‘They say what the thing was?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Just that it was something valuable, that it wasn’t his in the first place, and that the proper owner was looking for it. Anyway, when Lydia told them to fuck off they got pushy and me and a few of the regulars had to persuade them to leave. Things got a bit bent, but they saw sense in the end. And before you ask, I’m not stupid either. It can’t’ve been no coincidence the poor bugger gets himself murdered and a day or so later there’s a couple of no-goods looking for something of his that’s gone missing.’
‘You didn’t tell the Watch about this?’
That got me a long, considering look. ‘What did you say your name was?’
‘Corvinus. Valerius Corvinus.’
‘Well, Corvinus-Valerius-Corvinus, thinking something and doing something about it are two different things. The Watch can take care of themselves, I don’t get involved. It’s no business of mine, nor of Lydia’s, neither. Clear?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, clear.’ I took another sip of the wine. ‘At least you can tell me–’
The alcove curtain parted and a guy with the looks and build of a stevedore came out, closely followed by a plump, hard-faced girl in her late teens. She gave me an appraising glance as she picked up a cloth from the counter and began drying cups.
‘You’re Lydia?’ I said to her.
‘That’s right.’ The glance became a direct look which shifted to the purple stripe, and she brushed a stray curl of hair from her forehead. ‘What can I do for you, sir?’
‘He’s asking about Oplonius,’ the barman said.
‘Oh.’ The appraising look vanished.
‘Can we talk in private?’ I said.
Her eyes went to the barman, who nodded briefly. ‘Sure, if you like,’ she said. ‘It’ll cost you, though. The usual price is two silver pieces, but in your case I’ll make it three.’
‘Fair enough.’
She put the dishcloth down, pulled back the curtain and stood aside. I took the coins out of my belt-pouch, laid them on the counter, and went past her up the stairs.
The room at the top was tiny, scarcely big enough for the bed that constituted all the furniture apart from a wooden clothes chest. It smelled strongly of sweat and the cheap perfume the girl was wearing, and there was a pile of dirty underwear with a greasy plate and spoon perched on top of it in one corner. Very homely.
‘Sit on the bed if you like,’ she said, following me in and closing the door. ‘Make yourself comfortable. Me, I’ll stand. It’ll make a change.’
I shoved the crumpled blanket to one side and sat. ‘This Oplonius,’ I said. ‘He, uh, visit you often?’
‘A couple of times. Three, exactly, if you’re counting. He hadn’t been in Rome for long.’
‘So what was he like?’
She gave a small, sideways smile ten years older than her years. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Come on, sister! Physical build to start with. Tall? Short? Skinny? Well-built?’
‘You didn’t know him?’
‘No, I never met the guy. Didn’t know he existed until after he was dead.’
‘Average height, stocky. Muscular, even. Very dark curly hair.’ She ducked her head to hide another smile. ‘All over, front and back, if you’re that curious. Quite a looker, and he knew it, too. Fancied himself.’
‘Uh-huh.’ So much for the idea that Damon could’ve taken him in a fight. Not that I’d ever really entertained that possibility. ‘As a person, then. Anything you particularly noticed? Apart from the fancying himself aspect of things.’
‘He was just another customer. What’s to notice?’
I took two more silver pieces from my pouch and laid them on top of the bunched blanket. ‘Try,’ I said.
‘Okay.’ She closed her eyes briefly. ‘He wasn’t well off. Drank the cheapest wine on the board and made two or three cups last the evening. Me, I’d say I was his bit of extravagance. Some punters are like that, they’ll skimp on their drinking money to pay for the girl. It’s just how they’re made, I suppose. Mind you, that did surprise me a bit. That he was so short of cash, I mean.’
‘Yeah? How so?’
It was the way he spoke, like. Whatever he was now he’d been brought up proper. A touch of the lah-de-dah, you know?’ The little smile was back, and the quick challenging look with the lowered head. ‘A bit like you, really. It was quite nice. You’re sure you just want to talk?’
‘I’m sure. Thanks anyway.’
She shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. You’re paying. Anyway, there were touches of the real gent about Gaius. You don’t get that round here very often, and it made a change.’
‘He was from Padua. A wool merchant. Or at least that’s what I was told.’ I put the barest hint of a question in my voice.
‘Yeah. That’s what he told me too, except for the wool bit.’ She frowned. ‘Still–’
‘Still what?’
‘It’s nothing. Only the first time he was with me he had this fancy signet ring on. Gold, it was, or at least it looked it, with a carved ivory bezel. Real gent’s property, must’ve cost a packet originally. Second time it wasn’t there. I asked him about it and he got a bit embarrassed; turned out he’d pawned it with a money-lender. Me, I wondered if it hadn’t been a – what do you call them things get passed down in families?’
‘An heirloom,’ I said. I’d serious doubts on that score myself. The chances were, from what Eutacticus had told me about Oplonius and how he operated, that if it was then the passing down had happened in some other family and he’d lifted it from the current scion.
‘That’s right. An heirloom.’ She was still frowning. ‘The poor bugger. It might’ve been all he had left. I gave him that day for free.’
‘That was good of you.’
Her shoulders lifted. ‘Yeah, well. What goes around comes around. And when he was found dead a couple of days later I was glad I done it.’
‘Okay. Let’s talk about that,’ I said. ‘The two guys who came into the wineshop after the Watch had been said that Oplonius had had something valuable of theirs that they wanted back, right?’
‘Not of theirs. They said the original owner wanted it.’
‘Fair enough. And they didn’t say what the something was?’
‘No. They just asked me if Gaius had left anything with me for safe keeping. Said they’d make it worth my while if he had and if I handed it over. I just laughed in their faces. I mean, look at me, look at this place. You think it’s likely?’ I said nothing. ‘And as for valuable the poor bastard can’t hardly’ve had a pot to piss in.’
‘So what did they say to that?’
‘They didn’t like it, that was for sure. The big one, the guy who’d done most of the talking, he makes to grab me, so I spit in his eye and tell him straight to fuck off. Things could’ve got nasty then if I’d been up here on my own, but this was downstairs, remember, and there were plenty of regulars around. They slung the bastards out on their ear.’
‘So what did they look like, those two? You recognise either of them?’
‘No. They weren’t from round here, that’s all I know. Hired muscle types, real hard cases. Like I said, there was a big one and a smaller one, and it was the big one did most of the talking.’
She could’ve been describing Satrius and his sidekick, but unless Eutacticus for reasons of his own that I couldn’t begin to fathom was playing a far deeper game than I thought then that just wasn’t on. Even so, if they were after the necklace this business of an ‘original owner’ was a real puzzler. Something, in an ideal world, to take up with Eutacticus himself, maybe, but then our relationship at present wasn’t exactly all sweetness and light, to say the least of it, and the bare thought of raising the subject with him gave me goose-bumps.
One thing was sure, though: I’d bet a year’s income to a bust sandal strap that whoever the bastards were and whoever they were working for they’d been responsible for the actual killing. I stood up.
‘Thanks, Lydia,’ I said. ‘You’ve been a real help.’
She smiled – a genuine, straightforward smile this time, that took some of the hardness from her face and made her look much younger.
‘Well, maybe, but I doubt it,’ she said. ‘Anyway, you’re welcome. And if you do change your mind and feel like’ – she gestured at the bed – ‘any time, you just let me know, okay?’
‘I’ll do that,’ I said, moving past her and opening the door. ‘Look after yourself.’
I’d got my foot on the first step when she said: ‘Wait a minute.’
I turned. ‘Yeah?’
‘I’ve just remembered. Maybe it’s important, maybe it isn’t, but you might as well know anyway.’
‘Tell me.’
‘The last time Gaius was with me. The day before he died. He was...I saw he was excited about something. A bit high, you know?’
The back of my neck prickled. ‘Excited about what?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know for sure. I asked him and he said he’d done a deal with a local merchant, that it could mean a lot of business for him. A breakthrough, he called it.’
Oh, shit. ‘Did he say anything else? Give you any details?’
