David Wishart - Illegally Dead

‘You’re staying with the Lady Marcia, I believe?’ she said.

‘Yeah. She’s my wife’s aunt. Courtesy aunt. We come up here quite a lot, really. Our adopted daughter Marilla’s lived with Marcia more or less since…well, since we adopted her. It started off temporary, then became permanent because she prefers the countryside to Rome. Besides, Marcia’d be lost without her.’

‘They are beautiful, the Alban Hills. But it must be nice to live in Rome. So much more going on. The countryside, I’m afraid’ — she smiled again — ‘oh, dear, can be very dull at times. I’m always telling Quintus that we should think of moving, but he’s such a stick-in-the-mud I doubt if we ever will.’

‘No argument there, lady. The country’s fine for a visit, but with respect living here full time would drive me up the wall.’

‘Yes. Oh, yes.’ She turned. ‘Ah, the wine. Thank you, Carillus. That’s all, you can go.’ The slave set a full winecup on the small table next to me and a second — equally full — on the marble pool surround next to Seia Lucinda’s chair, then bowed and exited. ‘I’ll join you, if I may.’

‘Sure.’ I picked up the cup and sipped: Alban, and pure nectar.

‘It’s just unfortunate that your first visit here should be under such unpleasant circumstances.’ Seia Lucinda picked up her own cup. ‘I…can’t say I ever liked Quintus’s partner, and of course in recent months he’d become completely impossible, but I’m sorry he’s dead, particularly…well, you understand. I’m especially sorry for Veturina. She did love him very much, Valerius Corvinus, however badly he treated her, and in many ways she will miss him greatly.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I can see that.’

‘It might have been better had there been any children, but of course there weren’t. Not who lived, at least.’

‘You have children yourself?’

‘No.’ She took a sip of the wine. ‘No, no children. There’s just me and Quintus.’

‘Valerius Corvinus?’ I turned round. A big guy, late forties and wearing a snazzy mantle, was coming from the direction of what was, presumably, the family rooms beyond the satyr bronze. He held out his hand. ‘Quintus Acceius. Delighted to meet you.’

I stood up and we shook. Our eyes were on a level; if anything, he had a good inch on me. ‘Same here,’ I said.

‘Lucinda looking after you?’ I noticed his eyes had gone to the lady’s winecup, and that she’d set it down quickly by the side of the pool. ‘Fine. We’ll go into the study, if you don’t mind. This is no subject for a woman. Bring your wine with you. I won’t join you, if you’ll forgive me. It’s a little early for me, especially since I’m just up.’

‘Fair enough. Seia Lucinda? A pleasure to meet you.’

She gave me another smile but said nothing.

‘This way, Corvinus.’ He moved towards the back of the atrium. ‘How are things progressing? You’ve talked to Fuscus?’

‘Yeah. He was really helpful.’

‘I’m glad. I’d’ve had the old bugger’s guts for garters if he wasn’t.’ We’d reached an oak-panelled door in the short corridor beyond. ‘In you go. Make yourself comfortable.’

The study was large and obviously well-used: two couches with blue velvet upholstery, three or four bronze candelabra, a writing desk and more bookshelves and books than you could shake a stick at. Again, some very nice bronzes that looked like they might be originals and a couple of portrait busts in marble, one of a young woman who wasn’t Seia Lucinda.

‘That’s the best couch there,’ Acceius said, pointing. ‘Stretch yourself out and I’ll take the other one.’ I did, and set the winecup on the table next to it. ‘Now. Straight in, whatever you like.’

‘You and Hostilius had been partners for, what, twenty-odd years?’

‘Twenty-two come August. When he took me on I’d just finished my training with old Simplicius in Capua.’

‘So you weren’t local?’

‘No. Although I’d reckon myself a local man now, and so would everyone else around here. We’re talking about Bovillae to begin with, mind, not Castrimoenium. Lucius and I didn’t up sticks and move until seven years later.’

‘He’d been in practice long himself?’

‘Lucius had a good fifteen years on me; I’m forty-seven, he was sixty-three. He’d had an office in Bovillae for oh, maybe twelve years when I joined him.’

‘Why did you move here?’

‘It seemed like a good idea at the time. Still seems so. The town was growing, with more people coming into the area, from Rome especially, buying holiday property. A lot of our business is conveyancing, acting as agents for one side or another.’

‘But not all of it? I’m thinking of the Maecilius case.’

‘Ah.’ Acceius frowned. ‘That, Corvinus, is an example of a legal dispute that should never have happened. Lawyers are often accused of encouraging litigation on the part of their clients, even of fomenting it, for their own gain. Some do — I could quote you examples, at no great distance from here — but most try to see the danger in advance on their clients’ behalf and take steps to avoid it happening. In this case, Lucius and I — we were old Maecilius’s lawyers — warned him that there’d be trouble and bad blood over the will’s execution, but the obstinate old so-and-so wouldn’t be told.’

‘You mind telling me exactly what the situation is? If it isn’t confidential, I mean.’

Acceius laughed. ‘Grief, no, it’s not confidential! Ought to be, certainly, but thanks to Bucca and Fimus between them — they’re the sons, as you’re probably aware — plus old “Lucky” himself before the lightning got him the whole bloody town knows, and has done for years. So the answer to your question is no; I don’t mind telling you at all. However, I don’t quite see what it has to do with Lucius’s death.’

‘Nor do I, pal.’ I took a sip of my wine. ‘Maybe — probably — nothing. I’m just covering all the angles at present.’

‘Fair enough.’ Acceius settled on his couch. ‘In that case… The terms of the will are quite simple. Fimus — Marcus Maecilius, the younger son — gets the Six Cedars property in its entirety, plus a quarter of the liquid assets, amounting to something just short of fifteen thousand sesterces, while his elder brother gets the cash remainder. Old Maecilius’s point, valid, as far as it went, was that Fimus had put the work in over the past forty-odd years to build the place up and didn’t deserve to have the farm sold out from under him — as it would have to be — just so that his worthless brother — “Lucky”’s expression, not mine — could take an equal share without having earned it. Bucca, of course, is now trying to have the will overturned. Or rather’ — he hesitated — ‘that’s not quite fair.’

‘It isn’t?’

‘No. Bucca’s quite willing to reach an out-of-court settlement. If his brother agrees to split both property and cash fifty-fifty — Bucca taking his half of the property in outlying lakeside land not at present under cultivation — then he’ll immediately sell on to a Bovillan developer with whom he’s already reached a prospective agreement and turn over a third of the sale price to Fimus. You understand?’

‘Yeah. And presumably if it happened that way then Fimus would come out ahead on the deal?’

‘Undoubtedly. He’d be left with what in effect is, at present, the entire working farm and — lakeside property prices being what they are — twenty times the amount he’d’ve had otherwise. While Bucca would net something just short of a million in hard cash.’

‘So the farming son gets the land and the funds to put into it, the other guy serious loose change to do what he likes with. They’re both winners, the thing’s been settled amicably and they can go their separate ways. Seems a sensible deal to me.’