Solid Citizens (24 page)

I grinned. ‘Yeah, OK, Bathyllus. You’re off the hook, pal. It is the Winter Festival, after all, and so long as you and Lupercus behave yourselves and get along nicely that’s all I ask. But you’re on strict probation, right?’

‘“Share”, sir, shall henceforth be my watchword.’

‘Good.’ I kept my face straight and made a move towards the atrium. ‘See you keep it that way.’

‘Ah … sir?’

I turned. ‘Yeah, Bathyllus? Was there something else?’

‘I should tell you that your mother and Helvius Priscus have just arrived. About ten minutes ago, in fact.’

Bugger!
Already?
‘That’s … good news, little guy,’ I said.

‘And that they have brought their chef with them.’

I stopped. ‘They have
what
?’

‘Phormio, sir, is one of the party. Dinner will be in an hour, should you wish to change.’

Oh, hell! Hell and bloody damnation! I carried on into the atrium. The bought help had brought in a couple of high-backed chairs, which Mother and Priscus were occupying. As usual, she looked stunning, even after the thirty-odd-mile coach trip, perfectly made-up and coiffured, and a good twenty years short of her actual age, while Priscus was doing his normal wrinkled-prune older-than-God impression. Perilla was on one of the room’s three couches, and Marilla and Clarus were sharing another. I set my wine cup on the small table beside the unoccupied third and gave Perilla the usual kiss.

‘Successful day, dear?’ she said.

‘Later,’ I said, teeth gritted. I turned to Mother. ‘Hi, Mother. Priscus. You’re early.’

‘The traffic was very light,’ Mother said, putting her cheek up to be kissed. ‘And it is Titus’s birthday today, after all.’

Bugger! I’d thought it was tomorrow. But then I always get birthdays wrong. ‘Happy birthday, Priscus,’ I said.

‘
Mmmaa!
Thank you, Marcus.’

I settled down on the couch and tried to keep my voice neutral. ‘Ah … Bathyllus says you’ve brought Phormio with you.’

Mother gave me her best dazzling smile. ‘Yes. Oh, I know what we agreed, dear, but I didn’t have the heart to leave him behind. And he has such
marvellous
plans for the Winter Festival dinner! You’ll be amazed!’

I glanced at Clarus and Marilla. Obviously, from the looks on their faces, this was news to them, too. Not good news, either, to put it mildly, which came as no surprise. No one wants to spend the Winter Festival spewing their guts out, and with Phormio doing the cooking it’d be practically a dead cert.

Stopping Mother in her tracks, however, was a task about as easy as all twelve of Hercules’ labours rolled into one and doubled.

Fuck. Double fuck.

‘Vipsania, we do have a perfectly good chef of our own, you know,’ Marilla said.

‘Of course you do, darling!’ The smile shifted to her and Clarus. ‘And I’m sure Euclidus is simply marvellous, for the everyday stuff, at least. But Phormio has just got this frankly
unbelievable
book of recipes from a correspondent of his in Palmyra, who had it from a friend at the other end of the spice route.’ She turned to Perilla. ‘So terribly exciting for him! He really does take his cooking
seriously
, the lamb, and he’s always on the lookout for anything just that little bit
outré
.’

‘Yes,’ Perilla said through tight lips. ‘I know.’

‘It’s quite fortuitous, really. He’s been waiting for the book to be copied and sent for almost two years now. And the special ingredients the recipes call for, of course, because most of these you can’t find here. Those were even more difficult. We had to arrange for them to be imported on an almost individual basis, and you would not
believe
how much time and trouble that involves. Not to mention the expense.’

‘Ah … just exactly what would these ingredients be, Mother?’ I said.

‘Oh, really,
I
don’t know, dear. Lots of things. You’d have to ask Phormio, although I doubt if even he could help. I don’t actually think the majority have names in Latin at all. Or even in Greek, for that matter, which was why Phormio’s Palmyran friend took so long to send the book in the first place. Seemingly, finding a capable translator who knew both Greek and whatever language the poor dears beyond Parthia speak was
such
a trial you wouldn’t credit. As I said, it’s all very exciting.’

Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit! This sounded bad. Being poisoned was one thing, but being poisoned by something that didn’t even have a proper civilized name west of the Indus would be nothing short of fucking embarrassing.

‘Uh … maybe we should talk about this, Mother,’ I said cautiously. ‘I mean, the Winter Festival meal’s no time for experiments, is it?’ Not sodding Phormio’s kind of experiments, anyway, even if we did have a doctor on hand. Which wouldn’t be much help if Clarus was down in the latrine or bent over a bucket along with the rest of us.

‘Oh, don’t be so boring, Marcus! You’re such a fuddy-duddy traditionalist! It’ll be an experience, I promise you.’

Right. Well, I was ready to go along with her on that score, certainly. And personally I’d rather spend the festival as a fuddy-duddy traditionalist with all his digestive organs still intact and functioning than an avant-garde gourmet who had to wear his running shoes to bed. Still, we’d a few days’ grace before Phormio had his evil way with us. Maybe a solution would present itself.

Time for tact, and a change of subject.

‘Incidentally, Priscus,’ I said. ‘I’ve a present for you.’ The ivory plaque was still in my belt pouch. I took it out and handed it to him. ‘Look and marvel.’

