David Wishart - Finished Business

Same question as Sullana’s, and I gave him the same answer. ‘Absolutely. The stone that killed him was loosened and dropped on him deliberately.’

‘But this is — excuse me a moment, please.’ There was a cup of water on the desk. He picked it up with both hands and drank, so shakily that some of it was spilled. I waited until he’d put the cup down again. ‘It’s unbelievable. Why would anyone do something like that?’

‘His ex-wife, Cornelia Sullana, said that you managed his business affairs.’

‘That’s quite correct. Or administered, rather, under instruction. My family, as you’ll have guessed from our name, have had charge of the Naevius estate for three generations. My grandfather was the first Naevius Surdinus’s freedman-bailiff.’

‘So Sullana told me.’ This next bit was going to be tricky. ‘Uh … I understand that shortly after they were divorced, about a month ago, Surdinus made over part of the property on the Vatican Hill to his mistress, Tarquitia.’

The old lips pursed. ‘That is correct. Through a duly-witnessed process of sale, for the sum of five denarii.’

‘And that when Sullana ceased to be his wife she had no more to do with his financial affairs.’

‘Naturally not.’

‘Ah … have there been any other major changes since, do you know?’

‘I do.’ You could’ve used Gallio’s tone to sand wood. ‘Of course I do, since he gave the task of carrying them out to me. Four, to be precise, all in favour of the lady you named. The transfer of a tenement building in the Subura, for a similar amount to what she paid for the Old Villa. Ditto an oil-pressing concern in Veii. Ditto, a blacksmith’s and saddler’s business near the Capenan Gate, back here in Rome. Ditto, an ironmonger’s shop in the Velabrum.’

Jupiter! ‘All this was in a month ?’

‘Yes. Total value in the region of three hundred thousand sesterces. And he was planning on more.’

Gods alive! The guy had been haemorrhaging money like there was no tomorrow.

And, of course, for him there hadn’t been …

‘You didn’t try to stop him?’ I said.

Gallio just looked at me. ‘Of course I tried,’ he said. ‘What do you think? But in the last analysis the property was his, to do with as he thought fit, and Master Surdinus was a very stubborn man. There was very little I could do.’

‘You didn’t tell anyone? Like his son, perhaps?’

‘Naturally I did. However, in the younger Surdinus’s case, the same strictures applied. There was nothing he could do about it either. His father was perfectly sane, so there was no question of diminished responsibility. Not legally, anyway. He had a perfect — and absolute — right to do as he pleased.’

And Tarquitia hadn’t told me. Nor, for that matter, had his son.

Shit.

I carried on down Iugarius to its end, by the Tiber. We were definitely downmarket here: the ground between the blunt end of Capitol Hill and the river, like that whole stretch of riverside south to Cattlemarket Square and beyond, is low-lying, and even nowadays after all the improvements to the drainage system and the riverbanks themselves, it’s prone to flooding. Added to which, in summer the stink from the Tiber and the thriving insect population are definitely two of the area’s most notable features, meaning that anyone of a sensitive disposition who can afford to own or rent elsewhere on higher ground, or at least somewhere that doesn’t smell so obviously of Tiber mud and sewage, generally does just that, for reasons of simple self-preservation. Mind you, there’re plenty who can’t or don’t, and the area round the vegetable market is seriously full of tenements that make up a micro-community of their own. Well-off it isn’t: the Poppies’ clientele would be low-spending regulars, porters and stallholders from the market, with a sprinkling of local tradesmen with actual shops to their names to add a bit of class and raise the tone.

I found the place with a bit of help from a passing bag-lady trudging home with her string bag loaded down with assorted root vegetables, and tried the front door. Locked, of course — it was far too early for customers — and knocking on it didn’t produce an answer, either.

Bugger.

Well, I hadn’t come all this way to give up that easily. There was an alleyway at the side, and investigating it revealed a small courtyard full of empty wine jars and a back door to the place through which a guy was carrying a couple of fresh jars to add to the pile.

‘Hi.’ I waited until he’d dumped them and straightened up. ‘Could I have a word, do you think?’

‘Sorry, mate,’ he said. ‘I’m busy and we’re closed. Open an hour before sunset. Come back then, OK?’ He turned to go back inside.

‘It’s about Tarquitia.’

He stopped and turned back, and I saw his eye catch the purple stripe on my tunic beneath the cloak.

Rapid reassessment. Yeah, well, rank does have its privileges.

‘Ah … right, sir,’ he said. ‘What about her?’

‘She used to work here, yes?’

He was still looking at me suspiciously, which was understandable: you wouldn’t get many purple-stripers hanging around area like this, and even fewer would be interested in the staff of a third-rate nightclub like the Five Poppies. Not interested enough to have a name to hand, certainly.

‘Yeah, she did,’ he said at last. Then he shrugged. ‘What the hell? You’d best come inside.’

I followed him in. The place — it was just one room, and not a big one, at that — was pretty basic, with a few plain wooden tables and stools, a bar counter with its wine rack behind and a low stage at one end. Someone had decorated the walls, though, with murals, and they were surprisingly good: Silenus on his donkey, hung with grapes and holding up a wine cup; what looked like a rout of Bacchanals; and a woodland scene with a satyr sitting beneath a tree playing the double-flute while a couple of deer and a set of birds in the lower branches listened.

‘You the owner?’ I said.

‘Nah. Barman and general dogsbody, me.’ He pulled up a stool at one of the tables and indicated another. I sat. ‘Name’s Vulpis.’

The name fitted him, or more likely it was a nickname: he was small, wiry, sharp-featured, red-haired and generously freckled. Definitely fox-like. Probably, like Tarquitia, a north Italian with Gallic blood. They might even be related.

‘Marcus Corvinus,’ I said.

He nodded. We had, at least, contact. ‘Well, then, Marcus Corvinus,’ he said. ‘If you want to talk to the boss, you’ll have to come back when we’re open. He’s generally in just before sunset, but it varies.’

‘No, that’s OK,’ I said. ‘At least I think it is. If you can help me yourself, that’d be great.’

‘I’ll do my best. Tarquitia, you said.’

‘Yeah.’

‘She hasn’t worked here for nigh on a year now. Took up with some old nob she met at a dinner party. At least, he was a guest and she was part of the entertainment.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ I said. ‘His name was Naevius Surdinus. He’s been murdered.’

He stared at me and gave a low whistle. ‘And Tarquitia’s involved?’ he said. ‘Directly, as it were?’

‘Not necessarily. Why would you say that?’

‘No particular reason. But you wouldn’t be round here asking questions about her if she wasn’t, right?’

Fair enough. ‘You knew her well?’

‘Sure. She was on most nights. Not a bad voice, good little dancer, very fair juggler and acrobat. The punters we get in here don’t expect too much, but they recognize talent when they see it. She had it and she was popular. Easily the best of the bunch. The boss was sorry to lose her.’

‘You know anything about her background?’