David Wishart - Illegally Dead

The lobby opened onto a smallish room with a desk to one side and two doors leading off it. The decor wasn’t cheap here, either, and just as tasteful: a painted and gilded plasterwork dado that ran all the way round the red-panelled walls, a big fresco of the Graces, all carefully draped, that could’ve been Greek work, and two or three very nice bronze candelabra.

The guy at the desk stood up. Like Scopas, he was in his sixties, but that’s where the resemblance ended: five-five max, thin as a rake and with a bright, quick eye like a bird’s. He wore a neat beige tunic — tasteful again — and a freedman’s cap.

‘I’m — ’ I began.

‘Yes, sir, I know. Valerius Corvinus. You’re looking into the death of Lucius Hostilius.’ Brisk and businesslike, but suitably grave. Yeah; we were dealing class here. ‘I’m Fuscus, the practice’s clerk. Quintus Acceius said you might drop in, and he told me to give you every assistance.’

‘He’s not in himself this morning?’

‘No, he had to go up to Rome yesterday and he won’t’ve got back until the early hours. But he did say if you weren’t too prompt he’d be delighted to talk to you at his home. That’s only a step or two away, just round the corner.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I know. Great, I might do that.’

‘Fine. Do have a seat.’ He indicated the chair my side of the desk: polished oak, with red leather upholstery. I sat, and so did he. ‘Now. Please ask away, I’m at your service.’

‘This, uh, attack on Lucius Hostilius fourteen days ago. Can you tell me anything about that?’

‘Not personally, sir, as far as the attack itself went, but it happened just up the street and Sextus would be able to give you the full details.’

‘Sextus?’

‘The door-slave, sir. He saw the whole thing, although he wasn’t quick enough to help. A very strange business altogether. The two gentlemen were quite shaken when they came in, understandably so.’

‘Did they know the man at all?’

‘No, sir. No one did, he was a complete stranger to the town, a vagrant. Deranged, obviously.’

‘Obviously.’ Well, I could check up on the finer points with the slave on the way out. It might not have anything directly to do with Hostilius’s death, but I’d bet a gold piece to a sock in the jaw that there was more to that attempted knifing than met the eye. ‘Okay; let’s talk about Hostilius’s brother-in-law instead. Castor. He works here, doesn’t he?’

Fuscus hesitated. ‘He…used to, sir, yes, certainly. To tell the truth, at present I’m not sure myself of his position vis-a-vis the firm.’

‘You mean after his spat with Hostilius the day before he died?’

Fuscus looked relieved. ‘Oh, you know about that already? I’m glad, sir. As I said, Quintus Acceius instructed me to give you every help possible, but Castor’s not a bad young man by any means and I’d hate to prejudice you unduly against him. Especially since’ — he hesitated again — ‘appearances might be deceptive. Lucius Hostilius being the way he was, if you understand me.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I know all about that side of things, too,’ I said. ‘So tell me about the spat.’

‘Castor came in just after lunch, sir. I was alone in the office: Quintus Acceius was out seeing a client and Lucius Hostilius had gone home mid-morning saying he wouldn’t be back again that day. Castor said he’d just come from there and that Hostilius had forgotten to ask me to take a conveyancing deed round to Publius Decius; he has a potter’s business sir, on the other side of the main square, and we were negotiating the sale to him of an adjacent property.’

I nodded. Jupiter, you could tell that the guy was used to legal work: every ‘i’ dotted and every ‘t’ crossed.

‘Normally Castor would have run the errand himself — that was his job, sir, he was the firm’s messenger — but the deed needed a little explanation which he couldn’t give and I could. There was no problem: Decius’s was only five minutes away and the explanation wouldn’t take all that much longer, so I’d only be absent for half an hour, if that. I left Castor minding the office in case a client arrived unexpectedly and went off.

‘As it happened Decius was out, so I came straight back. Lucius Hostilius was here, with Castor. I’d missed the…whatever the scene was about, but Hostilius was clearly very angry. He accused Castor of being an ingrate, a spy, a traitor and a thief, and virtually threw him out of the office.’ He paused. ‘There you are, sir. That’s about all I can tell you. I haven’t seen the young man since.’

‘Did Castor say anything on his side?’

‘No. He’s quite a serious young man, for all his good looks, and he doesn’t have much to say for himself at the best of times. When I came in he was just standing there while Hostilius shouted at him; very pale, with a sort of…tight expression on his face, if you understand me.’

‘Hostilius give any explanation? After Castor was gone?’

‘No, he didn’t say a word. Just went into his office and slammed the door. He left a few minutes later, without a word again.’ Fuscus hesitated. ‘He was a…very difficult man, sir. Latterly. And as I say I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry, myself, to put all the blame for whatever had occurred on young Castor. If, indeed, anything had occurred, which wasn’t necessarily so.’

Yeah; right. And there were bits there that needed serious thinking about, what was more. Not a clear-cut situation, by any means. ‘Thanks, pal. Very lucid. The two, uh, didn’t get on at the best of times, did they?’

‘No, although — ’ Fuscus frowned. ‘Valerius Corvinus, I must make something very clear, although you’re probably well aware of it already. The Lucius Hostilius of the past twelve or eighteen months was a completely different man to what he’d been before. Increasingly so. If you’d asked me that question two years ago, when his brother-in-law joined the firm, my answer would have been quite different. The impetus may have come from Hostilius’s wife — I believe that it did — but Hostilius certainly approved. Castor had no experience of legal work whatsoever — he was working with his father and elder brother in the family wineshop — but he was keen, intelligent and conscientious, desperate to do well. Professionally ambitious, too: he wanted to be a lawyer himself one day, or at least a lawyer’s clerk, like myself.’

Yeah: Marilla had told me that, it was one of the things that the guy had mentioned in their streetside tete-a-tetes. ‘So why didn’t he get some in-house training?’ I said. ‘After all, he was a relative, and if like you say he had things going for him — ’

‘I’m afraid that was Lucius Hostilius’s doing, sir. After he…fell ill he took a dislike to the young man, wouldn’t have him as an apprentice at any price, to any degree. Quintus Acceius did what he could, tried to persuade him otherwise, but to have insisted or gone behind his partner’s back would only have led to serious trouble, perhaps ending with Castor being dismissed altogether and packed off to Bovillae again. He was forced to leave the situation as it stood.’

Uh-huh. Well, that made sense; in effect, that was what had happened, finally. Or would’ve done, if Hostilius had lived. Interesting. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Let’s move on. I understand that Hostilius had another spat recently. With one of the Maecilius brothers.’

‘Yes.’ Fuscus nodded. ‘Yes, that’s correct, the elder of the two, Gaius. He — ’

‘Hold on, pal,’ I said. ‘That’s Bucca, right?’

‘Indeed it is.’

‘I was told the quarrel was with the younger brother. Fimus. About fifteen days ago, in the square.’