‘No. That’s all there was, he wouldn’t tell me any more. After we’d finished, though, and he went back downstairs he ordered half a jug of the best wine we have.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Jupiter!
‘You think it’s important? I mean–’
‘Yeah. Yeah, I think it well might be. Thanks again, sister.’
I carried on downstairs.
‘Enjoy yourself?’ the barman said when I came through the curtain, but I didn’t answer, just pushed past him and went back outside. My brain was buzzing.
Breakthrough, eh?
Interesting.
10
It was late afternoon when I got back to the Caelian. As usual, Bathyllus was hovering with the welcome-home cup of wine.
‘The mistress around, sunshine?’ I said, giving him my cloak.
‘Yes, sir. In the atrium.’ He was looking anxious. ‘Did you talk to Eutacticus?’
‘Yeah. No sign of the missing Damon, I suppose? He hasn’t got in touch?’
‘No, sir.’
Ah, well, I hadn’t really expected that he would have: that bird was well and truly flown, probably permanently. ‘Tag along, Bathyllus. He’s your brother, you’ve a vested interest, so you’re conscripted onto the team for the duration, okay?’
‘Thank you, sir.’
I took the cup and led the way inside. Perilla was on the couch, reading as usual. She set the book-roll down.
‘What did he say, Marcus?’ she said.
‘It’s not good.’ I told her about the deal, such as it was, with one eye on Bathyllus. ‘Chances are, barring some sort of miracle, Eutacticus will nail him before the month is out. I’m sorry, little guy. I did my best.’
‘Yes, sir, I know.’ Bathyllus looked grey and old. ‘It’s not your fault.’
True; even so, it didn’t help much.
‘Isn’t there anything you can do, dear?’ Perilla said. ‘I mean–’
‘Not unless Damon turns himself in. That aspect of things is completely up to him now.’ I settled down on the other couch and took a morose swig of the wine. ‘Mind you, I did make some progress in another direction.’ I told her about the talk with Lydia. ‘Reading between the lines, it looks like just before he was killed Oplonius had a deal set up with someone; that he was on the point of selling the necklace on. Only at the same time its original owner – whatever that means – was trying to get it back and had tracked him down.’
‘But, Marcus, that doesn’t make sense. Eutacticus said he’d had the necklace from a colleague in Brundisium, yes? That it was legitimately bought and paid for.’ She paused, frowning. ‘Well, at least that it was bought and paid for, anyway.’
‘Right. And I’m not claiming it makes sense, far from it; there’s something seriously screwy here, no argument. On the one hand, sure, Eutacticus is no angel, and I very much doubt that any so-called colleague of his would be, either, which gives you the possible scenario that the necklace was hot in the first place; that the ‘colleague’ had no more right to it than Oplonius had, and that the genuine owner was out to get his property back. There again, crook five ways from nothing though he is, Eutacticus is honest enough by his lights: if he tells me straight, off his own bat and with no prompting, that the sale was on the square then I’d be inclined to believe him.’
‘Unless he didn’t know himself that the necklace was stolen.’
I frowned. ‘Yeah, that’s possible,’ I said. ‘Even so, Sempronius Eutacticus is a smart, smart cookie; more, he wouldn’t take kindly to being played for a sucker, not kindly at all. Me, I’d think a lot more than twice before trying it, and I’d bet you that unless that colleague of his was a head-banging idiot he’d do the same.’
‘All right. If you discount that theory – although personally I wouldn’t dismiss it altogether, far from it – then where does that leave us?’
‘Perilla, I don’t know! I told you, you’re right, it doesn’t make any kind of sense. Even so, Lydia was clear: the guys who came round to the wineshop – and they must’ve been the ones responsible for Oplonius’s murder – said they were repping for the original owner. Chapter and verse. If you can get past that then I can’t.’
‘They might have been lying.’
‘Come again?’
‘Marcus, what else would they say in the circumstances? They approach the girl, tell her that her boyfriend, or whatever you like to call him, had something that didn’t belong to him, that they want it, and that they’ll make it worth her while to hand it over. All above board, ostensibly at least. Of course they have to say they’ve a right to the thing, to establish a legitimate claim, however spurious, if only to save face. What would you expect?’
