Foreign Bodies

by David Wishart

  ‘Look, give me a break, OK?’ I said. ‘I didn’t ask for two extra murders, and it makes sense to use all the help I can get. I’d’ve had Clarus if he’d been here.’

  ‘Clarus would be a completely different matter; he’s family, and yes, he is a little odd in certain ways. But going the lengths of asking a total stranger to—’

  ‘Jupiter, Perilla, he’s hardly that, is he? We’ve had the bastard cheek-by-jowl with us for the past month!’

  ‘And very pleasant it’s been. It’s nice to have someone around for a change who knows what entasis means.’

  ‘Come on, lady! I’m not that thick!’

  ‘All right. So what does it mean?’

  ‘Ah—’

  ‘Exactly. I think I’ve made my point. Now listen to me, Marcus. I have had your sniping and silly jealousy up to here, so I’ll say this just once more and once only: I am not, and never will be, having an affair with Domitius Crinas. That is “affair” of any kind, model, or description you care to name, from light flirtation upwards. Is that perfectly clear?’

  ‘Uh, yeah, but—’

  ‘Good. Please bear that fact in mind during the four or five days Crinas has left with us before he travels on to Moguntiacum.’ Four or five days? Bugger! I’d been expecting two, at the outside! ‘Now go and see your bodies. I’ll probably be out until dinner.’

  She marched off in the direction of the residence.

  Ah, well, that’d gone down like a slug in a salad, hadn’t it? I sighed and went after Smarmer.

  We found the undertaker’s place, down an alleyway off the main drag just short of the gate. The two corpses were laid out on tables in the back room, both middle-aged men in their forties.

  ‘OK, pal,’ I said to Crinas. ‘All yours. What do you think?’

  ‘They’re definitely both dead.’

  Oh, ha. ‘And?’

  He lifted the nearer corpse’s arm. Or tried to. It didn’t move.

  ‘The bodies are a little discomposed,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I mean they’re not lying straight, flat on their backs with their arms decently crossed, as a corpse in a funeral parlour would normally be.’

  ‘Yeah, right; I can see that for myself, thanks. So?’

  ‘So rigor was well established when the undertaker’s men got to them, which, from the information you gave me on the way, would probably have been at least a couple of hours after sunrise. Do you know the time exactly?’

  ‘No, Balbinus wasn’t that specific. He just said the guy who found them found them first thing.’

  ‘No matter. Timing can vary, in any case.’ Carefully, he lifted the hem of the corpse’s tunic where the thigh touched the table and peered beneath it. I suppressed a shudder. ‘Discolouration seems to match the pressure point. That would indicate that the man fell originally in this position. In other words, that he was not moved before rigor set in.’

  ‘Uh-huh. In plain Latin again, please.’

  ‘The body wasn’t dumped where it was found; it had lain there for several hours before the muscles began to stiffen. The implication being that the place it was lying was also the site of the murder, and that the murder itself happened at some time between late evening and the early hours of the morning. Relevant?’

  ‘Uh, yeah.’ I was impressed, despite myself: Clarus couldn’t’ve done better. ‘You’re pretty good, pal.’

  ‘I told you, I did my training in Alexandria. They know all about bodies there, and they teach you to look, observe, and interpret, not make unsubstantiated guesses.’

  Ouch. That was me told. ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Anything else? How did they die?’

  ‘Oh, that’s quite obvious.’ He indicated the corpse he’d been examining. ‘This one – the servant, from the quality of his tunic – was stabbed through the heart. You can see the bloodstains and the rent in the material. The other’ – he moved to the second corpse – ‘yes. Throat cut.’ He peered closely at the guy’s neck. ‘Very clean, a single slash, probably made from behind if the killer was right-handed. You can see for yourself that the wound is deeper on the left side of the throat than it is on the right.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it, friend.’ I was feeling distinctly queasy; bodies I don’t mind, but I’d rather not go into the whys and wherefores, thank you. I had the same problem with Clarus. Still, I’d asked. ‘That it?’

  ‘More or less. Isn’t it enough?’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks. Very helpful.’ It had been, too. Surprisingly so, particularly since my only real reason, originally, for having the guy along was to detach him from Perilla.

