David Wishart - Solid Citizens

‘Very well.’ Perilla shifted on her couch. ‘Let’s move on. The brother, Lucius, and the nephew. Anything new there?’

‘Not a lot, no. At least, nothing positive. As far as Lucius being behind the killing is concerned, sure, he’s still very much our front runner, both in terms of motive and opportunity. Particularly if you bracket him with Roscius as the actual perp supplying the muscle and assume the murder wasn’t premeditated. Marilla was right about that; it’s the simplest explanation and it was something I hadn’t thought of. Oh, I would’ve got round to it soon enough, but the kid was there first.’ I glanced at Perilla over the rim of my wine cup. ‘She’s got a good brain in her head, that girl.’

Perilla sniffed. ‘I’m not denying it, dear. All I’m saying is that encouraging her to use it in theorizing about who committed a murder and how and why they did it is perhaps not such a good idea at her time of life and in her position.’

‘Yeah. Like I did with you.’

‘ What? ’

‘Come on, lady! You know what I mean! How old were you when you asked me to sub for you in getting your stepfather’s ashes back from Tomi? Twenty, was it? Twenty-one, tops. More or less the same age Marilla is now, anyway. And I seem to remember you didn’t have all that many scruples about getting involved with the case yourself at the time. Quite the reverse.’

‘Marcus, that is simply not fair!’

‘Sure it’s fair. And relevant.’

‘The situation was completely different! I had a vested interest!’ I just grinned at her, until finally she ducked her head and smiled. ‘Very well, dear, you have made your point; we won’t quibble. And you’re right; she does seem to have an aptitude. Unfortunately. Carry on. What about Mettius? Did you find out anything else on the will side of things?’

I hesitated. ‘Mettius is still a puzzle,’ I said. ‘The guy’s got secrets, that’s certain, and he’s dishonest as a Suburan horse trader. No arguments there. But that’s “dishonest”, not “crooked”; he’s no Manlius, let alone a Canidius. He may be an outsider who plays by his own rules, but my gut feeling is that he plays fair and more for the sake of the game than anything else. That’s what his pal Ulpius said, the guy who moved the wool bales for our two upright magistrate friends, and I’d say it was a pretty fair assessment.’

Perilla smiled. ‘You like him, don’t you?’

‘Liking has nothing to do with it. I’ve liked guys who’ve turned out to be murderers before, and as far as motive goes — probably opportunity too — he’s still well within the frame. But as far as the business with the will is concerned, I’m afraid that’s a complete washout. I talked to the old guy who witnessed it, and he was adamant that it was genuine.’

‘He was sure? It wasn’t just an opinion?’

‘Uh-uh. Marcus Caesius himself told him at the time that he was disinheriting his son, and he read the document before the old man signed it.’

‘Damn!’

I grinned. ‘Yeah. That’s what I thought. Naturally, it blows that part of the case against Mettius to hell. If there was no skulduggery between Caesius and Publius Novius then he’d no grounds for blackmailing them, and in that case they’d no need to trump up a fake embezzlement charge to get rid of him.’

‘So you think that was genuine, then?’ Perilla was twisting a lock of her hair.

‘It looks that way, sure. Like I say, Mettius is hardly squeaky-clean in the honesty department, and the only evidence to the contrary — if you can call it evidence — is his own claim that he was set up. On the other hand, everything I hear about Caesius confirms that he was straight where the law and business was concerned. Hard, yes, but straight. And by his own admission Mettius hated his uncle, there’s no getting past that.’

‘So where does that leave us?’

‘I don’t know, lady.’ I sighed. ‘He certainly went out of his way to finger Manlius and Canidius for me, which is suspicious in itself.’

‘That isn’t quite enough to make him a potential murderer, dear.’

‘Yeah. Agreed. And it might well’ve been that he had a personal axe to grind. According to Ulpius again, Manlius’s father was the aedile on the bench who sentenced him to relegation. Plus, he’s got a definite down on Bovillae’s Great and Good in general, so he could’ve done it simply out of pure devilment. That I’d believe, too.’ I took a morose swallow of wine. ‘Hell. Leave it for now. It’ll all work out eventually, no doubt.’

‘Hmm.’ Perilla frowned, then said, ‘Oh, by the way, we’ve had word from your mother and Priscus. They’ve decided to come early, so they should be here in three days’ time.’

Oh, great. Joy in the morning. Only a scant four days left of not being told I drank too much and not being bored to death on the subject of Etruscan modal verbs.

‘That’s nice,’ I said.

‘Don’t be sarcastic, Marcus. Personally, I’m looking forward to it.’

Yeah, sure; the lady had never been a good liar, and there was just a tinge of red in her cheeks.

Still, maybe there’d be another murder that’d keep me out of the house. I could always hope. Meanwhile, I reckoned sleuthing had had its whack out of me for the present and I was owed a bit of quality time doing bugger all. There was enough of the day left before dinner to stroll down the road to Pontius’s wine shop in the village for a quiet cup or two and a gossip with the locals.

So that’s what I did.

Pontius’s is in Castrimoenium’s main square, which sounds a lot more impressive than it is, because the place isn’t all that big; maybe ‘village’ is overstating things a bit, but it’s only half the size of Bovillae, if that, and Pontius’s is the only wine shop on offer. Not that I’m complaining: Pontius himself is a good lad, he serves a more-than-decent jug of wine, and in general his regular customers are an OK bunch. All in all, as an occasional home-from-home and a relaxing watering hole for when we come down to the villa, I couldn’t ask for better.

It didn’t look like I was going to be shooting the inconsequential breeze with Pontius’s other drinkers after all, mind. Maybe it was something to do with the weather — we were getting wintry showers turning to hail again, and the regulars had probably decided to stick by their own hearths — but the place was almost deserted, the only punter in evidence being Gabba, the barfly’s barfly and Castrimoenium’s leading opportunistic entrepreneur, whom neither wind nor hail nor gloom of night could deter from getting his daily skinful. The gods knew what the bastard did when he wasn’t propping up Pontius’s counter, which by my reckoning had to cover a good ten hours out of the daylight twelve, but if he was central to the local Alban Hills economy then rural Italy was in serious financial trouble. Apart from the retail wine trade, naturally.

‘Hey, Corvinus.’ He raised his cup as I walked in. ‘I heard you were back. Good to see you again. How’s the lad?’

‘OK,’ I said, easing myself on to a stool: all that unaccustomed horse-riding to Bovillae and back was taking its toll. ‘Make it half a jug of the usual, Pontius. And a small plate of your cheese and olives.’ It wasn’t all that long until dinner, but I’d had an energetic day, and a few preliminary nibbles wouldn’t hurt.

‘Holidays again, is it?’ Gabba topped up his own wine cup as Pontius filled my half jug from the flask behind the counter. ‘All right for some. Ready for the festival, are you?’

‘More or less. Yourself?’

‘Looking forward to it, consul, looking forward to it. As ever. The wife takes the kids off to her mother’s in Caba, so I get a bit of peace and quiet for a change.’