Foreign Bodies

by David Wishart

  Gods! Diligenta had said, or at least implied, that the guy was an arch-snob, and on present showing he could’ve given even the most right-wing of Rome’s starchy top Five Hundred lessons.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, it does. To a degree.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad. His being elected to the magistracy was bad enough – money will buy you anything these days, wherever sewer it comes from, and the good citizens of Lugdunum are toadies to a man – but getting himself appointed as officiating priest at this year’s Assembly was a step too far, even for him. A pure disgrace. And you ask me why I didn’t like the man? I’d have thought that was self-evident.’

  ‘Right. Right.’ I had to go careful here: the guy was practically spitting, and I was beginning to wonder if there wasn’t a bit more than simple, ordinary jealousy and snobbery involved. In fact, I was getting the distinct impression that Julius Oppianus was more than a few tiles short of a watertight roof. ‘That mattered to you a lot, did it?’

  He looked at me like I’d just sprouted an extra head. ‘For a man from Cabirus’s background to hold the highest position the city could offer was nothing short of a desecration. A blasphemy. You know that my own grandfather officiated at the original assembly?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I did, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Well, then! To have that … tradesman … stand in my grandfather’s place at the Altar and conduct the ceremony was an insufferable insult, and one not to be borne.’

  ‘So. Did you kill him?’ I asked quietly.

  He blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It’s a simple question. Someone did.’

  ‘Evidently. But whoever it was, and for whatever reason, I’ll tell you this, Valerius Corvinus: Claudius Cabirus’s death was a judgement, one richly deserved. The proper order of things isn’t mocked, and dross like Cabirus try it at their peril.’ He picked up the book he’d set down on the desk. ‘Now. I can’t wish you success in your investigations. Good day, sir.’

  I didn’t move. ‘You care to tell me where you were at the time?’ I said. ‘When the murder was committed, I mean?’

  That got me a positive glare. ‘No, I would not,’ he snapped. ‘I expect you can find your own way out. Good day to you!’

  He unrolled the book and started reading, without giving me another glance. I stood up and left the room.

  Short and a long way from sweet. Yeah, well: obviously totally out of his tree and no mistake, that one, at least where Cabirus was concerned. Whether it made him a killer, though, motive and inclination in spades or not, was another thing entirely.

  Onwards and upwards. So: where to next? The procurator’s offices, where according to Publius young Titus might or might not be, were back up the Hinge towards Market Square and home; familiar territory, in other words, and besides, Titus would still be on duty. I might as well see a bit more of Lugdunum while I was at it.

  Brother Quintus it would be, then.

  I was beginning to get my bearings now. The quickest way to the Canabae was east along Traders’ Street, where it crossed the Hinge, to the Rhone Gate, then down Rhone Road to the South Bridge. So that was the way I went.

  Like its name suggests, Traders’ Street was mostly shops; but where the ones on the two main drags, particularly on Boundary Marker Street, tended to feature luxury goods and be pretty pricey these catered for the everyday needs and wants of what in Rome would be the tunic and plain-mantle clientele. Which meant at that time of day it got as close as Lugdunum evidently did to heaving. Oh, sure, the local version of the bag lady we got back home was a lot more polite and a lot less bloody-minded – you don’t get in the way of an incoming Suburban housewife loaded down with shopping if you’re wise – but what with the comparative narrowness of the street and the fact that the shopkeepers’ wares tended to spill over on to the pavement the going was pretty slow. I made it to the gate at the end eventually and turned right on to Rhone Road. This was pretty busy, too, but it was a different kind of busyness: linking the two ports as it did, it was used mostly by heavy carts, and there were comparatively few pedestrians. Still, the original engineers had laid it out pretty wide, so as long as you listened out for waggons coming from behind it was OK.

