Foreign Bodies

by David Wishart

  ‘Who could he have seen?’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s the interesting part. I mentioned Titus straight after, and he froze up.’

  ‘Titus?’

  ‘Like I say: interesting, yes? Only then when I went on to ask him whether he knew of any difference of opinion recently between Titus and his father that might’ve soured their relationship he seemed to relax.’

  ‘So.’ Perilla was still twisting the lock of hair. ‘You think Publius might have seen his brother. In the garden. At the time when their father was killed.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s about the sum of it.’

  ‘Oh, Marcus!’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s only a theory, sure. What possible reason Titus might have for killing his father – and I admit that it’d have to be a real biggie – I’ve no idea. But it fits the facts as we know them, or at least one interpretation of them. He was on duty that day, or so he claimed. That much I can check, which I will, tomorrow.’

  ‘Things seem to be revolving round Titus at the moment, don’t they?’

  ‘So I’ve noticed. Still—’

  ‘What else did you get?’

  ‘Ah. That was Biracus again. Right at the end of the conversation he did a Lentulus.’

  ‘How do you mean, dear?’

  ‘You know how the old bugger suddenly comes out with an irrelevance that he knows damn well isn’t irrelevant at all, quite the reverse, but doesn’t want to tell you as much in so many words?’

  ‘No, Marcus, I don’t, not from personal experience. I’ve hardly ever spoken to Cornelius Lentulus, and when I have the conversation has revolved round dinner parties he’s attended and the various forms of entertainment thereat. Usually embarrassingly so.’

  I grinned; that was Lentulus, all right. And I’d always had a sneaking suspicion that, on the few occasions he and Perilla had met, he’d gone out of his way to wind the lady up. Nubian contortionist dancing girls with tame pythons came to mind. ‘Yeah, well, he does,’ I said. ‘Which is what Biracus did. For a start, he asked me out of the blue if I’d met Claudilla when I was at the Cabirus place.’

  ‘Who’s Claudilla?’

  ‘Exactly. She’s the daughter, the youngest of the three, and she shouldn’t figure at all, because she’s been away in Arausio since before the murder, staying with a friend there who’s due to have a baby.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘That’s the puzzling thing. Biracus claimed that he’d forgotten. What’s more, that he couldn’t remember the friend’s name. He made a point of it, too.’

  ‘You’ve lost me. What possible bearing could that have on—?’

  ‘I told you. It was a classic Lentulus ploy. Lentulus doesn’t forget things; you know they call him the Elephant down at the Senate House?’

  ‘I thought that was because of his size.’

  ‘Yeah, that as well, but still. And I’d bet Biracus is the same. It was quite deliberate.’

  ‘To what end?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that, and the way he said it. My guess is the story was a fabrication on the family’s part to avoid a scandal; that the girl had got herself pregnant and they’d sent her to Arausio for the duration.’

  ‘Oh, Marcus! That is pure wild speculation, and you know it!’

  ‘Of course it is. No argument. But it fits, and it’s standard procedure in these circumstances, right?’

  ‘Perhaps it is. Even so, true or not, it’s no concern of yours. Or it shouldn’t be.’

  ‘Hang on, lady. I’m not finished. Biracus went on to drop another name. A guy called Julius Vindus. He’s a friend of the family’s, specifically of young Titus’s, and like him he’s one of Procurator Laco’s men. Furthermore, he’s Julius Oppianus’s nephew.’

  ‘Ah.’ She took a contemplative sip of her barley water. ‘And you think this Vindus might be the child’s father?’

  ‘It’s a fair bet.’

  ‘So what does this have to do with Cabirus’s murder?’

  ‘Come on, Perilla! Use your head! I haven’t worked out the whys and wherefores yet, but it’s another link, isn’t it? Oppianus has enough of a down on the Cabirus family already; how do you think he’d feel if he found out that not only was a nephew of his interested in the daughter but that the relationship had gone the length of a pregnancy?’

  ‘Hmm.’ She twisted a lock of her hair. ‘Yes, I see. It still wouldn’t explain why he would stick a knife into her father, though, does it?’