‘
Mmaa!
’ He held the thing up to the light and examined it. ‘Oh, how very nice! Thank you, Marcus. You really shouldn’t have. What an interesting design.’

‘Yeah. It’s Sicilian. About a century and a half old, the guy in the shop said.’

‘Oh, no. The original may have been Sicilian – the design certainly is, Archimedes lecturing, I think – but this is a copy.’

‘
What?
’

‘
Mmaaa!
You didn’t know? Well, it really doesn’t matter; it’s the thought that counts. Representations of Archimedes are quite common in Sicilian minor art of the period, particularly, naturally, that of Syracuse. Possibly as a covert expression of contemporary anti-Roman feeling, since of course he was quite the local hero and his death at the hands of the – in Greek eyes – philistine Roman captors of the city was viewed by its citizens as—’

‘Hang on a minute, Priscus,’ I said. ‘Are you saying the thing’s a fake?’

‘But of course it is.’

Jupiter! ‘You sure?’

‘
Mwahahaha!
’
He chuckled; not a pretty sight or sound. ‘Oh, come now, really, my dear boy! You only have to look at the patina! It’s obvious!’

Yeah, well, maybe it was, to your average antiquarian nut who could deliver an impromptu lecture on hundred-and-fifty-year-old Sicilian minor art at the drop of a hat. Me, I’d just have said that the thing was yellow.

‘So,
mwahahaha
, you bought it as genuine, then?’

‘Yeah, I did. From a shop in Bovillae.’

‘Oh, dear, oh dear!
Mwahahaha!
In that case, Marcus, I shouldn’t patronize it again, if I were you. The owner obviously doesn’t know a thing about what he’s selling. Or, of course, you’ve been sold a pup.’

‘Guy by the name of Baebius. Ring any bells?’

‘Quintus Baebius?’ He blinked at me. ‘Indeed it does, my boy, indeed it does! Quite a loud one. We’ve met on occasion, in the Saepta and at auctions.’

‘He know his stuff?’

‘Certainly!
Mmmaaa!
Oh, he’s an expert, all right, quite the aficionado. Alexandrian period, if I remember, specialising in the Asian cities. But from what I’ve heard he’s –
mmmaa
– not quite pukka, shall we say. Hairy in the hoof and too ready to take the main chance when it’s offered, that’s about the fellow’s measure. What today’s youngsters would no doubt call –
mmmaa
– a bit of a wide boy.’

Would they, indeed? ‘Is that so, now?’ I said. ‘Thanks, Priscus.’

‘
Mmmaaaa
. A nice enough piece in itself, though. Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’ I was thinking hard. Passing off a fake antique as genuine didn’t exactly rank as the crime of the century; not when it could only have brought in a couple of extra gold pieces, max. And, if I believed his door slave, which I did, Baebius couldn’t have committed at least the first of the two murders. However, the guy evidently wasn’t the honest, solid citizen he pretended to be, and we still had a quite genuinely valuable figurine to account for, which the chances were that Caesius had had on him the evening that he died. Me, I wouldn’t trust the bastard’s word that he hadn’t got it now if he swore blind by every god in the pantheon. Plus the fact that we had the coincidence of him and the murdered man being members of the same club in Rome to consider.

Shit; weren’t
any
of these guys straight?

I’d have another talk with Quintus bloody Baebius tomorrow.

I
left it later than usual to make the trip into Bovillae, intentionally so, setting off a good hour after breakfast. Which, I was glad to note, despite Mother and Priscus being in evidence, was blessedly free of Phormio’s gunk. Over dinner the previous evening Clarus, with uncharacteristic firmness, had ignored Mother’s strident protests that as a medical man himself he should be encouraging his guests to eat a healthy breakfast and put his foot down on that score: Phormio had been barred from using the kitchen to so much as boil an egg pro tem, which, considering that the bastard’s eggs of choice came from crocodiles and had been shipped over from Egypt in jars of sand, made it a reasonable place to start. Where that left us vis-à-vis the actual Winter Festival dinner, mind, was still a moot point: it’d take a much braver man than Clarus – or me, for that matter – to go head-to-head with Mother when she was dead set on something, and that particular sword of Damocles was still hanging. We’d just have to hope for divine intervention. Or maybe a major earthquake.

So. Since he lived in the top part of town, it had to be Baebius first. The guy had questions to answer, not only in regard to the dodgy plaque his freedman had sold me but also as to why he hadn’t mentioned the fact that he and Caesius shared membership of a Roman club. I dumped my horse as usual at the Tiburtine Gate water trough and went straight round to his house, only to be told that that he was out.

‘You know where he might be at all?’ I asked the young door slave who seemed to double as his major-domo. ‘It’s pretty important.’

‘He could’ve gone to the shop he owns, sir,’ he said. ‘You could try it, anyway. The one selling antiques and curios, in the street opposite the market square.’

‘Yeah, I know where it is,’ I said. ‘I’ll do that. Thanks.’

I was cutting through market square on the way to the shop when I felt a hand on my arm. I turned to find Tertius, Silius Nerva’s slave who’d taken me out to Mettius’s villa.

‘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.’