Marilyn Todd - I, Claudia

Thank goodness he had the grace to look abashed. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Their faces remain contorted. However,’ he brightened visibly, ‘if it wasn’t a clean wound and he bled to death-and I heard there was a lot of blood-that would make a difference.’

‘I’ll concede that, but, point three, there was a large bruise on his head, consistent with his being knocked out cold. Probably by the small marble bust of Apollo he kept on his table.’

‘Don’t tell me, it had blood and hairs stuck all over it?’

‘Laugh if you want to, Orbilio, and I might be wrong about Apollo, but it seems a likely object to me.’ It’s what I’d have swung, had I wanted to clobber someone. ‘Gaius always kept it at the back of his table as a paperweight. When I went to his room it was on the side.’

The investigator’s eyes widened. ‘Anything else?’

‘As a matter of fact, yes. Had Gaius decided to commit suicide, he’d have chosen any number of methods over that sword. It was his pride and joy, you see, and he might have died clutching it, but he would never, ever have killed himself with it and dishonoured the name of Seferius.’

Orbilio ran his hand over his stubble. ‘And that’s it?’

‘No. The most conclusive piece of evidence is this.’ There was a flurry of jade linen as Claudia fished around inside her stola.

‘Gaius’s suicide note?’ Orbilio snatched it out of her hand and read it aloud. ‘I’m sorry, my sweet, but this is for the best. Love always, Gaius.’

His face puckered into a frown as he read and re-read it. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t see anything wrong,’ he said. ‘In fact, it rather ties in with my case against him.’

‘Only superficially. Assuming Gaius would ever write anything so terribly trite, he never called me his sweet when we were alone, I was always his dove. And even you have to admit this was a particularly private moment.’

‘His mind was unbalanced.’

‘Balls!’

‘Claudia, he’d killed six men, don’t you get it? Stuck a dagger through their hearts, then chiselled their eyes out. The last one was still alive and screaming when he did it, for gods’ sakes.’

‘He didn’t do it, Marcus. He couldn’t have. I knew this man, he was as straight as the proverbial die, and if he had any tendencies to kill, it was through a business deal, not through the sword.’

Orbilio covered his face with his hands. ‘Claudia, you are seriously suggesting the murderer heard the scandal mooted about Gaius, and killed him so that he could take the rap instead?’

No.

‘Yes.’

‘Dammit, Claudia.’ He slammed his fist into the trunk of the peach tree. ‘When will you ever learn to trust me? I know everything. Do you understand what I’m saying? Everything.’

He leaned across, filled cupped hands with water and sluiced it over his face. The heady scent of roses drifted in the air as the birds trilled and the fountains splashed. He dried his face and the blood from his knuckles on his handkerchief.

‘What’s the real reason you want me to open the case? Is it because someone’s been picking off his family and you want them caught?’

She stared him out. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

What he was talking about, he said angrily, was Calpurnia, then Secundus, then Lucius and now Valeria’s baby. Four untimely deaths, if she hadn’t noticed, and she wasn’t to give him any bullshit about how high infant mortality is, three of them weren’t infants.

‘Coincidence,’ she said, carefully, pleating the hem of her tunic.

‘Coincidence be damned, Claudia.’ He shook his head. ‘By Jupiter you picked a right bloody family to marry into, didn’t you? Now tell me, honestly, why you want this case re-opened.’

With Gaius dead, she was positively rolling in it. More than she imagined. More than she had ever dreamed of. More, even, than the old linen merchant had left that common little Marcia cat, would you believe? So who cared that the authorities had mistakenly labelled him a murderer? Did it really matter? And that was the crunch. Because, to her astonishment, Claudia found that, when it came right down to it, yes it did matter. She knew Gaius hadn’t killed anyone, as surely as she knew who had killed Gaius. But the point was, unless the case was publicly reopened, a man who had worked hard all his life to get to the top through honesty, fairness and respectability stood to have his good name in tatters for ever. For all his faults, and they were considerable, Gaius Seferius did not deserve such an epitaph.

The revelation that she might actually have a conscience had come as something of a shock to say the least, and she certainly wasn’t prepared to share this experience with this…this womanizing monster.

‘First you tell me how you came to the conclusion that Gaius killed six of Rome’s finest and most upstanding citizens.’

‘We’re going round in circles here. Callisunus will make his announcement in the morning. Why don’t you wait for that?’

‘Patience isn’t one of my virtues, I’m afraid, although I excel at screaming rape. Remember, Cousin Markie? Clam up and you can expect a repeat performance of what happened last month at my house, except this time I’ll make it look more realistic.’

His shoulders slumped. ‘You win. The statement reads “Gaius Seferius murdered these men in the insane and mistaken belief that they were his wife’s lovers.” I know you don’t like it, but murder is murder and I couldn’t give a stuff about covering up Gaius’s reputation-’

She stood up and stretched her spine. I’m going to regret this, I can feel it in every single bone of my body. ‘Marcus, believe me, someone else killed those men. Now suppose I do level with you and say I was intending to kill this scumbag myself. I don’t know who he is-not yet, anyway-but I’m this close I can smell him.’

‘And are you levelling enough to explain why you should want to play judge, jury and executioner all at once?’

Her eyes flashed. ‘That’s none of your business,’ she snapped, ‘but the point is, Gaius deserves to have his name cleared. Now an hour ago you were practically threatening to push cast-iron proof down my gullet. You can’t have it both ways.’

Orbilio stood up and walked over to where she was standing. He could smell her musky perfume, saw the sun sparkle on the tints in her hair watched, the pulse in her throat.

‘Let it drop, Claudia. No good can come of this.’ Was that husky voice his?

‘Would you prefer me to go straight to that foul-mouthed boss of yours?’

‘Claudia, you’ve got so much rope you’re hanging yourself, can’t you see that? Must I spell it out? Very well, but don’t blame me if you don’t like the story. Shortly before he was killed, I overheard Paternus gossiping in the baths saying you weren’t what you seemed, and it got me thinking that maybe I should check up on you. I have to say it didn’t take long to root out that Claudia Posidonius may not have died in Cremona, but she was a damned sick woman when she left. Her tomb is about twenty miles south, isn’t that correct?’

Claudia shrugged noncommittally.

He brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. ‘Besides,’ he added quietly, ‘you can’t honestly expect a red-blooded man to believe you’ve kept a figure like that after three children, can you?’

She turned away to study a butterfly feeding on a poppy. If that was supposed to be a compliment, he could bloody well stick it in his ear. She’d had it up to here with compliments. Gaius wasn’t even buried and letters had come flooding in. Some were condolences, admittedly, but half of Rome’s bachelors had wasted little time in winging off proposals of marriage. Some were clients of Gaius’s, one even was a client of hers. As if she’d marry a pervert like Flamininus the censor, for heaven’s sake! Who was married already, the twisted little tick. He wasn’t the only one, of course. There was Ligarius, who had got it into his thick skull that now she was free they could carry on where they’d left off. Left off from what? They’d never been more than friends, certainly never lovers. Was the man completely mad? There were seventeen proposals in all, ranging from senators to centurions, the latest from that clot Balbus, who could only be after her money because in three months he’d have bored her to death. Juno, it would be funny if it wasn’t so bloody pathetic! ‘What else did your grubby investigations turn up?’