‘Yeah, pal, what can I do for you?’ I said.
He glanced over his shoulder before answering. Then he said quietly: ‘The master told me to keep an eye out for you, sir. I was to say you should go over to the brothel straight away.’
‘I was planning to do that anyway later,’ I said. ‘Any special reason for the hurry?’
He swallowed and lowered his voice still further: like I say, we were in the middle of the square, and as usual at that time of day you couldn’t get anywhere in town less private. ‘There, ah, seems to have been another suspicious death, sir. The owner, Opilia Andromeda.’
‘Andromeda?’ Oh, shit. I stared at him. ‘When the hell was this?’
‘I don’t know, sir. I don’t know any of the details. But the slave Carillus reported it to the master about an hour ago. He’s instructed that nothing be done until you were contacted.’
Gods alive! First Mettius dead, now his girlfriend. How many more bodies were we going to get before we were finished? Still, I should’ve seen this one coming: if my second theory about the meeting was right – that Mettius and Andromeda had met the killer together – it was a murder waiting to happen.
Fool! Mind you, it wasn’t altogether my fault. I’d tried to talk to her, after all, and she’d ducked out.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll go over there now. Same procedure as last time. Send to Castrimoenium for Clarus as soon as you can manage it, right?’
‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ll go myself straight away.’
‘Fine.’ Yeah, well, there was one plus, if you could call it that: being dead let Andromeda off the hook as a suspect pretty spectacularly. Like I said, though, I should’ve been expecting it after Mettius had been killed. If the two of them had been an item – and I knew now for certain from Vatinia that they were – then they must have had something cooking between them. Something, naturally, involving the murderer and prompting that meeting in the pine grove. And whatever it was, it’d done for them both.
I went round to the brothel. The door was locked this time, but when I knocked Carillus opened it for me. Barely after the first couple of raps, too: I wondered if the guy had been standing in the lobby right behind it, just waiting for me to arrive, maybe even for the whole time since he’d called in the death.
He looked old, older than he even had a right to look, and his face was grey as an unwashed rag. He was also, very obviously, still in shock. When I stepped past him he closed and locked the door again behind me.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Master Nerva gave strict instructions that no one be let in except you. And I’ve told the girls to stay in their rooms.’
‘That’s fine, pal,’ I said. ‘Now tell me what happened, OK? At your own pace, slowly and clearly.’
‘Yes, sir.’ He took a deep breath. ‘The mistress didn’t come down at her usual time. Normally I would just have waited until she did and had rung for me, but one of the local tradesmen arrived with a bill that had to be settled urgently, so I thought it was best to let her know at once. She wasn’t in her sitting room, so I called up the stairs and got no answer. I went up to the flat and … found her. She was … She …’ He stopped and stood shaking. ‘I was very fond of the mistress, sir, even though I’d only known her for a short time. She was a good person. She didn’t deserve to die like that.’
‘OK, Carillus,’ I said gently. ‘I’ll go up. You want to stay here?’
‘No, sir, I’ll come. You’ll have more questions for me, no doubt.’
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Lead the way, then.’
We went through the sitting room and up the internal stairs. The flat was a single room, sparsely furnished with a bed, a clothes chest and another book cubby packed with book-rolls. Andromeda was lying on the bed. She was wearing a sleeping tunic, and her head and the mattress beneath it were a mess of blood. Barring a cursory look, I didn’t touch her: that was Clarus’s department, and I was familiar enough now with the way he worked not to disturb things.
Or not to disturb the body, at least; there was still the question of the missing statuette. It hadn’t been in her sitting room downstairs when I’d looked, but there was just a chance that it was up here. I crossed over to the clothes chest and opened the lid. Nothing but clothes all the way down. There wasn’t anything that shouldn’t be there squirrelled away in the book cubby, either, or underneath the bed. Of course, the murderer could’ve seen and taken it, but still …
I went to the door that led to the outside staircase and lifted the latch. The door opened.
‘This wasn’t locked?’ I said.
