Family Commitments (Marcus Corvinus Book 20)

by David Wishart

  ‘He have any visitors at all? I mean, before the, ah, unpleasantness.’

  ‘He might have done, for all I know. There are people in and out of here all the time, but that’s the tenants’ business; so long as they pay their rent on the dot who comes visiting is none of my concern.’

  Fair point. It’d been worth a try, mind. ‘You say you met him?’

  ‘Of course I met him. I’d have to, wouldn’t I, if he was one of the tenants. Only the once, though, as I told you.’

  ‘He, uh, strike you in any way in particular?’ He frowned. ‘I mean, job like yours, you must be pretty good at sizing up a prospective tenant right off. Particularly where a short let’s involved.’

  Smarm, smarm. But it worked. He leaned a little closer and lowered his voice, like a gossipy housewife passing on a bit of scandal over the honey wine and biscuits.

  ‘To tell you the truth, sir,’ he said, ‘and now you come to ask, I wasn’t altogether taken with Master Oplonius. Nor with that slave of his. Cast from the same mould, the pair of them, and a dodgy mould, at that.’

  ‘Is that so, now?’

  He sat up again.

  ‘I don’t trust the ones who look you straight in the eye,’ he said. ‘Not deliberately making a point of it, like he did. Most people say the opposite, that it’s the shifty-eyed ones that are the bad apples, but in my view that’s nonsense. Oh, I could be wrong; perhaps I’m doing the poor man an injustice. But I don’t think so. I ran my ex-master’s business affairs for over forty years, and I flatter myself I can tell when someone can be trusted and when they can’t. He said he was a businessman, and perhaps he was; but if so he wasn’t the sort that in my younger days I’d’ve chosen to have any dealings with. When he paid me the rent I made sure that I counted the money and checked the coins one by one for fakes into the bargain. Too right I did.’

  Interesting. ‘The flat’s been re-let, yes?’

  ‘Yes, it has. Only this morning, to a nice young couple with a baby.’

  ‘Damn! I was, ah, hoping I could take a quick look at it.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think that would be a problem, sir. Not that there’s anything to see now, of course. I had the Watch empty the room completely. Barring the furnishings, naturally, such as they are; they’re part of the let.’ He eased himself slowly and painfully off the couch. ‘The new tenants won’t be moving in until tomorrow, so they told me. I’ll just get you the spare key.’

  The place looked – understandably – bare and cheerless, particularly after Meleager’s cosy hideaway. Still, that was fair enough; he was a permanent fixture, it was his home, he’d probably been there for years, and besides the flats on the first floor of a tenement are always more upmarket than the ones above. We weren’t under the tiles yet, like at Damon’s place, but there was only the one room with bed and clothes-chest. No doubt the young couple would be bringing in a few sticks of furniture of their own to make it more homely, plus a cradle for the baby, but at present the only touch of luxury, if you can call it that, was a thin rug covering the floorboards next to the bed .

  A rug...

  I lifted the corner and looked. Right: Meleager’s underlings had done their best with the stain, but blood on wood never comes out completely with scrubbing. I just wondered what he’d told the youngsters.

  Well, there was nothing to see here, not that I’d expected that there would be. All the same, I was glad I’d made the effort. Call it ticking a necessary box.

  The window was open for light, and it being May there was a nice breeze blowing in. Give it time: come December, I’d bet the place would be freezing, and charcoal braziers are never a good idea in a tenement. I looked outside and down into the street below...

  Meleager had said he was good at assessing a prospective tenant’s character; it went with the job. Me, for the same reason, I can spot when I’m being tailed or watched. Or, as in this case, when there’s a bastard on stake-out.

  In actual fact there were two bastards, directly across the street from the tenement’s entrance. Not that I could feel too smug, because they were being pretty obvious about it; all they really needed to put the lid on it was a placard saying ‘I’m watching you’.

  So the facts weren’t in question. What was, yet again, was the ‘why?’ And that would take a lot of careful thinking about.