  Much pleasanter to walk along than its equivalent in Rome would’ve been, what’s more: summer, when the river’s low and there’s more mud in it than water, is no time for a stroll along the Tiber unless you’ve as much sense of smell as a radish or don’t mind having your sinuses cauterized. Oh, sure, what we’d got here was just a side branch that cut off the wooded central island from the bank, and like riverside dwellers everywhere the locals evidently took the opportunity to use it as a largely self-clearing garbage-disposal system, but since compared with Rome the population density wasn’t all that high the smell wasn’t, either: what buildings there were – and they were a mixture of commercial properties, small-scale industrial yards, and downmarket private houses – weren’t exactly packed cheek-by-jowl, and there was plenty of open space for the breeze to blow around.

  I crossed the South Bridge into the Canabae and turned down the first road leading off to the right: Diligenta had said that the family’s offices were near the river, opposite the port on the mainland side, so they couldn’t be all that far away. Sure enough, when I stopped off at a brick-maker’s yard to ask I was pointed to a set of warehouses a hundred yards or so further on.

  Outside the first one I came to, four or five men were loading amphoras on to a cart. Promising.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said, going up to them. ‘This the Cabirus place?’

  They paused, and I saw their eyes going to the stripe on my tunic.

  ‘That’s right, sir,’ one of them said. ‘Looking for the boss, are you?’

  ‘Yeah. Quintus Cabirus, yes? He around at present?’

  ‘Sure. Just go straight up.’ He turned back to his work.

  There was an external stair leading to the first floor, above the warehouse proper. I went up it and through the door at the top, and found myself in an office with the usual complement of clerks, desks and document-cubbies. A chunky middle-aged guy in a smart tunic was standing by one of the desks talking to the clerk behind it. He looked up as I came in, and his eyes, like those of the workmen below, went to the purple stripe.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Quintus Cabirus?’ I said.

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Valerius Corvinus. Sorry to disturb you when you’re busy, but your sister-in-law said I might catch you here. It’s about—’

  ‘My brother’s death. Word has got around. Yes. And no, you’re not disturbing me.’ He turned to the clerk. ‘That’s fine, Silus, just send these off at once, will you?’ He turned back to me. ‘We’ll go into my private office, if that’s all right.’

  ‘Sure.’ I followed him past the suddenly attentive clerks to a door at the back of the room. He opened it and stood aside. I went in.

  Obviously the place where he took prospective clients: there was a desk, sure, and more document-cubbies against the wall, but there were also a couple of wickerwork chairs – I was getting more used to those things as standard: in Rome, they’re mostly used for portable garden furniture – and a low table with a wine jug and cups on it.

  He came in behind me and closed the door. ‘Have a seat, please,’ he said. ‘Some wine?’

  Here we went again. Conscience won out, and I steeled myself. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Half a cup will do fine.’ There was no water jug on the table, but I reckoned I could stretch a point for once and have it as it was without breaking my promise to Perilla. I sat down in the nearest chair – the cushions were newer and in far better nick than Oppianus’s – while he poured the wine into two cups and handed me one.

  ‘Now.’ He settled himself in the other chair. ‘How can I help you? If you’ve talked to Diligenta then you’ll already have the basic facts. I’m afraid where those are concerned I can’t add anything, because I was elsewher
e at the time.’

  ‘You were away altogether? Your sister-in-law said you travel a lot on business.’

  ‘No, I was here in Lugdunum. I just wasn’t at the house, that’s all. Naturally not.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it would’ve been a working day, wouldn’t it?’ I took a sip of the wine. Nice stuff; very nice, and all the better for not being drowned. I held up the cup. ‘Massilian?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. It’s the top of our range. Single vineyard, only ten acres. Aminnean vines. The annual yield is very small indeed, as you can imagine, and the price is correspondingly high. But we sell all we produce, and we could easily sell five times the amount.’

  ‘You own the vineyard?’

  ‘No. But we have a standing arrangement with the owner to buy the entire vintage, barring what he keeps for his own use.’

  ‘Diligenta told me that you and your brother looked after two separate halves of the business.’

  ‘Indeed. Tiberius did the buying and arranged transport as far as Lugdunum. Most of our customers, though, are north of here, in the smaller towns between us and the Rhine. Plus, of course, we have our share of the army contract. That side of things was my concern.’