  ‘Glad to be of service.’ He smiled. ‘Now, if you’ve finished with me I’ll get back to the residence and collect your wife for our sightseeing trip. Unless you’d care to tag along yourself?’

  ‘No, I’m fine.’ Damn. ‘Things to do, people to see.’

  ‘Very well, then. I’ll see you at dinner, if not before.’

  He left.

  FOURTEEN

  So. To the vegetable market, and Drutus’s girlfriend; what was her name? Severa.

  I took a slightly different route this time, down one of the roads parallel to the main drag, although ‘parallel’ was an overstatement. Being a colony, Augusta had been laid out in the usual grid system, but because the place had existed before the army surveyors had got busy the grid was pretty haphazard, with buildings plonked down any old where and the streets making detours around them. Mind you, like Crinas had said, there was a lot of new development going on; at times it was like walking through a building site.

  I’d chosen well, though; the street I was on led me straight to the market. This late in the morning – it was about an hour shy of noon – most of the local housewives would’ve done their shopping and be at home cooking the midday meal, so it was relatively quiet. I asked the first stallholder I came to for directions, and he pointed out a small, dumpy, middle-aged woman selling root vegetables and cabbage.

  Bugger; this I wasn’t looking forward to. Perilla was the tactful one, and she was a woman into the bargain.

  I went over.

  ‘Uh … excuse me,’ I said. ‘Is your name Severa?’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’ She glanced at my purple stripe and frowned. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘You’re, ah, friendly with a guy named Drutus, aren’t you?’

  She set down the bunch of carrots she’d been rearranging like they were red hot.

  ‘He’s all right, isn’t he?’ she said. ‘Only I’ve been so worried.’

  Oh, shit; she didn’t know. Hardly surprising, mind, since the bodies hadn’t been found until a few hours previously. And Balbinus wouldn’t have thought to send anyone to break the news to her, either; she wasn’t family, after all. So like it or not, I’d landed the job. Where the hell was Perilla when I needed her? Out gallivanting with bloody Smarmer, that was where.

  I hated it when this happened.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I’m afraid he isn’t. You might want to sit down.’

  There was a folding stool to one side. She pulled it up and sat on it.

  ‘He’s not dead, is he?’ she said. I didn’t answer, which was answer enough. ‘Oh, sweet Mothers, no!’

  She hid her face in her hands. I looked around. There was a woman on the stall behind me, watching us with interest.

  ‘You think you could help out a minute here?’ I called to her. ‘The lady’s just had some bad news.’

  She came over quickly; obviously she’d just been waiting for the invitation. I breathed a mental sigh of relief as she went into patting-and-there-there-dear mode. Thank the gods for female solidarity.

  ‘I need to talk to her,’ I murmured to the back of the woman’s head. ‘It’s important. I’ll give it ten minutes, OK?’

  She nodded without turning. I walked off and did a slow circuit of the other stalls.

  When I came back Severa’s face was puffy and tear-stained, but she seemed fai
rly composed. I nodded my thanks to the other woman, and she went back to her stall. Not, I knew, that her ears wouldn’t be pricked throughout the conversation, but that was fair enough under the circumstances.

  ‘Just tell me what happened,’ Severa said.

  ‘He and his servant were found dead this morning outside the Moguntiacum Gate,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, but it seems it was deliberate.’

  She nodded, slowly, her face expressionless. She could still be in shock, of course, but I had a suspicion the news hadn’t come as a complete surprise.

  ‘And you are, sir?’ she said.

  ‘Valerius Corvinus. I’m, ah, just visiting. The governor’s aide asked me to look into the deaths.’ I waited, then said gently, ‘You were expecting it? Or something like it?’

  She raised her face. ‘No! Oh, no! It’s only that—’ She stopped.

  I gave her another few moments. Then I said, ‘It’s only that what?’

  ‘I wasn’t expecting it; I’d no reason to. Why should I? Sextus was just a very nice, very quiet, ordinary man who got on with things and minded his own business.’

  ‘But?’ I prompted.

