David Wishart - Food for the Fishes

‘Priscus, a shave and haircut take an hour, max. Say the same for buying the mantle. That leaves several hours unaccounted for. Don’t faff around.’

‘I must say I — mmaa — resent your tone. If I want to — ’

‘Resent it all you like, pal, but very shortly Mother’s going to be back spitting blood, and this time as far as I’m concerned she can haul your liver out through your gizzard while I stand back and applaud. So give. What else happened?’

He fizzed for a bit. Then he said: ‘If you must know, while I was having my haircut I got into conversation with a most charming gentleman in the next chair. A local businessman. We had a very interesting chat about…various things.’

‘Such as?’

‘It transpired that he had connections in the — mmaa — entertainment field.’ Priscus blinked at me. ‘Did you realise, Marcus, that gambling halls are quite legal in Baiae?’

Uh huh. Well, we were getting somewhere at last. Gambling — proper gambling, as opposed to private wagers — isn’t strictly legal anywhere, barring at the Winter Festival, but it’s one of these things the authorities turn a very substantial blind eye to, especially when kickbacks are involved, which they usually are. And Baiae, being a holiday place where the punters aren’t short of a gold piece or two, is a real hotspot. ‘So this “charming gentleman” took you somewhere and you lost your shirt, right?’ I said. Well, it could’ve been worse.

‘Oh, no. Nothing like that. Although we did on his suggestion visit one of the establishments concerned in which he happened to have a controlling interest. Located in, as I said, that rather quaint old district behind the market square. It was quite an eye-opener. Quite an eye-opener. There were — mmaa — these girls — young ladies, rather — with, if you’ll believe it, hardly a stitch on.’

‘Priscus,’ I said. ‘Mother is going to kill you.’

He grinned his louche innocent’s grin. ‘Oh, I’ve no intention of telling Vipsania. She wouldn’t understand at all. This is — mmaa — just between you and me, my boy. Our little secret.’

Gods! ‘Uh…’

‘After all, where’s the harm? And as I say I didn’t lose a copper piece. If anything I made a slight profit. And I enjoyed myself enormously.’

I groaned. ‘Look, pal. That was what’s called a come-on. The next time it’ll be for real and you’ll get creamed.’

‘Nonsense. Philippus may be a freedman but he is also — mmaa — a complete gentleman. I’m quite convinced he would no more — ’

‘Who did you say?’

He blinked at me. ‘Philippus. The owner of the — ’

‘Licinius Philippus?’

‘That I don’t know. Possibly. He only gave me the one name.’ He paused, and I could almost see the delayed trickle-feed process happening. ‘Wasn’t your dead man a Licinius?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, he was. If it’s the same Philippus then he used to be a slave of his.’

‘Really? How coincidental. And it explains, I suppose — mmmaa — why he was so interested in you.’

I stared at him. ‘He was interested in me? When the hell did my name come up?’

‘Oh, very early on. At the haircut stage. He’d asked whether I was alone in Baiae and naturally I said no. Then in the course of the ensuing conversation I happened to mention that you were investigating a suspicious death for the authorities here and he was most intrigued. Asked me all sorts of questions which of course I couldn’t answer.’ He grinned and chuckled. ‘Really, my boy, I almost felt at times that I was being interrogated. It was quite exhilarating.’

I sat back, brain buzzing. Shit! Maybe it had been simple curiosity at that, but I wasn’t laying any bets. Diodotus had said that this Philippus had been seriously unchuffed with Murena’s hotel idea, and if he wasn’t exactly in the prime suspects’ bag already that was only because he was an unknown quantity. And if someone like Priscus had spotted a deliberate grilling then it must’ve been as obvious as a hippo in a bird-bath.

‘Uh…you make any sort of arrangement to go back to this place?’ I asked.

‘Oh, yes. Nothing definite, though. Philippus said it gets — mmaa — quite lively of an evening, and he suggested I might like to drop in after dinner some night to see it at its best.’ He beamed. ‘I must say the offer is most tempting. Most tempting. And if you would care to come with me, Marcus, I’m sure Philippus would make you very welcome.’

Hmm. ‘Listen, Priscus,’ I said. ‘This is important, so take your time and think before you answer. Did Philippus himself say that or is this you talking here?’

‘Oh, it was his idea. Completely. He was most insistent that you be included in the invitation. Not that I wouldn’t be delighted to have you along for my own sake, of course.’

Interesting. If Philippus’s prime concern was to get his hooks into a patsy then inviting me to tag along was the last thing he’d do. So either the guy was genuine, which I doubted, or he had an ulterior motive; and what that could be was pretty obvious. If he was keen to find out what lines I was chasing in the Murena case then he wouldn’t’ve got very far picking Priscus’s brains; he’d need to talk to me direct.

The big question was, why was he keen? Scrub simple curiosity: Philippus, I knew, had his own business-related reasons for wishing Murena into an urn, and even if I didn’t know yet how strong these were the guy was right up there on the suspects list. And coincidence was something I didn’t believe in. I’d like a quiet talk with Philippus myself.

On my own terms, though. When I had it I didn’t want to be nursemaiding Priscus. Just the thought of having to explain to Mother when she found out — and she would find out — why I’d allowed him to persuade me into taking him to a gambling hall gave me goose-bumps. Especially if, while I was chatting to the boss, he lost what back teeth he still had in some dice game or other. Which, given his current kicking-over-the-traces track record, was what the daft old bugger would almost certainly do…

Uh-uh. I couldn’t risk it. No way could I risk it, because Mother would kill me. She’d kill both of us. Still, there was no point in hurting the guy’s feelings in the process.

‘Ah…there’s just one major snag,’ I said.

‘Oh, I’m sure you can think of something to tell Vipsania.’

This time I was the one to blink. Yeah. Right. Sometimes I wonder if Priscus isn’t sharper than he looks. I had the distinct feeling here that I was being hustled.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘Let’s just put this on hold for a bit, eh? A few more days won’t matter. Leave it with me and I’ll get back to you.’

His face fell, like a kid’s when he’s told that a birthday treat has had to be cancelled. ‘If you…mmaa!..insist, Marcus,’ he said. ‘Although I must admit I was rather looking forward to it. Couldn’t we just — ?’

‘No. Read my lips.’

‘Very well. If that’s how you feel.’

He got up and wandered off. Shit. Well, sometimes you had to be cruel to be kind. And if he did knot the bed-sheets together now and do a runner off his own bat then my conscience was clear.

Still, that little conversation had given me a lot to think about. Priscus had been got at, no question, and not just as a gambling hall owner’s mark. The fact that he hadn’t been able to provide any information worth the name was irrelevant: he’d still been soaked.

So why?

Licinius Philippus was one guy I just had to see.

9

The next morning I rode out to see Murena’s partner, Decimus Tattius.

Diodotus had said the guy had a villa on the main drag, inland of Murena’s. Out the other way, towards Puteoli and Neapolis, the countryside gets pretty rugged pretty quickly, especially when you come to what the locals call the Burning Fields, but in the Misenum direction the whole peninsula’s taken up with luxury villas whose owners can afford to give nature a helping hand. Sure, you occasionally do get flocks of sheep and goats lifting their heads to give you evil-eyed stares from the bosky shade while quaint shepherds straight out of the blunt end of a pastoral blow their oaten pipes at you from under an arbutus, but the general impression is of scenery that’s been civilised to within an inch of its life, often involving topiaried hedges, architectural features that wouldn’t be out of place in one of these snappy modern trompe-l’oiel frescos and the periodic scream of an ostrich from some rich bugger’s private zoo.