In at the Death (Marcus Corvinus Book 11)

by David Wishart

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I understand.’

  ‘Good.’ He reached for a wax tablet. ‘Then if you’ll excuse me –’

  Bugger. Well, Lippillus had warned me, and I should’ve kept a firmer control of my mouth, but all the same... Still, there was no use pushing things further. I stood up.

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ I said, and exited.

  So what now? Obviously, the tenement, and hopefully a word with this Lucceius Caepio. Oh, everything could be above board, like Mescinius assumed, but the way things were developing I didn’t like the smell. Not above half, I didn’t. Forget about calling the case a wrap: the cold feeling at the back of my neck was telling me it was very much alive and kicking.

  So was Placida. The guy I’d left holding her lead didn’t look too gruntled, either. Being yanked down a flight of steps and dragged over the cobbles for twenty yards can get some people that way.

  7

  Like Natalis had said, the tenement was a fairly new property, six storeys high and upmarket compared with most of the others in the immediate area, which probably explained why Carsidius’s factor had chosen it for his flat. There was a butcher’s shop directly underneath one side of the entrance door, with a guy looping sausages over a hook, but I was learning: I didn’t even think of approaching him for information, not while I was attached to Placida. Diagonally opposite, on the other side of the street, a large-breasted woman in a bright red tunic and earrings was selling fruit and vegetables from a stall. Fruit and veg should be safe enough. I took a firm grip of Placida’s collar and manoeuvred her over.

  The woman beamed when she saw us coming. I was beginning to realise that there were basically two reactions to Placida; one was to coo over her, the other was to look for the nearest climbable wall. Strangely enough, women seemed to favour the first option.

  ‘Oooh! Isn’t she a pet!’ she said. ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Uh, Placida.’

  ‘There’s a luvvums!’ Placida reared, tongue lolling, to put her paws on the woman’s ample chest, but I was ready for that one and hauled her down before she could cause an embarrassing incident. ‘Doesn’t she have a beautiful face?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, she does.’ Sure; if you happened to like jaws that could rip the throat out of a bear and a muzzle permanently covered in spit. Still, as a conversational icebreaker with strangers - women especially - I couldn’t fault her. I wondered if Perilla’s stepdad the poet had featured Gallic boarhounds in his book on seduction. The brutes’ other, less appealing proclivities would be a bit of a style-cramper at a later stage, mind.

  ‘Now, sir,’ the fruit-lady said. ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘Just an apple, thanks. One of these Matians’ll be fine.’

  She picked it up, rubbed it off and handed it to me while I took a coin from my belt-pouch.

  ‘I heard there was a suicide here two or three days ago,’ I said.

  ‘That’s right. Dreadful thing.’ She counted out my change. ‘He was hardly more than a boy.’

  ‘You see it happen?’

  ‘Couldn’t but help it, could I? It’s the sort of thing gives you nightmares.’

  I glanced up at the tenement. Some of these places - the upmarket ones, anyway - have balconies, at least on the first floor, but this one didn’t. ‘He, uh, jump straight off from the window-ledge?’ I said.

  ‘Can’t tell you that. I wasn’t looking. You don’t, do you? Not up.’

  ‘He didn’t shout first, then, or scream? Give any kind of warning?’

  The woman gave me a long stare; the friendliness had gone. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she said finally. ‘No disrespect, but I don’t hold with ghouls. The poor lad’s dead and there’s an end of it. That’s no one’s business but his.’ She bent down to rearrange the fruit on her tray. ‘Enjoy your apple.’

  Yeah, well. That was fair enough; I’d no time for ghouls and rubber-neckers myself. And at least she’d confirmed what Mescinius had said. I put the Matian away for later and crossed the road to the tenement entrance, lugging Placida behind me and steering her away from the bucher’s shop.

  New was right: the steps were clean, there was no sign of graffiti on the white-plastered walls inside and no smell of urine on the stairs. Give it time. I tied Placida to the banister, making sure the knot was tight, went up to the first floor and knocked on the door marked ‘Lucceius Caepio’.

  I thought for a minute there was no one in - tenement dwellers spend most of their time elsewhere - but as I raised my hand for the second knock the door was opened by a thick-set, unshaven guy in his forties wearing a lounging-tunic and chewing on a hunk of bread.