  ‘It would if Cabirus had found out who was responsible and was forcing a marriage. That’d do it, in spades.’

  ‘Maybe. But he’d approach Vindus’s father, surely, not his uncle.’

  ‘Vindus doesn’t have one, or at least that was Biracus’s implication. He said that the guy was Oppianus’s ward.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said again. ‘In that case perhaps he would have a motive.’

  ‘Sweet holy Jupiter, lady! How much more do you want?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry, Marcus. You’re quite right, of course; it’s a perfectly valid theory.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘So what are you going to do now?’

  ‘Find Vindus and face him with it. That should be easy enough; like I say, he’ll be stationed at the procurator’s office, and I was meaning to go down there tomorrow anyway. Then have another word with Julius Oppianus. If I can—’

  Bathyllus buttled in. ‘Dinner, sir,’ he said. He buttled out again.

  Short and sweet. Perilla and I exchanged glances.

  ‘He seems to have taken your instructions to heart,’ Perilla said.

  ‘So it would appear.’ I grinned. Ah, well, I doubted if the miff would last all that long; it took a lot to cramp Bathyllus’s style.

  Tomorrow was another day. We went through to dinner.

  NINE

  I was off straight after breakfast the next morning. First stop the procurator’s offices down the Hinge.

  ‘Me again, lads,’ I said to the two squaddies on the door: they were the same guys who’d been on duty before and had pointed me towards the cookshop where I’d talked to Titus. ‘Another question for you. You happen to know where I can find a Julius Vindus?’

  ‘Out of town today, sir, I’m afraid,’ one of them said. ‘On an assignment. He should be back this evening.’

  Damn! Still, it couldn’t be helped; he wasn’t going to disappear altogether, and tomorrow would do just as well. ‘Thanks a lot,’ I said, and carried on inside.

  The lobby was impressive: large, with a coloured-marble floor, decorated walls and a statue of Claudius – idealized again, but what would you expect? – taking pride of place. The sculptor had shown him in the usual pose, dressed in a mantle, left arm gathering up the folds, right hand stretched out in front of him, palm up. Personally, I’ve often wondered whether the guys who commission those things, or who are responsible for putting them in place, have any concept of irony: for anyone coming into a public building the main purpose of whose occupants is to screw money out of the local population in taxes to be greeted by a representation of the head of the Roman state with his hand out seems pretty ironic to me. Still, we Romans have always been insensitive pragmatists, so maybe it was deliberate.

  ‘Valerius Corvinus! What brings you here?’

  I looked to my right: the procurator himself, Laco, in conversation with a couple of clerks next to a very nice bronze of the goddess Artemis. He came over.

  ‘Good morning, Procurator,’ I said. ‘Just checking up on a technicality.’

  ‘How is the investigation going?’

  ‘Not bad. It’s still early days yet.’

  ‘I hope you’re not working too hard. After all, it is your first visit to Lugdunum, and you owe it to yourself to relax a little bit, see the sights.’

  ‘No, that’s OK,’ I said. ‘I’m not much one for sightseeing. Perilla’s doing the rounds, though. Getting Nerva’s wife Caninia to take her in hand was a good move on the governor’s part.’

 
‘Yes, well, I’d at least have liked to have you round to dinner, for a real Gaulish meal. But I’m afraid that, like the governor, I’ll be away on tour very shortly; it’s that time of year, you understand. Up north, into Belgica; my remit covers both provinces. A great pity. I enjoyed our conversation, and of course meeting your lady wife.’

  ‘Maybe another time,’ I said diplomatically. A real Gaulish meal, eh? Now that was something I wasn’t in any hurry to try. The day Gallic cuisine hits the dinner tables of the empire the sky will be full of flying pigs. Rumour had it that the bastards even used butter to cook their snails in. Meton would have a fit.

  ‘So,’ Laco said. ‘What’s this technicality you’re checking up on?’

  I couldn’t very well not tell him, though I’d’ve preferred not to. ‘Just an entry in the duty roster. For Titus Cabirus.’

  That got me a very sharp look. ‘Titus?’

  ‘Yeah. Like I say, it’s just a routine check.’

