David Wishart: White Murder

I turned to him; that bugger’s patrician drawl really got up my nose. ‘You like to give me odds, friend?’ I said evenly.

He smiled. ‘Don’t misunderstand me, Corvinus. I’m impressed. But you heard the man yourself; he’d inspected the colt at Catana. He’d’ve known it was a different animal.’

‘Below-decks in a ship in the middle of the night? With only one lamp? And I bet the bastard holding that wasn’t too conscientious. Besides, Harmodius was expecting to see Aster. That’s what he saw.’

‘He saw the blaze as well.’

‘White lead’s cheap enough. And it would only be for five minutes. Also, you see something as distinctive as a star-shaped forehead blaze, even subconsciously, and other details tend to get lost. Especially if what you’re dealing with’s just a corpse.’

Cario had been fidgeting. Now he blurted out: ‘What about the br-?’

He stopped suddenly, like his mouth had seized up on him; he was no fool, Cario, even if he did make mistakes. I finished the question for him. ‘The brand,’ I said. ‘Yeah. Harmodius might have noticed that, even if in the event he didn’t. Only if the horse wasn’t Aster then why should the brand be a problem, pal? If Histrio had supplied it then he could’ve put whatever one on it he liked. There’s only one reason a brand’s important, and that’s when it’s on a living horse.’ You could’ve cut the silence with a knife. Acceptus’s head came up, and he was staring at me. ‘We haven’t mentioned Polydoxus yet. Maybe now’s the time.’

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Natalis stir, but he kept his peace. ‘So,’ I went on conversationally, ‘Maximus and his pals made the switch. ‘“Aster”’s dead and buried, Natalis here has lost a colt but like he says these things happen and thanks to the insurance guys at least he isn’t out of pocket. No one’s really hurt, except the bankers, and who cries for them? End of story. Or that part of it, anyway. Just out of interest, Cario, and by the way. You care to tell me who Polydoxus’s breeder was?’ Silence. ‘Come on, pal! It’ll be on record anyway. You want me to go to the bother of checking?’

‘A man called Velocius.’

‘Is that so, now?’ It’d been an outside bet, sure, but it’d have to have paid off, and it had. I turned to Natalis. ‘You heard of him?’

Natalis shook his head. He was staring at Cario. If looks could kill the guy would’ve been a grease spot.

‘That’s not surprising.’ Cario’s tone was aggressive. ‘He’s a Spaniard. Small-time breeder. He has a stud near Tarraco.’

‘Yeah? So his brand would be – let’s see – VEL or VELO, right? And Florus’s, well, that’d be -?’

‘FL,’ Natalis growled, his eyes still on Cario. ‘Bastard!’

‘An initial V and a third bar to the E,’ I said. ‘Simple enough to change, right?’ Cario said nothing. ‘And if Velocius didn’t exist anyway then choosing a name to fit without the need for falsifying the existing brand would’ve been easy-peasie. There’s still the problem of the blaze, of course, but we’ll come to that later.’

‘What about Maximus?’ Natalis said. ‘I trusted that bugger. You’re saying he was behind the whole thing?’

I shook my head. ‘No. He was only the middle-man. He worked the scam as a favour to a friend. An old friend, someone in the shipping line that he’d known in Spain.’ I looked at Cario. ‘Before your father retired and took over the Whites he had a merchant shipping business in New Carthage. Which was where Maximus was based before he moved to Catana, right?’ Cario was glaring at me. He shrugged but didn’t answer. ‘Cammius was desperate to build up the team. My bet is that when he found out that his old shipping pal was transporting prime horseflesh for the Greens the temptation was too much for him. He approached Maximus and they cooked the scam up between them; strictly as a one-off, low risk. Once they had the horse it was all plain sailing, or should’ve been: Aster’s dead and forgotten, a month or so later Cammius takes delivery of a Spanish colt named Polydoxus. Faction horses – especially the star performers – are guarded closer than a Parthian’s daughter, so there’s no chance of anyone outside the faction itself getting close enough to check out their finer points. In Polydoxus’s case, the only problem would be the white blaze, and keeping that covered with a spot of dye would be easy-peasie.’ Cario was still glaring, but he didn’t open his mouth. ‘Okay. The Whites race Polydoxus, and he’s a winner. No problem, only then things begin to screw up.’ I paused; all three of them were watching me now like hawks. ‘We’ll leave that for a moment and finish with Maximus. Unlike Cammius he still has his livelihood to think of. He can be sure of most of his crew, but when one of the deck-hands spills the secret about Polydoxus to our pal Sopilys he’s caught. Both of them have to go or he’ll never work again.’

‘So he kills them,’ Acceptus said. ‘Or has them killed. Corvinus, you have been a busy little bee.’

I ignored him. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Now we come to Pegasus.’ I didn’t think the tension could wind itself any tighter but now it did. I glanced at Cario: the guy was the colour of a dishrag. ‘Pegasus was the fly in the ointment. From the Whites’ side he was a real catch: a top-notch driver to go with their top-notch horse. What they didn’t know’ – and I glanced at Cario – ‘was that they’d taken on the only guy in Rome who would recognise Polydoxus for what he was. I checked that out with Florus. Aster was born when Pegasus came back to the farm to talk over his father’s will, and he helped at the birth. He’d know that Natalis had bought the colt for the Greens, naturally, because he was driving lead for them at the time; also that it’d died en route. I can’t be sure exactly what happened at the Whites’ stables, but my guess is that he noticed the dye on the horse’s forehead, got suspicious and put two and two together. Then, Pegasus being Pegasus, he worked up a private scam of his own.’ I left the sentence hanging; the conclusion was obvious, and I let them reach it. The two pairs of eyes turned towards Cario.

‘If you’re saying that either I or my father murdered Pegasus, Corvinus,’ he said quietly, ‘then you’re wrong. The business with the horse, sure, there’s no point in denying that now. But not murder. We’re not murderers, my father and I.’

‘Pegasus was blackmailing the Whites. He could’ve blown the whistle any time.’

‘That’s nonsense. If he had been I’d’ve known, and I didn’t; I swear that.’

I sighed. Yeah, well, maybe he hadn’t; he sounded convincing enough. And in a way it made things a lot simpler.

‘Let’s go and talk to your father,’ I said gently.

We didn’t have far to go – the house was just up the road past Triumphal Arch near Tiber Field – but even so we took one of the Greens’ coaches. It was a silent journey, and I noticed that both Natalis and Acceptus avoided eye contact with Cario like the guy was some kind of leper. Which I suppose was fair enough under the circumstances; like I say, anything goes in the racing world where dirty tricks are concerned, but once you’re caught it’s a whole new ball game.

The door slave opened up smiling, but when he saw our faces – especially Cario’s – the smile vanished. ‘The master’s in the garden,’ he said. ‘But he already has visitors.’

I looked at him sharply. ‘Who would that be, now?’

‘They didn’t give names, sir. I’ll have some more chairs brought out.’

Cario led the way through. It was a small garden, but everything was neat and well-tended. Yeah, I’d’ve expected that from Cammius: whatever he was involved in he’d see that it was run in a proper, businesslike fashion. He was sitting on a bench under the spreading quince in the centre, talking to two men with a third standing beside them, and as we came through the portico he looked up. I wouldn’t’ve known him. When I’d seen the guy last he hadn’t been at his best, sure, but now he looked less than two steps from an urn.