David Wishart - Illegally Dead

‘Stratyllis?’ I said.

‘Yes.’ Suspicious as hell, and the hand on the door moved it forward an inch. ‘What do you want?’

A stage name, obviously: you could’ve cut the Bovillan accent with a knife. ‘My name’s Valerius Corvinus. I’ve come to see — ’

If I hadn’t been quick and got my boot against it the door would’ve been slammed in my face. As it was, it bounced back hard against the wall and I shoved past the girl and in.

There was only the one room. Castor was sitting on the bed, a plate in his hand with some cheese, sliced sausage, bread and olives on it; the other, beside him, had mostly salad. Me, I’d’ve thought it was a bit early for lunch but maybe she had a gig that evening, and dancers don’t eat before they work.

He set the plate aside and stood up slowly. I thought he was going to go for me because his fists bunched, but then he relaxed, shrugged and turned away. The girl sat down on a stool against the wall — apart from a clothes chest it was the only other piece of furniture — and folded her arms tightly like she was hugging something.

‘So you found me,’ Castor said.

‘It wasn’t difficult, pal,’ I said quietly. I reached back and closed the door. ‘Oh, and by the way, those two heavies you sent after me? Red-head and his mate? We had a run-in earlier, and they tried to knife me. The second guy got away, but Red wasn’t so lucky. He’s with Agilleius Mundus now, charged with attempted murder and spilling his guts out on the rack.’

It was a shot in the dark, but I’d given it to him like it was hard, uncontrovertible fact, and it went home. Castor looked, suddenly, sick.

‘Corvinus, I swear!’ he whispered. ‘I only told them to frighten you, get you off my back! Not — !’

‘Like hell you did.’

‘It had nothing to do with Lucius’s death! I’m no killer! Believe me!’

‘No, you aren’t,’ I said. ‘Or at least not yet, anyway.’

He hadn’t expected that, and I’d kept my tone mild. He blinked and sat down again.

‘Well?’ he said. He was getting some of his bounce back fast, and there was an edge of truculence in his voice. I noticed he hadn’t picked me up on the qualification, if he’d spotted it, but we’d let that pass for the present.

‘You want to tell me about it?’ I said. ‘Or shall I tell you?’

Another shrug. ‘Go ahead.’

‘Your sister overheard a conversation between her husband and Quintus Acceius, the day after the attack in the street. Normally, she wouldn’t’ve bothered to listen in, but your name was mentioned and so she did.’ He said nothing. ‘Hostilius was talking about the Julian law on adultery. Under its terms, if a husband is conscious that his wife is having an adulterous affair then he’s legally obliged to divorce her and bring a formal prosecution. If he doesn’t, or refuses to, then it’s the right of a third party who knows of the affair to bring the prosecution himself. In which case the husband becomes technically a pander in collusion with the wife who has profited and is profiting, financially or otherwise, from the woman’s immorality. Yes?’

He’d gone pale. ‘Yes.’

‘How did Hostilius know about your affair with Seia Lucinda?’

Silence. The girl — Stratyllis — raised her eyes and shot him a hard look, but she didn’t say anything. Her arms still hugged her chest tightly.

‘It…wasn’t an affair,’ Castor said finally. ‘Not a proper one. And it was none of my doing. She was bored, she was lonely, she and Acceius hadn’t slept together for years. I tried to avoid her as much as I could, but she’s still a beautiful woman, and it just happened. She rode over here once — once! — about a month ago. Hostilius was at home — I didn’t know that at the time — and he must’ve seen her coming in to my part of the house. He…sneaked in and caught us kissing. Kissing! No more! I swear to you!’

Yeah, right. Well, I reckoned I’d got the seriously-edited version there, but it didn’t matter, that side of things wasn’t important. And I’d believe that Seia Lucinda had made the running, certainly: Castor might have playboy looks and be a lady’s man through and through, but he wasn’t a fool. If he started an affair it would be for what he could get out of it in other ways, and Seia Lucinda was just too damn dangerous to play around with. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘So Hostilius caught you. There weren’t any witnesses, mind, or were there?’ Castor shook his head. ‘So if you’d been careful otherwise — and I’d bet you were — there wasn’t any legal danger. We’ll come back to that.’

‘Corvinus, I swear — ’

‘You want to take over?’ He shook his head again. ‘Fine. Hostilius tells Acceius that if he doesn’t divorce his wife and bring a prosecution against the pair of you then he’ll do it for him.’

‘But he’d’ve had no case! You said yourself if there were no witnesses — and there weren’t — it was only his word against mine and Lucinda’s. And the way my brother-in-law threw accusations around — ’

‘I told you we’d come back to that.’ I leaned against the door. ‘He didn’t need a case, because he’d never have to bring one. Giving Quintus Acceius the chance to divorce his wife and prosecute her for adultery himself was the easy option, it was even generous, in its way. The alternative was for Hostilius to bring a charge against the two of them for murder, and that he could prove. Given time, which he wasn’t. Acceius made sure of that.’

Silence. Total silence. Then Castor said: ‘How did you know?’

‘Working it out wasn’t hard, once I knew about the second part of the Julian law. Oh, sure, having to divorce his wife would’ve hit Acceius badly, financially: if the charge had gone uncontested, which it’d have to have done under the terms of the bargain, he’d only be left with a sixth part of the original dowry, and the practice was built on Seia’s money. But he could’ve weathered that, and so might Seia, although she’d’ve been the harder hit. The problem was, Hostilius being Hostilius, they could never have trusted him to keep to the deal.’

Castor shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I meant the murder. How did you know that Acceius had killed his first wife?’

‘I didn’t. Oh, it was a possibility, sure, especially when I found out who the dead woman up at Caba was, but I didn’t know for absolute certain until Publius Novius told me about Acceius’s plans to bribe the jury in the Brabbius trial. That would’ve cost: it was an open-and-shut case, and he would’ve needed to buy at least half the jurors. The money had to come from somewhere, it sure as hell couldn’t’ve come from the Brabbii themselves, and Acceius didn’t have nearly that amount of gravy at the time even if he’d’ve wanted to spend it. It had to be Seia’s. Which meant that the two of them were in it together.’

‘Go on.’ Now he was off the hook — or that hook, anyway — Castor seemed genuinely interested. Well, the guy was a lawyer, after all, or at least a wannabe lawyer. I shouldn’t’ve been all that surprised. And he wouldn’t’ve known all the whys and wherefores. I hadn’t known them myself until that morning.

‘One stupid mistake,’ I said. ‘Me, I think that’s the phrase that sums everything up. My bet is that Seia Lucinda made the running, like she did with you, and Quintus Acceius made the one stupid mistake of his life by being tempted and giving in. On Seia’s prompting he made a bargain with Brabbia Habra. She’d provide him with the poison that’d kill his wife in childbirth, leaving him free to marry Seia, and in return he’d bribe the jury and see that her brothers were acquitted. Only it went wrong: one of the jurors blabbed to Novius, Novius stopped the bribery and the two Brabbii went down after all. Acceius had welched on the deal, and Habra — and her brother Senecio — never forgot it. So when Senecio had done his stint in the galleys and came back — ’