David Wishart - In at the Death

The weather had changed again, and we’d got one of these beautiful, cool, autumn days when walking in Rome’s a pleasure, even through the narrow crowded streets at the centre where the sky’s just a ribbon of blue that starts six floors above your head. Yeah, well, I’m city-bred, me, and although open spaces, greenery and the scent of pines and cypress are nice in their way give me a pavement or cobbles under my sandals, the smell of cook-shops overlaid with donkey-droppings and the merry cries of street-hawkers going about their lawful business of ripping off the punters and I know where I am. These pastoral-poet guys with their bleating goats and oaten pipes can stuff their phalaecean hendecasyllabics where the sun don’t shine.

Placida seemed more co-operative, too. Or maybe she was just storing it up and waiting her chance. I was beginning to have a healthy respect for that brute’s intelligence.

There were a few big old properties opposite Livia Porch but I asked a kitchen-slave shelling peas outside one of them for directions. Soranus’s place was a corner building that from the looks of things had seen better days but was still hanging in. The door was open and the door-slave was sitting on the threshold, eyes closed and communing with nature…

At least this was the case until Placida licked his face. He woke with a scream of horror and levered himself upright.

‘Sorry about that, pal,’ I said, pulling her back. ‘Lapse in concentration. Is the master at home?’

‘He’s in the garden, sir.’ He glared at Placida and mopped the drool off with his tunic-sleeve. ‘Who shall I say?’

‘The name’s Valerius Corvinus. He doesn’t know me, but I’m here on business.’ I wasn’t going to give Soranus any prior idea why I’d called. I wanted to do this cold.

‘Very well, sir. If you’d like to leave your, uh, your…’ — another glare — ‘tied to the railings and wait in the atrium I’ll see if he’s receiving.’

Now that I didn’t like the sound of. I wasn’t risking a brush-off, especially if Soranus found out later through the grapevine what I’d wanted, in which case I was as likely to get a second chance to talk to him as Placida was to win the Year’s Sweetest Pet award. ‘Tell you what, pal,’ I said. ‘The dog’s highly-strung, she likes company and she doesn’t take to being tied up and ignored. Now I could get you to walk her round the block a few times while I’m having this long business conversation with your master. You’d be safe enough. Probably. On the other hand, I’m sure Soranus wouldn’t mind if you showed us both through straight off. I’m easy, the decision’s all yours. What do you think?’

Down at his groin level Placida yawned, showing a set of teeth like you’d get on a marble- saw, and the door-slave flinched. ‘Ah…it’s this way, sir,’ he said quickly. ‘If you’d care to follow me?’

‘Sure. No problem.’

We went through the lobby and across the atrium to the garden-opening at the far end. Hanging in was right; like Rupilia’s place, most of the furniture and the decor had been good in its day but was looking a bit past it now. Two or three nice bronzes, either originals or good copies: Soranus couldn’t’ve been badly on his uppers, but then if I was right about the major source of his income and he made a habit of it then that was to be expected. A masculine room, too; no feminine touches. I didn’t know whether the guy was married, but I’d imagine not. A wife in the background wouldn’t fit in with the lifestyle.

He was sitting in a folding chair under a pear-tree with a pile of wax tablets and a wine-jug and cup on a table beside him. He looked up when we came through the portico, closed the tablet he’d been studying and laid it on the pile. Late twenties, good-looking, sharp tunic and haircut. From what I could see, he’d kept himself in shape, too: well-muscled and no sign of a paunch. Grade A blade-about-town material, in other words. Yeah, right; I could see how he’d impress wannabe-sophisticated kids like Papinius and his friends. Women too; women would really go for Mucius Soranus. They might regret it later, mind.

‘Who’s this?’ he said to the slave. ‘And what the hell is that?’

Not exactly full of welcoming good cheer. Well, that made things easier. ‘My name’s Marcus Corvinus,’ I said. ‘I’m here about a young friend of yours, Sextus Papinius.’

I’d been looking for it, and it came: a flicker of the eyelids and a slight turn of the head. ‘What about him?’ he said. Then, to the slave, ‘You can go, Scorpus. I’ll talk to you later.’ The guy left at a run.

‘You know he killed himself three days back?’ I said.

‘Yes, I know that. I was sorry to hear it. Papinius was a nice kid.’

‘So everyone tells me.’ No offer of a chair, so I sat on the corner of a handy stone flower-chest. Placida was making use of the outdoor toilet facilities. ‘He owed you money, I understand. A gambling debt.’

‘That’s right.’ The tone was cool, but I could feel that beneath his patrician shell the guy was nervous as a cat: he hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d dismissed the slave, and his eyes hadn’t left my face. ‘Or partly right.’

‘“Partly right”?’

‘He paid it. Oh, it must be a month since or near about.’

‘Care to tell me how much was involved?’

‘That’s none of your business.’ I waited, and he shrugged. ‘Very well. It’s not important anyway. Two thousand sesterces.’

‘That so, now?’ I said. ‘So what was the other forty-eight thousand for?’

His jaw dropped. ‘What?’

‘About a month back, the same time you say he paid you off, Papinius took out a loan from a money-lender for fifty thousand sesterces. Coincidences like that just don’t happen, pal, or if they do they stink like ten-day-old fish.’

‘I don’t know anything about — ’

‘Come on, Soranus!’ I was on my feet. Placida looked up from where she was doing a bit of impromptu topiary and growled. ‘Two thousand for a gambling debt, sure, I could believe that; any lack-brain kid can lose that much with a little encouragement from bastards like you. But fifty thousand, now, fifty thousand’s pushing it, especially where Papinius is concerned, and that’s what you got from him. So what were you soaking him for? Taking backhanders from property owners who reckoned they were owed more than their fair share of the Aventine fire fund? Or was it something else?’

He’d gone grey. He stood up himself, raised a trembling arm and pointed. ‘You get out,’ he said quietly. ‘You get the hell out. And if you repeat one word of these lies in public you’ll find yourself sued from one end of the civil courts to the other. Is that clear?’

Placida was really growling now, and her hackles were rising. I reached out to grip her collar and felt her muscles tense. Soranus flashed her a look and swallowed. ‘Yeah. Yeah, that’s clear,’ I said. ‘No problems on that score, pal. I just wanted to tell you that I knew, that’s all. To make you sweat. Because when I have got the proof — and believe me I’ll get it — I’m going to take it round to the city judge’s office myself and then watch them nail your fucking hide to the Julian Hall floor.’ I turned to go, pulling the still-growling Placida with me, and then another thought struck me and I turned back. ‘Oh, by the way, who’s Albucilla?’

If he’d been grey before he’d’ve doubled now for week-old uncooked pastry dough. I thought for a moment that he was going to do a Cluvia into the ornamental flower-bed, but he pulled himself together.

‘Get out of my house!’ he shouted.

‘Ow-ooo-ooo-ooo!’ Placida launched herself forward, almost dragging me with her. Soranus half-screamed and took a step back against the chair, arm raised. For two pins I’d’ve let go the collar, but then the authorities might object to one of the top five hundred having his throat torn out in his own garden. Besides, she’d probably have got food poisoning.