David Wishart - Illegally Dead

‘All the same, like I say we’re grateful. And I’ll help you as far as I’m able to, gladly. Lucius Hostilius was a good master in his day. The best.’

‘You been his head slave long?’

‘Since he and the mistress moved here from Bovillae, sir, fifteen years back.’

‘That when Quintus Acceius became a partner?’

‘Nor. He and the master’d been partners six or seven years by then.’

‘Any particular reason for the move?’

‘Lawyer in Castrimoenium died, Bovillae had a lawyer already. Still does, old Publius Novius.’

‘Uh…what’s this Acceius like, by the way? You see much of him around here?’

Long pause: Scopas gave me a level stare and sucked on a tooth. No fool, this guy.

‘He’s a good man,’ he said at last. ‘A good friend to the master, while he was himself, and a good friend to the mistress. A good friend.’ He stressed the last word. ‘And if you’ve been told anything more, Valerius Corvinus, sir, then you forget it, because it isn’t true. That said, yes, he’s in and out frequent, on business and to dinner, him and his wife. Or they were, while the master was well.’

‘He’s married?’

‘To Seia Lucinda, sir, lady from one of the biggest families in Bovillae. Father and grandfather were purple-stripers like yourself. Big poultry-breeding business, they had. Still have, the brother runs it now.’

‘When was the last time Acceius was here?’

‘Oh, that’d be about twelve or thirteen days ago, the day after that bit of trouble in town. You’ve heard about that?’

‘When the guy attacked the pair of them in the street? Yeah; I’ve heard of that. You know anything about it?’

‘No, sir. Nothing no one else doesn’t. But it left the master very shaken. He stayed at home the next day and Quintus Acceius brought the business here.’

‘What business was that? Do you know?’

‘No, sir, I’ve nothing to do with that side of things, anything like that you’d have to ask the gentleman himself, or Fuscus in town. He’s the master’s clerk.’

‘Not your mistress’s brother?’

Was it my imagination, or did Scopas hesitate? If so, it was only for a split second. ‘No, sir, Castor’s just a messenger, a gopher, no disrespect intended. He wouldn’t know either, no more than me. But it wasn’t anything out of the usual, as far as I know. Acceius didn’t stay long.’

‘Does he usually?’

Pause; then, deliberately, eyes on mine: ‘No longer than necessary, sir, this last year, anyway. And always with the master present. He was very careful about that, master being as he was.’

Yeah, well, that was me told. The adultery angle was looking less and less likely. ‘So tell me about the day Hostilius died,’ I said.

Scopas stood up. ‘You’ll want to see the room itself, sir. The mistress said you would.’

‘Sure. If you don’t mind.’ I got up too.

‘It’s the other side of the house, overlooking the garden. If you’d like to follow me.’

We went through a narrow arched passageway and round the edge of the main building into a large garden with a portico. The garden had a wall, but I could see a gate at the far end. That must’ve been where Cosmus was heading for when Veturina had seen him. If she had seen him: I wasn’t going to take all that lady had said quite on trust yet. Far from it.

‘Just along here, sir.’ Scopas led me along the portico and through a door back into the main building. ‘Here we are. The master’s suite is on your left.’

Where the corridor ended, in other words. Before going in, though, I looked to the right. There were several doors. ‘Which are the rooms your mistress uses?’ I said.

‘Third door along, sir. The rooms’re connected inside.’

Hardly more than half a dozen yards; yeah, Veturina had said that she didn’t want to be too far away. ‘And the latrine?’

‘At the far end of the corridor, sir, next to the bath suite.’

Check. I opened the first door on the right after the exit to the portico. A small, anonymous bedroom, obviously unused. ‘That other room empty as well, Scopas? The one between here and your mistress’s?’

‘Just a cupboard, sir. Linen press.’

‘Fine.’ Well, that was all pretty straightforward. It added up, too. I opened the door to Hostilius’s bedroom and went in.

Like Scopas had said, it was a small suite; the same sort of thing, presumably, as Veturina’s. The door led into a sitting-room that opened onto the portico outside and overlooked the garden beyond. It was a big room, light and airy, with frescos on the walls and a good mosaic on the floor, a couch and a table next to it, and a bookcase with most of the cubbies filled. There was a writing desk and a stool, too, and an alcove with a vase of fresh flowers.

‘The master spent a lot of time in here, sir,’ Scopas said. ‘He preferred it to his study and to the atrium, ‘specially in the summer.’

‘This where he died?’

‘That’s right. On the couch here. He was taken bad while he was reading. Luckily — or it might’ve been luckily, if it’d done any good — Sestus the gardener was just outside, and he ran for me. I sent someone straight off for Doctor Hyperion.’

‘When was this exactly?’

‘Late morning, sir, an hour or so before noon.’

‘Uh-huh. And you fetched the Lady Veturina at the same time, did you?’

Scopas hesitated. ‘No. Only when I reckoned things was as bad as they could get, sir. The master…well, you know the situation, Valerius Corvinus. They hardly met, hardly spoke at all, and he wouldn’t have her in here at any price.’

‘She was in her own room along the corridor?’

‘That’s right, sir. Sitting-room like this one, with a bedroom beyond. It’s where she spends most of the day.’

‘So where was the medicine bottle kept?’

‘On a tray in the bedroom. If you’d like to see, sir?’

We went through. It was almost the size of the sitting-room and just as well decorated: obviously the master bedroom of the villa, the one Hostilius and Veturina must’ve shared for most of their married life. There was big double bed with a richly-embroidered coverlet on it, several clothes chests, a shoe-rack and — next to the bed — a polished black-marble table with a tray on it. On the tray were a stoppered silver wine-flask and a matching cup.

‘I put them back where they’d been, sir, on the mistress’s orders,’ Scopas said. ‘The medicine bottle was there as well, of course, but — ’ He stopped.

‘But Hyperion took that away with him. Yeah, that’s okay, pal, understood,’ I said. ‘Fine. So how did it work?’

‘The master had his routine, sir. Up about an hour after dawn, took a trip along to the latrine.’ He glanced at me. ‘Didn’t hold with chamber pots, the master, always said that a bedroom was no place for…well, you understand, sir. And he liked to sit and think in peace for a while before breakfast.’

‘He had breakfast in here?’

‘In the sitting-room. I brought it on a tray first thing when he woke and left it on the table for when he got back. And the…and the medicine, sir, ready-mixed in the cup.’

‘So the length of time between when you left the tray and the medicine ready and your master coming back would be what?’

‘About fifteen minutes, sir, give or take.’

Yeah, right. Plenty of time, in other words, for someone — Cosmus — to nip into the empty room, do the business with the bottle, and nip out again. And if he’d been hiding in the spare bedroom a few yards along the corridor, like Veturina he’d’ve heard the footsteps coming and going and known the coast was clear. Easy-peasy. ‘The routine didn’t change?’ I said.