Carillus was carefully not looking at the body. ‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘There’s no key. It went missing in Rutilia Tyche’s time, and the mistress didn’t bother to replace it. There was no need, really. We don’t have much crime in Bovillae.’
I almost smiled to myself. Yeah, right; barring three murders, an arson scam and a dodgy antiques business, at the very least. But I knew what the old guy meant.
‘She’d arranged for a locksmith to come round to fit a new lock and a set of bolts, though.’
‘Oh? When did she do that?’ I asked.
‘Yesterday, sir. I told you when you called that she’d gone out. The man was going to do it this afternoon.’
So he hadn’t been lying after all, except about not knowing where she’d gone; which might just – if he had pointed me in the right direction – have saved her life, because then we might’ve had our second talk that day after all. Not that I’d even hint at that to Carillus; he was upset enough already without adding guilt to the mix. Still, the fact that she’d been updating the flat’s security arrangements as a matter of urgency was significant: Andromeda had known she was a target, and she was frightened. Which almost certainly meant that, when she’d talked to me only a few hours previously, she’d known perfectly well who murdered Caesius – and more, that he’d just nailed her lover Mettius.
Gods! Why the hell hadn’t she told me then?
Unless, of course, she’d had a guilty secret of her own to keep. Which would make all kinds of sense …
‘You know that she used to be Quintus Caesius’s slave?’ I said to Carillus.
His surprise was obvious. ‘No, sir. I didn’t. That she’d been a slave, certainly, but as far as I knew she’d always belonged to the brothel owner Opilia Lucinda over in Tibur.’
‘This would’ve been before that. Twenty years or so back.’ Shit; there was something there, I just knew it. ‘Listen, pal, this is important. Is there anything you’re not saying? About your mistress and Caesius’s death?’
His face was set. ‘No, sir. Nothing.’
He was lying, that I was sure of. Still, putting the pressure on at this point wouldn’t do any good: the guy was tottering on the edge already. Past it.
‘Fine, I’ll take your word for it,’ I said. ‘But if you do think of something you’ve forgotten, you let me know, right? No comeback, I promise, and it can’t harm anyone now, can it?’ He didn’t answer. I sighed. ‘OK. Is there anything else you can tell me? About Andromeda’s death, I mean?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You wouldn’t happen to know something about a small bronze, would you? Pretty old? The figure of a runner? You ever see your mistress with that? Or Aulus Mettius, maybe?’
‘No, sir.’
He was beginning to clam up. Well, like I said, twisting arms wouldn’t help. We’d just have to let him think things over and hope that he changed his mind.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘That’s about all I can do for the present. My son-in-law Clarus should be here later on. He’s a doctor over in Castrimoenium, and he’ll want to look at the body. You fine with that?’
‘You mean I have to just leave her as she is, sir? That I can’t contact the undertakers and have her taken care of? That’s not decent.’
‘Clarus shouldn’t be long. And he’ll be pretty quick. But it’s important that nothing’s disturbed before he gets here.’
&nbs
p; ‘Yes, those were Master Nerva’s instructions too. I understand. Very well, I’ll do as you ask.’
‘Fine.’ I turned to go.
‘Valerius Corvinus?’
I turned back. ‘Yeah?’
‘Perhaps it’s not the time to raise the question, but the girls will be asking me. What will happen to the house now? With the mistress dead, I mean?’
Shit; you don’t think of these mundane things at a time like this. Unless, of course, you’re a slave and part of the property, to be disposed of as such. Then they rank pretty high.
‘I don’t know, pal,’ I said gently. ‘You’d better ask Nerva.’
‘I’ll do that, sir. Thank you.’
I left.