  ‘Lucceius Caepio?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’ There was suspicion in his eyes. ‘Who’re you?’

  ‘Valerius Corvinus. I’ve just come from Titus Mescinius over at the Watch-house.’ No harm in dropping the name, and given he didn’t look particularly welcoming I reckoned the ambiguity would get me over the threshold faster. ‘You have time for a chat, pal?’

  He hesitated, then stepped back, still chewing. The eyes hadn’t shifted. ‘A little,’ he said. ‘You’d best come in.’

  I followed him, closing the door behind me. There was something badly wrong with the guy’s leg, because he held it stiffly and didn’t so much move as lurch.

  ‘Sorry about the mess,’ he said. ‘The wife’s at her sister’s down in Capua. New baby. You want a bite of breakfast?’

  ‘No thanks. You carry on, though.’

  He grunted and sat down at the table. Tenements, even upmarket ones, are pretty basic, and tables don’t come as standard, but Caepio seemed to be fitted up quite snugly here. There was even a small dresser with a set of Samian bowls and plates, and a line of the cheap souvenir statuettes they sell outside the Circus. The other thing I noticed was a key-board with numbered hooks fixed to the wall.

  ‘It’ll be about that youngster, no doubt,’ Caepio said, dipping his crust of bread in a bowl of oil. ‘Sextus Papinius.’

  ‘Right.’ I pulled up a stool.

  ‘You’re no Watchman. Not with that stripe.’

  ‘No. I’m looking into the kid’s death. Or the reasons for it, rather. On behalf of the mother and a family friend.’

  He gave me a quick, sharp look and bit into the bread. ‘That so, now?’ he said. ‘Sad business. Terrible.’

  ‘He worked for the fire compensation board. I understand you and he had a professional connection.’

  ‘If you can call it that, sure. I was factor for a couple of other properties further up the hill that got burned down. He came over a couple of times and we talked through the details.’

  ‘But you didn’t know he was here the afternoon he died?’

  Long silence. Then, finally, Caepio said: ‘That’s not quite true.’

  I frowned. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Look.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I knew he was here, but not that he intended to...use the upstairs flat. Okay?’

  ‘That’s not what you told the Watch, friend,’ I said carefully.

  ‘No.’

  ‘All right.’ I kept my voice neutral. ‘So why the lie? And why bother to tell the truth now?’

  ‘Where lying goes’ - Caepio shrugged - ‘well, if you think about it you’ll understand that yourself. I’d nothing to do with the death, first thing I knew was when I heard the commotion in the street and went down.’ He dipped his bread again. ‘But the kid had died on my property and I didn’t want to get involved, right? Besides, he only called in in passing to confirm some of the figures we’d discussed. At least that’s what I thought at the time, because that’s what he told me. As far as telling the truth now’s concerned’ - he got up, hobbled over to the board on the wall and pointed to the last hook - ‘there’s your answer there.’

  The hook, like all the others on the board, was empty.

  Uh-huh. ‘That’s where the flat key was,’ I said. Tenement factors use these boards for the keys to the various flats because it keeps eve
rything nice and neat. If a flat’s occupied then of course the occupier gets the key, but otherwise it stays on the board. The last two hooks would go with the top floor.

  ‘Right. I didn’t notice it was missing until I got back here after the Watchmen had gone with the body. Didn’t know he had it on him, either; still don’t, as such, because they haven’t been back, but I assume now he must’ve because it wasn’t upstairs when I looked. Did he?’ I nodded, and his mouth twisted. ‘Right. That solves that one, then. Anyway, it wasn’t until later that I put two and two together, and by then I’d told my story. Now I’m just setting the record straight, that’s all.’

  ‘You didn’t wonder how he’d got into the flat?’

  He stared at me, the bread-crust half way to his lips. ‘Jupiter, that’s not something you give a thought to! Not when a man’s lying there smashed like a doll with his brains...’ He stopped, looked at the crust and put it down. ‘Anyway, the answer’s no. No, I didn’t wonder, not then.’

  ‘And the Watchman you talked to didn’t ask? Where Papinius had got the key from?’

