David Wishart - Solid Citizens

‘Could you show me it?’

‘Now? Certainly, if you like. I’ll take you.’ She got up — she was big, tall for a woman — and led the way into the corridor. Nice figure, and walking immediately behind her I caught the scent of her perfume: seriously expensive stuff, if I was any judge.

Like she’d said, the door was no more than a few yards further on, at the corridor’s end. She slid back the central bolt, opened it and stepped back.

‘There you are.’

Winter sunlight flooded in: at least the rain had stopped for the time being. We were under an external flight of steps that led up to the building’s first floor, at the dead end of a short alleyway with a couple of open-fronted shops in it, a general merchant’s and a bootmaker’s. At the open end of the alley I could see people passing the gap. A main street, obviously, or at least one busy enough to have regular pedestrians.

‘He was lying on the ground over there.’ Andromeda pointed to a spot a few yards from the door, then waved at the bootmaker, who was sitting outside his shop a few yards away, stitching the upper of a shoe to the sole. ‘Good morning to you, Gratianus!’ He waved back. ‘Gratianus was the one who found the body, Corvinus. He’d be able to give you fuller details, so you may want to talk to him later.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do that,’ I said. ‘Presumably no one went through this way — coming in or going out — after Caesius left?’

‘No. That was the last time it was opened that evening.’ She turned. ‘So. You’ve seen enough for the present?’

‘Sure.’

‘We’ll go back in, then. Lydia will probably be finishing off by now. Unless I can help you further, I’ll send her to you. You’re welcome to use my room. Hers will probably be a bit of a mess, and it’s rather cramped.’

We went back inside, and she re-bolted the door.

‘Did you let Caesius out yourself?’ I said.

‘No, I didn’t. I never do, for any of our specials, because there’s no need. I heard him go, naturally, when he passed my door, and the sound of this door being opened and closed, but there was no reason for me to see him out personally. I came out and locked up again, of course, a few minutes later.’

‘You didn’t hear anything else? Noises outside, maybe?’

‘No, nothing. That would’ve been most unlikely, whatever they were. As you can see, the door is quite thick, and the door of my own room was closed.’

Fair enough. ‘Ah … one last question, lady. Not about the murder as such. Like you said, the guy was a public figure. All this hole-in-the-corner stuff, doesn’t it get to you at all? I mean …’

She smiled. ‘You mean, don’t I think it’s a bit hypocritical? On the part of the clients?’

‘Yeah. That was it. More or less.’

‘Corvinus, I have a business to run. I don’t judge, at least not outside the privacy of my own head, which is my affair and no one else’s. How long do you think I could stay open if I put Bovillae’s most respected citizens’ backs up by advertising the fact that they’re just as human as the rest of the world? Besides, their money’s as good as anyone’s. Better, in fact, because they’re willing to pay well over the odds for that discretion I mentioned. Now, if you’ve finished with me I’ll tell Lydia you want to see her. Use my room to talk to her as if it was your own, and take as long as you please. When you’ve done, let yourself out the back. Did you have a cloak?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, it’s hanging in the lobby.’

‘Then I’ll have Carillus bring it to you. Remember, please do take as long as you like; you’re not inconveniencing anyone.’ We’d reached the door of her room. She opened it and stood aside. ‘I’m delighted to have met you.’

Delivered with all the formal politeness of an elderly dowager. I went inside and closed the door behind me. The book was still lying on the table. I picked it up and partly unrolled it. Plato’s Gorgias in Greek it was, and annotated in the margins in a neat, small hand that I’d guess was Andromeda’s own. An interesting lady, right enough.

A couple of minutes later there was a soft knock on the door and a girl came in. Heavy-featured, suicide blonde, with a good half inch of black hair showing at the roots. She was wearing a thin dressing gown, and not much else, as far as I could see.

‘Lydia?’ I said.

‘Yeah.’ She closed the door behind her. ‘Madam said you wanted to talk to me.’

Lydia , my foot: with that accent she couldn’t’ve come from anywhere further east than Fidenae. And if she was Caesius’s favourite for any other reason than the convenient placement of her room then he must’ve liked them large, heavy and sullen. I was sitting on the stool. I stood up and moved aside. ‘You want to take the couch?’ I said.

‘Nah, I wouldn’t dare. It’s madam’s. She’d have a fit.’

‘Fair enough.’ I sat down again. She leaned back against the door. ‘So. You were with Caesius the evening he died.’

‘Yeah, that’s right.’

‘For how long?’

She shrugged. The dressing-gown slipped off one shoulder, and she pulled it back with a casual twitch of her fingers. ‘An hour. More or less. The usual time, anyway.’

‘He was a regular of yours, so I’m told. How regular would that be?’

Another shrug. ‘I don’t keep score. Often enough.’

‘He talk to you at all about anything? That time or ever?’

She snorted; it could’ve been a laugh, but it was mostly mucus. ‘What do you think? He was a paying customer, and talking’s not what they’re here for, is it? Nah, we didn’t talk.’

‘And the last time you saw him. Was that any different from any of the others?’ She just looked at me with complete, bovine incomprehension. Jupiter, this was heavy going! ‘I mean, there was nothing unusual about it in any way?’

‘Nah. He was just the same.’

‘So there’s nothing you can tell me?’

‘Nah. Not really.’ There was a knock on the door. She glanced over her shoulder and moved away. The door opened.

‘Your cloak, sir.’ It was Carillus.

‘That’s fine, pal.’ I stood up. ‘I’m just about finished here.’ I looked at the girl. Not a flicker of reaction, or interest. ‘Thanks for your help, Lydia.’

‘You’re welcome. See you.’ She slid out. A moment or two later, I heard the door of the neighbouring room open and close.

Ah, well.

I draped the still-sodden cloak over my arm, made my thanks to Carillus, unbolted the back door and went out into the alley to talk to the bootmaker.

He was still working on the shoe, but he put it down when he saw me coming. I’d thought that the right-hand side of the alley, between the brothel and the guy’s shop, was formed by a continuous, solid wall, but more or less halfway there was an opening that looked like it had originally contained a small shrine or a statue. If so, whichever it had been wasn’t there any longer, and all that was left was an embrasure big enough to take a man standing.

‘Gratianus, right?’ I said.

‘Yeah, that’s me. And you are?’

‘Marcus Corvinus. I’m looking into the murder two or three nights back on behalf of the senate.’

‘That so, now?’

‘You found the body?’

‘Yeah. Just after first light, it was, when I came to take down the shutters.’

‘You recognize the corpse?’

He grinned. He only had a couple of teeth in the front, and they looked like they were fighting a losing battle. ‘You kidding? There isn’t anyone in Bovillae wouldn’t know Quintus Caesius when they saw him, even with the back of his head stove in.’

‘You want to tell me about it?’

‘Not much to tell. He was lying there — ’ the spot was just shy of the embrasure — ‘covered with his cloak. I think he’s just a drunk sleeping it off, so I go over to wake him up. Only when I pull back the hood and see his face, plus the damage, that’s that, isn’t it? Goodnight sunshine, and the town’s down one appointee censor. So I leave him where he’s lying, go down to the town hall and call it in, then come back here with the undertaker’s men who cart the poor bugger away. End of story.’