  Meanwhile, under the circumstances, I reckoned that the best course of action was the direct, in-your-face approach. I went back out, locked the door behind me, clattered down to the first floor, returned the key to Meleager with my thanks, and set out to confront the buggers.

  When they saw me coming they stopped propping up the wall and turned to face me: two heavies straight out of the standard mould, such as you’d get working as bouncers in the rowdier clubs or at the blunt end of a local protection racket.

  ‘Afternoon, gents,’ I said. ‘Anything I can –?’

  But I was talking to myself; they were off like scalded cats, in different directions. I thought of giving chase to one of them for all of two seconds before deciding the game wasn’t worth the candle. In any case, I needed to be getting back home for dinner: the sun was well into its last quarter, and Meton in his present mood wasn’t a force to be trifled with.

  Interesting. Very interesting.

  5.

  Luckily as a result of my declaration of amnesty to the staff that morning Meton had a sulk on and was in go-slow mode, so it turned out that I’d plenty of time before dinner to break the glad tidings about developments to Perilla. Both sets of glad tidings, including the Curious Case of the Wayward Husband.

  ‘So what did Vipsania want with you, dear?’ she said when I’d got settled on the couch and Bathyllus was handing me my pre-dinner cup of wine. ‘She isn’t ill, is she?’

  ‘No, Mother’s fine. So’s Priscus, as far as health goes, at least.’ Bathyllus was edging out. ‘Stay right where you are, little guy,’ I said to him. ‘I’ll get round to you in a moment.’ He froze. ‘Mother thinks he has a fancy woman squirrelled away somewhere, that’s all.’

  ‘Priscus?’ She burst out laughing. ‘Oh, no! Not really?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t believe it more than half myself, lady. But you know Mother. She gets these bees in her bonnet from time to time, and they’re pretty hard to shake loose. Mind you, there’s definitely something odd going on. I’ve told her I’ll hang around and tail the guy, see what he’s up to.’

  ‘It’s really none of your business. Even if it is true.’

  ‘You want to try telling Mother that? And as far as being true goes, I’ll suspend judgment. Remember the last time he went off the rails? In Baiae? We couldn’t believe it then, either.’

  ‘Marcus, that was ages ago! And it was only a small, temporary aberration.’

  ‘Even so. Little urges like that can lie doggo for years and then break out when you least expect them.’

  ‘So what exactly does she want you to do?’

  ‘I told you: follow him, just that. Catch him in flagrante. Seemingly if he is an adulterer he’s a pretty consistent one. Does his tomcatting first thing every morning, prompt, once he’s got a good breakfast inside him. If you can call the muck that Phormio dishes up breakfast, or even food. I’ll get it done tomorrow, for what it’ll be worth. There’s bound to be an innocent explanation, and at least it’ll put Mother’s mind at rest.’

  ‘How was your day otherwise? Did you manage to collect my book?’

  ‘Yeah, I did. And actually, the day was pretty eventful; that’s the real news. I caught the chicken-napper, for a start.’

  She frowned. ‘The what?’

  ‘The callous criminal who’s been making free with our larder.’

  She sat up straight. ‘Marcus, that is amazing! Who was it?’

  ‘Our light-fingered major-domo here.’ Beside me, Bathyllus gave a small whimper.

  ‘Bathyllus?’ She was staring like a hooked guppy. Then she laughed. ‘I’m sorry, dear, for a moment you had me believin
g you. Who was it, really?’

  ‘Bathyllus. I told you. Cross my heart and hope to die. Oh, he had his reasons. He was taking the stuff to his brother who’s presently on the run and holed up in a Suburan tenement.’

  The hooked guppy look was back, in spades, with added goggle. ‘Bathyllus has a brother?’

  ‘Yeah, that was my reaction when I walked in on them. Name of Damon. He’s hiding out from whoever stiffed his master five days ago. Oh, and from the Aventine Watch as well, of course.’

  ‘Marcus, please. I have spent the day at Cloelia Faustina’s making polite noises while she recited the most appalling drivel, and as a result both my reserves and my patience are at a very low ebb. So just tell me simply and in due order what is going on or I will strangle you where you lie. Fair enough?’

