David Wishart - In at the Death

So scratch that. Balbus wasn’t lying, at least not intentionally; he’d told me the truth as he saw it. Which meant we were left with the setup theory…

Only that was flying-pigs country as well. If Papinius had been set up then why and for what? Who the hell would bother fitting a no-account, nineteen-year-old kid into a frame and then — presumably — faking his suicide?

Shit; the whole boiling was one endless frustration: look at it one way and it made sense, only it didn’t; turn it round and the same thing happened. The hell with it. I took a deep breath, then another slug of wine, and tried to calm down…

Okay. So forget logical theorising. We play it both ends against the middle, dig into the laundry basket at random and see what crawls out.

I’d still got two names to talk to, Mucius Soranus and Papinius’s girlfriend Cluvia. It was still early, the Saepta wasn’t too far off and the Cipian Mount was on the way home. Sod the wine; if I hurried, and Placida co-operated, I could manage both and still be back in time for Meton’s fish.

I reanimated the petomaniac dog and left.

I hadn’t gone two hundred yards before I knew — for definite this time — that I was being followed. Oh, sure, Perilla would’ve pooh-poohed the feeling, because it wasn’t logical, but even with all the little practical distractions like discouraging Placida from mugging passing bag-ladies for their shopping, cleaning up after donkeys and shoving her nose against slow-moving strangers’ bottoms the back of my neck was prickling all the way, and that’s something I’ve learned not to ignore. Who was tailing me exactly I didn’t know; the area round the Square and the Sacred Way is one of the busiest in Rome, the narrow streets don’t help matters, and taking your eyes off an overenthusiastic boarhound even long enough to glance over your shoulder is not a good idea. Still, I’d’ve bet every coin I’d got left in my belt-pouch that someone was there. Which was strange. Who the hell would bother, and why?

Not that it’d be difficult, mind. Street life in Rome may be pretty eclectic, but you don’t see many purple-stripers being dragged along behind Gallic boarhounds. I’d be a hard mark to lose. They’d only have to follow the cursing.

Ah, well; I’d enough on my plate at present to worry about. Whoever they were, so long as they behaved themselves they could do as they liked. I shoved the problem to the back of my mind and pressed on towards the Saepta.

Atratinus had said that Cluvia managed a perfume shop. Pretty useful. For somewhere like the Saepta, that’s like saying someone runs a philosophy school in Athens or a fish restaurant in Massilia: close your eyes and heft a brick in any direction you like up the Saepta Julia and chances are you’ll hit either a perfume seller or a haut-couture mantle-maker. Me, I’d call that a public service, myself, but then I’m prejudiced.

So finding Cluvia wasn’t easy, especially with Placida on the team: like I say, the Saepta caters to a pretty upmarket clientele, and slavering Gallic boarhounds straining at the ends of leashes aren’t too popular with the well-dressed and pristine. Once I’d dragged her out of a litter she fancied sharing with a screaming dowager and persuaded her that the little yapping brute belonging to the spangle-haired young gentleman having hysterics in the nail-bar didn’t want to play chase-your-tail up and down the concourse she wasn’t too popular with me, either.

Gods!

I finally tracked Cluvia down to a little corner-booth off the main drag. There was a window-shopper hanging about — she could’ve been sister to the woman in the litter — but she took one look at Placida coming panting towards her, screamed and bolted. So much for customer relations. I grabbed the beast’s collar and pulled her to a slavering halt.

The woman behind the counter was a looker, but most of it was artificial and if she was a day under thirty I’d eat my sandals.

‘Ah…excuse me,’ I said. ‘Is — ?’

‘We don’t sell flea powder.’ She was staring at Placida with a sort of fascinated horror. ‘Try Constantinos’s next to the baths.’

‘Uh…no, actually, I wanted to talk to you about — ’ I stopped, because she was pointing and the horror in her face had gone up a notch. I glanced down. Placida was dragging her backside along the floor tiles with an expression of intense and ecstatic concentration. ‘Oh, that’s okay. She’s been doing it on and off since Julian Square. Itchy anal glands, I think. Or maybe she just wants your attention.’

‘Really? Then she’s got it. That is totally gross!’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m not a customer. My name’s Marcus Corvinus and I just wanted to ask you a few questions about your boyfriend.’

Pause. This time it was me who got the stare, straight off a glacier. Eventually she said, and you could practically count the icicles: ‘Did you, indeed? And which boyfriend would that be, now?’

Oh, great.‘Uh…Papinius?’ Then, when the death-stare didn’t shift: ‘Sextus Papinius? Your name is Cluvia, isn’t it? Or have I got the wrong shop?’

She turned round to the marble shelf behind the counter and began straightening the display phials with little jerks of her fingers. If ever a back radiated anger then Cluvia’s was the one. ‘No,’ she said, and I could almost hear her teeth clench. ‘I know perfectly well who you mean. But boyfriend’s the wrong word because we’re not an item any more. I suggest that if you want to know anything concerning Sextus Papinius you ask him yourself.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s — ’ I began, and then my brain caught up with my ears. Fuck. ‘You, ah, didn’t know, then?’

‘I didn’t know what?’

There wasn’t any way out of this. ‘That he’s, uh, dead. Look, lady, I’m sorry, I thought — ’

The fingers had stopped. One of the phials tipped over, rolled off the shelf and smashed on the shop floor. Cluvia collapsed like a string-cut puppet, and I was just in time to get my hands beneath her armpits before she hit the floor herself.

Oh, shit. Nice one, Corvinus. Very tactful.

At which point -

‘Ow-ooo-owowow-ooo!’

Bugger. That we could do without.

‘Shut up, Placida!’ I snapped, giving her a back-heel kick. ‘Settle!’

The woman in the trinkets shop next door — she’d been taking an obvious interest right through the conversation — had moved like greased lightning out from behind her own counter and round the back of Cluvia’s. I felt the dead weight lift. Jupiter, the woman was strong!

‘Thanks, sister,’ I said.

That got me another glare, hundred-candelabra strength, delivered at point-blank range. By this time women — customers and stallholders — were flocking in from all directions like hens to a spilled bucket of barley. Let’s hear it for female solidarity. Speaking of which -

‘Ow-ooo-ooo-ooo!’

Oh, shit. ‘Not you, sunshine!’ I hauled Placida clear and backed off while the ladies formed a protective screen as effective as a legionary shield-wall and did whatever the hell women do under these circumstances.

There was a clothes booth further along where a male shopkeeper was goggling at the scrum from above his racks. ‘I’ll…ah…just wait over there, shall I?’ I said.

‘You do that, chummy!’ the first woman snapped over her shoulder. ‘And take that bloody Cerberus look-alike with you!’

I beat a retreat across to the clothes booth, dragging the howling, hysterical Placida behind. The guy stepped back quickly.

‘What the hell happened there?’ he said.

I grabbed Placida’s muzzle and forced it closed while she grizzled her way into silence. ‘I told her her boyfriend had just died. Ex-boyfriend, rather.’