David Wishart - Finished Business

‘Do you know where to find him?’

‘Not exactly. Postuma said he’s got a place — a workshop or whatever — near the Circus.’

‘She couldn’t be more specific?’

‘I didn’t ask her at the time, but I’d guess not. Even so, tracking him down shouldn’t be too difficult.’

‘Oh, really?’ Perilla sniffed. ‘Marcus, dear, be sensible! The phrase near the Circus covers everything bounded by the Caelian, the Palatine and the Aventine. That is an appreciable chunk of the city.’

‘Yeah, I know. But he’s an artist, right?’

‘So?’

‘So where do you find artists — artists of a kind, anyway — in the neighbourhood of the Circus?’

I could see the answer registering. Perilla grinned.

‘In the arcades beside the entrances to the Circus itself,’ she said. ‘Marcus, that is brilliant !’

‘Yeah, well,’ I said smugly, and took a modest swig of wine, ‘score one for the boys.’ Of course, most of the hucksters who sold the cheap pottery models of the top chariot drivers were just that — hucksters, without an artistic bone in their bodies, and a lot of the stalls only opened on race days when there were plenty of punters around, but you did see a few booths run by genuine artists and craftsmen who produced their own stuff, mainly for the quality end of the market. Better, some of them — and I hoped that Marcus Surdinus was one — were fixed up more permanently in ground-floor properties opposite the arcades themselves: potters, sculptors, jewellers, bronze-workers and the like. Even if I struck out there, the art-and-craft community in Rome, as happens with any other trade or profession, is a small world where everyone knows everyone else. If I asked around long enough, someone was sure to know where the guy was based.

I was giving myself another top-up when Bathyllus tooled in to say that dinner was ready. Well, I couldn’t really complain about how things were going. There were plenty of possible angles to explore still, and even if Surdinus Junior was our man, maybe we’d strike lucky. In any case, after a day traipsing round more than half of Rome and a lunch that’d consisted of a few olives, a hunk of bread, and a bit of cheese, I was starving.

Time for dinner. Tomorrow was another day.

In the event, I shouldn’t’ve been so smug: finding chummie wasn’t easy after all. Which, I suppose, was fair enough, given that — barring at its ends, where the starting gates and triumphal parade entrance are — the Circus has more access points for the punters along its almost-mile circumference than you can shake a stick at. Naturally, this being a non-race day, most of the souvenir booths and shops that serviced them were closed, but even so by the time I’d worked my way along the Palatine side and back round to the southern edge, I’d asked at a good couple of dozen places with no result. The weather didn’t help, either: I’d barely come down off the Caelian before it had started to drizzle, and ten or fifteen minutes later it’d been throwing it down. Not pleasant; not pleasant at all.

When I did finally strike lucky it was in a cookshop where I’d stopped off for a dry-out and a restorative late-morning plate of beans and bread.

‘Hellenus?’ The guy ladling the beans said when I asked him. ‘Young guy, well-spoken. Not a freedman; free-born, yes?’

‘That’d be him,’ I said. ‘Artist, right?’

‘Sure.’ The cookshop owner nodded in the direction of one of the side walls. ‘That’s one of his over there.’

I turned and looked. Not a mural as such, just a small painting that was part of a more simply decorated wall: a still life with a loaf of bread, various dried pulses, and a few assorted vege-tables. The subject was suitable for a cookshop, sure, but even so a piece of decoration like that was a lot more upmarket than you’d expect in a place like this. It was well done, too; not one of your cack-handed amateur’s daubs.

‘It’s good,’ I said.

‘Isn’t it?’ The guy beamed and passed me my bowl and hunk of bread. ‘He did it cheap, too. That’s his thing, painting, he doesn’t touch this souvenir tat. Me and the wife, we was thinking of having him do a portrait of us. He does a lovely portrait, Hellenus. Tasteful, you know? Maybe for the wedding anniversary, something to hand on to the kids. Twenty-five years, that’ll be, come January.’

‘Congratulations.’ I picked up the spoon. ‘So where would I find him?’

‘Practically next door. Three or four doors down. He rents part of the old Luccius place.’

‘You know him well?’

‘He comes in now and again for a takeaway, like most of the locals. But no, except to exchange a few words with, even when he was doing the picture. Not that he’s standoffish; he’s friendly enough but he keeps to himself, does Hellenus. Ask me, he’s a nob that’s down on his luck. Or maybe he’s had a spat with his father and got himself thrown out.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, that’s likely enough.’ I spooned up the beans. They were not at all bad; not the usual anonymous mush but carefully cooked with oil and sage. ‘So you wouldn’t know anything about his friends? People he sees a lot?’

‘Nah. Like I say, he keeps himself to himself. There’s no one regular.’

‘Girlfriend? Singular or plural?’

‘I’ve seen a girl around the place from time to time, yeah. Nice looker. Whether she’s his actual girlfriend or not, though, I can’t say. She’s not a live-in, at any rate, and she’s not from around here.’

I’d’ve asked if he could give me a name, but I was getting suspicious looks already. Besides, I’d found the man himself. I ate my beans in silence, paid and left.

The Luccius place turned out to be one of these old revamped properties where most of the internal wall between the street-side shops and what was once completely separate domestic ground-floor living space has been taken away, leaving what is in effect living quarters with a commercial outlet in open plan. Me, I’d’ve felt that having your living room open out on to a public street was a pretty uncomfortable arrangement, but the two sections were divided off by a curtain that was currently drawn for privacy, so I supposed it worked well enough.

There was no one immediately in evidence, but judging from the artwork hanging up on the available wall space and propped against the counter itself, I’d come to the right place. I was idly looking it over — it was a mixture of still lifes, topography, mythological subjects and portraits, all painted on board, obviously displayed to give potential customers thinking of commissioning a work an idea of what was on offer — when the curtain was pulled back and a youngish guy in his mid to late twenties came out.

‘Morning, sir,’ he said. ‘Can I help you?’

Well-spoken, like the cookshop owner had said, and a very good looker. A bit under medium height, but well-built and even-featured, with tightly curling black hair. He radiated confidence, too; I was reminded of Tarquitia. Right; his mother had said he was personable. In looks and manner, he definitely had the edge over his elder brother, that was for sure.

‘If you’re Marcus Naevius Surdinus, yeah,’ I said.

He blinked. ‘That’s my name, yes, but I don’t use it. Call me Hellenus. Everyone does.’

‘Fine by me. I’m Marcus Corvinus.’

‘Was it about a commission?’

‘No. I’ve come about your father. You know he’s dead?’

‘Yes. I had a message from his lawyer to that effect two or three days ago.’ Interesting: there’d been the hint of a hesitation before the words ‘his lawyer’; no more than a smidgeon, but I wasn’t mistaken. ‘An accident on his estate, I understand. So?’