  ‘You surely don’t suspect Titus of killing his own father, do you?’ He was frowning. ‘Besides, I told you at the governor’s dinner, the lad’s one of my most promising young officers. If I’m any judge – which I am – he has a brilliant career ahead of him.’

  ‘No, not at all,’ I lied. ‘Just being thorough. Dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s.’

  ‘Hmm. You know your business best, of course, but I think one can be too painstaking.’ He turned towards the two clerks he’d been talking to when I came in and raised his voice. ‘Largus! Over here a moment, please.’ One of the clerks came over. ‘This is Valerius Corvinus, the emperor’s personal representative from Rome. He wants to see one of the past duty rosters. Take care of it, will you?’

  ‘Certainly, Procurator.’ The man looked at me curiously. ‘If you’d care to follow me, sir?’

  ‘If I don’t see you again before I go, Corvinus, good luck with the enquiry. A pleasure to have met you, and do give my best regards to the emperor when next you see him.’ He held out his hand, and we shook. ‘Off you go, Largus.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The guy took me along one of the corridors at the back of the lobby, stopped at an office door, opened it and stood aside for me to pass. The place was lined with wall-to-wall document-cubbies.

  ‘Now, sir,’ he said, following me in. ‘What exactly was the date you were interested in?’

  ‘The twenty-eighth of March this year,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for a particular officer. A Titus Cabirus.’

  That got me a sideways glance as sharp as Laco’s had been – yeah, well, there couldn’t be many people in Lugdunum who didn’t know about the murder, or when it had happened – but the clerk didn’t comment. He ran his finger along the line of tags below one set of cubbies, stopped, reached in, pulled out a sheaf of beechwood flimsies and leafed through them.

  ‘March the twenty-eighth, wasn’t it, sir?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah. Was Titus Cabirus on duty that day?’

  The clerk ran his finger down the page. The finger stopped.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘He was.’ Bugger! ‘Only he reported sick and went home at noon.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘See for yourself, sir.’ He handed the flimsy over. Sure enough, against his name and rank someone had written aegr. h. VI.

  Shit. Titus Cabirus had been lying through his teeth.

  I passed the flimsy back to the clerk. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You’ve been really, really helpful.’

  ‘My pleasure, sir. Was there anything else you needed?’

  ‘No, that’ll just about do it.’ By the gods it would!

  ‘Then I’ll see you out.’

  OK; so I had another talk with Titus Cabirus coming up. But that I’d postpone for the present.

  First I had to talk to his girlfriend.

  The Volentus house, when I found it, was practically next door to the Cabirus place. Same sort of arrangement: walled garden leading up to the house itself, two storeys and a porch. I went through the gate.

  There was an old guy in a rough woollen tunic and wide-brimmed sun hat busy lashing the stray tendrils of a vine to the trellis of an arbour.

  ‘Morning, Gramps,’ I said. ‘You got a girl working here by the name of Aia, by any chance?’

  He tied a slow double knot before answering. I waited patiently.

  ‘Might have,’ he said at last. ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘Name’s Valerius Corvinus. I’m looking into the death of one of your neighbours. Claudius Cabirus.’

  He grunted and shot me a quick sideways look, then reached for another tendril and began tying it slowly and methodically into place.

  ‘So you’re that Roman?’ he said. ‘Yes, Aia’s one of ours. Kitchen maid.’

  ‘Do you think I could talk to her, if she’s around? Not for long, and with your mistress’s permission, of course.’

  ‘I reckon you could, at that. You’ll find her in by; kitchen’s round the back.’ He finished tying the knot and tugged it tight. ‘And you won’t need any other permission than mine. I’m master in my own house. Julius Volentus.’

  Bugger; I still hadn’t got used to the differences in staffing arrangements between Gaul and back home. Or the different social standards. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I said. ‘I thought you were the gardener.’

  ‘No bones broken. Easy mistake to make. What does Aia have to do with Tiberius Cabirus?’

  ‘Nothing, as far as I know,’ I said cautiously. ‘I just wanted a quick word with her to clear something up, is all.’