OK, I could talk to Clarus about the how and when of Andromeda’s death later, back at the villa. Meanwhile I’d carry on with the original plan of getting Baebius by the throat regarding the probably totally minor issue of the fake birthday present, plus a follow-up on the missing bronze front and the business of the Lotus. After that – and, ancient history or not, I’d a gut feeling that this was anything but minor – I might chase up the connection between Andromeda and Quintus Caesius, particularly in terms of why he’d sold her on to a brothel owner in Tibur. Anthus would be gone by now, sure, off to start his new life with his baker fiancée, but although I could probably get an address for him easily enough I suspected he wouldn’t be too forthcoming on the subject: when I’d talked to her, Caesius’s sister-in-law Vatinia had used the phrase ‘family scandal’ in connection with it, and I’d bet that the old guy would balk about repeating any story that showed his ex-master in a dishonourable light. Which, from all the indications, it would. So Vatinia herself it had to be.
Onwards and upwards. I found the antiques shop and went in. No Baebius in evidence, but the old freedman (Nausiphanes, wasn’t it?) was sitting behind the counter.
‘Good morning, sir,’ he said, getting up. ‘Back again?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Actually, I wanted to have a word with your boss. His door slave said he might be here.’
‘I’m afraid not. He hasn’t been in today at all; in fact I didn’t know he was back from a trip to Rome. Is there anything I can do for you? No problems with the plaque I sold you, I hope.’
There was no point in bawling out the hired help. ‘No, my stepfather was delighted with it,’ I said, which in its way was perfectly true. ‘It’s about something else entirely. So you wouldn’t know where I’d be likely to find him?’
‘No, I’m sorry. I can take a message, of course, if you’d like to leave one. He’s bound to drop by sooner or later.’
‘It doesn’t matter, pal. No hurry. Oh, by the way, though, while I’m in. That little bronze you talked about last time. The one of the runner, from what’s-his-name’s estate. The Roman ex-governor.’
‘Plautius Silvanus, sir. That’s right. What about it?’
‘How much would it have been worth?’
‘The going price on the open market would’ve been about twenty thousand, sir. It was, as I said, a very nice piece, although certainly not unique. Why do you ask?’
‘Just curiosity.’ Well, that checked with what Baebius himself had told me. And it cleared up one possibility, that the statuette was worth far more than he’d said it was. That would’ve upped the ante on how desperate he was to get his hands on it and provided him with a viable motive for at least the latest two murders, which, as the only one of the suspects with an acknowledged interest in the Runner, he might well have had. Twenty thousand was a large slice of cash, sure, but not enough for a guy in Baebius’s position to kill for, and if the bronze wasn’t a major collector’s item in itself, that side of things was a non-starter, too. If I was looking for a reason to finger Baebius as the perp, I’d have to do better than the missing Runner. ‘Thanks, Nausiphanes. I’ll see you around.’
‘Any time, sir. Have a good festival.’
So. Up to the Tiburtine Gate to collect my horse, and on to Mettius’s villa for another talk with his mother. I reckoned that would just about do me for the day. Besides, by the time I’d finished there, Clarus might be back to put in his report on the latest corpse.
At least this time I’d managed to avoid the slightly gut-churning forensic examination. That I could do without.
As she had been before, Vatinia was sitting in the atrium.
‘Valerius Corvinus,’ she said when the slave had shown me in and I’d sat down. ‘I didn’t expect you back so soon. Have you any news?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. Or not about your son’s death, anyway.’ I hesitated. ‘Opilia Andromeda. She was found dead this morning. Murdered.’
Her blank eyes stared at me. ‘Sweet Juno!’ she whispered. ‘The poor woman! I’d no liking for her, as you know, but I wouldn’t have wished her ill. What happened?’
‘From the looks of things, she was killed while she slept. By a blow to the head.’
‘Like Aulus, you mean?’
‘Yeah, more or less.’
‘Was there a connection?’ She frowned. ‘Forgive me, that was a silly question; of course, there must have been. And with poor Quintus’s death, too.’
‘Yeah. Actually, that’s what I came to ask you about,’ I said. ‘When we talked yesterday you mentioned something about a family scandal involving her. When she was your brother-in-law’s slave.’
Her lips tightened. ‘I was referring to her liaison with my son, of course,’ she said. ‘As you well know.’
‘Right. Right. Only I have the feeling, now, that maybe that wasn’t all there was to it.’
Her chin went up. ‘Where you got that impression from, Valerius Corvinus, I really can’t think. Certainly not from me.’
