off the Rock next day.”
“In the morning. He didn’t jump, he was pushed. But,” I said, “Gemellus has an alibi.”
Honest Romulus looked surprised, though he was unabashed by my tone. “Well, Flavia, you need to think again. Alibi? If that’s the caretaker’s mother, she was never going to land her lover in trouble with you and lose him, was she?”
“Two people,” I specified, still terse.
“Oh, and the other must be Callipus! Well, you can forget him, Flavia. He is notorious for always doing what his mother tells him.”
While I pursed my lips, pondering, Tiberius broke in with a change of subject. “May I ask you, Romulus, what you felt about Gabinus dying?”
The landlord did not bother with customer loyalty. “Tell the truth, Legate, I absolutely thought he stank. Horrible man. I was sorry when he got himself that hut, and started coming down here every night. Nobody could stand him, and my two boys never wanted to serve him. If he could moan, he would—the place didn’t suit him, the liquor was off, and he was always on at my boys for the way they looked after him.”
Honest Romulus leaned forward, jabbing a finger in my face. He had strong feelings to communicate. “You know what? I am known for my love of my customers, you ask anyone. Famous for it. But I hated that man. I absolutely hated him. He drove my clients away. People just want a quiet night out, with a decent drink to help them forget their day. He came here, always upsetting everyone. He did it on purpose—he enjoyed making them unhappy. In the end I had to say to him, that very night I had said it, I’d rather he took himself to the Venus in the Clamshell sometimes.”
“This was actually the bar Gabinus came to?” I demanded quickly. “The night before he died?”
“Just said to you, Flavia. Luckily he was in and out before Lemni and Gemellus or we’d have had a right barney. I don’t know what might have gone down if they’d turned up and seen him, not after what they heard about him and the busty murex girl. But Gabinus had already stormed off, swearing that was the end of his custom here. Knowing him, he meant it. He had no call for that. I had to have a quiet word. You’ve seen how I am with people—me, Honest Romulus, all charm. I hate having to bar anyone—I had been quite pleasant with him. So if the bastard was pushed off the Rock by somebody, then I congratulate whoever did it. But you listen, Flavia,” Honest Romulus instructed me, being very, very earnest now, “don’t you go looking this way for your murderer. It was not me.”
It was so long since anyone had made this declaration, I almost didn’t see it coming.
LVIII
“Now I suppose,” Romulus careered on, “you’ll be asking me about Gabinus and his brother?”
“Yes, do tell!” Tiberius thought he had the weight to impose himself on the garbled torrent. “We know Gabinus had one, and the pair drank here together some nights.”
Romulus was not about to relinquish command of the tribunal. “Let me stop you there, Legate! I’m your man for that. We had them in here every night. Until I had a gentle word with him, anyway. He liked a quaff, did Gabinus.”
“His brother too?”
“Well, they do, don’t they, in his line? That was part of the trouble. They both liked it far too much. Put them together, other people fled. The way I heard it,” Romulus imparted, leaning in and lowering his voice in imitation of discretion, “that was why them two started coming here in the first place. Gabinus told me his brother had fixed himself up with a job on the Capitol deliberately, in order to be near. Then they could go out together, instead of him getting bladdered with his mates. The mates had given him the push. A lot were away all summer, of course, so he was feeling left out of manoeuvres. But then even the duds who had been left behind, who he thought were his mates, complained they were tired of him. After they took a vote, he was chucked out of where he drank before—some place up by the camp, where the guards all go together, some dive called Nino’s.”
* * *
Oh!
* * *
“Gabinus had a brother who is a Praetorian?” I tried not to croak in surprise. “His brother is Nestor?”
“I would have thought you would know that, Flavia,” confirmed the landlord, smugly.
“Yes, darling, I am very surprised you never found that out!” Tiberius joined in. He at least had sweet laughter in his eyes; I was meant to know he was teasing.
Our runabout, Paris, had something to contribute now. “Nino’s isn’t bad. Their liquor is very drinkable. I suppose you would expect that with soldiers. I had to go there,” he informed Romulus. “Business enquiry.”
“During which we learned something,” I reminded them. “The landlord at Nino’s claims that the night before Gabinus died, Nestor was up there with his pals—the whole time.”
Romulus shook his head. “Not on. Couldn’t have been. Nino got that wrong.”
“He is very bribable!” I confirmed.
“Gabinus and Nestor were here,” Honest Romulus insisted. “Then they moved to the Three Mallards. I know for a fact—old Duc
kie at the Mallards told me: after I had chucked them out for bad behaviour, they hunkered down there annoying him all the rest of the night. By the time Gabinus rolled back up the hill to that hut he stole, it must have been light. Somebody found him still snoring, dragged him out for a set-to. The bastard was too drunk to avoid being skimmed off Tarpeia’s Rock like a pebble. But that’s the other end of the Hill from here, so none of us ever saw it.”
“You would have gone to cheer?” suggested Paris, sharp-featured and curious.
“Not half!”
His trip for me to Nino’s seemed to have given Paris proprietary rights in the guard. He banged down his beaker. “Why did Nestor stick around here afterwards? Once his brother was dead, I don’t see the point.”
“Well, I am very surprised you don’t know that!” retorted Romulus, baring his teeth in a lop-sided sneer. He exonerated Paris; he aimed this at me, the flawed female investigator. “Old Nestor is obsessed, that’s why. He is determined to know who murdered his brother. He wants to avenge him. His superiors have ordered him back to the camp, but he sticks around, because he is intent on solving it himself. He was very put out when you were appointed, Flavia.” He didn’t want me to discover the answer first, I thought. “When he finds out who the killer was, he’s going to kill them.”
“Did he say so?” snapped in Tiberius.
“Too canny. He looks stupid, sir, but he can be deep.”
“Why, though?” mused Paris, still harping on Nino’s bar. “Why did Nestor need to fake an alibi for himself?”
I checked with Romulus. “Were Gabinus and Nestor always on good terms? Or were they brothers who had fights?”
“Bonded.”
“So nobody would ever have suggested it was Nestor who pushed Gabinus off the Rock?”
“Opposite. It left him devastated. All Nestor did after his brother was lost was rant that he would have revenge.”
A Capitol Death Page 28