David Wishart - Illegally Dead

‘Second area?’

‘Yeah. Castor. Lucius Hostilius’s brother-in-law.’

Novius’s face…froze. There was no other word for it. ‘What about him?’ he said.

‘You were helping the guy out. He wanted to be a lawyer himself, but thanks to his brother-in-law he wasn’t getting anywhere in Castrimoenium. You were…oh, I don’t know; training him as an apprentice might be overstating it, but supplying him with books, talking him through cases, things like that. Yes?’

‘I…took an interest, certainly.’ He’d leaned back in his chair and put the tips of his fingers together, touching his lips. ‘Although I can’t think why that should be of any — ’

‘Cosmus. He used to be one of your slaves, didn’t he?’

That got me a long, slow stare. ‘I had a slave by that name, yes,’ he said at last.

‘You knew he was the one who…let’s say poisoned Lucius Hostilius?’

Novius stood up abruptly. ‘I think we’ll have my clerk in here,’ he said. ‘If you’re going to accuse me of — ’

‘I’m not accusing you of anything,’ I said. ‘Or not of arranging a murder, anyway. But if you’d like your clerk to hear the next bit then go ahead and call him, pal. It’s no skin off my nose.’

He glared at me for all of five seconds. Then he sat down again. ‘Carry on,’ he said tightly.

‘You sold Cosmus to Marcus Tuscius, the local slave dealer, thirteen months ago. He was bought two days later by Veturina, Lucius Hostilius’s wife, and her brother Castor.’

‘Really? I wasn’t aware of that, but if you tell me he was then no doubt it’s so.’

‘Now correct me if I’m wrong, pal, but I’d bet a gold piece to a kick in the teeth that the transaction didn’t postdate the start of your association with Castor by all that much. And there’s the question of what you were getting in return for your interest in him.’

‘Corvinus, I do advise you that you’re getting perilously close to slander here.’

‘So call in your clerk, friend.’ He didn’t move. ‘Castor’s already admitted to me that he passed on the information about how high Hostilius’s client was prepared to go in the offering price for the Lutatius property. And that it wasn’t a one-off; you’d been running him as a mole for months, picking up what he could about areas you and the Castrimoenian practice shared an interest in until Hostilius caught on and pulled the plug. Me, I think the intention — the original intention — where Cosmus was concerned was to have someone else on the inside at the guy’s home as well as his office, to run along with Castor. The problem was that although Cosmus was personable enough for promotion to an upstairs slave Hostilius didn’t like or trust him, so that particular plan fizzled out in the end, but it was a sharp idea in principle. You’re the lawyer. You want to tell me how something like that would square legally?’

‘I did nothing illegal.’

‘No, I’m sure you didn’t. Not as such, because you’d be very careful not to. But can you answer for Castor?’ The lips formed a tight line. ‘Over the Maecilius business, for a start. Colluding in the suppression of a will is definitely on the criminal side of the fence. Now I’ll admit that that doesn’t, on the face of it, seem to be to your advantage, quite the reverse, but — ’

‘Colluding in what?’

‘- even though the chances are he was working on his own there you and he were definitely in bed together otherwise, and if it came out then you’d have awkward questions to answer.’

‘Are you blackmailing me, Valerius Corvinus?’

I shook my head. ‘No. Not at all. As far as I’m concerned you can play your lawyers’ games until hell freezes. All I want to know is how Castor fits in with the deaths of Lucius Hostilius and Brabbia Habra.’

‘Who?’

‘The brothers’ younger sister. Her body was found up by Caba a few days ago. Did you know her?’

‘No. I knew there was a sister, but not her name. And I never met her.’ He was frowning. ‘Corvinus, what’s this about Castor suppressing a will? Presumably you mean the one my client Gaius Maecilius — Bucca — says his father made shortly before he died, in which case if you have proof of its existence then you’re legally obliged to reveal its whereabouts.’

‘No proof, not yet, but I will have because I’m right. I just mentioned it to show you that covering up for Castor to save your own skin might not be such a smart idea in the long run. Oh, he’s inoffensive and mild-mannered on the surface, sure, but his father said that when he was a kid if he wanted something then he’d go for it, whatever stood in the way, and I’d bet that sums the guy up neatly, especially the last bit. Believe me, pal, there is something very rotten about Castor, and it goes a long way past the games you’re involved in.’

He was quiet for a long time. Then he said quietly: ‘What do you want to know?’

‘When was the last time you saw him?’

‘He was here perhaps seventeen or eighteen days ago.’

Uh-huh. That would put it — I did a quick calculation — just a day or so after Hostilius’s conversation at the villa with Acceius, which I would bet that Veturina had overheard a hell of a lot more of than she’d told me, and duly passed on to her brother. ‘For any specific reason?’

‘He wanted to talk to me about the Julian law. Its precise terms and ramifications.’

Yeah; Veturina had mentioned a Julian law. ‘Hang on, pal,’ I said. ‘This would be the Julian law on inheritance tax, would it?’

Novius chuckled. ‘No, it wouldn’t. At least, yes, there is a Julian law on inheritance tax — the Julia Vicesimaria — , in fact there are several Julian laws. But the one Castor wanted to discuss — and before you ask, Corvinus, in purely theoretical terms — was the one on adultery and the punishment of adulterers.’

Everything went very still. ‘You, ah, care to take me through that one, pal?’ I said.

‘Certainly. The gist of it is that if a man has proof that his wife is committing adultery he is legally obliged to divorce her forthwith. He then has sixty valid days — days when public business can be transacted — to instigate her formal prosecution, which, again, he is obliged by law to do. If the adultery is proved in court then, where the marriage is childless, as it was in Castor’s theoretical scenario, the husband retains a sixth of the original dowry, the rest going in fines to the state; while the adulterer loses, again as a fine, half his property. The wife and adulterer are punished by exile to separate islands.’

I sat back. Sweet immortal gods! Unless I was really, really mistaken I’d just been handed the key to the whole case. The only problem was, which lock did it fit? Wife and adulterer, eh? I reckoned that if you stretched the definition of the second category a little we’d had three possibilities for that combination over the last few days, and they all made sense, of a kind at least. So which was it? You paid your money and you took your choice. ‘And that’s what Castor wanted to check up on?’ I said.

‘Oh, no. He already knew that much. It was the next proviso of the law that he wasn’t altogether clear about.’

‘Namely?’

Novius told me.

Jupiter bloody Best and Greatest. One possibility; not three. Just the one.

Shit!

Puteoli and Spain, nothing. He’d still be around, that I’d bet on, because he’d nothing to gain by running now. And I knew where to find him, sure I did; he’d told me that himself.

I left Novius and headed for the town granaries.

The girl who opened the door of the flat was thin as a whip, pinch-featured and, I’d guess, under her tunic, well-muscled. Yeah, he’d said she was a dancer.