David Wishart - Food for the Fishes

‘Yeah.’ Well, I let that one go: they don’t describe Cupid as blind for nothing. And, again, she had a point. Philippus had been right; that whole family was rotten. Even Penelope had a callous streak a mile wide, and she was the best of them. ‘Now tell me about your husband. Tattius.’

For the first time, she seemed genuinely reticent. If the word wasn’t inappropriate, I’d’ve said she was embarrassed.

‘Decimus was a mistake.’

Yeah, well, I’d guessed as much myself; but the lady was telling this, not me, and I owed her the chance to do it in her own way. I waited.

‘Gaius thought that with my father and brother dead he’d have’ — she hesitated — ‘he would have a chance of our finally marrying. He’d killed twice already. My father’s death, as I told you, was an accident. Titus’s was a necessity. The third…well, the third would be for the good of both of us.’ The tears came again. She made no attempt to hide them, and her face didn’t change. It was still hard as marble. ‘He shouldn’t have done it, Corvinus. It ruined everything. He was a silly, silly man.’

Right. Maybe Ligurius had got a bit too blase about killing, too, but I didn’t say that. The lady had enough problems without me adding to them. ‘Would you have told me?’ I said. ‘If I hadn’t come round today?’

She shook her head. ‘No. I don’t think I could have gone that far. Not even to save this Trebbio. All the same, I’d never have married Gaius, not now, whether you’d found out or not. He wouldn’t be the same person. He is — he was, before all this started — a very gentle man. But then, he knows I wouldn’t marry him, not after Decimus. It’s over, for both of us.’

‘You’ve talked to him? Since your husband’s death?’

‘No. Not directly.’ She glanced towards the door; yeah, right: Stentor. ‘I’m glad you came, though. To a certain degree, it takes things out of my hands.’

I stood up. ‘What do you want me to do?’ I said.

She smiled. ‘You mean I have a choice?’

‘I think,’ I said gently, ‘you’ve already made it.’

This time, she didn’t answer. She was staring straight ahead at nothing, lips set tight in a firm line, like a statue, but for the tears on her cheeks.

Patient Penelope. Only what happens when the husband who comes back isn’t the same one that set out?

I paused, hand on the doorknob. Maybe this wasn’t exactly the time, but there was still a loose end to tie up and if I didn’t ask I knew that I’d regret it later.

‘Ah…just one more question,’ I said.

‘Yes?’ The head didn’t turn.

‘The evening Chlorus was killed someone tried to knock me down with a slingstone. It could’ve been Ligurius himself, sure, but he’d’ve been pushed to get back to the town centre for his rendevous with your brother. Compared to everything else it’s not really important, but I was wondering — ’

She half-smiled. ‘I’m terribly afraid, Corvinus,’ she said, ‘that that was me.’

I goggled. ‘It was what?’

‘Quintus couldn’t use a sling to save himself. I can, very well. And a bow, incidentally, although on that occasion I chose a sling because it was far easier to conceal.’ The smile broadened. ‘Don’t look surprised. I was quite a tomboy when I was a child, and I always have been very good at anything involving aiming and throwing.’

‘But why the hell attack me at all?’

‘To kill you, obviously. Or at least hurt you very badly. It was the simplest way to stop you asking questions. If it’s any consolation, however, I’m glad now that I missed. And I realised almost immediately that it had been a mistake.’

Her voice was totally matter-of-fact; we could’ve been talking about the price of fish. Sweet holy Jupiter! Callous was right.

I left her to her thoughts and set out for the fish farm.

I took my time over the journey. There wasn’t any hurry with that, either, and I didn’t want to overtake Stentor. Things were out of my hands, too, by now, and I suspected it was better that way because if they hadn’t been unlike Penelope I wouldn’t’ve had any choices to make.

The guy on the gate let me in. He was white-faced, and he didn’t say much. Slave grapevine: news travels fast.

They’d left him where they’d found him, in the little office. I’d thought — hoped — that when Penelope’s message came he might’ve done a runner. I’d’ve been happy with that; like I say, I didn’t have much sympathy for any of his victims, and to see a guy handed over to the public strangler through my doing doesn’t give me any pleasure at all. But he’d chosen to kill himself instead, which was his only other option under the circumstances. Probably, for Ligurius, it’d been the only option he’d considered. A knife under the chin is quick, and he’d lost it all, anyway.

I wasn’t going to go up to the villa; no way was I going there. Gellia could find out the results of the investigation through official channels. The same went for Nerva. I supposed I really should report to the town officer, tell him what I knew, get his congratulations and wrap the whole thing up…

Bugger it. The loose ends could wait. What I really felt like now was getting smashed out of my skull at Zethus’s and then going home.

I moped about a bit for the rest of the day. I hadn’t got completely canned in Zethus’s after all: when it came to the point there didn’t seem much point, as it were. I just had the half jug, told the gossip-mongering barfly-ghouls at the counter how things’d turned out — they’d hear the story quick enough through the grapevine anyway, and at least this way I could be sure of what the bastards were passing on — and called it a day at that. I didn’t mention Ligurius’s connection with Penelope, though: I reckoned that lady had grief enough, and the information was private. As far as Zethus’s clientele were concerned he’d just been insulted one time too many, beaned the master with the fish pole and in the end killed himself to avoid an inevitable date with the public executioner. End of case, exit villain.

So, like I say, I went back home and moped around. Mother and Priscus had gone off to Neapolis again — there were still a few shops out in the sticks that she hadn’t been into — but Perilla had stayed behind to give me some moral support when I got back. I needed it. It was always like this at the end of a case: you felt empty, drained. It was even worse when the guy who’d done it turned out not to be one of the bastards you hoped had.

‘You think all this faffing around is worth it, lady?’ I said to Perilla. We were sitting out in the garden, under the shade of a trellised vine. She was reading, I was watching a squirrel poking around beneath the big beech tree fifty yards off. Wrong time of year, pal, I thought. No nuts in July.

‘What faffing around, Marcus?’

‘This detecting. Half the time it only leads to trouble. If I hadn’t interfered Ligurius would still be alive, so would Tattius, and the two of them would probably have got married when the old man popped his clogs.’

‘Ligurius and Tattius?’

‘Come on, Perilla, you know what I mean. My bet is that Penelope was just waiting for her husband to drop off his perch from natural causes. Then she’d’ve given her father the finger, if he was still alive himself, and married Ligurius in spite of him and her brothers. Duty done, happy ever after, and it wouldn’t’ve mattered if it’d taken another fifteen years because she’d’ve waited them out as well, and so would he. Me being here changed all that.’

Perilla rolled up her book and gave me a long, steady look. Finally she said in a hard voice: ‘Don’t be silly, Marcus. Ligurius was a killer. He had to be caught. And if he decided to take his own life rather than run then that was his own decision.’