David Wishart - Solid Citizens

‘Yeah. He had his head beaten in a few days back behind the town brothel.’

He closed his eyes briefly. ‘Oh, shit.’

I blinked: not just at the language, but the accent had been pure Aventine Roman. Ex-pat Parthian, my King’s Eye.

‘So, uh, if I could just have a word with the boss?’ I went on. ‘Discreetly, of course.’

‘You’ll have to hang on until I’ve asked, won’t you? You can wait in the common room.’

I followed him through a marble arch. They hadn’t tried to recreate the bucolic conditions of the fresco, but this was the urban equivalent: a large room that must’ve covered most of the club’s ground floor, with a high coffered ceiling and a railed balcony running round creating a mezzanine level. There were two or three big chandeliers fitted out with crystals that spread the light of the beeswax candles at their centre — candles, unusually, not lamps — but the lighting mostly consisted of bronze candelabra scattered throughout the room, creating little islands of brightness, each with its own couch or group of couches. Some of these — not very many — were occupied by the real-life equivalent of the fresco’s lotus eaters, wearing not mantles or tunics but loose woollen or silk kaftans, and I noticed on most of the low tables beside them the little dish of smoking qef that was probably responsible for the soporific atmosphere that seemed to be the place’s main feature. Soft-footed slaves padded from island to island, tending the burning qef or exchanging a few murmured words with the punters. As I looked, one of these got up and followed the slave towards the staircase at the end of the room leading up to the mezzanine.

‘If you’d care to make yourself comfortable, then, sir, I’ll tell the owner that you’re here.’ ‘Rhadames’ was back in character, I noticed. Half the trick in these places is the razzmatazz, and it’s what the customers are paying for, after all. ‘Can I get you some refreshment?’

‘A large cup of wine would be good, pal,’ I said. It’d probably cost the earth, but what the hell, case or not I was on holiday. ‘Straight wine, nothing fancy.’ I could feel my head spinning with the qef fumes already. Passive smoking’s always a drawback where qef ’s concerned.

‘Certainly. I’ll have one of the boys bring it to you.’

He left, and I lay down on the nearest couch. Oriental luxury there as well: in addition to the thickly padded upholstery there were half-a-dozen cushions that felt like they were filled with lambs’ wool. One of the peripatetic slaves brought over a dish of qef , but I waved him away.

The wine came a couple of minutes later: a small silver flask, bedded in snow, with a matching cup and a plateful of stuffed dates and miniature pastries. I poured and sipped. It went down like liquid silk: echt Caecuban, and top of the range.

I was on my third pastry — they were as good as Meton could make, which is saying something — when ‘Rhadames’ came back.

‘The owner will see you in his office, sir,’ he said. ‘If you’ll come this way? The boy will bring your wine.’ He snapped his fingers, and one of the ministering slaves came over and picked up the tray.

I followed him through another arch, this one hidden behind a curtain, and down a short corridor to the door at the end. ‘Rhadames’ knocked and opened it. No oriental luxury here, just a standard office with document cubbies and behind the desk a greying business type busy with a wax tablet and stylus.

‘I’ll be with you in a moment,’ he said without looking up. ‘Come in and make yourself comfortable.’

There was a chair beside the desk; not a stool, one of these Gallic wickerwork things you sometimes get. I pulled it up and sat. The slave with the wine tray moved a small table over, set the tray down on it, and went out, closing the door behind him. The guy wrote down a few more words, closed the tablet and raised his head.

‘Now,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t given your name.’

‘Corvinus. Valerius Corvinus.’

He was still holding the pen. ‘And what is it precisely that I can do for you, Valerius Corvinus?’

‘I’m looking into the murder of one of your members on behalf of the senate down in Bovillae. A Quintus Caesius.’

‘Yes. So Publius told me.’

‘Publius?’

‘Rhadames.’ Not the trace of a smile; it didn’t look like I was going to get his name in return, either. ‘That may well be. I can’t see, though, that it’s any concern of mine. This is Rome, not the Alban Hills.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I know. I’m just covering the angles. I was hoping you might be able to give me some information about him.’

‘Such as what?’

‘Was he a regular? He was back and forward on business quite a lot, so it would seem likely.’

‘Hmm.’ The sharp, abacus eyes rested on me for a good half minute, assessing. Then he put the pen down. ‘We’ve only been open for two or three months,’ he said, ‘so the question doesn’t really arise. But in any case, I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you much. That’s couldn’t and wouldn’t, by the way. The gentleman may be dead, but that doesn’t mean I can breach confidentiality. Particularly since, as I say, his death is totally unconnected with the Lotus.’

Yeah, well, I supposed that was fair enough, and not unexpected, either. ‘So what can you tell me?’

‘Only what you know already, and only because you know it: that he was a member. Fairly typical of the clientele we get here, well-off, good background, not particularly young any more.’ He hesitated. ‘Let’s be clear about this, Corvinus, because given the circumstances as reported to me by Publius I’m sure you’re thinking along those lines. The Lotus is emphatically not a brothel. Oh, yes, of course, we can and do cater for our members’ sexual interests. But we are, primarily, what we say we are: a gentlemen’s club, providing a home from home, especially for businessmen from out of town. Most of the customers, as you no doubt saw, come here simply to relax. As I said, Quintus Caesius was fairly typical in that regard.’

‘He have any particular friends here? Among the rest of the members, I mean?’

A long silence. ‘That I don’t know, and if I did I’m afraid I wouldn’t tell you,’ he said. You could’ve used his tone to replace the snow in the wine cooler.

I blinked. ‘Uh … come again?’

‘You saw our common room, of course?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, very nice.’

‘We pride ourselves on it. Our members are a mixture, very much individuals. Some are more gregarious than others, and the common room is designed deliberately to allow someone to circulate freely but anonymously as much or as little as he pleases, with the proviso that any exchanges of personal details that result be confined within the walls of the club. But that is emphatically their concern, not mine or my staff’s.’

‘Come on, pal! It was a harmless question!’

That got me another long, cold stare. ‘Was it, indeed?’ he said finally. ‘That may be. Nevertheless, I can only repeat: any member, while he is within these four walls, is guaranteed absolute anonymity. That is the Lotus’s strongest selling point. He can be totally sure that what he does or says while he is our guest here will go no further. And that stricture, as I said, is binding on our members as well as us. Which, incidentally, raises the issue of your own presence here.’

‘Yeah? In what way?’

‘You were told originally, I understand, that Quintus Caesius belonged to this club by a friend of yours.’

‘Yeah, that’s right. Uh … Caelius Crispus. Not so much a friend as-’

‘Then I’m afraid under the first and most important rule of the club we shall have to reconsider Crispus’s own membership.’