David Wishart - Solid Citizens

‘ Quintus Caesius had his father certified? ’

‘Of course. About a year before the old man died, when things started to become obvious. Only thing he could’ve done, and choice didn’t enter into it. Can’t have a man who sits down to dinner in his underpants and dribbles in the soup making deals and signing important business documents, can you? If it was me, mind, I’d rather someone knocked me on the head and be done with it, but there you are.’ He raised his voice again. ‘Hey, Desmus? You hear what I’m saying? You’d do that for me, would you?’

The duster paused. ‘Yes, master. It’d be a pleasure.’

Ampudius grinned toothlessly. ‘Bugger off, Desmus. Well, he was a good son, Quintus. He knew where his duty lay, however unpleasant it was, public or private.’

Shit. ‘And he used his friend Publius Novius to get it done? The certifying?’

‘Who else would he use, boy? He was the family lawyer, and it had to go through legal process. Besides, he’s a smart man, Publius. There’d be no querying anything he drafted.’

My brain was buzzing. I stood up. ‘Thanks for your help, sir. You’ve been very informative.’

‘Don’t mention it. My pleasure. I don’t have many visitors these days, and I don’t get out much myself. I was sorry to miss young Quintus’s funeral. A good man, that, and a good citizen of Bovillae. It isn’t often you get them both together, and the town’s a lot poorer without him.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, so I imagine.’

‘You nail the bastard who killed him. You won’t find us ungrateful, boy.’

‘I’ll try,’ I said, and left.

Where to now?

Well, you win some, you lose some: that conver-sation had blown out of the water the theory that the will was a fake engineered first to last by Novius and Caesius together. Old, Ampudius might be, but he’d certainly got all his faculties intact, there was nothing wrong with his memory, and he’d convinced me absolutely on that score. So scrap the idea that Aulus Mettius had been blackmailing Caesius and his employer, got himself framed and relegated as a result, and stiffed his uncle in revenge as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Which didn’t, of course, let him off the hook altogether: even if his reasons for hating Caesius hadn’t been as clear cut as a trumped-up charge and a ten-year relegation would’ve made them, the hatred he’d shown at the funeral had been there in spades, whatever the cause of it had been, and the timing still fitted. So Nephew Mettius was still firmly in the frame.

There again, there was still the question of Quintus Caesius’s power of attorney — or whatever the legal phrase was — to consider. Even if his father’s will itself had been genuine, the business of the old man having been certified towards the end of his life was something I’d known nothing about, and it might well be a key point where relations between the two brothers were concerned; Ampudius had been pretty definite that Caesius Senior had been in sound mind when he disinherited Lucius, sure, no arguments, but he’d also said that the guy had known he was failing during his latter years and had relied increasingly on his elder son’s judgement. Influence — possibly undue influence, based on personal motives — was a grey area, and if it’d been a factor in the disinheritance then it might be relevant, both where Lucius himself — and possibly even Mettius, if he’d come to know about it in some way — was concerned.

So another chat with Anthus was in order. Plus, following my interview with Baebius, he might be able to provide an update on the missing figurine; my gut feeling was telling me that that fitted in somewhere or other along the line, and I’d bet we hadn’t heard the last of it. Also, since it was cropping up too frequently to be ignored, I thought I might give the burned-out wool store a quick look-over, if only for completeness’ sake.

Even so, we were halfway through a busy morning here. Like I’d said to Perilla, I was officially on holiday, and after dutifully talking to Baebius and Ampudius I reckoned I deserved a break and a cup of wine. So back towards the centre of town and my usual wine shop.

On the way — what made me do it, I don’t know; call it instinct, if you like — I happened to glance over my shoulder. I hadn’t been looking out for my pal the lounging freedman recently, but there he was, large as life, a dozen or so yards behind and keeping pace. Uh-huh. Coincidence, nothing, not this time: Bovillae wasn’t all that small. Maybe it was time we had a word. I turned.

The guy had almost reached a corner. He slowed noticeably, then abruptly took a left.

Bugger this for a game of soldiers. I was getting too old for running suspicious tails down, particularly where it would involve pushing my way through the pack of Bovillae’s usual morning crowd of strollers and shoppers. Chummie could wait until I had a better chance at him. That would come, I was sure.

At least now I knew that it hadn’t been my imagination. The guy had questions to answer.

I found the street with the brothel and carried on down it. The ruined warehouse was on the same side, a few dozen yards past the door, its roof gone but with the burned timber and tiles cleared away, so that it was no more than a shell formed by the original stone walls reaching up to their original height. Like the watchman Garganius had said, the locals had been lucky the place was separate from the surrounding buildings: it’d been a fairly big place, and if its frontage had been flush with the rest of the street, with properties attached either side, fires in town being what they are, when it went up it would probably have taken a good chunk of the centre with it. As it was, what was left was surrounded by an open courtyard.

There was nothing much to see, really, but I reckoned that having made the effort I might as well do things properly. I’d just stepped off the pavement when I felt a hand grip the back of my tunic, hard.

My pal the wandering freedman. I turned round, fist raised to punch the guy’s lights out-

And stopped. It wasn’t the freedman; it was a little guy dressed in what had probably once been a sack, with a bulbous head far too big for his body that wobbled on his scrawny neck, a hunched back, a mouth that was mostly drool, and eyes that were looking everywhere but straight at me. He stank, too.

Gods. I lowered my fist. Some things I just can’t take, and madness comes top of the list every time. From the looks of him, chummie here evidently wasn’t just a couple of tiles short of a roof, he was missing the whole thing, and the rafters as well.

‘Uh … Hi, pal,’ I said. ‘You wanted something?’

He stepped back. When I’d turned, he’d shifted his grip to my tunic’s front, and he was still holding on tight. My blood went cold and I had to fight the urge to pull myself free.

‘You’re the Roman, aren’t you?’ he said. At least, that’s what it would’ve been, if the words hadn’t been slurred and drooled half to hell. ‘From Rome.’

‘Yeah,’ I said carefully. ‘That’s me. Roman from Rome. Well done, sunshine, you’ve got it in one. What can I do for you?’

‘I didn’t kill him. The old man.’

The hairs were beginning to crawl on the back of my neck, and I had to stop myself from shivering.

‘I know that,’ I said. ‘No one’s claiming that you did.’ Jupiter! ‘You, uh, like to let me go, maybe?’

‘You got to believe me. I never touched him. Never. I wouldn’t. It was someone else.’

‘Right. Right.’

‘You believe me?’

‘Yeah, no worries. I believe you.’

‘Thass good. Because it wasn’t me that done it, it was someone else. Not me. Someone else.’ The head twitched, scattering spit …