  ‘He hadn’t seen it at the time. Or at least he never mentioned it to me, and like I say no one from the Watch office has been here since. I assume it was in the lad’s belt-pouch and they found it later.’

  Oh, great; score one for the super-efficient Thirteenth District Watch. Gods alive, what a shower! ‘So what you’re saying - now - is that Papinius dropped in on an excuse and helped himself to the top floor flat key?’

  ‘Yes. At least, that’s what I’m assuming. The document with the figures he wanted was in my desk in the other room. He’d’ve known that. He must’ve taken the key while I was getting it and then gone upstairs when I thought he’d left the building.’ Caepio spread his hands. ‘Look, I’m sorry I lied, Corvinus. It was stupid, and I’ve regretted it ever since, but I’m levelling with you now before I get myself into more trouble. After all, what does it matter? And I swear to you the boy didn’t get that key from me. Not as such.’

  Yeah, well, there was no point in pushing things. And he seemed genuine enough. ‘Okay.’ I stood up. ‘Can I see the flat?’

  Caepio was looking relieved. ‘Certainly. No problem. It’s locked again, of course, because I’ve got a duplicate. Hold on and I’ll fetch it for you.’ He got up and lurched into the next room, reappearing almost immediately with a heavy bunch of keys. ‘That’s the one, the last on the ring. You want me to come up?’

  ‘No, that’s okay.’ With that leg, climbing five flights of stairs wouldn’t be easy. ‘I’ll drop them back down on the way out.’

  ‘It’s the door on the left.’ He handed the bunch over. ‘Take your time.’

  I went up to the sixth. There were two flats opposite each other either side of the landing, and on an impulse I knocked a couple of times at the other door. No answer. Well, like I say that was par for the course: people in tenements are out most of the day, and any top-floor flat will be as basic as you get, with no incentive for staying in.

  Once inside the flat itself I opened the shutters to let in the light: tenement windows, especially those on the upper floors, are just holes in the wall, and with the weather we’d been getting Caepio had kept them closed. I’d expected the place to be bare, but there were three or four stools and the framework of a bed, with no mattress. Also, although it smelt stale and unused, it was dry, fairly clean and even clear of dust. Good sign: empty flats, particularly the no-frills variety right under the tiles, tend to get the go-by where everyday maintenance is concerned. Caepio was obviously the conscientious type.

  I looked through the window and down. A long way down: six storeys seem more when you’re at the top of them. The street below was crowded - it’d been a miracle that Papinius hadn’t taken an innocent pedestrian or two with him when he jumped - but all I could see was the tops of heads and my friend the fruit-seller’s stall on the opposite pavement. Nothing at eye-level, not for at least a block either side. Good view of the Aventine, if you like that sort of thing. Window-sill chest high, but he could’ve clambered up easy, or used the stool immediately beneath the ledge to stand on. He’d’ve had to have climbed, certainly: accident wasn’t an option here.

  I leaned out and shouted. Two or three heads swivelled upwards briefly.

  It all checked; the physical side of things, anyway. I poked around a bit in the room, but there was nothing to see that I wouldn’t have expected, and even the bloody Thirteenth District Watch wouldn’t’ve missed something as obvious as a suicide note that’d got itself mislaid in one of the corners. Bugger. That was that, then.

  I took a last look from the window down towards the pavement, feeling my balls shrink: me, if I had to kill myself, I’d do it clean by slitting my wrists in the bath or putting a sword to my ribs and falling on it. Or maybe just lighting a charcoal brazier and shutting all the windows. I sure as hell wouldn’t jump from a sixth-floor window in a strange building head-first onto a crowded street. Still, I wasn’t Papinius. And he had taken the key. That last I was sure of: Caepio hadn’t been lying, I’d bet my last copper penny there, which meant that it was suicide after all, carefully planned and premeditated.

  The only question left to answer was the one I’d started with: why?

  I dropped the keys off with Caepio and went down to collect Placida.Zilch. The banister-holding bracket had been torn clear of the wall, and there was a distinct absence of dog. Which meant...

  Oh, hell!

  Here we went again. I cleared the tenement entrance at a run. Too late, miles too late; I could tell that straight away from the crowd of interested bystanders round the butcher’s.