  ‘It’s just …’ She frowned. ‘This’ll sound stupid.’

  ‘Never mind. Say it anyway.’

  ‘We’ve known each other since before my husband died ten years back, but I’ve never really known him. Even when we took up together, sometimes there was a distance. You understand?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ I didn’t, not completely, but at least she was talking. ‘Did he have any enemies? Anyone who’d want him dead?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not one. Everyone liked Sextus. I don’t know much about his life in Durocortorum, and I was careful not to ask in case there was a wife, but he’d nothing but friends here. I don’t even know anyone who had a bad word for him, let alone kill him.’

  ‘Fair enough. Now what about yesterday evening? Did you see him at all?’

  ‘Yes, I did. But only for a moment, just before sunset. He called in to say he wouldn’t be staying the night after all. He’d some urgent business to take care of, and it wouldn’t be finished until the small hours. He didn’t want to disturb me coming in, so he’d doss down with Anda above the stable.’

  ‘He say what the business was, at all? Give any kind of indication?’

  ‘No. Not a word more. But then that was Sextus for you; like I said, sometimes he could be really close-mouthed. And I never pried. It wasn’t my concern.’

  Hell! Still, it confirmed that he and Anda had some sort of clandestine meeting arranged. And although again from Severa’s description he hadn’t come across as the criminal type a moonlight assignation beyond the city gates stank like a barrel of oysters in a heat wave.

  ‘There’s nothing else you can tell me that may be of use to find out who did it?’ I said. ‘Nothing at all?’

  She hesitated, then reached into her belt-pouch and brought something out. ‘There’s this,’ she said, handing it over. ‘He gave me it before he left. For safe keeping, he said.’

  I turned the thing over in the palm of my hand. It was a gold piece, but not a Roman one; on one side there was a stylized head with the letters COMI, and on the other a prancing horse and a wheel.

  ‘Yeah, well,’ I said. ‘That’s not surprising, is it? Gold coins aren’t too common here, from what I’ve been told. He wouldn’t have wanted to carry it around with him, especially if he was going out after dark.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head decisively. ‘That wasn’t the reason. At least, I don’t think it was. Sextus was well-to-do, he was used to carrying a lot of money about. He wasn’t afraid of being robbed, either.’

  Uh-huh; fair point. And Balbinus had said there wasn’t much crime in Augusta to begin with. It was an oddity, however you sliced it. ‘You think I could hang on to this for a while? You’ll get it back, I promise.’

  Another hesitation. Then she nodded. ‘All right. If you think it’ll help.’

  ‘It might. I don’t know. Thank you.’ I slipped it into my own belt-pouch. ‘Incidentally, where do you live?’

  ‘Up near the Temple of Rosmerta, on the river side of the Moguntiacum Gate.’

  ‘Right. Thanks, Severa. And again I’m sorry for your loss.’ I turned to go.

  ‘Where is he?’ she said. ‘The body, I mean?’

  Yeah, she’d want to know that, of course. ‘At the undertaker’s just off the market square. I don’t know the name, I’m afraid.’

  ‘The name doesn’t matter; there’s only the one. Thank you, sir.’

  ‘You’re welcome. Anything else I can do, you’ll find me at the residence. Valerius Corvinus, remember.’

  ‘I’ll remember,’ she said. ‘But please. Find the man who did it for me. You’ll do that?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  There was no more to be said. I left.

  Back to the residence, then, to see if by any chance Balbinus had arranged for me to meet the man who’d found the bodies and see the place for myself.

  I was crossing the market square towards the main drag when someone shouted my name. I turned. Quintus Cabirus. I waited until he’d joined me.

  ‘What on earth are you doing in Augusta?’ he said.

  Yeah, well, he wouldn’t’ve known I was coming, or even that I might be, would he? It was a last-minute decision, and he’d left Lugdunum before I’d set out.

  ‘Seeing your sister-in-law, as a matter of fact,’ I said.

  His eyes flickered. ‘Really? Why should you want to do that?’

  ‘Just an idea.’

  ‘It’s a long way to come, for just an idea.’ He tried a smile that didn’t quite work.