  I grinned. ‘Fair. Bathyllus, you can go. And to warn you, I’ve counted the spoons.’

  He sniffed and left. I told Perilla about the day. The whole boiling.

  ‘So you don’t believe him?’ she said when I’d finished. ‘Damon, I mean.’

  ‘Perilla, his story is so full of holes you could use it for a colander. For a start, Oplonius was no businessman. Not in the usual sense, that is. The tenement agent Meleager spotted that, and I’d agree with him.’

  ‘Why are you so sure? Surely –’

  ‘Damon said he was a wool merchant, here to suss out new markets. I went through the stuff Pudentius’s boys brought back from the flat – which was all that was there at the time – and there were no samples. None. Nor was there anything else you’d expect him to have if he was who Damon claimed he was, like a list of potential customers. Whatever his business might have been, it sure as hell didn’t involve wool.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She was twisting a lock of hair. ‘So why was he here?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine. But I’d bet a year’s income it involved something shady. I never saw him, of course, but Meleager did, and that old bird is no one’s fool. He had him sussed straight off for a wrong -‘un.’ I took a swallow of wine. ‘And I have met Damon. Him I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw him, Bathyllus’s brother or not.’

  ‘Bathyllus genuinely didn’t know he existed?’

  ‘Uh-uh. They haven’t been in touch since they were kids, and for all Bathyllus knew Damon was dead long ago.’

  ‘Strange that they turned out so differently.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, nurture versus nature, I suppose. Who’s to say if it had been the other way round we wouldn’t’ve had a sarky, sniffy, order-fixated major-domo called Damon?’ I frowned. ‘One thing, though. I’d bet another year’s-worth of income that whoever killed the guy was looking for something, and Damon knows what it was.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘According to Pudentius, the flat was a mess. Which, incidentally, Damon didn’t mention. Pudentius thinks that was because the dead man put up a struggle before he was stabbed, but I don’t think that’ll wash. Oh, sure, he was badly bruised like he’d been in a fight, but he wasn’t armed, and you’d expect, in that case, that his fists would show some damage.’

  ‘And didn’t they?’

  ‘They could’ve done, and if so Pudentius’s theory might be right. But in that case the Watch boys didn’t spot it, or at least didn’t mention it to Pudentius; I know, because I asked.’ Shit; if we’d still had the body, and my smart-as-paint doctor son-in-law Clarus had been around, he could’ve given me chapter and verse on that one in two minutes flat and we’d be able to log it as a nem. con. However, there was no point in grieving, or blaming the squaddies for not checking; pre-Clarus I wouldn’t have thought of it either. ‘Me, I’d work on the assumption that he’d been systematically beaten up to get him to talk, and either before or after that the killers – plural, probably – tore the place apart.’

  ‘You think they found it? Whatever “it” was?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ I shook my head. ‘And that’s the interesting thing. They had everything going for them; just the one room to search, hardly any furniture, virtually all the time in the world with no interruptions. And if “it” was valuable – which it had to be – then Oplonius would’ve kept it by him to be sure it was safe. Even if he didn’t give it up of his own accord finding it would be easy-peasie. Only for some reason they didn’t. The fact that they, or their reps, were hanging around outside the place five days later proves that.’

  ‘Perhaps he gave it to Damon to look after. He wasn’t there, remember. And it would explain why he’s in hiding now.’

  ‘Yeah. I thought of that. But that won’t wash either.’

  ‘Really?’ There was a touch of acid in her voice. ‘And why not?’

  I sighed. ‘Come on, Perilla, use your head! If we’re reading this right then they were both crooks. Damon certainly is. You think they’d trust each other to that extent? Chances are, if Oplonius had handed over anything of real value to that shifty bastard he would’ve been off and heading for the tall timber before you could say knife, and Oplonius couldn’t’ve done a blind thing about it. He wouldn’t’ve come back, either. Which he unquestionably did.’

  She sniffed; not a lady to take contradiction in good part, Perilla. ‘Very well, Marcus. Another suggestion. He’d made himself some sort of hiding place that wasn’t obvious. Somewhere the killers were unlikely to look unless they knew it was there. Under the floorboards, for instance.’