  Shit! She’d planned it! She had bloody planned it! I’d kill the brute!

  I pushed my way through. Placida was up on the counter gulping down the last of the dangling pork links. The butcher himself was standing well clear, cleaver in hand.

  Happy, smiling and contented were three things he wasn’t.

  ‘That your dog, friend?’ he said.

  ‘Uh...yeah. In a manner of speaking.’

  ‘Fuck that,’ he spat. ‘You owe me for’ - he counted off on his fingers - ‘two pounds of tripe, six chops, three pork knuckles, an ox liver and a bowl of dripping. Plus the sausages, of course.’

  ‘What? Nothing can eat –!’

  ‘I got witnesses.’

  I glanced round. Several of the punters nodded. They were all looking impressed as hell. One old guy with no teeth and a face like a pickled walnut was making a trembling sign against the evil eye.

  I sighed and reached for my purse. This was getting monotonous. Maybe we should give the brute an allowance and bill Sestia bloody Calvina when she finally rolled in from Veii.

  ‘You want to look after her better.’ The butcher had his hand out. ‘Me, I’ve always said there’s no problem dogs, just problem owners.’

  ‘Very profound, pal.’ I tipped half of the purse’s contents into his palm. ‘Have a really, really nice day. Come on, Placida.’

  I pulled on the dangling lead. She came down, grinning.

  ‘Urp.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m not surprised.’ Well, it might slow her down a bit, at least. It was a long drag from the Aventine to Julian Square, and that was our next stop to see the money-lender Vestorius.

  8

  Lugging the bloated Placida behind me, I took the hike back to the centre and Julian Square. Bankers and money-lenders tend to keep fairly self-indulgent hours, but the sun was half way through the morning now and the chances were that if Vestorius was anywhere to be got then I’d get the bastard now.

  Sure enough, the Shark was In: a tall, spare, elderly North Italian with a sharp well-starched mantle, a wispy goatee beard and an air that left him somewhere between a professor of rhetoric and any kid’s ideal of a cuddly grandpa. When I shoved my head round the door of his booth - really, a small room done up like an office - he was slaving over a hot abacus with added ledgers.

  ‘Publius Vestorius?’ I s
aid.

  ‘That’s right.’ I got the full hundred-candelabra smile as he took in the purple stripe on my mantle. Nice teeth, but then loan-sharks, like professional politicians, tend to look after them if they can. A good smile is one of these bastards’ most important assets. ‘Come in, sir.’

  ‘You mind if I bring my dog with me? Only if I leave her tied up outside she’s liable to get bored and eat people.’

  The smile wavered. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Joke. In you come, Placida.’ I moved aside to let her past, and the smile disappeared altogether. ‘Don’t worry, pal, she’s got a lovely nature.’

  ‘Ah...yes.’ He rallied visibly. ‘Fine animal. Very fine. Do have a seat. You’ll find that chair quite comfortable.’

  Yeah, I’d bet it was, because the whole room was designed to put the customer at his ease and keep him there while he got rooked. The chair was padded with crimson wool-stuffed cushions. I sat, and sank a good two inches before I stopped. ‘The name’s Corvinus,’ I said. ‘Valerius Corvinus. Settle, Placida.’

  Amazingly, she did, albeit with a single prolonged belch. I wondered what the odds were in favour of her crapping on the guy’s fancy polished wooden floor. Pretty good, I’d imagine, considering how much she’d eaten and her total lack of the social graces. Not that I’d mind, myself. Quite the reverse.

  ‘I’m delighted to meet you.’ Vestorius moved the abacus aside. ‘Such unpleasant weather this time of year, isn’t it? Still, we can’t complain, we had quite a moderate summer. Some wine?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, sure.’ Me, I never pass up a free cup of wine, and if the bugger wanted to think I was a punter that was his affair.

  There was a slave hovering. Vestorius snapped his fingers and the guy oozed across to the wine-jug and cups on the small table to one side of his desk. ‘Now,’ he said, and the smile was back in spades, ‘how exactly can I be of help? Presumably you need a loan. I can assure you here and now that there will be no difficulties on that score.’