David Wishart - Solid Citizens

And she’d destroyed him right enough, in the end, or as near to it as she could manage. When he’d been found dead behind the brothel, Caesius’s carefully built reputation had taken a real hammering …

Something was nagging at the back of my mind. I reached for it, but it was gone.

‘Surely she could’ve said something,’ I said. ‘Told someone. When she came back to the town.’

Galla just looked at me; not a schoolgirl’s look this time, not within a hundred miles of it. ‘Who’d listen to an ex-slave who ran a brothel and who’d been a whore herself for the past seventeen years?’ she said. ‘Particularly since she’d another reason for bearing a grudge. You know about the nephew? The one who was sweet on her and got relegated?’

‘Mettius? Yeah, I do. He’s …’ I stopped myself.

‘He’s what?’

‘Never mind, it isn’t important.’ Telling her that Mettius was dead as well would only have complicated things. ‘Did he know? About Gratillus?’

‘Oh, yes.’

Said like it was obvious, which I supposed it was. Well, judging from Galla’s story everything added up, certainly. The only problem was that the result didn’t make sense. ‘So,’ I said. ‘The first opportunity she gets Andromeda kills Caesius. Probably with Mettius’s help. That’s what she said she’d do from the beginning, why she went back to Bovillae in the first place. Yes?’

‘She’d certainly have tried. But …’ Galla stopped. ‘Wait a moment. Are you saying that Caesius is dead too?’

‘Yeah. That was what started all this.’

She was frowning. ‘But in that case who killed Andromeda? And why?’

‘Right.’ I sighed, and stood up. ‘Good question. The answer is I don’t know, or not yet. But thank you, Galla. You’ve helped me a lot.’

‘Good,’ she said simply. ‘Can I get back to work, now? I’ve a customer waiting.’

Schoolgirl again, asking permission.

‘Yeah. Yeah, sure,’ I said.

She paused at the door, and turned.

‘I’m glad Caesius is dead,’ she said. ‘Andromeda will be pleased.’

She left, and I watched her go.

I needed to think.

I was in front of the shoe shop in the alleyway behind Andromeda’s brothel, trying to fit a pair of hobnail boots on to Marilla’s donkey Corydon, and getting more and more frustrated by the second because they wouldn’t go on over his hooves. Suddenly, there was Lucius Caesius, looking down at me, arms folded and laughing.

‘What’s up with you, pal?’ I snapped at him. ‘Never seen a donkey wearing boots before?’

He shook his head and laughed even harder. ‘You just don’t listen, do you, Corvinus?’ he said. ‘I told you, you idiot. He’s no donkey, he’s a mule. You’ll never get boots on a mule. He’s the wrong kind of animal.’

… And then I woke up. I was lying on the truckle bed in Clarus’s father’s pal’s spare room, bedclothes everywhere, soaked with sweat. Which was absolutely fine by me, because I’d got it all now, the whole boiling: in somno veritas , right enough. The details were still to come, sure, but they could wait until I’d had another heart-to-heart with Carillus.

Gods! I’d been an idiot, like the guy had said. Right from the beginning. Lucius — the real Lucius — had blown the whole case wide open that day in the wine shop; he had given me the key on a silver platter, practically in words of one syllable, and I’d ignored him.

Fool!

Oh, I knew who the murderer was now, sure I did; that much was obvious from the dream-Lucius’s crack about a mule being the wrong kind of animal. The why … well, that I could only make an intelligent guess at, but it’d come in time, no doubt, along with the rest of the fine detail.

It was just after sunup, but luckily my host was an early riser. I ate a quick breakfast, left as hurriedly as politeness would allow me to, collected my horse from the stable, and headed back down the road to Castrimoenium and Bovillae.

I didn’t bother stopping off at the villa in passing: Bovillae was only another four miles, it was barely noon, and I might as well finish this now.

Confirmation first. There was a hackney stables next to the Tiburtine Gate itself and it’d been a long hard ride, so instead of leaving my horse as usual at the water-trough to drink himself sick I took him in there for a rub-down and a well-earned rest with a full nosebag while I carried on to the brothel.

This time the door was open, although there was a sign on the door saying the place was closed for business due to a bereavement, and the posts and lintel were hung with cypress. I didn’t bother to knock.

Carillus met me in the lobby. He must’ve read my face, because he stopped himself from saying whatever he’d been going to say, and just stood there with an expression like a patient waiting for the surgeon’s knife, or a sacrificial bull for the hammer.

Ah, hell. Get it over with.

‘Caesius was never in here at all,’ I said. ‘Not while he was alive, anyway. Not on the night he died, not at any time. That whole side of things was an invention from beginning to end.’

Carillus closed his eyes briefly, swallowed, and then nodded.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘How did you know?’

‘It’s the only answer that makes sense, pal. Why should the guy visit a brothel? One that only provided female partners, anyway. He didn’t like women, everything points to that. There was the business with your mistress’s brother Gratillus seventeen years back, and his own brother Lucius dropped enough hints about his relationship or lack of one with his wife for it to be obvious to anyone but a cloth-eared idiot like me. Oh, he had a wife, he was married, sure; but it was a marriage of convenience, on his side at least, and for him not being married wasn’t an option. Not if he wanted to get on. Bovillae’s pretty strait-laced. The good townsfolk expect their representatives to be solid family men with solid, dutiful wives in the background, even if the marriage does turn out to be childless. And there was his wife’s income from her first marriage, which would’ve helped bankroll a political career. His major-domo was in on the secret, of course: you can’t keep things from your major-domo, and he’d been with Caesius all his life. His wife and sister-in-law, too. But they were all on Caesius’s side, as it were: they wanted his reputation kept intact.’

‘He wasn’t a bad man, sir,’ Carillus said. ‘Oh, I know my mistress hated him, and she had good reason. But he was honest enough by his own lights, and he served the town well.’

‘Yeah. Agreed.’ That was part of the tragedy: even the Gratillus affair was at least understandable, given the social and moral code the guy had been brought up with. That we’re all brought up with, to be fair: slaves aren’t real people, they’re property, and like Galla had said, he had genuinely believed it when he’d claimed he’d been merciful. ‘No argument there. So. That’s the background. Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? What happened that night was that he died elsewhere and Andromeda and Mettius brought him here, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘How did they know? That he’d been murdered, I mean?’

‘That was Dossenus. He’s-’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’ve met Dossenus.’ Fuck; another piece of the puzzle slipped into place. ‘The vagrant, right?’

‘Yes. My mistress kept an eye out for him, saw he didn’t starve. He had a soft spot for her. Dossenus was the one who found the body. He came and told her.’

‘This would be inside the old wool warehouse, or what’s left of it, further down the street, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes. It’s where he sleeps, usually.’