Uh-huh; put like that it did add up, to a certain degree, anyway. And given the sweetener of a reward, considering the kind of girl they were dealing with it was a reasonable way of going about things.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Fair enough. Only if they weren’t who they claimed to be then who were they?’
‘What about the...whoever Oplonius was arranging to sell the necklace to? Could they have been working for him?’
Hell! Now there was an angle I should’ve thought of but hadn’t! I kept my face straight. It’s never a good idea to let Perilla know she’s ahead on the theorising, at least not too far ahead. She only gets smug.
‘Uh...yeah,’ I said carefully. ‘Yeah, that’s a possibility.’
‘I mean, if the necklace is as valuable as Eutacticus says it is then that would be quite a temptation for a double-cross, wouldn’t it?’
True. And as a scenario it made the best sense yet: Oplonius finds his buyer and cuts a deal, whereupon the guy decides to save himself a bundle by sending his heavies round to pre-empt the exchange. Of course they’d have to know about the Aventine tenement, but that, assuming a certain amount of amateur laxness on Oplonius’s part and some clandestine shadowing on theirs, would’ve been easy-peasie. The only real question was why our theoretical buyer – call him X – hadn’t ended up with the necklace in his hot-and-sticky after all. Plus, naturally, where the hell it had got to in the meantime. And to answer that, unfortunately, we needed friend Damon.
‘One thing that does puzzle me, though,’ Perilla went on, ‘is the ring. The one your friend Lydia said Oplonius had pawned with the money-lender.’
‘Yeah?’ I said. I was feeling distinctly...well, ‘chagrined’ is a pretty good word, but I’d prefer ‘jaundiced’ myself. ‘And why would that be, now?’
‘I mean, where would a second-rate provincial wool merchant – yes, I know he probably wasn’t one really, dear, but even so that’s his proper level – get something like that? If the girl was right in her description then it must’ve been valuable in itself.’
‘Perill
a, the guy was a professional con-man and a practising crook. Where do you think he got it?’
‘Granted, but again from what she told you it was the only thing of value that he did have. If he was that short of cash then why hadn’t he sold it before?’
‘Jupiter, lady, I don’t know! Maybe he hadn’t needed to. He wasn’t on his uppers altogether.’
‘He wasn’t far off it. Two hundred and eighty-three sesterces, which is what you told me he’d lodged with his banker, is a long way from being a fortune, particularly since he had his everyday living expenses to take care of while he was looking for a buyer for the necklace. Also, according to the girl Lydia he was being very careful indeed over his spending. And if he did sell or pledge the ring, even for a fraction of its value, then what happened to the money? He was dead two days after it disappeared; he couldn’t’ve had all that much time to spend it. In any case, what would he have spent it on? The only evidence we have that his financial position had improved was that he treated himself to a better grade of wine on his final evening in the wineshop, and from what Lydia said that was because he was pushing the boat out, celebrating an upturn to his prospects. Besides, that must’ve been two full days after he had sold it, without any change to his habits in the interim.’
Shit; she was right again. This was getting seriously annoying.
‘He had some cash on him that Damon took,’ I said. ‘We know that.’
‘Marcus, a ring such as Lydia described would be worth a great deal more than a pouchful of petty cash. If Damon had had funds like that do you think he’d’ve been so desperate to sponge off Bathyllus?’
I glanced at the little guy. He hadn’t spoken since he’d followed me in, but he’d been hanging onto every word. ‘Over to you, pal,’ I said. ‘He’s your brother. What do you think?’
Bathyllus hesitated. ‘I can’t be sure, sir, of course I can’t,’ he said. ‘But I really don’t think he was lying about having very little money. Even if he had already decided to get in touch with me following the murder he’d have done it after arranging accommodation himself, which he didn’t because he couldn’t afford the rent of the room in advance. I had to pay that for him, as you know.’
Family Commitments (Marcus Corvinus Book 20) Page 9