  ‘Yeah. Better. Oddly enough, I did think of that, and sure, it’s possible. But I don’t think it’s likely.’

  ‘Is that so, now?’ You could’ve used the tone for pickling mummies. I ignored it.

  ‘That is so. Look. Granted that Oplonius did have the guts to hold out on them to the end, which I’m not ready to do, and they knew whatever they were looking for was still on the premises, the fucking place was empty for five days. Right?’

  ‘Yes. And don’t swear. It isn’t necessary.’

  ‘Okay. So if they – and I use the plural just for the sake of argument – didn’t want to risk another clandestine search, in depth this time, what’s to stop them doing things legitimately? Go to Meleager and take out a short lease of the place themselves? Then they’d have all the time in the world. They could take the room apart right down to the bricks and mortar and no one would be any the wiser.’

  ‘Perhaps they didn’t think of that, dear. They probably don’t have the advantage of your heated and tortuous imagination.’

  That had come out sarky as hell; I’d got her, and she knew it. ‘Come off it!’ I said. ‘It’s the obvious solution. But as it was the flat was only re-let this morning, to a young couple with a baby. Or do you think they might be our perps heavily disguised, with the kid as the mastermind?’

  ‘So why are the killers still keeping an eye on the place?’

  Yeah; right. That was the question I’d been asking myself ever since I’d spotted the stake-out, and it was one that had me beat for an answer six ways from nothing. It couldn’t be in the hopes that Damon would come back; no one would be that stupid, and Damon certainly wasn’t, particularly if against all the odds he had the thing already. While if that was their hope, because the whatever-it-was was still hidden and Damon knew it, and they knew he knew it, then why the hell faff around? Why not just get inside, one way or another, like I said, and do the searching themselves?

  We were floundering here. The bottom line was, nothing made sense, however you sliced it. And it had to, somehow or other, because like it or not that was the way things were.

  ‘I don’t know, lady,’ I said. ‘I just don’t know.’

  Bathyllus buttled in. Now the terrible truth was out and he no longer had to live a lie, as it were, he was almost back to normal. That sniff, when he’d left, had been music to my ears: Bathyllus without the aura of disapproval he exuded when he thought his dignity was being threatened just wasn’t the happy bunny we’d come to know and love.

  ‘That is dinner, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Great!’ I got up; I hadn’t had anyth
ing since breakfast barring the plate of nibbles at Renatius’s, and I was starving. ‘Incidentally, Bathyllus, I’ll want to talk to your brother tomorrow as a matter of some urgency.’ Too right I bloody would; the duplicitous bugger had been lying through his teeth, and the sooner I shook the truth out of him the better. ‘That be okay?’

  ‘Certainly, sir. You’ll always find him at the tenement. He was most disinclined to go out, even before you gave him that instruction.’ Yeah; and I didn’t blame him. If I had a very pissed-off killer looking for me, not to mention the Aventine division of Rome’s finest, I wouldn’t be taking any morning strolls in Maecenas Gardens either.

  Bathyllus had turned to go. Hell; I couldn’t leave it there, it wouldn’t be right. Certain things had to be said up-front, before this went any further.

  ‘Hang on a moment, sunshine,’ I said.

  He turned back. ‘Yes, sir?’

  I hesitated; this was going to be tricky, but making sure it was understood might be important later. ‘Uh, you do realise that that brother of yours isn’t exactly, well –’ I stopped.

  ‘Not exactly honest. Or trustworthy. Yes, sir, I am completely aware of that.’ Bathyllus cleared his throat. ‘Still, he is my brother. Not the one I would have chosen, but all the same the only one I have. And that in itself has come about totally beyond my belief and expectations. Thank you for helping us, sir. Whatever the final outcome may be.’

  ‘Fine. Fine,’ I said. ‘No problem. Just make sure he doesn’t show his nose above the parapet, right, or we’re all screwed.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.’

  As would we all. I only hoped it’d be good enough. Well, we’d just have to see what the future brought.