David Wishart - Solid Citizens

‘So why would he be up here?’

He shrugged again. ‘Search me. Why not? It’s a free country, and like I say no one bothers about boundaries.’

‘You didn’t see anyone else around?’

‘Not a soul. But then again, I wasn’t looking.’

‘You’d been out for long?’

‘Not very. An hour or so.’

‘Close by to here?’

He was frowning. ‘No. The other side of my property, as it happens. There wasn’t much doing over that way, so I thought I’d try in this direction. Like I say, there was always the chance of a deer. Corvinus, what is this?’

‘Just getting the facts straight, that’s all, pal,’ I said. ‘So you, uh, didn’t have much contact with Mettius? As a neighbour, I mean.’

‘We passed the time of day occasionally, sure. He was OK, friendly enough, not stuck up like a lot of the nobs around here, and the family’s old Bovillae, like mine is. But like I said, he was a townie, not a farmer. We didn’t have much in common.’

‘Fair enough.’ I looked round. Clarus was chatting to the slave, obviously intentionally keeping a low profile while I talked to Roscius. ‘You done, pal?’ I said to him.

‘Yes. Not a lot I can do for you here, Corvinus.’

‘We’ll get going, then. Clarus is my son-in-law,’ I explained to Roscius. ‘He’s the de facto doctor over in Castrimoenium.’ They nodded to each other. ‘Oh, by the way, how’s the business with the farm going? You get that loan problem sorted out?’

‘Yeah,’ he said guardedly. ‘Yeah, that’s all fine now. More or less.’

‘So you managed to square things with Lucius Caesius?’

‘He’s given me a year’s extension, and he’s happy to go beyond that if it’s necessary. I told you, old Lucius is all right, and he isn’t exactly pressed for cash himself now.’

‘I suppose it helps, him being a drinking crony of yours, doesn’t it?’

‘I wouldn’t exactly call him a drinking crony. We see each other around, that’s all.’

‘Like on the night of the murder? When you split a jug or two in the wine shop near the back of the brothel and left together an hour or so after sunset?’

Long silence; he was staring at me. ‘Who told you that?’ he said.

‘You mean it isn’t true?’

‘Sure it’s true, as it happens. So what?’

‘So why did you lie when I asked you where you were that night?’

‘Wouldn’t you? Come on, Corvinus! It didn’t matter. I know I didn’t kill the guy, and it’d only have complicated things.’

Yeah, well; the jury was still seriously out where that was concerned. Still, I let it go unremarked. ‘You go straight home?’ I said.

‘Of course I did! I’d work to do in the morning.’

‘So you didn’t happen to bump into Caesius at all on the way, then? You and good old Lucius?’

I thought he was going to hit me; certainly his fists balled, and his whole body tensed. Then, abruptly and without another word, he turned and walked away, back the way he’d come. At the edge of the trees, he turned again and levelled a finger.

‘You fuck off, Corvinus!’ he said. ‘You just keep the fuck out of my sight from now on! Is that clear?’

‘Yeah.’ I nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s clear. Thanks for your help, Roscius.’

Hmm.

I let Clarus get on with his rounds, collected my horse from the villa and headed back into town for another word with Opilia Andromeda. Me, I don’t go for coincidences as a rule, and the lady turning up late for work and flustered a scant couple of hours after her lover had had his head bashed in, with every evidence that she’d been away from home, was too coincidental for comfort. Particularly since at that point Mettius’s death hadn’t been reported, so she couldn’t have known about it and it couldn’t have been a factor.

Unless, of course, one way or the other she did.

I’d been thinking things over on the ride into town, and my bet was that the business in the pine grove had been an arranged meeting that had gone wrong. As far as I could see, there were two possibilities that fitted the circumstances, the first being that the meeting was between Mettius and Andromeda, pure and simple. Possible though that scenario might be, circumstantially speaking, it didn’t make any sense: as Vatinia had said, Andromeda never came near the villa, and when the pair got together it was in the comfort of the lady’s flat. So why, if Mettius had wanted to meet his girlfriend or vice versa, should either of them faff around by changing the usual arrangement for something a lot less convenient and, given the weather conditions, a hell of a lot less comfortable? While if there’d been some skulduggery involved on Andromeda’s part — which was hard to credit in itself — surely that would unnecessarily invite her boyfriend’s suspicion.

The second possibility was a lot more likely. My guess was that the meeting had been by arrangement between the two of them on one side and the killer on the other. In which case we were left with the obvious questions of who and why . I could theorize, sure — Roscius, as being practically on the spot, Baebius, because of the missing statuette, and Manlius’s rod man regarding the weapon used were prime contenders, albeit for different reasons flawed ones — but the simplest way of getting answers was to ask Andromeda herself.

So to the brothel I went. The front door was open, and this time I didn’t stop to knock. I was heading along the corridor towards the lady’s sitting room when Carillus materialized and intercepted me.

‘Can I help you, sir?’ he said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not this time, pal. No problem, I was hoping to have another word with the boss, that’s all.’ I made as if to go past him, but he moved directly in front of me, blocking the way.

‘I’m sorry, but you can’t do that,’ he said firmly. ‘The mistress has gone out.’

Right; and I was Cleopatra’s grandmother. I pushed past him without another word, carried on down the corridor, and opened the sitting-room door.

The room was empty. I turned to find Carillus glaring at me.

‘There, sir,’ he said. ‘You see?’

Sure I did, for what it was worth: she’d probably nipped upstairs when she heard my voice and would now be lying low. Even so, I couldn’t bet on it, and in any case, however urgent the matter ostensibly was, forcing my way into her private flat would’ve been taking things too far.

Bugger. Well, we might as well play the game through to the end, if only for appearances’ sake.

‘You any idea where she’s gone?’ I said. ‘Or when she’ll be back?’

‘None whatsoever, sir.’ And you can take a running jump , Carillus’s tone said.

‘OK. Fine.’ I moved towards the exit. ‘When you see her again, just tell her I called to say that Aulus Mettius has been murdered, will you?’

‘ What? ’ He was staring at me. ‘When?’

‘Early this morning, near his villa.’ I kept on going. ‘No hassle, pal, and no doubt she’ll get the news from someone else in any case, if she hasn’t heard it already. I only thought she might be interested, that’s all.’

I left him gawping, shut the door behind me, and walked off in the direction of the market square.

What now? If we were to discount a talk with Andromeda, at least for the time being, it came down to the mechanics of checking alibis, particularly — because I knew about Roscius’s already, or rather his lack of one — Marcus Manlius’s rod man’s. Clarus hadn’t seen the wound that killed Caesius, sure, so I couldn’t be certain, but I’d bet a gallon of Alban to a busted sandal strap that the two of them would’ve matched. That didn’t automatically make Rod the killer, mind, but like I said where your ordinary everyday rod man’s concerned the weighted stick is the weapon of choice. I didn’t have any problem with likelihood, either: rod men are all bloody-minded thugs with a penchant for GBH as it is, or they wouldn’t be doing the job in the first place, while Rod — Decimus, that was his proper name, wasn’t it? — had already been involved criminally up to his neck in the wool store business. He’d simply be the muscle, sure, with Manlius being the one who gave the orders, but I reckoned in theory at least that that horse would run: Manlius already owed Mettius for blowing the whistle on him and his chum over the wool scam, while if they were behind Caesius’s murder, leaving a loose barrel like Mettius rolling around just wouldn’t be safe.