  ‘You’re from that part of Gaul yourself, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. From Augusta. The family – or our bit of it, anyway – moved here twenty years ago. Tiberius decided that Lugdunum made a more sensible base.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what Diligenta said.’

  ‘It works – worked – out very well, because it played to both our strengths. I’m the better salesman as such, but Tiberius was the one who could judge what would really sell. Not only that, but pick the wines with mileage.’

  ‘“Mileage”?’

  ‘However good a wine is on its own ground, if it can’t travel without deteriorating you won’t get its proper price at the other end. Tiberius was a marvel at singling out the wines with mileage. He’d a first-rate palate, too. Not like me.’ He held up his cup. ‘Oh, I know this is a first-rate wine, but that’s only because he spotted it as such to begin with and told me it was. Me, I can’t tell the difference between a wine that’s just very good and one that’s outstanding, and in our business that’s not enough. The gods know how the family will cope now he’s gone.’

  ‘What about young Publius? I thought his father was training him up?’

  ‘Publius?’ He hesitated. ‘He’s my nephew, Corvinus, so I shouldn’t say this, but nice enough boy as he is Publius will never make a wine merchant. You’ve met him?’

  ‘Yeah. Briefly.’

  ‘Well, then, even on those terms you can probably form a fairly accurate opinion. His mind works the wrong way. And he’s not good with people, which you have to be in this line. Prefers sitting in his room all day working on his precious models, or walking around by himself the best part of the night for the gods know what reasons.’ He shot me a look, and smiled. ‘No, nothing dubious or anything he shouldn’t be doing, that I am sure of. It might be better for him if it were, but it’s just not in his character.’

  ‘Your other nephew – Titus – isn’t interested?’

  ‘No. He never has been. You’ve met him too?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Well, then. Titus has only two interests, the army and hunting; oh, girls, too, at his age, but he’s pretty secretive where they’re concerned, and I don’t know much about that side of him. He joined the procurator’s guard as soon as he was old enough to be accepted – you know the procurator has a unit under his personal command, independent of the detachment from Rome’s Urban Cohort guarding the mint?’

  ‘Yeah. I do.’

  ‘For a provincial family like ours, the army’s a good way of getting on. First the auxiliaries, then the legions, and if you can prove yourself then after that the world’s your oyster. Look at our current procurator, Laco.’

  ‘He’s from Lugdunum?’

  ‘Massilia, I think, although I may be wrong; I don’t have much to do with a high-flyer like Graecinius Laco. But it’s the same difference; he’s a pure-bred Gaul and the second most important man in the province, he’s got his equestrian stripe, and with that he’s eligible for any top imperial post in the empire. Even the Egyptian governorship. No, I can see why Titus isn’t interested in joining the firm. To give him his due, Tiberius could see it too, elder son or not.’ He took a mouthful of his wine. ‘So you see as far as direct family goes unfortunately the future is largely scuppered. Oh, we’re doing all right at present, much better than all right, in fact. But with Tiberius dead we’re like a plant that’s damaged in its roots.’

  ‘So. Did he have any enemies that you know of? Anyone who’d want him out of the way?’

  ‘None. Absolutely none. Barring …’ He hesitated again.

  ‘Barring Julius Oppianus?’

  A grunt, and a frown. ‘You know about him?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s one guy I have met. This morning, in fact.’

  ‘Then again you can form your own opinion. He certainly had his knife into Tiberius, but—’ He stopped. ‘I’m sorry. That was tactless.’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘I was going to say that Oppianus had no time for my brother. To put it mildly. But I wouldn’t have said he’d take things as far as murder.’

  ‘Yeah. Your sister-in-law said the same.’

  ‘There you are, then. Naturally, I’m not trying to tell you your business, but let’s just say that if Oppianus was responsible then I’d be very surprised indeed.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ I was noncommittal: me, if Julius Oppianus did turn out to be the perp, I wouldn’t exactly put it in the flying-pigs bracket. And at present he was streets ahead the best on offer. ‘No one else?’