  ‘Well, you’ll know your own business best.’ He stooped and picked up another scrap of leather lacing from the ground at his feet. ‘Aia’s a good girl, and a good worker, that’s all I can say and all that interests me. Past the pear tree there and round the corner of the house. Don’t be long, because she’s the lunch vegetables to do. We eat early.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, but he was already dealing with another vine tendril.

  I went round the side of the house to the back. That was laid out as a kitchen garden, with beds of carrots, cabbage, leeks, kale and beans bordered with thorn-bush hurdles. Half a dozen plump-looking chickens were pecking about the place, and the kitchen itself was a small building only partially roofed over, separate from the house itself, with a cloud of charcoal-smoke above the unroofed section. A girl with red hair bound up in braids was sitting on a stool outside the door, scraping carrots. She glanced up at me, and the knife paused momentarily. Then she lowered her eyes again and the scraping restarted.

  If this was Titus’s girlfriend then he liked them big: standing, she would be six feet, easy, and built to match. Mind you, I remembered that Doirus over at the farm hadn’t exactly been a midget, either.

  She was a looker, though.

  ‘Aia?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’ She cut the carrot up into chunks, letting them fall into the stew-pot beside her, then picked up another from the basket and started in on that. Big hands, coarse and red, with nails that looked chewed.

  ‘My name’s Valerius Corvinus. I’m—’

  ‘I know who you are.’

  There was another stool against the wall. I pulled it over and sat. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Then you’ll know why I’m here.’

  ‘That, no.’

  ‘You’re Titus Cabirus’s girlfriend, yes?’

  ‘What if I am?’

  ‘You been going out with him for long?’

  ‘About three months, give or take.’ She still hadn’t looked at me; nothing since that first glance. All her attention was on the carrot, and the knife in her hand.

  ‘You haven’t told your father.’

  ‘No. Why should I?’ The implication sank in. She stopped scraping, laid the carrot aside, and faced me directly. ‘Here! You been talking to him?’

  ‘I went over there yesterday.’

  ‘You got no right! It’s not your business!’

  ‘Yeah, well, the jury’s out on that at present,’ I said. She scowled. ‘S
o why didn’t you? Tell him, I mean? According to him, you’d always been close.’

  ‘Work that out for yourself. You know about him, you say you’ve seen him, talked to him. It shouldn’t be all that hard.’

  ‘I might’ve got it wrong. You care to tell me yourself? Just so it’s clear?’

  ‘All right. Three years ago the procurator’s men took most of our corn for non-payment of taxes. Dad hit one of them and old Cabirus had him flogged. You think I could tell him that I’d taken up with the son and expect everything to be all sweetness and light? Of course I couldn’t. No more than Titus could tell his family.’

  ‘He knows, then?’

  ‘Titus? ’Course he knows. Told him myself, didn’t I?’

  Hmm. ‘So how did you meet?’

  ‘Old Ma Banona – that’s our cook – she has trouble with her leg, so I do whatever shopping’s needed. Titus lives just up the road, and we used to see each other regular between here and town. He’d always say hello in passing, then one day he offered to carry my basket for a bit and we got talking properly.’ She shrugged. ‘It started from there. I didn’t know who he was at the beginning – he just called himself Titus – and by the time I did it didn’t matter.’

  Uh-huh. OK; now we came to the tricky bit. ‘The afternoon of the murder. You see him then at all?’

  A quick sideways glance. ‘Yes. He was with me.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘’Course not! The mistress’d have a fit!’

  ‘So where?’

  She hesitated. ‘We went for a walk in the country, beyond the Gate. The family eat early, at noon. I’d done the washing up and I was free until an hour or two before sundown when I’d to help with the dinner, so Titus arranged to meet me at the Gate itself.’

  She was lying, that I’d bet good money on. Still, I couldn’t very well face her with it. ‘He was on duty that day,’ I said. ‘But he called off sick halfway through. I checked.’

  Her shoulders lifted and she looked away. ‘News to me,’ she said. ‘He never talks about his work. You asked me and I’ve told you.’ She picked up the discarded carrot and started scraping it again. ‘Now if that’s all you came for I got things to be getting on with.’