David Wishart - Finished Business

‘You happen to know any of their names?’ I said.

‘The friends? Well, now, let’s see.’ He stopped. ‘There was the two Julii, Canus and Graecinus. No relation, although as you’ll guess from the family name, they was both Gallic gentlemen originally. Graecinus, he’s one of the city judges this year. Then there’s Aemilius Rectus. Rectus by name and Rectus by nature, you might say. He’s a proper stiff one, that gentleman. Comes of being a … what’s-its-name, begins with an S. Sort of philosopher.’

‘Stoic?’

He beamed. ‘The very word, sir, well done! Comes of being a Stoic, like. They all was, the master included, come to that, but he was the real article, right down the line, accept no imitations. Not that he couldn’t be affable enough when he was in the mood. A senatorial gentleman, like Graecinus, been a city judge himself in the past. There was plenty of others, on and off, but them three was what you might call the master’s regulars.’

We set off again, along a side path off the main drag. ‘Your master wasn’t political himself?’ I said.

‘Bless you, sir, no, not these many years. He gave that sort of thing up altogether after he’d done his consulship.’

‘You know why?’

‘No, sir, I don’t. Not for sure. But between you and me I think it had something to do with the troubles after that bastard Sejanus was chopped. Pardon my Greek.’

‘Is that so, now?’

‘They sickened him. That’s my view, anyway, for what it’s worth. All those men dead, some of them no more guilty of treason than I am, just because they were too friendly with the man or they were some sort of relative of his. A witch-hunt, my master called it. You heard of a gentleman by the name of Blaesus?’

‘Junius Blaesus, sure.’ He’d been Sejanus’s uncle, and the Wart had forced him into suicide.

‘Well, he and the master had been thick together for years, and he said Blaesus hadn’t a treasonous bone in his body. Very upset over the death, he was. My belief, it finished him with politics, and after that he hadn’t a good word to say about the old emperor, or the whole boiling of them. Here we are, sir. You can see the tower just ahead.’

From this distance, it didn’t look too bad: like Postuma had said, it was an old watchtower, thirty or so feet high, at the corner of the boundary wall, pierced with three sets of windows, one above the other. It was only when we got closer that I noticed the poor condition of the masonry, the gaps between the stones where the pointing cement had crumbled away, and the ragged line of the top. The ground in front of the entrance had been cleared, and there were the usual signs of building activity in progress: piles of dressed stone, a stack of wooden props and planks, and a mixing trough with several water buckets beside it. This being November, the bags of cement themselves and the workmen’s tools would be inside, under cover.

‘The master was lying here.’ Leonidas walked over to a spot just in front of the entrance and stopped. His voice had lost its chatty tone and he spoke softly, like he was standing next to a grave. Which, in a way, I supposed he was, or the next thing to it.

I joined him. Two feet or so out from the threshold and slightly to one side there was a large block of dressed stone, with old masonry covering its exposed top and edges. I stood beside it and looked up at the parapet above. Sure enough, I could see a matching gap.

Bugger. Well, it had to be done.

‘Can I get up there?’ I said.

Leonidas’s eyes widened. ‘You’re not serious, sir!’

‘Sure I am. Unfortunate, but there it is.’

‘It’s dangerous. And I don’t think the young master would allow it.’

‘Yeah, well, I won’t tell him if you won’t, pal.’ I stuck my head inside and took a look. As I’d expected, the ground floor, if you could call it that, was fully taken up with cement bags and builders’ tools, but there was a ladder leading upward through a hatch in the ceiling to what had to be a newly constructed first floor. Presumably when I reached that there would be another to the second storey, and so on.

Right, then. Here we went.

The first bit was easy-peasy: whoever Surdinus had contracted knew their stuff and were making good on each level before moving up to work on the next. The first-storey flooring was solid, and built on top of sturdy beams laid at their ends on stretcher stones tied into freshly cemented masonry. So was the second, when I reached it. And the third.

The fourth, on the other hand, was what had to be the parapet level, right at the top of the tower …

Oh, hell. Now we came to the difficult bit.

The ladder was there, sure, plus a couple of bits of scaffolding reaching up from the third storey, but where the parapet level was concerned, the builders had only got as far as putting in the framework that would eventually take the tiles, or whatever arrangement Surdinus had had in mind for the topmost level of his hideaway. There was flooring of a kind, but it was no more than a skeleton of loose planks. Above it was the parapet itself — waist-high, it would be — and the open air.

Fuck.

Still, it was better than nothing. And at least I’d established that someone could get all the way up from below. Plus, if I’d come this far, I couldn’t very well give up now.

I climbed the ladder and stepped gingerly sideways on to the plank laid across the set of rafters that would form the ceiling of the tower’s third storey and the roof of the tower itself. It gave slightly under my weight, but it felt firm enough, and there were other planks around the perimeter allowing access to the parapet on all of its sides. I was in the open air now, of course, and at this height the wind was a major problem. I rested my palms on the top of the parapet to steady myself and leaned out, to look below and get my bearings …

The stone I was leaning on shifted, and I let go quickly, straightened, and stepped back — a bit too far back, because my heels found the edge of the plank and for a moment I teetered between falling backwards between the beams and down to the floor below and forwards over the parapet itself. I got my balance finally and stood sweating.

Shit. That had been close.

OK. Fine. So we’d do this next bit carefully. Very, very carefully.

I was on one of the flanking sides of the tower. Its front — where there was a gap in the stonework — was the stretch to my left. Keeping my eyes firmly on my feet, and trying to avoid using the parapet as a handrail, I edged along the plank and round the corner to the matching one on that side. The gap was halfway along; only ten feet or so, but it felt like forty. I got to it at last, and stood for a couple of minutes sweating like a pig and breathing hard before I felt confident enough to take a proper look.

There was still a good half-inch of cement covering the top of what had been the stone below the fallen block. It was old and crumbling, sure, but there were clear marks along its length of what must have been the knife or chisel that had been used to prise the missing block free. And on the plank beneath the marks, where I was standing, was a scattering of cement granules.

Shit. It had been murder after all.

Score one for Alexander.

Leonidas was waiting for me when I got down, looking anxious as hell, as was quite natural: the life of a slave responsible for one of Rome’s social elite falling and breaking his over-privileged neck while he’s a guest in the master’s household would not’ve been worth a copper quadrans, even if it were said purple-striper’s own stupid fault. Under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t’ve put him at that kind of risk. Only the circumstances weren’t ordinary, and the risk had been justified. In spades.