David Wishart - Finished Business

The little guy had tooled in on my blind side.

‘A visitor, sir,’ he said. ‘A freedman by the name of Leonidas. He says that you know him.’

I frowned; who the hell was Leonidas? Then I remembered, and sat up sharply.

Naevius Surdinus’s estate manager.

Oh, gods. Please, please; just this once!

‘Wheel him in, Bathyllus,’ I said. ‘Spit-spot.’

‘Yes, sir.’ He went out, leaving Perilla and me looking at each other in what your Alexandrian bodice-ripper would term ‘wild surmise’. It might be; we’d just have to keep our fingers crossed …

Bathyllus came in with the little Sicilian in tow. Leonidas was beaming from ear to ear.

‘I thought that you’d like to know, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ve managed to trace our freedman friend. The one with the birthmark?’

Joy in the morning! ‘Yeah, yeah, right,’ I said.

‘I put it out that I was looking for him as soon as you left, but to tell you the truth I’d given up hope. The news only came this morning. His name’s Valerius Sosibius and he has a-’

‘ Valerius Sosibius? You’re sure?’

‘Yes, sir. Quite a coincidence, isn’t it? I knew he couldn’t be one of yours because … well, still, there you are.’

Shit! If this Sosibius was a freedman of Asiaticus’s — and he’d have to be, with that name — then we’d got the bastard cold. And if we’d got Asiaticus then we’d got the lot of them, because if I could lay physical hands on Surdinus’s actual killer then I’d have something concrete to take to Gaius after all. Once he was in the bag and talking — which he would do, trust Felix for that — the rest would follow …

Score one for the freedman-cum-slave grapevine. Thank you, Jupiter! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I punched the air. ‘ Yesss! ’

Leonidas was looking a bit bemused. So, for that matter, was Perilla.

‘Marcus, dear,’ she murmured.

Oh, yeah, right; pas devant les domestiques , or whatever the hell the correct Greek was. Let’s have a little Roman gravitas here. I lowered my arm quickly and cleared my throat. ‘I’m sorry, pal,’ I said. ‘Forgot myself for a moment. Carry on. You were saying?’

‘He has a shop in the Subura, sir. On Safety Incline. He’s a bookseller and copyist.’

‘He is a what ?’

‘A bookseller and copyist, sir. He copies and sells books.’

‘Yeah, I got that bit.’ Gods! A homicidal bookseller! Now there was a first for you! At least he hadn’t beaten Surdinus to death with a first edition of Cato’s Farming is Fun . ‘Now you’re absolutely one hundred per cent cast-iron sure about all this, are you?’

‘Oh, yes, sir. My informant was a slave in Rubellius Rufus’s household. The old gentleman often uses Sosibius’s services, and Caeso — that’s the slave, sir — is in and out of the shop regularly. There’s no mistake, certainly about the birthmark. At least I hope there isn’t.’

‘Fantastic.’ I took out my purse and emptied out the contents — five gold pieces and a dozen bits of silver — into his waiting palms. ‘Pass half that on to Caeso, will you?’

‘Of course, sir. I don’t know him personally — the news came to me at third or fourth hand — but I’ll see he gets it.’ He was beaming again. ‘Even so, like I told you: myself, I’d’ve done it for nothing. Naevius Surdinus was a good master.’

‘You’re welcome, pal,’ I said. ‘You deserve it, both of you. Oh, one more thing. The big guy who saw the freedman originally. What was his name again?’

‘Cilix, sir.’

‘Right. Cilix. I’ll need him with me to make a formal identifi-cation. You think you can get him to come over here tomorrow morning? Say the third hour?’

‘Of course. I’m sure that won’t be a problem.’

‘Fine. And thanks again, Leonidas.’

He left.

‘Well, lady,’ I said when he’d gone, ‘it looks like we’re home and dry after all. I’ll go over to the Subura tomorrow with Cilix, check this guy out. If he’s the one we want, I reckon I can go straight to Gaius. That sound fair?’

‘I suppose so, dear. But I’d rather you left things alone.’

‘Yeah, well, we can’t always have our druthers, can we?

‘As long as you’re careful.’

‘I’ll be walking on eggs, I promise you.’ I would, too.

We might be inside Alexander’s deadline after all.

Cilix turned up the next morning bang on time. Not that I would’ve recognized the guy, because they’d hosed him down, given him a new tunic, a shave and haircut, and a final wax and polish before sending him over, with the result that he was a gleaming picture of pristine cleanliness and sartorial elegance.

Raring to go, too. He stood there — loomed, rather — at the foot of our steps, grinning like a six-foot-six yard-across-the-shoulders schoolboy being taken out for a birthday treat. Which I supposed wasn’t all that far from the reality: as far as domestics go, which isn’t all that far to begin with, garden slaves are at the bottom of the pecking order and their social life is zilch. The fact that they spend a large slice of their time interacting with manure in one way or another doesn’t help matters, either.

‘You ready for this, Cilix?’ I said.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘OK. Modus operandi .’ He blinked. ‘Uh … the way we’re going to do things, right?’

‘Oh. Yeah. Got you, sir.’

‘The guy — Sosibius — doesn’t know me. Or at least I’m hoping he doesn’t. And he didn’t see you either, right?’

‘Yeah. ’Cos I was crouched down in the bushes taking a-’

‘Fine. Fine. So we go in as ordinary customers; at least I do. You tag along behind, and — this is really, really important, right? — with your mouth tightly zipped. Eyes only, OK? Get a good look at the bastard while I’m talking to him, but say nothing until we’re back outside. Got it?’

‘Yeah. Got it.’

‘Great. Well done. So off we go.’

Off we went.

The Subura’s like a rabbit warren, one of the oldest and poorest parts of the city with streets even narrower and messier than they usually are in Rome, zig-zagging between tenements that’re in such bad nick that you have to keep one eye on the road and the other leery for falling tiles. Other things, too, deliberately thrown, or poured, rather: no sanitation in a tenement, the top floor’s a long way from even the most basic comfort area, and the locals don’t bother too much about the courtesy warning. Not the ones doing the pouring, anyway, although the poor buggers on the receiving end of things can get pretty vocal.

Safety Incline, Leonidas had said — a misnomer, if ever there was one, because this time of year it was slippery as hell with a mixture of the previous night’s rain and the variously compounded organic element that covered the one-in-four pavement and made walking a tricky business. If you were lucky enough to get to use the pavement for walking on, that was. Half the Subura seemed to have decided to go either up or down Safety Incline that morning, and Suburan bag-ladies don’t take prisoners: we spent most of the time with one foot in the central gutter while a large sample of the local matriarchy barged past us on both sides loaded down with bagfuls of assorted root vegetables and dried pulses for the family’s dinner. If it hadn’t been for Cilix’s bulk diverting the stream, as it were, they wouldn’t’ve bothered about the both sides aspect of things much, either.

We found the bookshop about three-quarters of the way down the Incline, sandwiched between a cobbler’s and a second-hand clothes merchant’s.