  ‘Maybe.’ I wasn’t going to elucidate; absolutely no way. Brother Quintus wasn’t out of the frame by any means, and whatever reason the Cabiri had had for leaving Augusta, if it wasn’t the purely commercial one he and Diligenta had claimed it was, it applied to him as well.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘did you see her?’ Obviously, from the too-casual way he asked the question, the answer was important.

  ‘Yeah, I did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘You don’t keep in touch yourself, being through so often?’

  ‘No. I told you when we talked last that the two halves of the family have nothing to do with each other. I haven’t seen Quadrunia or her husband for twenty years, out of choice on both sides. I don’t even know where she lives.’

  ‘It’s a shame when you get these family rows,’ I said. ‘Particularly when they fester. What was it about, originally?’

  ‘I told you before. That’s none of your business. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with my brother’s death. Doubtless my sister-in-law told you the same, or you wouldn’t be asking me now.’

  ‘What’ve you done to your hand?’

  ‘What? What has that …?’ He looked blank, then glanced down at the long scratch or cut that ran across the back of his left hand below the knuckles. It wasn’t still bleeding, but it looked pretty recent to me. ‘Oh. I brushed against the point of a nail at our warehouse. We’re having some rebuilding work done, and there’s a lot of exposed timber.’

  Uh-huh. ‘It’s quite nasty. You should get it seen to.’

  ‘I’ve had worse. And I’ve got too much to do at present. So; you’ll be getting back to Lugdunum soon, will you?’

  ‘No, I think I’ll hang on for a bit. No need to go dashing off almost as soon as we’ve arrived. Besides, Governor Hister’s aide Saenius Balbinus, who’s taking care of me while I’m here, has asked me to look into a couple of murders.’

  ‘Murders?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘In Augusta? That’s impossible! They don’t have murders up here.’

  ‘Yeah; I remember being told the same thing about Lugdunum. But there you are. A trader by the name of Sextus Drutus and his servant. You know him?’

  ‘Drutus! Who would want to kill Drutus?’

  ‘You tell me, pal. It’d save me a lot of time and effort.’

 
; ‘Yes, I know him. Not well, but yes. He trades in hides, doesn’t he? With the garrison at Moguntiacum?’

  ‘That’s him.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘That’s what I’m still finding out. But it seems that the two of them – Drutus and the servant – were out beyond the Moguntiacum Gate for some reason after sunset yesterday and someone used a knife on them. The bodies were found early this morning.’

  I was watching him closely, but there wasn’t a reaction other than shock and surprise.

  ‘But that’s dreadful!’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, isn’t it? Where are you staying, by the way?’

  Again the momentary blank look. ‘Oh. I’ve got a room fitted up in our warehouse. Near the town baths not far from the bridge. It’s pretty basic, no more than a shakedown with a bed and mattress, but it does me for the short time I’m here.’

  ‘You’re on your own, then?’

  He smiled. ‘I’m a bachelor, Corvinus. I’m used to fending for myself. And I’ve never been one for seeking out temporary female company when I’m away from home.’

  ‘You’re going back soon?’

  ‘Within the next couple of days. I’ve done most of what I came for, seen our agent and everything, so there’s no need to put off.’

  ‘I might see you around, then. Or not.’

  ‘Or, as you say, not. If the latter then good luck with your additional investigations while you’re here. Now, I still have a couple of people to talk to, so if you’ll forgive me …?’

  ‘Sure. No problem.’

  I watched as he headed off through the square’s southern exit.

  Hmm. Interesting.

  Who should be waiting for me in the residence lobby but Bathyllus, wearing a broad smirk.

  This did not bode well. Smirks, broad or otherwise, did not figure prominently in our major-domo’s range of facial expressions.

  ‘Hi, little guy,’ I said. ‘Don’t tell me; another palace coup, yes?’

  ‘Not at all, sir. I wouldn’t presume to disrupt the running of Procurator Laco’s household. But I did ask if where the mistress and yourself were concerned as individuals I could fulfil my usual functions. The staff were quite amenable, particularly when I hinted that you might have some unusual requirements which I was accustomed to fulfilling and they, perhaps, were not.’