‘So I was wondering if you could sort of give me more of the background details. If you don’t mind, that is.’
‘I’m afraid that I do mind. I’ve told you all I can. Certainly as much as it is your business to know.’
There was something screwy here, I was absolutely sure of it: the lady was being far too defensive, and she had no reason to be, not if she was being straight.
‘You see,’ I said, ‘I was wondering if it wasn’t all a bit too over-the-top, under the circumstances. After all, Andromeda was just a slave, so fair game for any red-blooded young member of the family to play about with. There couldn’t have been any question of your son marrying her; that would’ve been legally impossible, for a start, and anything less shouldn’t really have mattered. Only your brother-in-law not only goes and sells her; he sells her to a brothel-keeper twenty miles away. And your son hates him so much even now that he won’t refer to him as “uncle” and goes to his funeral just for the pleasure of seeing him burn. Me, I find all that curious. Certainly when you lump it all together.’
‘I told you, Corvinus.’ Vatinia was obviously keeping herself in check only with an effort: her colour was mounting. ‘Aulus always was wild, a law to himself. The legal aspect of things wouldn’t have mattered to him. Oh, the girl wouldn’t have had the title of wife, but if he could have engineered it she would have had the position.’
‘I’m sorry, lady,’ I said, ‘but that’s nonsense. She was Caesius’s property, pure and simple. If your son had tried to remove her, take her to live with him, it would’ve been straightforward theft, and the law would’ve been down on him like a ton of bricks. He would’ve known that, and so would Caesius. So why the overreaction? What else had she done to deserve it?’
And Vatinia’s face … shut. There was no other word to describe it. She stood up and shouted: ‘Phrontis!’
The major-domo came hurrying in. ‘Yes, madam?’
‘This gentleman is leaving. Now. And he is not to be readmitted on any future occasion. Not for any reason. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, madam.’ He was glaring at me. ‘Sir? If you would, please?’
Well, so much for that, then. I stood up.
‘Sure. No problem.’
He led me out without a wo
rd, and the front door closed behind me.
Jupiter! I’d touched a nerve there, and no mistake. Though what the fuck it was I couldn’t think.
One thing was certain, though: I needed to find out more about what exactly had happened twenty years back. With Andromeda herself dead, there was only one way to do that now, if it was possible at all: talk to the woman Caesius had sold her to. Which meant, having just ridden all the way to Rome and back, joy of joys, I now had to go to Tibur.
Bugger!
TWENTY
I set off early next morning.
Well, at least it got me away from Mother for the day and a half that I’d allowed for the round trip, which was a definite plus. The lady being the card-carrying militant non-drinker that she is, where the wine was concerned I’d been pretty abstemious at dinner the previous evening. Even so, I’d still got the glare and pointed sniff of disapproval over the duck with saffron nut sauce every time I topped up my cup, with the result that Aunt Marcia’s best reserve Alban had tended to slip past my tonsils like third-rate Veientanum. Priscus, I noticed, had been ostentatiously mixing extra water from the water-jug into his ration; except when, between the main course and the dessert, Mother went out to powder her nose, at which point he’d poured himself a surreptitious whopper and downed most of it in one. He’d been putting away Euclidus’s veal cutlets with fennel like there was no tomorrow, too, and considering Mother usually fed the poor old bugger on groats and alfalfa, it wasn’t surprising.
Yeah, well, no doubt his married life had its balancing compen-sations. Not that, at his age, they could’ve been very strenuous or exciting.
Anyway, there I was in Tibur. It’d been an easy enough ride, good weather all the way, and although the road connecting it with Castrimoenium is gravel-surfaced rather than paved I’d covered the twenty-odd miles in fairly good time, certainly a lot less than I’d budgeted for. It wasn’t a place I’d ever been to before; a pleasant little town about the same size as Bovillae, maybe a tad bigger, with a setting high above the plain that’s impressive as hell if you like your scenery to be on the rugged side, don’t suffer from vertigo, and don’t mind streets that you practically have to wear pitons to climb.
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