  ‘I said: absolutely no one. To my knowledge, at least. Oppianus apart, Tiberius was very popular in the city, and highly respected; the Council wouldn’t have chosen him to represent us at the ceremony in Condate if he wasn’t. Ex-city judge twice, ex-co-mayor three years running. Tipped for censor in two years’ time. And he’s done it cleanly, too: no underhand skulduggery, like you often get in local politics.’

  ‘Oppianus would be a front contender now for his replacement? For the Condate ceremony?’

  ‘I don’t know. Unlike Tiberius, I’m not involved in that side of things at all. Never been able to muster up the interest. But I’d imagine, being who he is, he’d have a very fair chance.’

  Uh-huh; that was my feeling, too. And something like that would weigh with a guy like Oppianus, out of all proportion to how much perhaps it should. Still, I knew from experience it was better to keep an open mind.

  ‘So,’ I said, ‘assuming Oppianus didn’t do it for the obvious reasons, and barring any other specific contenders, why do you think he was killed?’

  ‘That’s the question that’s puzzled me – all of us, in the family – for the past month, Corvinus. And I’m afraid I’ve not the slightest idea as to what the answer could be.’

  Right. Me, neither; at least on present showing. We’d just have to keep on digging.

  I swallowed the rest of my wine, what there was of it – that, I wasn’t going to waste – and stood up. Quintus did, too.

  ‘Well, thanks anyway,’ I said. ‘I’ll let you get back to things. You busy just now?’

  ‘No more than usual. Which means, with Tiberius gone, I’m practically run off my feet. We’ve a good man at the Massilia end who’s handling purchase and shipping the best he can, so that part of the business is jogging along as normal, but I’ll have to travel to Augusta in the next few days and I still have all the arrangements to make.’

  ‘That usual? For you to go in person?’

  ‘Pretty much, yes. Certainly at least one time in three, often more. We’ve always prided ourselves on the personal touch where customers are concerned, and there’re always matters to be handled, decisions to be made, that can’t be delegated. It’s time-consuming, but I don’t mind that. I’ve no family myself – wife and c
hildren, I mean – so it’s no great wrench.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Oh – one more thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You said you were “elsewhere” the day of the murder. You weren’t here, then? In the office?’

  ‘No. No, as a matter of fact I wasn’t.’

  ‘So where exactly were you?’

  ‘At home. I’d a chest cold that day, as it happened. Something I’m prone to, before the summer proper. I decided to stay in and give work a miss.’ He smiled. ‘Boss’s prerogative.’

  ‘Right. Right.’ I turned to go. ‘Thanks again.’

  ‘You’re welcome. I only wish I could be of more help. And naturally if you’ve any other questions before I leave—’

  ‘I’ll get in touch,’ I said.

  I was making my way out between the clerks when I noticed the oldish guy Quintus had been talking to glance in my direction, put down his pen, and half-rise; then, as if he’d thought twice about whatever he was going to do, sit down again, retrieve the pen, and carry on writing like his life depended on it. I slowed, but he didn’t look up, just beavered away until I was past his desk.

  I continued to the front door, opened it, and went down the steps.

  Interesting.

  So; back to the residence. The procurator’s offices were on my way home anyway, so it wouldn’t hurt to call in in passing to check whether young Titus Cabirus was around. Not that I was too bothered, mind: it was only the first day, and I reckoned I’d done pretty well as far as my duty to the emperor was concerned.

  I retraced my steps; it was past midday by now, and the streets were a bit quieter, possibly because lunch was a more important meal here than it would’ve been in Rome. The procurator’s offices were part of the city’s admin sector, at the top of the Hinge, next to the mint and just shy of Market Square itself, with a couple of squaddies on guard outside. I went up to them.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for Titus Cabirus. He on duty here at present?’

  ‘He is, sir,’ one of them said. ‘But you won’t find him inside. He’s on his lunch break.’